Don Cleavin – Explosion on board

Now, in 1969, I was on a submarine called the Auriga, by which time I’d been on three other ‘A’ Class submarines. This is 1969.

I was on the Auriga, running from Plymouth, and we went out from Plymouth to work off Gibraltar for a while and we were working in the Western Mediterranean with various Navies and what have you and we’d been operating during the day and then at night the ships you’d been working with went into Gibraltar.

We sat on the surface, recharging our batteries you see. Because we were diving early next morning, we’d been opened up for diving. She was ready to dive at any time, but we just relaxed and charging the batteries. I was a Diving Panel Watch Keeper.

I was the guy who dived the submarine, surfaced the submarine and trimmed it above the water to keep it in balance, you see. I came off watch at about 1 o’clock in the morning, get to my bunk in accommodation space and was asleep. Charging the batteries, when you’re charging the batteries, after a while they start to give off gas, hydrogen gas.

Now you’ve got ventilation sucking the hydrogen gas out of the accommodation space into the Engine intakes. Not a problem. But if things aren’t working properly, then you get a build-up of hydrogen gas.

Hydrogen of course is very explosive gas, and I was asleep, and I don’t remember much about that actually.

All I remember is a feeling of tumbling. In my mind I thought I was in the Hotel ashore, and the Hotel was collapsing, and I remember thinking, ‘well this is not too bad but why are all the bloody roof liners on top of you?’

We was living in the Mediterranean Hotel in Gibraltar, but we was back at sea in the early hours of the morning.

The battery had exploded. The build-up of hydrogen gas. It’s probable that somebody woke up.

You’ve got lights, signs saying ‘No Smoking’, ‘No Smoking’, ‘No Smoking’, and submariners know that when your batteries gassing you don’t smoke, but somebody maybe lit a fag up, bang!

Everybody was asleep on top of it. The deck, which is steel plate came up, split open.

There was a tear in the deck about 8 feet long. All the furniture was wrecked, a shambles.

The first thing I recall is … I woke up, reached out to grab something and a piece of wood in my face just splintered in my hand.

It didn’t leave a mark, it just splintered ‘cos on the panelling inside, Formica, pieces of wood on the corners, making it posh, but with the deck coming up, it just squashed this, and it splintered in my hand.