THE SILENT DEEP – The Royal Navy Submarine Service since 1945
by PETER HENNESSY & JAMES JINKS
(ISBN 978-1-846-14580-3; Allen Lane 2015; £30)
Pangbourne College has produced many submariners including three Flag Officer Submarines – Vice
Admiral Sir Ian McGeoch (28-31), Rear Admiral Niall Kilgour (63-68) and myself, writes Rear
Admiral Roger Lane-Nott (59-63).
Within weeks of arriving at Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth my assistant Divisional Officer
Lieutenant Bob Worlidge - a submarine engineer- had convinced me and a few of my colleagues that
the future of the Navy was in submarines not aircraft carriers. How right he was, and so started my 32
years in the Royal Navy.
It was 1963 and the UK had just bought a nuclear power plant for HMS Dreadnought and the Polaris
submarines were being built. Worlidge was right and the Submarine Service did get the lion’s share of
the Royal Navy budget as we built four Polaris submarines, four Trident submarines and, to date, 19
nuclear attack submarines. For the next three decades we were very much at the front line of the Cold
War and, as it turned out, the Falklands War and subsequent conflicts.
This account starts by explaining the Submarine Command Course or ‘Perisher’ – six months of
brutal and close examination of whether the potential Commanding Officer has what it takes. My
course with Commander Toby Frere as my Teacher in 1974 is etched on my memory. But it did
prepare me for the challenges ahead. Submarine accidents are also covered and after the loss ofHMS
Affray in the Channel with all hands in April, 1951 the Armed Forces Minister told the Commons:
“Submarines are complex ships, operating in an environment that is extremely dangerous, even in
peacetime. Submariners operate at the limits of human ingenuity.”
The book covers the period from the end of World War II to the present day and charts the political
and naval decision-making process which brought the Porpoise and Oberon Class diesel submarines.
It also includes the early attempts to use these conventional submarines for intelligence-gathering
against the Soviets and initial forays close to and under the ice.
Subsequently it expands into the nuclear submarine intelligence-gathering patrols. One, in particular,
has a resonance for me – Operation Agile Eagle in the autumn of 1978. At the time I was the Deputy
Submarine Operations Officer at Northwood running submarine operations with Commander John
Speller. HMS Sovereign under Commander Richard Farnfield trailed a Soviet Delta submarine for
eight weeks covering 10,724 miles and going as far south as the Cape Verde Islands. This type of
operation was but one of many carried out by nuclear submarines from the Valiant class to the
Swiftsure class to the Trafalgar class.
The narrative also indicates the very close US/UK relationship in submarine warfare that continues to
this day and explains just how much both the US and UK submarines contributed to the demise of
the Soviet Union. There is much on the political story of the Royal Navy’s conversion from to nuclear
power and nuclear deterrence and the key relationships between Lord Mountbatten and the very
awkward Admiral Rickover, the father of the US Navy’s nuclear programme and how the US helped
the UK build nuclear submarines. Also, Macmillan and Kennedy over the decision to buy Polaris
missiles leading to the Nassau agreement in 1962, and then Callaghan and Carter and Thatcher and
Reagan over Trident. Some of the political dialogue is hard reading, but for someone who experienced
these times it is fascinating too since so much of the wrangling was above our pay grade.
Around p400 (this is a 820pp book) the authors get on to submarine operations during the Falklands
War. As a participant myself, their account is pretty accurate and reflects much of what we felt at the
time.
This is not an official history but it is as good as it gets and is a very good read if you are interested in
the submarine story. From a personal perspective it covers all the aspects of submarine operations
very well and is a testament to the Commanding Officers, Officers and Ships Companies of all the
post World War II submarines and the extraordinary things they did.
Two quotes from the book sum things up:
“Why did we need covert surveillance operations in the Cold War? We had to demonstrate that we
could prevent the Soviets breaking out into the Atlantic from their Northern Fleet bases. Could we
and our allies have stopped them? Answer, probably not. There were just too many of them, even if
our weapons had been effective against their very deep-diving hulls and high speeds. But at least we
could have given them a bloody nose, and at a higher level they knew it.
Captain Richard Sharpe 2010
The threat is REAL and very much more to those who have mixed it with the opposition than most of
us to who tend to regard it as an academic exercise or an opportunity to score off our contempories in
fleet exercises
Commander John (Sandy) Woodward, 1970