27

Homeward Bound

The last week on board was always quite a tense affair, as everyone had endured a belly-full of living underwater by week ten or so, and it was time to get back. By then, we were sick of the routine – and sick of each other. I always tried to keep myself to myself in those final couple of weeks, to avoid any flashpoints with short-tempered crewmates who just wanted to get back to their wives or girlfriends.

The boat would now become even more claustrophobic than it was when we first dived. I could cope quite well initially with the routine of watch-keeping, eating, movies and self-study, but the further into the patrol cycle we went, the more oppressive it became. Time really seemed to slow down, the walls appeared to be closing in on me, my bunk felt smaller, the living quarters on 3 Deck looked like they’d shrunk and there was no room to walk in the passageways. Ten weeks without fresh air and sunlight were finally taking their toll. Once the signal had been received that the boat and crew relieving us had reached their diving area, had submerged and were bedded into their patrol area, it was time for us to re-enter the land of the living.

Patrol end was completed by surfacing the boat, nearly always in the Atlantic off the coast of Ireland, then we’d head back to Coulport to unload the missiles before returning to base at Faslane the following day. I usually experienced a sense of relief, mixed with a tinge of sadness, when we surfaced. By week four or five I’d got used to the sweaty stench, and although I’d banged my head on pipes and slipped down stairwells, I’d also watched some great movies (and some dodgy porn), eaten some fantastic food (under the circumstances), coped with sleeping in a coffin and dealt with the relentless heat. Now it was time to give it all up and return to normal life – yet a part of me didn’t want to. As grim as it could be, there were so many moments that made it all worthwhile, and the camaraderie was impossible to replace.

The submarine would first glide up to periscope depth, where the captain would make a prolonged, all-round sweep on the periscope. Once happy, he would give the XO the order to surface, which involved blowing the ballast tanks – the forward first, followed by the aft – with highly compressed air to expel the water within them. Our black leviathan then ascended bow first. Blowing water out from its tanks, the boat emitted more noise than it had made since first diving all those weeks ago. A rise on the foreplanes saw the boat breach the surface, the ballast tanks full of air and the boat’s density less than the water outside; this is known as positive buoyancy, with the boat staying on the surface. The captain remained on the periscope all through the procedure to check he was happy with how the boat was lying in the water before he ordered the conning tower hatches to be opened. When he was satisfied, he’d order, ‘On the surface, open up.’

With this, the conning tower lower lid was slowly opened by the OOW, shadowed by the lookouts as they prepared to go up the conning tower to guide the boat back into port. Once the lower lid was open, the OOW would then climb up to unclip the upper lid, which again he’d open very slowly as an airtight vacuum had been created all the time we’d been down on patrol. The air would gush in as the upper lid opened, making quite a din – but worse was to follow. The smell of rotten fish, created by the build-up of algae and saltwater in the casing, would seep into the control room, making me gag.

I looked forward to surfacing immensely, especially the times when I was chosen to be one of the lookouts, which happened on a couple of patrols. It was a surreal sight being second up the conning tower and part of the first team onto the bridge. Standing there, the fishy stench offset by the fresh air, I was always completely speechless as I took in the never-ending vista of the Atlantic. Only an hour before I’d been in the cramped depths of the ocean below, and now here I was, standing up top, drinking huge gulps of fresh air down into my lungs, getting high on it after weeks of breathing in only recycled air, food, machinery smells and other men’s body odour. It was the best feeling in the world, with my eyes trying to refocus on the limitless expanse of sky and sea stretched out in every direction. For the past three months I’d been focusing no more than 30 feet in front of me.

As HMS Resolution ploughed through the water, a considerable snowy-white wake formed behind her like the jet trail of a plane; seawater, blown in my face by the wind, stung and refreshed my skin, while the sun beat down, drenching me with hard-earned vitamin D. During these two days of coming back to port, I spent as much time as I could keeping watch on the bridge, soaking up the rays and trying to adjust to whatever normality might have in store for me.

It was also a time to count your blessings – not so much the joy of coming home, more the sense of relief that no disasters had occurred and we’d survived without any great dramas. Now was the chance to relax and enjoy the long way back. Not surprisingly, the journeys home were always far more jovial than the hard slogs to patrol area. This final homecoming was without fanfare, unheralded, almost sheepish, as this monster of menace drifted back into Coulport after another visit to the deep. Armageddon would be offloaded at the depot, then it was a swift trip back to Faslane, with friends and family ensconced on the Rhu Narrows, the entrance to Gare Loch, waving to us from the shore as we sailed past. They would have been told of our arrival 24 hours earlier, to give them enough time, if they so wished, to make it up to Scotland.

As we approached port there would always be a welcoming party standing there in salute. They’d come on board to greet us, and there was usually some high-ranking admiral or other who’d look down his nose at us, accompanied by his hangers-on. I felt like telling them to bugger off, particularly as we’d been away for 90 days and had to clean the boat from top to bottom to make everything spick and span for them. I’m sure they were appalled at the rag-tag, pasty appearance of us all. A VIP of some description would usually be rolled out to join us every time we returned from patrol; why we couldn’t come back on our own as a unit, I simply don’t know. On one occasion Prince Charles jumped aboard; he took an interest in everyone’s welfare and asked some pertinent questions about life on board, which came as a surprise.

We’d done our bit to keep the country safe. A lot has been written about other branches of the armed forces over the last 20 years, but nothing about the self-sacrifice of the brave men – and now women – who made up the crews of the nuclear deterrent. Direct military action it certainly wasn’t, but the stresses and strains of anything up to 12 weeks underwater were mentally, spiritually and emotionally difficult to comprehend when I first started, but now for me had become a normal way of life.

***

In total, HMS Resolution was to undertake 61 deterrent patrols, the most of any of the Polaris fleet, and I was on around 10 per cent of these. Renown, Repulse and Revenge would carry out a further 168 patrols, so between 1968 and 1996, when Polaris was finally replaced by the even more powerful Trident boats with their longer-range missiles, 229 patrols were carried out, through all of which the boats remained undetected. This figure has moved to over 350 patrols for the deterrent as of January 2019.

John Major, prime minister at the time, said this after HMS Repulse completed the last Polaris patrol in 1996:

We are here today to pay tribute to the work of the Polaris Force. The debt we owe is very large. For the last 28 years, this Force has mounted continuous patrols that have been vital to ensure this country’s peace and security. Because of these patrols, any possible aggressor has known that to attack the UK would provoke a terrible response.

In particular, we are here today to pay tribute to the last of the four Polaris submarines, HMS Repulse, which returned from her sixtieth and final deployment in May. But not only Repulse, of course. I pay tribute, too, to the other three boats and their crews in her Class: the Resolution herself, Renown and Revenge. Each has made its own unique and invaluable contribution to the remarkable record of maintaining a Polaris submarine at sea, on deterrent patrol, undetected by friend or foe, every day, of every year, from 1969 until May this year.