Few people today have heard of HMS Affray, the Royal Navy’s ‘A’ class submarine which made its way out into the English Channel in April 1951 with seventy-five officers and ratings on board, dived and never again returned to the surface. And why should they have? Affray was the last British submarine to be lost at sea and she dived for the final time nearly sixty years ago, triggering the largest military sea-air search ever mounted in this country before, or since.
But there are sufficient numbers of people still alive who do remember the mysterious disappearance of the Affray and for some of them the memory still hurts and haunts. After all this time they still ask questions, answers to which have never been satisfactorily provided.
They ask: what really happened to Affray? What prevented her from resurfacing after she dived on the evening of 16 April 1951? Why were so many men summoned to join the submarine and then sent ashore again minutes before she sailed? What might have happened to her once she had disappeared beneath the waves? Was the submarine in a fit state to sail? Was she overcrowded? Was her crew experienced enough? Were there spies on board?
Perhaps there are no answers to these questions, but this book sets out to tell the true and in-depth story of Affray for the first time, throw new light on many issues surrounding her last ‘cruise’ and offer suggestions about what may – or may not – have happened to her. To do this, I have been fortunate to have enjoyed the co-operation of four people who lost a husband, father or brother on the submarine and others who either participated or observed the attempts to find and rescue her.
Experienced submariners – including a respected submarine commander – have also kindly provided me with their own professional perspectives, and a technical deep-sea diver describes what the vessel looked like sitting on the sea bed half a century or so after she went missing (and before diving was banned on underwater military graves).
There are many questions that could not be answered in 1951 because the technology needed had not been invented at that time. But it does exist today. When an underwater television camera was lowered into the sea for the first time from the deck of HMS Reclaim and identified a mysterious cigar-shape object on the seabed as Affray, it marked a great leap forward for salvage operations. Today’s sophisticated, highly portable X-ray and salvage equipment could be used on the wreck to obtain those answers without any need to disturb the last resting place of seventy-five men.
If the sixteenth-century Tudor warship Mary Rose could be raised from the Solent in 1982, why could the mid-twentieth-century submarine Affray also not be salvaged, too? Admittedly, Affray sits in nearly 300ft of water and a metal submarine weighs considerably more than a wooden Tudor warship. But we know that the Mary Rose was top-heavy and sank after keeling over. We do not know what caused Affray to fail – and may never find the answer, even if it were possible to carry out a detailed underwater survey. Evidence of an explosion in her battery tanks or the position of a hidden snort mast valve may – or may not – provide answers. If the Affray failed because of human error, as is suggested later in this book, it is unlikely that any hard evidence will ever be produced.
This author is not and never has been a submariner, or even a Sea Scout. The nearest he has come to a submarine is being shown over HMS Alliance at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum at Gosport (which is highly recommended) and, as a child in 1958, seeing the American submarine USS Nautilus arrive at Portland Harbour following her groundbreaking (icebreaking?) voyage under the North Pole.
I first heard about Affray from a friend who, as a boy sailor in 1951, was on guard duty at the gates of the Royal Navy Dockyard at Portsmouth when news was circulated that the submarine was overdue reporting her position while on a war patrol exercise. For some reason, the record book in which names of all visiting dockyard arrivals and departures was entered was requested by a senior officer – and never returned.
Preposterous rumours began to circulate: she had been captured at gunpoint by the Russian navy and the crew taken prisoner, there had been a mutiny on board, she had been run down by a ship while cruising at periscope depth, a pair of young female ‘passengers’ had been smuggled onto the submarine and the Navy did not want to salvage her as it would identify serious gaps in its security. And there were others, including more realistic suggestions that Affray was unfit for sea, was ‘a leaking sieve’, had not been properly tested with a deep dive before putting to sea and had some serious problems with oil appearing in one of her battery tanks. All of this, some of this or – possibly – none of this may be true.
This book avoids ‘being technical’, but where a technical term must be used, I have attempted to make sense of it and appreciate that this may rankle some submariners. During my research I learned many things about submarines: that they are often called ‘boats’, that their commanders are often referred to as ‘captains’, and operating one (and maintaining its balance and ‘trim’) is a most difficult task requiring team work of the highest order. Which is, perhaps, why HMS Affray met the unfortunate end that it did in the spring of 1951.
Subsmash first appeared in 2007 and this new and revised paperback edition has been produced to coincide with the 2013 unveiling of a new memorial to the crew of HMS Affray. In its own way, this book is the only public memorial to the Affray and her crew and I am happy for it to be considered this way.
Since publication of the first edition, I have received scores of letters, emails and telephone calls from readers across the UK and from as far as Australia and New Zealand wishing to comment on the book, share memories about their own personal connections with the Affray and her crew, pass on their own ideas about what might have happened to the submarine in 1951, or comment on what should – or should not – be done at the site where the vessel has been resting on the sea bottom for the last 60 years.
Not all of my correspondents are happy with the book. A small number told me that it should never have been written (even though they were prepared to buy a copy and read it) and that the book has stirred up sad memories from their past. One person even claimed the entire book was a pack of lies. The majority, however, were kind enough to state that they were glad Subsmash had been published because it was the first time the full – and true – story of HMS Affray had appeared in book form. Many, like others quoted in this book, lost loved ones and friends in the submarine and they told me they had learned things about the disaster that they never knew before. Others said the book is a fine way of relating how the last British submarine was lost at sea for people who had never heard about the disaster or were not around in 1951.
A small number of politicians and people from more obscure branches of the Royal Navy have also fired water pistols in my direction and challenged certain statements in this book. Since rising to their challenges and supplying them with the source of my information, I have heard nothing more from them.
This book is by no means the last word on HMS Affray. I am certain that there is more to be told in the years ahead – although it is unlikely to come from anyone mentioned in the above paragraph . . .
Alan Gallop
Ashford, Middlesex, March 2013