The submarine was due to send an ‘on the surface’ signal the following morning, Tuesday 17 April, between the hours of 0800 and 1000, prefixed by the remark: ‘Operation Immediate’. By 1040 hours nothing had been received from Affray and at 1045 Captain Hugh Browne, commanding the 5th Submarine Flotilla, alerted his Flag Officer, Rear Admiral Sidney Raw, about his anxiety for the boat’s safety.
Checks were made to see if any other wireless stations had heard from the submarine and failed to pass on the signal. When they confirmed that nothing had been received, all stations were placed on special alert for incoming messages from a submarine possibly in difficulty, but more likely experiencing some kind of problem with its radio transmitter.
When no signal had been received by 1100 Rear Admiral Raw ordered an urgent message to be transmitted to all naval radio stations containing the two-word code guaranteed to cut through the ether like a knife and still the radio chatter of every Navy wireless room: ‘Subsmash One,’ indicating that the safety of Affray was in doubt.
‘Subsmash’ means that somewhere a submarine is in serious trouble. Perhaps the submarine’s radio had developed a fault meaning it is unable to send routine reports or perhaps the boat is lying injured somewhere on the bottom of the sea. Either way, the Navy takes no chances and a full-scale rescue operation is quickly mounted using ships and aircraft in the immediate vicinity.
The code word was rarely called into action. The Admiralty had created it in 1931 as a means of initiating a search once a submarine had either been lost or was reported to be in difficulty. If the boat had sunk and was unable to surface due to critical damage, the code signal was changed to ‘Subsunk’. Modifications to the ‘Subsmash’ procedure were introduced in later years. ‘Subsmash One’ was an immediate call to action signalling ships and aircraft to begin searching for a submarine suffering from mechanical or radio failure. The code was upgraded to ‘Subsmash Two’ once it was confirmed that a boat was definitely in trouble and its crew in need of rescue – below or above the waves.
Emergency signals were sent to the Affray several times between 1112 and 1118 hours and repeated every five minutes stating: ‘No – repetition no – on the surface report yet received from you. Subsmash One being initiated. Report your position course and speed forthwith on 4900 K/cs.’
Once ‘Subsmash One’ was initiated, orders were given for HMS Amphion, an ‘A’ Class submarine exercising off the coast of the Isle of Wight, to remain on the surface and proceed westwards in preparation for a search. Instructions were also given for the radio receiving station at Rugby to call the submarine every fifteen minutes stating: ‘AFFRAY. PLEASE REPORT POSITION, COURSE AND SPEED.’
Meanwhile, Rear Admiral Raw and his officers began calculating the submarine’s possible location based on her intention to pass within 30 miles of her estimated position 77 miles south-west of her diving point the previous evening. It was generally agreed that one of two things had happened to Affray – she was either suffering from a wireless failure and would be making for the nearest shore signal station to report her most likely position, or Blackburn had misread his orders and she had not attempted to make an ‘On the Surface’ report. At the back of Raw’s mind was one certainty: Affray was somewhere between Monday’s evening’s diving position and her expected surface position at noon the following day.
It was clear to Raw that if Affray had sunk, the area to be searched covered a rectangular district some 77 miles by 20 miles – a total area of 1,540 square miles. Not quite like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but the nearest thing in maritime terms.
In theory, the search for Affray should have been controlled by the Commanderin-Chief Plymouth, but a lack of suitable search ships and submarines in his division resulted in the Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth, Admiral Sir Arthur Power, taking responsibility for search operations. At 1128 hours Power ordered all ships fitted with anti-submarine devices to prepare for sea.
By 1200 Affray’s surfacing signal was two hours overdue and orders given to upgrade the emergency to ‘Subsmash Two’. The signal was relayed to all ships along with Affray’s last known diving position.
At 1201 Raw handed over conduct of Subsmash operations to Commanderin-Chief Portsmouth, Sir Arthur Power – known to everyone in the Navy as the ‘Block of Teak’ thanks to his no-nonsense, gruff seadog manner. Power’s immediate task was to ensure that as many naval ships as possible should either be pulled from their respective exercises in waters around the south coast or made ready for sea. HM ships Tintagel Castle, Hedingham Castle, Flint Castle and three submarines were off Portland, while HM ships Contest, Boxer and the submarine Amphion were off Portsmouth. The first three ships and submarines were ordered to head off in the direction of Affray’s reported diving position while the rest were instructed to manoeuvre towards her proposed noontime position.
The first Navy air-sea search aircraft had taken off from Lee-on-Solent – one of many Navy and RAF stations put on an operational basis – forty-five minutes after the ‘Subsmash’ signal had been initiated. A Sea Otter headed in the direction of Affray’s diving position in the hope of spotting some evidence that the submarine was stuck on the sea bottom. Submarines were fitted with bright yellow and red marker buoys which could be released to the surface to signal the spot where they lay on the seabed beneath. At 1234 hours more aircraft took off to search a 10-mile corridor either side of a line joining Affray’s diving and proposed noon positions.
Meanwhile a build-up of ships taking part in the search had begun. By 1255 every ship in the Home Fleet Flotilla had been summoned to join the Subsmash operation. One of them was the 1,800 ton Reclaim, the Navy’s only deep-diving and submarine rescue vessel, equipped with underwater rescue apparatus and decompression chambers. Reclaim, under her captain, Lieutenant-Commander Jack Bathurst, had been refitting her engines and half her crew were still on Easter leave when she received instructions at 1130 hours to be ready to sail within twenty-four hours. Supervised by Engine Room Artificer 2nd Class, Peter Bell, her small crew struggled to put her engine back together, raise steam in defiance of all known regulations and put to sea two hours later – twenty-two hours earlier than expected. She was joined by mooring vessels, a salvage ship and tugs to help her moor over the submarine when she was found.
A message was broadcast to all commercial shipping in the area:
A submarine is missing and possibly sunk between positions 50 degrees 10 minutes north and one degree 45 minutes west and 49 degrees 40 minutes north and 4 degrees west. Vessels in the vicinity are requested to keep a sharp look out for survivors and to report wreckage or oil slicks on the surface or any other indications to the Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.
The first ship to arrive at Affray’s reported diving position was HMS Contest. All hands were ordered to look over the port and starboard sides for visible signs of the submarine. They saw nothing and proceeded to patrol the immediate area conducting a visual search. When HM ships Tintagel Castle, Ulysses and Contest arrived on the scene, they were instructed to follow Affray’s expected route towards the point she was originally expected to surface. The ships travelled two miles ahead of each other moving at speeds of 20 knots. They were later joined by the ships Hedingham Castle, Flint Castle and Helmsdale while the submarine Amphion was joined by HMS Marvel and the submarine Scorcher.
The first of several foreign ships to join the search was the Victor Billet, a frigate from the Belgian Navy, which was placed at the disposal of the Royal Navy during the late morning. At the same time the American Embassy in London asked the Admiralty if it could find a use for two of its destroyers, USS Perry and Ellison, to search for Affray. Both were on goodwill visits to Britain. The answer from Sir Arthur Power was swift and to the point: ‘Yes please.’
The French Navy offered seven ships, which joined search operations from Cherbourg in northern France over the following twelve hours – the Somme, Meuse, Yser, Lansequenet, Lanciere, Admiral Mouchez and Sentinelle.
At 1300 hours the Admiralty decided it was time to contact relatives of the officers and ratings on Affray and called for a list of names to be brought to Rear Admiral Raw. Instead of appointing a team of people to visit homes of the next of kin to gently break the news or telephone them in person, telegrams were sent:
HMS Affray in which your husband/son is at sea failed to report her position by 10-o-clock this morning. Ships and aircraft are now searching for her. Will inform you at once of any developments. Admiral Submarines.
HMS Dolphin staff were instructed that wives, mothers, brothers, sisters and shipmates telephoning for more information after receiving telegrams, should be told not to be alarmed, that the Navy was doing everything in its power to find their loved ones and that in all probability orders had been misunderstood. They were certain to locate the submarine soon.
At the same time the following statement was issued to the press:
Submarine HMS Affray (Lieutenant John Blackburn, DSC) has not surfaced as expected after diving while on exercises. She sailed from Portsmouth last night unescorted and dived at 9.15 p.m. south of the Isle of Wight.
She was proceeding westwards submerged at a speed of four-and-a-half knots. She was expected to surface at 8.30 this morning, but no surfacing signal has been received and her present position is unknown.
Naval authorities have been alerted and a search is being organised by the Flag Officer Submarines, Rear Admiral S. M. Raw, acting for the Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth (Admiral Sir Arthur Power).
Aircraft, including helicopters, have begun a search and at least five destroyers have proceeded to the scene.
Every effort is being made to contact the submarine by radio and it is possible that she has misinterpreted her instructions as regards surfacing and is not, in fact, in trouble.
On the morning of Tuesday 17 April, Bernard Kervell, a schoolboy from Waterlooville, Hampshire, was walking his dog in Alexander Park, Portsea – a stretch of land overlooking the HMS Phoenix Technical High School and providing excellent views of shipping activity in Portsmouth Harbour. Bernard remembers:
It was just after the Easter holidays and normally the harbour would have been inactive – but it certainly wasn’t on this particular day. The whole place was jumping and people could be seen scurrying hither and thither. The creek and harbour area seemed to be full of small- and medium-sized motorboats going in all directions as fast as they could. I thought that some major exercise was underway.
Walking along a little further, a helicopter suddenly appeared to leap up from nearby Fort Southwick and head off in a straight line. It was either going to HMS Dolphin or across to the base at Lee-on-Solent. Helicopters were a very rare sight in those days and this one looked brand new, with no evident markings confirming whom it belonged to.
The whole scene gave me the impression that something major was happening and it looked as if somebody somewhere had declared ‘panic stations’. Later I learned about the disappearance of HMS Affray and the activity I witnessed from the park would have been the early stages of the search operation getting underway. I shall never forget that day.
What Bernard witnessed was the armada of salvage ships, tugs, lifting craft, lifeboats, aircraft from the RAF and Fleet Air Arm and a Westland Dragonfly helicopter from 705 Naval Air Squadron (the Royal Navy’s first helicopter squadron) all mustered together in next to no time to take part in the search. As the morning progressed further, preparations for the search gained an urgency and impetus rarely achieved in peacetime operations. At the same time service and civilian hospitals were alerted, decompression chambers made ready in case men were able to escape from a great depth and needed to be recompressed to cure them of the diver’s ‘bends’.
Brian Collis from Portsmouth remembers sitting in the local Gosport cinema waiting for the early afternoon matinee performance to begin. The audience were suddenly jolted into action by a message flashed onto the screen summoning all HMS Dolphin personnel to return to base immediately. The cinema was emptied of its audience in minutes and the afternoon screening continued playing to an empty house. A small army of men raced down the road towards their shore base and on arrival were given the news that one of their submarines was missing. Many had friends on board Affray and prepared themselves to go to sea to find them.
Former Able Seaman Gordon Chatburn from Waterlooville, Hampshire, a member of HMS Agincourt’s company berthed alongside Portsmouth’s South Railway Jetty, recalls:
We were making preparations for a ‘show-the-flag’ cruise around British seaside resorts as part of the Festival of Britain activities. Quite a few of the ship’s company were enjoying a rum on shore that lunchtime and I, along with some other lads, had decided to go to the Classic Cinema in Commercial Road.
Suddenly, over the cinema Tannoy system, a message was broadcast ordering all Agincourt ship’s company in the audience to return on board – at the double. It was quite a sight to see dozens of matelots tearing down Queen Street all heading for the dockyard main gate. The very minute that it had been established that everyone was back on board, up went the ship-to-shore gangway and we were away. I don’t ever remember leaving the harbour so quickly.
We soon heard over the ship’s Tannoy what was afoot. The skipper informed the crew about a missing submarine called HMS Affray and we were to be part of a massive flotilla setting out to find her. We didn’t know it then, but we were about to be part of the largest sea-air rescue ever undertaken in this country – before or since.
Other men still on leave, including essential officers, ratings and divers, received telegrams telling them that leave was cancelled and they must return to either Portsmouth or Portland immediately. No reason was given, but anyone listening to the BBC Light Programme shortly before 1400 hours that day would soon discover why.
Mary Foster (now Mrs Mary Henry), the young wife of Affray’s ‘Number One’, Lieutenant Derek Foster, was sitting at home in Petersfield with her son David, who was nearly 4. They had tuned into their favourite lunchtime radio programme, Listen With Mother. Suddenly the programme was interrupted by an urgent newsflash. Mary remembers:
The newsflash said that one of our submarines was missing and that a ‘Subsmash’ had been brought into effect. I remember it as vividly today as I did back in 1951. There was no need to tell me which submarine it was. I knew it was Affray. Derek had told me he didn’t want to go to sea on that exercise. He said Affray wasn’t seaworthy. He had told me that the repairs in the dockyard had been conducted very half-heartedly and he was amazed when the Navy had insisted the boat be taken out on the exercise.
There has hardly been a day in all those years that I have not thought of Derek and all the others on the submarine. I grew from a carefree girl to a woman during those dreadful days when they were searching for Affray. We were both aged 25 at the time. Hearing about it on the radio, instead of from someone who I knew, was heartless.
Joy Cook from Ilfracombe, Devon, whose husband, Leading Seaman George Cook, was on board Affray, had missed the lunchtime news bulletin and knew nothing about the submarine’s disappearance until she switched on the radio at six o’clock. She remembers:
An announcer said that a British submarine was missing and at once I knew it was the Affray, and I was right. I immediately went upstairs to check that my baby son was asleep and then went to see George’s mother, who lived nearby. She had no idea which boat George was on because he had been lent to Affray for two weeks to allow another sailor to represent submariners in a shooting contest. I had to break the news to her. No one got in contact with me. I had to get all my news from the radio.
Someone else who heard that same radio broadcast was Val Clements from Southsea, Hampshire. At the time Val and her family were living in Portsea, close to Portsmouth and Gosport. Val recalls:
I was only a young child at the time, but I knew that something was wrong. When it was announced that HMS Affray had gone missing, no one seemed to worry that much at the beginning because we were sure she would be found with everyone on board. But as the days wore on, the atmosphere among the people of Portsea, Portsmouth and Gosport suddenly changed.
More than anything else, I remember the terrible silence that hung like a big black cloud over the whole area. It seemed that even the birds had stopped singing. Apart from people passing the time of day with each other, no one was actually talking to one another. That terrible silence really affected all of us. It seemed to go on forever.
What made it worse was that a young lad from our street was on board the submarine. Like many of us in Portsea, he came from a large family. I know that my mother and grandmother were both praying for that lad and the rest of the men. We always said our prayers, although older members of our family would have kept this part of their prayers away from us children.
It was a terrible time for everyone in our community and something I have never been able to forget. In later years I married a submariner and used to dread him going away when he didn’t know where an exercise might take him.
On the other side of the world, in Trincomalee, on Ceylon’s eastern coast, a young Red Cross nurse working in the Royal Naval Hospital attached to HMS Highflier was told about the missing submarine on the second day of the search. Roma Maw from Swanage, Dorset, remembers:
My boyfriend was Engineer Officer Lieutenant James Hilton Alston. James was the only child of elderly parents who lived in Westmoreland. We had met in Simonstown, South Africa, in 1945 while he was serving in the warship HMS Jamaica and I was at the naval hospital there. Life in the Royal Navy at that time was very different to today and overseas tours of duty often went on for two years or more.
From South Africa James went on to serve in the Far East and on returning to England he transferred to submarines, serving first on HMS Tiptoe and eventually on the Affray.
He came up from the lower decks, meaning that he had to work his way up through the ranks. He must have been very conscientious to be promoted to an officer in a relatively short amount of time.
I heard about the loss of Affray when I was walking through the hospital in Ceylon. A member of staff asked me if I knew about the missing submarine in British waters. I said, ‘It’s not the Affray, is it?’ and he said that it was. Shortly afterwards my letters to James were returned to me with a note saying they could no longer be delivered.
Ron Leakey, now living in Auckland, New Zealand, was a 16-year-old school-leaver when he learned that his older brother, Able Seaman George ‘Ginger’ Leakey, was on Affray when she went missing. Ron remembers:
At the time I was working as an apprentice boilermaker at George Wimpy Ltd in Southall, where my brother had also worked in the engine shop before he went very young into the Navy. I remember him going back from leave early on the Sunday evening (like all servicemen he normally left it until the last minute) saying he would accompany my Dad – who worked as a travelling ticket inspector at Kings Cross – part of the way back to Portsmouth. It was to be the last day any of us would ever see George again.
I’m now 76, but can vividly remember the Evening Standard billboards on the Monday evening when I cycled home from work – ‘Affray Sub Missing.’
I arrived home to a household in complete shock, but we still held hope. I cannot remember whether the Navy had been in touch with George’s wife, Eileen, who lived with us at the time and was heavily pregnant.
That week was one of helping and waiting. I was encouraged by my very strong parents to carry on working. My workmates all knew my brother, the curly-haired boy who used to work in the engine shop, and they were very supportive. But as a 16-year-old, I hardly realised what the tragedy was to his wife and Yvonne, his 2-year old daughter. Eileen, of course, had to hold herself together for her unborn child – later to be called Georgina, after her Dad.
David Dyer from Portsmouth was a member of the Royal Navy’s 705 Naval Air Squadron based at the shore base HMS Siskin, close to HMS Dolphin. He remembers:
I was a Petty Officer Artificer and being a single man, was often called upon to travel with helicopters on search-and-rescue missions and undertake between-flight servicing.
On Monday April 16, the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Commander S.H. Suthers, received orders to send three helicopters to the RAF radio station at Chickerell, near Dorchester, to take part in the air-sea search-and-rescue mission for HMS Affray.
A maintenance crew was quickly organised by the squadron to travel to Chickerell in a 15cwt truck, together with an array of spares, oils and greases required to keep the helicopters serviceable between flights. Everyone worked extremely hard to service the helicopters and get them airborne in record time.
We operated with three helicopters, two of which were Westland Dragonfly aircraft fitted with rescue winches and an American-built R6 Hoverfly without a winch.
Most helicopters were flying a sixteen-hour day, frequently returning to base for refuelling and sometimes a change of aircrew. Helicopters in those days had limited endurance compared with today’s more modern ones.
By early afternoon on 17 April, a team of experienced deep-sea divers from HMS Lochinvar, near Edinburgh, were on their way to Portsmouth in a Lancaster aircraft. Elsewhere in the air somewhere over the English Channel, the pilot of an aircraft from RAF Tangmere reported sighting an ‘A’ class submarine on the surface. The submarine was later discovered to be one of the vessels searching for Affray. To avoid confusion, all submarines taking part in the search and rescue mission were ordered to fly a large yellow flag while on the surface.
At 1646 hours a report was received from a Danish merchant ship, the Rhodes Liang, stating that she was positioned next to a large oil slick somewhere along the route Affray should have taken before surfacing. The ship agreed to remain next to the slick to mark the spot until a naval vessel arrived. Aircraft were diverted to the area along with HMS Boxer. On arrival at the scene, Boxer’s crew discovered a huge narrow slick stretching for four miles.
An oil sample was taken for examination to ascertain if it was diesel oil (the kind used on Affray) or furnace oil (as used by surface vessels). While the examination was underway, Boxer dropped grenades over the side to indicate to any crew from the stricken submarine that help was nearby and they should prepare to evacuate immediately. But there was no sign of survivors and oil from the slick was later discovered to be furnace oil.
By early evening plans had been drawn up for night-time operations. Thirty ships and submarines would work through the night in the English Channel searching for Affray. They were divided into three taskforce groups for the night:
Force X-ray comprised HM ships Agincourt, Hedingham Castle, Marvel, Trespasser, St Austell Bay and the Belgian frigate Victor Billet.
Force Yoke comprised HM ships Battleaxe, Tintagel Castle, Flint Castle, Pluto, Gossamer, Ambush, Reclaim, plus seven ships from the French fleet.
Force Zebra comprised HM ships Boxer, Ulysses, Contest, submarines Sirdar – which had been used in the film Morning Departure – Scorcher, Sea Devil, Scythian and Amphion, plus the American destroyers Perry and Ellison.
As the flotilla began mounting powerful searchlights onto their decks to monitor the surface of the sea in the hope of finding traces of the missing submarine, the first editions of Britain’s national newspapers were rolling off the presses. The disappearance of Affray was front page story nationwide and headlines screamed the bad news: ‘Submarine Missing in the Channel – HMS Affray Fails to Surface After Night-Diving Exercises.’ But the news was sketchy, containing Admiralty statements, library photographs of ‘A’ class submarines and little else. The first stories containing any real substance appeared in the London and Portsmouth evening papers sold at lunchtime on Wednesday 18 April.
Although newspapermen had descended on Gosport from London on afternoon trains, naval ratings – including the thirteen ratings taken from Affray before she sailed – were ordered to say nothing to reporters gathering outside the gates at HMS Dolphin. The thirteen were told to remain inside the shore base and not to leave until further notice. Worried that his mother would think he was missing on board Affray, Able Seaman John Goddard sent a telegram to 27 Bellevue Road, Southend-on-Sea Essex, stating: ‘Safe. Did not sail with Affray. Love. John.’
Another person also receiving a messaged stating they had not sailed in Affray was Alice Graham, wife of Able Seaman John Graham from Fareham, Hampshire. She remembers:
My late husband was on stand-by to go on board the Affray. We lived in London at that time and I vividly remember my boss came back from lunch very perturbed and asked me what ship my husband was on. I told him he was on stand-by, but believe me, until I had a phone call – and remember, there were no mobiles in those days – I was a very worried person.
John Graham had been sent ashore less than an hour before the submarine sailed, suffering from a heavy cold. If he had not been coughing and sneezing all over the place, there is every likelihood that he would have sailed that day.
The Navy agreed to give a press conference at Fort Blockhouse, headquarters of the submarine service at Dolphin, and a large room was packed with reporters from the world’s press.
The reporters wanted to know:
Could the submarine have hit a mine – just like in the film Morning Departure?
Admiralty staff fielding the question said that if Affray had done so, the surface of the Channel would be covered in diesel oil and debris – but no such wreckage had yet been found.
Could the submarine have been rammed by a passing ship?
Reporters heard that if this had happened – and she had dived in the middle of one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes – some collision report would have been received within the hour. But no such report had been received.
Could the submarine have been sunk by an internal explosion?
If this had happened, wreckage would have been blown to the surface and nothing has been found.
But mines have been seen floating in the English Channel after the storms last week . . .
Yes. French minesweepers have been sweeping within 30 miles of the Affray’s course.
Could the submarine’s diving gear have become stuck?
Possible, but unlikely. If Affray is lying on the seabed, she is likely to be on firm sand and shingle, an ideal place from which to escape.
Why has no marker buoy been released?
If the submarine has rolled over onto her side, it is almost certain that no marker buoy or smoke signals could be shot to the surface.
What about survivors?
It is unlikely that anyone could escape from a submarine lying in that position. But we don’t know what position she is in, so it’s difficult to comment.
When is ‘exhaustion hour’ for the men, assuming that Affray’s crew are still alive?
Friday morning. Even the emergency oxygen candles and compressed air bottles must give out by then.
Why have no survivors come up, if there are any still in the submarine?
Even if they hear rescue craft overhead, survivors must wait until they hear twelve depth charges exploding, signalling that Affray has been located.
Why is that?
In the Truculent disaster the survivors surfaced before they got the signal to escape. Most of them were carried away and drowned before rescue ships arrived.
How long could survivors float in their life saving suits?
For days.
Is there greater hope of bringing the survivors up from Affray than there was from Truculent?
Yes. Men in Affray are clearly waiting for the signal to surface. They have a marker buoy with a flashing light and a life-saving suit capable of bringing them to the surface – alive and afloat.
Could the Affray be raised?
It’s feasible, but depends on the depth in which we find her.
How many escape hatches does she have?
Four, providing for the possibility that some compartments are flooded and others are not.
Could there have been a mutiny on board?
What a strange question; no comment.
Things might have appeared bleak at the press conference, but out at sea there was a ray of hope. At 2155 hours and long after darkness had fallen, the submarine Sirdar reported it had picked up feint signals on its listening apparatus sounding as if someone was tapping out a Morse message from inside a submarine hull somewhere within the vicinity of Affray’s diving position. ASDIC – later known as sonar – was the name given to a device used for locating other vessels using sound waves (and named after the Anti-Submarine Detection Investigation Committee).
But was the tapping coming from Affray? And was she trapped somewhere nearby on the seabed? If the answer was yes, more than enough help was now on hand to rescue her crew, providing they could evacuate the stricken submarine.
Providing she could be accurately located, divers from Reclaim would take an air tube down to Affray and drive it into the submarine’s hull through a hollow bolt fired from a powerful salvage gun. Compressed air would then be pumped down to replace the foul air inside. If necessary, a liquid food pipeline – known in the Navy as ‘a bacon and eggs tube’ – could also be driven into the submarine by the same means. Once this was done, the submarine could either be raised to an even keel by pumping compressed air into flooded compartments and giving the trapped men a chance to use the escape hatches, or the submarine could be raised to the surface using lifts mounted onto pontoons.
It had been calculated that there was sufficient oxygen on board for up to four days underwater, meaning there was at least two more days’ supply left for the rescue flotilla to locate her and stand by while her officers and ratings floated to the surface wearing emergency escape apparatus. From there the rescue ships would help them on board, administer first-aid treatment (if required), provide hot drinks containing a little something extra to help fight the cold (definitely required), dry clothing and a square meal.
It looked like the search for the Affray would soon be over.