Readers will probably have mentally asked a multitude of questions regarding the loss of Affray as they made their voyage through this book. There are, indeed, many things that remain unknown about the submarine before she left Gosport, while at sea on her training exercise, during the sea-air search, after her discovery, while divers and a TV camera investigated her, during the Board of Inquiry and over the five decades that followed. The actions of senior Admiralty officials and politicians of the day are also called into question and why the public in 1951 was supplied with misleading, inaccurate and untruthful information about the condition, search and discovery of the submarine.
These are questions that demand answers, but we are unlikely ever to receive any due to the passage of time which had passed since Affray disappeared under the waves for the final time in April 1951. There are no survivors to tell the tale and few people are still alive today who can throw further light on the subject based on first-hand experience working with the submarine.
Why do so many statements made by Admiralty officials and politicians at the time differ? Why was Affray allowed to put to sea in what appeared to be a condition bad enough for a senior naval officer to be censured through a letter – but nothing else. Why were senior Admiralty officials allowed to influence the outcome of the Board of Inquiry before it had drawn its own conclusions? Why was the reason for finding oil in the submarine’s battery sump not minutely investigated? Why was such an inexperienced crew allowed to go to sea? Why could the departure date of Exercise Training Spring not have been postponed until the submarine could leave the dockyard in tip-top condition with no need to return?
These and other questions are addressed below. In some cases a reasoned explanation is provided – but there are no hard and fast answers about what happened to Affray and never likely to be.
There is discrepancy between Chief Petty Officer David Bennington’s firsthand accounts about the Affray’s condition during the 1950 Autumn Cruise and verbal evidence given to the Board of Inquiry by other members of the crew. Bennington’s letters to his father were dismissed by the Board who stated:
We are of the opinion that these letters do not represent the condition of the ship and that the trouble to which this rating refers were not the cause of her loss. Indeed, the specific troubles of the engines constantly stopping and similar matters were not ones which would directly affect the safety of the ship and in any event the engine defects in question were made good during the period HMS Affray was in the dockyard (January–April 1951).
Although engine problems might have been fixed, issues surrounding her ‘leaking like a sieve’ and oil appearing in number one battery appear not to have been addressed in the dockyard.
If ‘the defects in question’ were addressed, why were so many references made to Affray needing to return – by Lieutenant Blackburn and others – after the exercise? If Affray was passed fit for sea, why did she need to return for more work?
Bennington was described as a ‘hard-working, most conscientious and progressively worried man’, yet dismissed as a ‘natterer’ by Affray’s previous commander, Lieutenant Temple-Richards. Why did the Board not take Bennington’s letters more seriously? They were the only surviving record about Affray’s mechanical condition before to going to sea, yet the Board chose not to pay attention to Bennington’s comments. Was this because his observations differed to the line the Board was encouraged to adopt and anything directing the line of enquiry down a different route should be dismissed as unsuitable?
Why did it take more than three months to repair Affray’s engines and undertake other routine work when she entered the dockyard in January 1951? Affray’s logbooks show for that for much of this period, little repair activity was taking place on the submarine. (Author’s note: Affray’s logbooks for January– March 1951 are available for inspection at The National Archives. The logbook for April was lost with the submarine.)
Why, after more than three months in the dockyard, were Affray’s sea trials on 11 April 1951 so short? In the four short hours she was at sea, Affray only dived to periscope depth for fifteen minutes – described by one witness as ‘just enough to wash her casing. That was the first dive she had done since we did one on the way back from Gibraltar.’ Why did Lieutenant Blackburn not dive to a greater depth and for a longer period? Although he had just over half his crew on board, why did Blackburn not use his time at sea to ‘work up’ those who were on the submarine and put the Affray through its paces? If, as has been claimed, Affray ‘leaked like a sieve’, a longer dive to greater depth would have immediately identified this problem, but she was not given a chance to demonstrate her defects in a pressurised situation at any great depth.
What was the true reason for the four young Royal Marine Commandos being on board Affray for their ‘cloak and dagger’ mission? What were they training for? Was it for some kind of covert foreign operation – at Suez, perhaps? It is known that the government was making plans for British troops to invade Suez as early as 1951. Were the marines in Affray intending to land on a beach near Falmouth, in training for a similar mission that would have eventually taken them to a beach near Suez to gather intelligence? In 1951 many naval ships were testing new and untried ‘top-secret’ equipment. Were the commandos hoping to trial new surveillance kit after hitting the beach at Falmouth? And why was Sergeant Jack Andrews so coy about talking about his mission with his brother, a fellow marine, on the evening before Affray sailed? Had he been sworn to secrecy?
What had Sergeant Jack Andrews seen or heard down in Affray on Sunday 15 April to make him remark to his brother that the submarine was leaking and he was far from happy about travelling in her? Had he met David Bennington in the mess and heard the young submariner sounding-off about the state of the submarine? Or had he physically seen evidence of leaks on board before leaving Affray to visit his brother’s home for dinner later that evening?
Why did it take Rear Admiral Raw a whole hour after acknowledging that Affray was late in reporting to issue the Subsmash signal? Why did he not mount a smaller-scale Subsmash search, using aircraft, ships and submarines already at sea as soon as he learned that the Affray was overdue? This could have been stepped up into a full Subsmash an hour later. No doubt he was hopeful that Affray would eventually transmit a signal and a plausible reason for reporting in late. Perhaps he thought she might have been experiencing trouble with her radio. It is unlikely that Lieutenant Blackburn had misunderstood his orders, as was suggested early in the search. The orders were clearly written, even though Blackburn was given the flexibility to undertake Exercise Training Spring as he thought best, providing he followed the basic rules set out in his orders.
Why did the Admiralty issue such positive statements to the news media stating that Affray had been found following hull tappings and other signals heard on 18 April? An official statement to the news media categorically stated: ‘Communication has been established by signal with Affray.’ A message to Navy ships and Air Force planes said: ‘The submarine has been located. Cancel all searches.’ How could the Navy have been so sure that they had found Affray – and been so wrong? Or were the hull tappings and other signals genuinely from someone inside the crippled submarine, possibly handicapped by some disaster that had overtaken her and not fully trained in the language of Morse code? Were the signals transmitted from a submarine out of control, struggling beneath the surface and drifting in no particular direction?
Why was an order for total underwater silence – including engine shut-down and radio silence – not issued for the duration of the period when hull tappings and signals were heard? With so much noise coming from vessels searching for Affray, ASDIC and radio, it must have been difficult – if not impossible – to have properly heard what was assumed to be signals from Affray. If total underwater silence had been called for, there would have been better chance of hearing the messages more clearly – but the Navy did not ask for, or consider, total shut-down for even a short period.
Why did the Admiralty not make it clear to the public – and its submariners – that it was impossible to escape from ‘A’ class submarines in depths over 300ft, even wearing emergency escape apparatus? It was known to the Navy that ‘A’ class boats were operationally safe in undamaged conditions, but took a large list if heavily flooded while sitting on the bottom.
Why were so many ‘inventions and visionary suggestions’ sent in by the public claiming to know where Affray could be found dismissed? Many suggestions were, of course, submitted by opportunists out to make a fast buck and others came in from crack-pots. But Captain Bill Shelford had stated that the more serious suggestions were entered onto a map ‘and I found them meeting in one small area outside the scope of the main search’. Captain Foster Brown sent a ship to investigate and reported such loud echoes on the ASDIC ‘that they nearly knocked him off the bridge’. What was going on beneath the water in that small area? And why was it not investigated further, even if it was seventy-five miles from where Affray was eventually found?
Why did the ships Ulysses and Contest fail to make contact with Affray when they passed overhead on 17 April – within twelve hours of the accident? And why, on 18 April, did ships from the 4th Destroyer Flotilla, plus Ulysses and Contest, while carrying out ASDIC searches, fail to detect the presence of a large object – 281ft 9 in long, 22ft 3 in wide and 16ft 9in high – directly beneath them? Admittedly, the weather was rough which made it difficult to pinpoint anything on the seabed accurately. This does not alter the fact that a group of ships fitted with the best equipment of the day twice failed to detect the missing submarine directly beneath them. There is a possibility that men might still have been alive in Affray on 17 and 18 April, even if it were not possible for them to escape because of the depth of water. But an air line could have been sent down to her – plus a food line if needed – buying the Navy more time to mount a full-scale rescue. Or did the Navy of 1951 secretly prefer that Affray should not been found, knowing the huge difficulties and colossal expense that would be incurred attempting to raise a crippled submarine containing men still alive?
The First Sea Lord, Sir Bruce Fraser and Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth, Admiral Sir Arthur Power, met before the Board of Inquiry went into session to pre-determine its outcome and blame the accident on the broken snort mast. They obviously feared that the Board’s eventual findings might discredit the Royal Navy and its Submarine Service and must have had little faith in its ability to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. So they did the job for them. The three Board members would have found it difficult to mount an objective Inquiry armed with knowledge that senior officers had already decided its outcome – but they went along with it and put forward a ‘hypothesis’ that the snort mast was to blame, even though other Admiralty experts later dismissed it. The broken snort mast has since been accepted as the most likely cause of the accident, even though First Lord of the Admiralty, James Thomas, told Parliament on 14 November, ‘there was not sufficient evidence to say with certainty why the submarine was lost’.
While referring to the discovery of ‘a small quantity of oil mixed with water in the sump of number one battery tank’, found while the submarine was in the dockyard, the Board stated that ‘the defect is neither important or relevant to the Inquiry, apart from it having initially led to an assumption that the submarine may have been returning to the dockyard following Exercise Training Spring which would probably not, in fact, have been necessary.’ Several witnesses told the Inquiry that Lieutenant Blackburn had expressly informed the crew that Affray would return to the dockyard after the exercise, making it obvious that work still needed to be completed on refurbishing the submarine – work that could not be undertaken before she put to sea for her trials and the fateful exercise. Whether the work mentioned was on number one battery tank remains open to question.
The Board stated that ‘while a high proportion of the ship’s company were experienced submarine ratings, nearly half of them had not been to sea in the ship before. This state of affairs, together with the number of passengers on board, though unlikely to be the cause of the accident, might well have been a contributing factor once a dangerous situation developed.’ In 1951, the Navy did not undertake what is known today as ‘a risk assessment’, which attempts to anticipate any and every type of problem that could affect a submarine and its crew at sea. Yet in 1951, the Royal Navy had recently been through nearly six years of war and encountered numerous emergencies above and below the waves. So why had they not anticipated problems arising using an inexperienced crew that had not been ‘worked up’? The majority of the crew were inexperienced in so much as few had completed their submarine training course. Although described as ‘experienced’, Affray’s crew were not experienced enough to pull together as a team when events turned nasty on their submarine. Or perhaps events happened so quickly, they were never given time to pull together . . .
Why was Steward Ray Vincent allowed to go to sea in Affray after just one week of submarine training? And why was this same young man, removed from serving on a surface ship for causing wilful damage, allowed to transfer to the submarine service without any record of his misdemeanours included on his service file?
Why were so many crew members replaced at the eleventh hour? It is known that too many men reported for duty, but why did Lieutenant Blackburn wait until the entire crew had been sent down to the submarine to hear him talk about the exercise before he dismissed some of them? Why were men taken off the submarine not informed earlier and redrafted to other duties?
Why was it so difficult for dependants of Affray’s crew to obtain reliable information about the submarine’s last voyage for thirty years? By the time they could access official files in The National Archives (released in 1981), the Affray affair was long forgotten and senior naval officers and Admiralty decision-makers responsible for sending her to sea, coordinating the search, exploring the wreck and mounting the Board of Inquiry were long retired or dead. During those thirty years it was impossible to lay hands on any official documents about the Affray. When released, few people bothered to seek them out and attempt to try and make sense of what happened in April 1951. Today, no individuals working for the Admiralty, serving in the Royal Navy or working for the Ministry of Defence were around in 1951. The world has moved on and so has the Submarine Service. If it was the Admiralty’s intention to sweep the Affray affair under the carpet and out of the way in 1951, it succeeded. It is only now, more than sixty years after the disaster, that the questions are again being asked – those questions being, what happened to the Affray, why was it allowed to happen and who was ultimately responsible for the disaster (as opposed to who carried the can)?
Today’s technology is vastly superior from that available to the Royal Navy in 1951 and Affray still sits at the bottom of the sea in the same position in which she came to rest all those years ago. Despite efforts by divers using primitive X-ray equipment to ascertain whether the valve at the foot of the snort mast was in the ‘open’ or ‘closed’ position, they were never able to penetrate the hull to find the answer. But today’s technology could easily solve this riddle for once and for all.
Using the same technology available to airport security staff to scan the contents of passengers’ luggage for explosives and dangerous weapons, today’s deep-sea divers could travel down to the wreck and conduct tests with greater ease than those available to Reclaim’s divers in 1951. Despite the passage of time, it is still possible to X-ray the valve and determine its position without disturbing the wreck. But the November 2001 ruling allowing the Royal Navy to ban diving on sixteen sunken British ships and submarines and protect them from disturbance by trophy-hunting divers will have to be overcome.
Permission to dive on Affray will be difficult to obtain unless the Royal Navy itself decides that after sixty years it wants to go for final closure and finish the job that it began in 1951.
In March 2007 it was widely reported that up to one billion dollars worth of gold and silver sitting on the sunken seventeenth-century English warship HMS Sussex might soon be recovered. The ship took 560 sailors to their death when it sank off Gibraltar in 1694. The ship is sitting in 2,500ft of water and, unlike Affray, has not been designated a protected site – probably because half of any treasure discovered on HMS Sussex will be returned to the British government. The remainder will go to the salvage company planning to mount the undersea treasure hunt.
Mounting an official dive on Affray will not produce any gold or silver for Her Majesty’s Exchequer. But it will provide answers to many questions, which, perhaps, is why no official attempt has been made to find the real truth about how Affray was lost. Do the British authorities at the highest level – including the Royal Navy’s submarine service – not want the public to know what caused HMS Affray to slip beneath the waves for the last time six decades ago and why was it allowed to happen?