Meet The Crew On Board A Royal Navy Submarine | Submarine E1 | Our Stories

[Music] documentation [Applause] in the group [Music] [Music] standby to surface [Music] that was an exercise but the next time it could be for real do [Music] hms superb they call her super b her commanding officer is john humphreys what makes us special everything uh we're what the great british viewing public knows as a hunter killer nuclear-powered 4 200 tons 125 on board at a maximum although there are 137 on the books unlimited in endurance really apart from food and typically we're capable of 90 days as a matter of routine away at sea it's down by the fire functionally armed we are traditionally a deepwater submarine killer by profession we are also involved in intelligence collection we can be put up threat remaining covert to give what was known as indications and warnings back to uh political masters we work with special forces we sneak up on you in the dark and deliver our uh package and then sneak away again not that we're sneaky of course ever since it was formed the submarine service has attracted a special type of sailor they're quite proud of the fact that they were once dismissed even by the admiralty in 1902 as underhand unfair and damned unenglish over the next six weeks we shall follow this special breed and the submarine they serve without doubt it takes a particular type of person to be a submariner and a special type of person to be a submariner's wife away from home for months at a time and with no way of keeping in contact with that home and any problems that may arise it's a way of life most of us would find untenable but what do we know of a submariner's life while at or under the sea according to dave reggie perrin it's not like the movies first of all no we have never been attacked by a giant squid as we see on tv programs um well i think as yourself when you're walking through the submarine we you don't hear the ping ping ping like as shown on tv films that is all that's all gone nowadays we do have the ability to do it but we don't when you're younger it's easier away it's more of an adventure when you're younger but when you get older you're married you have children you do tend to worry about your family we met when i was 21 and we met through my friend who'd gone on holiday to crete if you like somebody don't think about what their job is and whether you can cope with it or not you just take it as it comes it's just something that you just have to get on with really you can't haven't really got any choice in the matter you just get on with it um a lot of people say to me or don't know how you cope and i can't really win that but to me i just feel that it's just sort of living from going from day to day you just have to get on with it the loved ones may argue that their lot is harder than the men's it's the constant uncertainty but phil doc mcgonagall had no uncertainty about joining what is known as the trade when i was in training it was time where they'd been sure to amaze them short in a few places and it was either submarines or royal marines so who's living in the ditch it's not my way of ending the living so i opted for somebody then plus my brother was in submarines there's a pma in submarines so i had an idea of what the job entailed um so there was that and also i would get very seasick so it's best to be under the water than on top of it in the ship or something so that's why i came to subway phil lives in the devon countryside with his wife for five years kate the couple want children but being based at fazlane in scotland and long tours at sea aren't helpful the time at home is precious and for more reasons than just the opportunity to be together it's lovely to have space because the submarine is very um an enclosed environment and one of the problems that a lot of people don't think about i don't suppose is your vision because you're never used to looking more than 20 feet once you've been at sea for a while um you get back and your distance vision is awful you have to be careful when you're driving and things because you've got no um you can't judge a distance at all but the space yeah i mean i like it we live up here it's nice and open um we go with a dog and stuff i just utilize the space i've got by leaving things everywhere which doesn't go down too well the main thing is really the smell they do everything that they have everything that they own it just smells of diesel oil and just the submarine and you're so used to being on your own i mean apart from that and that's easy you just throw things in the washing machine but apart from that really i'm so used to being on my own having no children or just the animals to look after that i find it's very difficult he sort of interrupts my routines and my way of living and actually it's quite it's quite hard to begin with if it's just a short period then you slot back into your own little ways quite easily but um if he's been away for a substantial period of time then you sort of resent him really because he's i mean not that i do much or i go places particularly but just my own little ways of times of eating and going to bed and things like that and he just sort of interrupts it but only lasts a day or so and then once that happens we just you just slot back into the same old routine nothing changes it's it's as if he's never been away after a sort of four or five days keith asprey lives in plymouth i'm trying to sell it to somebody i don't think you'd be able to sell it to anybody because we breathe artificial air we're in artificial light we don't get any sun it's hard work but i think it's the friendship that because everybody works for everybody else we work as a team and everyone relies on each other because there's a lot of things can go wrong in submarines and we all have to have a certain idea about how to react to any sort of an emergency for instance keith met his wife sherry seven years ago she was only 20 a new little of the life of a service wife she admits that she sometimes gets jealous of the friendships that develop among crewmates a submarine could be a cruel mistress there has been a few times isn't there where i've been sort of like crying on the phone to him and everything else but um i i do hold it back because i know that he doesn't like to see me getting upset um and it's not fair on um if i am there sort of like crying my eyes out on the phone so i i have to be strong um for keith really because it's not going to be fair on him if he's going to see um for like two and a half months or something knowing that i'm in the right state back home so i've got to let him know that i'm okay and that i'm going to be able to manage on my own really it doesn't get any easier with time cox and paul kennel and michelle have been married for 22 years and live in gosport if the wives are worried about showing their anxieties to their men then the men equally have to hide their feelings it's if anything happens i think is the main thing michelle's had problems before you know i've been away honest with me before when michelle's had a miscarriage at home and had to deal with that all on her own and other things happen and uh you know you're just hoping that something major doesn't occur while you're away on a submarine and not not probably too bad during a work up stage or the sea trial phase straight after the refit but once you're on on an operation you know that the boat's not gonna surface and get you off and you probably won't be told until the end of it anyway all right then bye we don't have any contact at all we don't get any mail or anything so it's just a case of having to shut it off and think well you know everything will hopefully be all right and when you get back you know quick phone call and make sure that it is superb is one of britain's hunter-killer class submarines when she slips away from her base she can stay at sea undetected for 90 days or even longer to seek and if the order is given to destroy enemy ships and submarines this story begins in the shadow of the fourth rail bridge and the cold glassy waters that lead superb into rothscythe dockyard [Music] she may be one of the most powerful warships in the world but at 25 years of age she's considered an old lady super b is coming to the end of a three and a half year 200 million pound refit the figures involved are awesome 24 000 items have been checked and surveyed 14 000 items overhauled 25 000 liters of paint and 345 000 nuts bolts and washers have been replaced along with 136 000 kilometers of cable the nuclear power plant and propulsion systems have been overhauled and refitted weapon systems have been upgraded two million man hours to turn the 25 year old into an ultra modern fighting machine the untrained diet looks a bit mess i mean we've got a lot of ventilation here but this is due to the paint and we're extracting fumes to keep the uh the fumes away and of course we're doing hot work as well where we're they fit new valves into the 29 bulkhead up here which a lot of hot work goes on so you have to watch what you're doing with paint and hot work so you're going to get exposed of mixtures in the atmosphere so there's a lot of vent hoses and that's what all these hoses are here the cables are sell the units are stripped the cables are checked and run through and basically say you preserve them tally them up ready so you know where they go back so the jigsaw marries up at the hinder end the pride of the workmen in the scottish yard is self-evident but there is also great urgency deadlines have to be kept and not just for the massive rebuild program the crew are about to come under intense pressure well before many of the crew see their new charge the work-up schedule has begun using the simulator in plymouth emergency stations emergency stations the new superb will be unlike anything these men have ever had to crew and that includes commanding officer john humphreys we are none of us bright otherwise we'd be snorting coke on the stock exchange and flying our own near jet so we do things by rote so these guys will react in accordance with emergency operating procedures and make the boat safe the training that we're doing at the moment is part of a process designed to bring us from uh novice stage with background experience into a submarine out of a refit environment which is three years alongside not being at sea and then in stages out to sea to do simple things and then do more complicated things until ultimately we can operate in any of the areas where we're asked to operate so the process starts with theoretical training and the bit we're doing now is using some of the simulators that are available if we make a mistake it doesn't matter it's a simulator it doesn't cost 300 million pounds every time you're on the ground lower search raise attack lower search rate attack main property stop player safe shut you have to surface the boat between five and ten of you otherwise you do the old flip of the dolphin routine straight back down and we all die what we're training these guys to do is um react to emergencies to a certain point and the point is getting the submarine in a known and safe condition petty officer perrin has made the long trip to rothscythe from plymouth for him it's like getting a first glimpse of the new car that's been ordered with a whole range of extras and refinements reggie has served mostly on t-class submarines at under 100 meters in length superb is not big especially when it's jammed full of high-tech equipment and a skilled crew but compared to what he's been used to the refitted soda room is big wow this is unbelievable the size of this compartment compared with all the other submarines i've had i'm a bit taken back for words at the moment for the amount of room that we've got in here i've now walked into the junior 8 smiths how many is in this mess all together 60. 60 blokes got to share this room obviously they won't all be here at the same time there will always be someone watch this will be what is known as the officers 5 birth [Applause] you get more junior officers here because there's no one sweet there's no there's no uh sink in here so they have to go through to use the other one there's only one way out and you've got a reverse life on the submarine [Music] a lot of people think that being in a submarine must be claustrophobic in my 20-odd years in submarines i've only ever met one true claustrophobe and he had to be medically removed as far as i know he's still serving he now serves in general service in ships a lot of people would would uh have coffin dreams they lie in their bed at night and wake up panicking because of the close closeness of their environment and that's all part of living in in submarines a lot of people suffer from that that doesn't make them claustrophobes that makes them 99 out of 100 rather than 1 out of 100. [Music] that's all one person gets is that in there put all this kitten and we're gonna have little bags fitted underneath the bunks let's put anything extra in as well not a lot sure egg don't touch it michael because it's very hot for gail perrin and the family reggie's trip to scotland will be the first of many separations i find it hard obviously because it's basically like being a single mother all the time when dave's not here which i am used to now but it can be difficult depending on what's going on at the time but especially if one of them are real or anything and if it's anything reasonably serious um it can be you know obviously worrying but it's worse when you haven't got your husband there to support you and to help you this has been my main compartment when i'm at sea i'll be sitting here controlling the sign that's going on feeding the command with all the information because when we actually dived we are the eyes and ears of the submarine in this compartment in here was it a bit of a shock ending up in ross eyes total but that's life in the blue suit as i say in the navy um it's my first time i've had a draft out of area so i can't complain too much i tried to wriggle out a bit but not too hard married wife i've left my wife down in plymouth for two children uh she's accepted the fact i'm lucky i've got a strong wife who can put up with that money give me away for a while that's what i've told her anyway merchantman dead ahead go deep go deep go team my compartment blows grace brace brace we're taking a team that has never been before together and asking them to put a submarine that's been parked alongside for three years in a challenging environment there are still so much that could go wrong so consistency is my biggest concern watch down two submarine returns to periscope deck that's right about a million miles off course aren't we going to cut the drill short slightly so it's an early tee break yahoo exit [Music] good while many of the crew will be coming to superb fresh some of the senior members of the compliment have seen the massive project all the way through its long three and a half years cox and paul kennel is one he would much rather be at sea than alongside and now that the time is coming for completion the pressure and the paperwork is mounting it can be quite mundane until you actually start getting more people joining the boat and start crewing up and then get into the sort of the last six months and then you've got the big push of getting moved back on board and getting everybody into the different mentality that you are actually going to sail and you've got the c-12s and then the work-up stage to get stuck into so at the end of the day it's a lot better to be on the boat and then away than it is stuck in refit second rank only one place forward an ordeal for any member of the senior service is the parade in this case it's 24 hours away from the rededication ceremony when superb is officially accepted back into the royal navy it's a running joke in the other two services that sailors cannot march [Music] they know only too well themselves [Music] they even wear their boots out trying during rehearsals but for submariners it's doubly hard [Music] there's not much room for drill practice in the cramped 272 feet of a hunter killer class submarine the captain knows that the top brass will be watching closely so a few prayers are quietly spoken that all goes well well better than rehearsals anyway the boots still need spit and polish and on the morning of the ceremony superb is still a hive of activity like all major projects that have a deadline there comes a time when the urgency takes on a momentum all of its own a great submarine tradition is that it looks an absolute pot mess until right up to the end there'll be various times when all will look to be totally lost totally disorganized but there is a plan and 99 times out of 100 we achieved the aim in this case the company were the ones pulling things to bits frantically cleaning them putting them back together laying the walkways to disguise the fact that actually they're still doing work on board submarine so that it looked good so it felt good and you use it all the time available to you yeah it always feels difficult but and that's one of the difficult things of being in in my position you just have to let the place get on with it and trust them every now and again you give a steer but they're they're all good blokes they know what they're doing the navy has to accept all the work that's been done over the 42 months by babcock industries group before the boat can be called hms the great thing about superb is that there is a great feeling of corporate ownership there isn't them and us so the company the minister of defense agencies on site and the ship's company all want the same thing and that's important in the pre-harbour inspection everything is checked one last time the government has spent 200 million pounds of our money on the boats refit every penny has to be signed for but this isn't just an accountant's exercise only when the inspectors are satisfied can the next phase of superb's voyage back into the fleet begin the top of a bin let's put there so that we can find it of course did we pass the test yes there you go can i have the five pounds now please if it goes wrong it can be a disaster if we have overlooked something if somebody picks something up and the company turned around and say okay i'm going to need time to fix that then that will have a direct impact on my sailing date and i would not be happy about that next week on submarine rededication day the emotional goodbyes are made superb is crude and provisioned and what everyone has been waiting for for over three years happens the first voyage [Music]

Channel: Our Stories

Views: 216,561

Keywords: Our Stories, Documentary, Observational Documentary, Real Stories, Full Episode, Full Length Episodes, Full Documentary, Fly On The Wall, Yearbook, Real Life, Documentaries, Real Lives, Behind The Scenes, submarine, royal navy submarine, nuclear submarine, life on a submarine, hms, hms superb, royal navy documentary, navy documentary, british navy, submarine documentary, submariner, life in the navy, navy training, royal navy training

Id: HJYotXMVx0Q

Length: 23min 23sec (1403 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 11 2022