Lockdown Short Story

[sonicninja]

During the various lockdown periods I have written a number of humourous short stories regarding life on a submarine to keep myself occupied, here is an extract of one of those stories:-

Background:-

A British Trafalgar class Submarine arrives in the Moray Firth to conduct a coordinated standard anti submarine exercise (CASEX) with RAF Nimrod aircraft based along the Moray Coast at RAF Kinloss.


The submarine had departed from Rona on the Isle of Skye the previous evening to disembark an injured Chef and pick up his replacement who was a trainee submariner Chef with no previous experience at sea.



Mission Objective:-

Perform periscope reconnaissance of the Moray coast for possible insertion of Special Forces to carry out a sabotage mission of a UK Air Base (RAF Kinloss)


Secondary Objective:-

Avoid detection from aircraft and surface vessels.



So its 06:00hrs and the young green Chef has been busy through the night shift as the on watch Chef working on his own peeling potatoes, making bread and prepping the breakfast, all he has left to complete his shift is a quick scrub out of the galley and hand over to the two day working Chefs before he can climb into his rack.


He grabs a 5 litre container of TEEPOL (industrial strength cleaner) and proceeds to pour it on the surfaces and deck of the galley and starts scrubbing ensuring the cleaning compound disapears into the scuppers leaving a sparkly clean and shiney galley.



The CASEX is due to commence at 07:00hrs it's now 06:30hrs and the crew are busy handing over to 1st Watch and prepping for a quick PD run and to obtain a decent trim of the submarine.


The submarine comes up to periscope depth and in true Scottish tradition the sea state is quite lumpy and the officer of the watch orders a 4 knot trim by pumping and moving water from the submarine in order to remain at periscope depth without the submarines fin breaching the surface.


At 07:25 the ESM mast picks up the racket of a patrolling Nimrod, the Captain orders the boat to go deep and maintain a stealthy posture while they wait for the Nimrod to hopefully pass by on its mission.


At 07:33 the sonar operators report the splashes of sonobouys, the crew are shocked at how quickly the submarine as been detected and how close the sonobouys are.


The Captain orders the submarine to continue to evade but with no avail.


It isn't long before the submarine hears the "Signal Under Water Sound" to simulate a hit from a torpedo dropped by the Nimrod, it's 1-0 to the Royal Air Force and the exercise only commenced an hour earlier.

The Captain orders the submarine to return to PD in order to communicate with the aircraft and acknowledge the submarine has been hit.


Tensions in the control room are high as the crew now demoralised and suspect some kind of cheating has been carried out by the RAF.

Communications between the submarine and the Nimrod soon determined how quickly the boat was detected:-

The Nimrod came on station at 07:00hrs and was presented by a mile long trail of bubbles on the surface 6nm off the Moray coast, on closer examination the crew of the aircraft noticed that the bubbles were coming up from below the surface.

Nobody had explained how much TEEPOL the Chef had needed to use to clean the galley, a cup full of the industrial strength cleaner would have been sufficient but unfortunately whilst trimming the submarine the various bildge tanks had been pumped out resulting in a long trail of bubbles along the Moray Firth.

The CASEX was restarted and a number of serials commenced over the following 24 hours, to further infuriate the submarine Captain from that day forward he was known as "Bubbles" for the rest of his command when interacting with other UK platforms.


I appreciate that the technical detail may not be correct, it's not meant to be as it's just a humourous story to pass on in the pub with friends once we can finally go ashore with our pals and enjoy a few beers without fear of Covid.


I hope you enjoyed it, stay safe and stay well that is all :D

[Catfish]

:haha: I liked the story!

Wish you all the best, and stay safe :)

[Jimbuna]

I'll second the above :salute:

[Onkel Neal]

Thanks for that, glad to see you still around since 2004 :)

[ET2SN]

So, I checked with the OP and got the green light to share the following:

My first boat was the USS Barbel (SS580) and we were homeported in Sasebo, Japan (right across the bay from Nagasaki). At a time when most SSNs had a crew of 135 and a Senior Chief as the COB, we had a crew of 89 including FIVE Master Chiefs. :o While it was odd having a crew which was that top-heavy, a lot of it came down to location (we weren't in Yokosuka with the seventh fleet brass) and duty. There was still a lot of tradition and bragging rights on a US diesel boat once you got past the hardships and for a lot of the senior sailors there was the YOLO factor since the diesel boats were on their way out. Getting a duty assignment in Japan could also lead to some serious bending of the Navy rules without too much effort. Many guys went way beyond their sea tours by transferring between the Barbel and the USS Darter then transferring back. It was a lot easier to keep a guy in Japan than to send him back home.

Which didn't make life any easier if you are the Master Chief in charge of Aux Div and Damage Control, how do you get noticed by the skipper if being a Master Chief isn't really that big of a deal? :hmmm:

You build a portable pier-side damage control wet trainer. :yeah: Never mind that we don't need one or even want one, you just build it anyway.

And this one was a p#sser. Imagine an 8 foot length of 6 inch steel pipe, capped on one end with a solid plug and on the other with a main pressure valve and fitting for a fire hose. Underneath was a sturdy frame and wheels re-purposed from a large hand truck and grab handles so the trainer could be wheeled to any of the ships in port. The pipe also featured various types of leaks and out-right blow outs which were cut into it.

There were only a couple of problems. :salute: Like I said, the rest of us didn't need it and we also didn't want this thing screwing up our duty day.
All of us had at least two runs in the big wet trainer in Groton, and to be honest after two runs the adrenalin stopped and water felt a LOT colder.

The other matter was practical, if you knew for certain you were standing below decks watch on your duty day, you could just show up wearing your work uni and a semi-shined pair of shoes plus your ball cap. If you weren't sure, you also brought a set of working whites/working blues and maybe even your dress whites/dress blues plus two "Gilligan hats" and shined shoes in case you drew a topside watch while the sun was up. In other words, we didn't need to be stuck on board for a day with wet clothes. :timeout:

We got to see "the device" at various stages of its construction and were told of the wonders it could perform. Ten gallons per minutes? Maybe even more if the fresh water connection was stout. Finally, it re-appeared on the pier- resplendent in a flawless coat of Pea Green enamel with its own coiled fire hose and color coded valve handles. Word came out "the device" would be inspected by the skipper and members of the ward room prior to its christening under fire (or water, as it was) during Quarters On The Pier at 8 AM, sharp.

Then the sun went down...and "the device" stayed on the pier.

The next morning, I showed up and got into ranks. I nodded to my A-Gang buds and noticed that they seemed pre-occupied with staring at their shoes and trying not to smile. Could something be up? :hmmm:

The skipper, XO, and COB took their tour of "the device" and heads nodded and fingers pointed as the other Master Chief explained its magic and the rest of us stood at parade rest. Then, it was time. The hose was connected and charged and the Master Chief gripped the main pressure valve with resolve and turned it...


Remember when I said "the device" spent the night on the pier? :yep:

As it turned out, someone (and to this day I still don't know who) loaded the main pipe with SIX dye markers, which did their job as detailed on their spec sheet. To be honest, six dye markers was over-kill. One was plenty for a poor soul who had fallen over board and was hoping for an airplane to fly by, just to give you an idea of the carnage on the pier. :har:

[sonicninja]

:haha: :up:, as we say in the Royal Navy "A cracking dit", which translates as "A great story old boy" and thank you for sharing:salute: