So, I joined the Navy

The summer of 1962, I was 17; I had no summer job and wasn’t doing much except hanging out listening to Little Eva sing “Do the Locomotion” on the radio. My high school had suggested that we both were wasting our time and my father who figured I should find something to do with my life was bugging me to get on with it.

What the hell, I joined the Navy.

I remember taking that slow bus from the West Island into Montreal and walking up Drummond Street to HMCS Donnacona and signing on.

I spent a couple of weeks polishing brass and sweeping floors before they gave me a train ticket and shipped me and a bunch of other young guys off to Saint John New Brunswick then onto the ferry for the Fundy crossing to Digby, Nova Scotia.

I can’t imagine that anyone who went through the place has fond memories of HMCS Cornwallis. It was where every Canadian sailor who joined the Navy, between 1942 to 1994, went through his or her 16 week new entry basic training. It was pretty nondescript, with rows of white two story buildings stuck halfway between Digby and Annapolis Royal.

Cornwallis was no treat. The first thing they did, even before they gave us uniforms, was to give us all haircuts. This was no, “How would you like it cut?” kind of styling. They just cut it all off.

Whenever we were moving from place to place we had to go at the double. We even marched at the double.

We spent a lot of time on the parade square learning how to march in a straight line, were taught basic seamanship, handling small arms, self defence and a lot of other important, - and not so important - stuff. We learned how scrub floors, polish brass, make beds, to use a needle and thread to mead our own clothes and we learned how to polish our boots to a mirror finish.

It wasn't pretty but we got it done

Before it was done, we had to endure the dreaded assault course. It was your basic crawl in the mud under barbed wire, climb over tall walls, endure tear gas, scramble across rope bridges, fall into muddy water kind of course. Tough to endure but not impossible for a bunch of guys who had been running every where they went for the last three months.

After that we polished up our boots and brass, got our best uniforms on and marched in a straight line to impress the Commanding Officer, listened to the Navy Band play Hearts of Oak one more time and that was it. Done.

We learned to march in straight lines

I graduated from basic training just as the Cuban missile crisis unfolded. Everyone was tense. The class ahead of us was shipped off to sea immediately and we had all leave cancelled and they kept us at the base for a few extra weeks. It was pretty good actually. After enduring weeks of training we basically were kept less that busy at a few make work projects while they figured what to do with us.

Things calmed down, the Soviets backed off and they sent us off on Christmas leave with orders to report to HMCS Stadacona in early January in Halifax.

A Naval Adventure

After several months of ritual humiliation the armed forces calls basic training and after a  short time at the Naval land base HMCS Stadacona I was sent to serve on a Prestonian Class frigate, HMCS La Hulloise.

I remember turning up carrying my two kit bags across the quarterdecks of other frigates. My ship was the third one in. The La Hulloise looked well past its prime. In fact they all were. I had been hoping for a new destroyer escort and I wasn’t all that impressed. As it turned out the old bucket of bolts had quite a history.

Three frigates along side in Halifax

During the second world war it saw service pounding back and forth across the Atlantic, protecting convoys and on July 7, 1945 the La Hulloise along with two other Canadian warships, managed to sink German U-Boat 1302 in a depth charge attack in Georges Channel between Ireland and England. No mean feat considering how primitive the sonar was in those days.

Decommissioned after the war these old ships were eventually upgraded a bit and renamed Prestonian Class frigates in the 1950’s at put back into service.

So there I was, 18 years old, an Ordinary Seaman, un-trained and clearly at the bottom of the pecking order. We slept in the forward mess deck. Right above the sonar dome with its reeking smell of hydraulic fluid and the only thing between us and the pointy end was the paint locker which stunk of varsol and paint.

Not the most comfortable

We spend that first winter pounding around the North Atlantic, most of the time in anti-submarine exercises. So I spend hour upon hour in the small sonar room with old bakalite headphones on listening to the reverberations echoing back to us, hearing the odd whale and to my memory never ever hearing the echo of a submarine contact despite the restrictions we put on the old Royal Navy Submarines that were acting as targets.

The rest of the time we did other meaningful things, like gunnery practice which didn’t really involve me and of course we scrubbed floors, polished brass, painted and took part in other navel activities.

The officers did other important things like learning how to sail the ships in a straight line. Sometimes one after another and sometimes in a straight parallel line.

I remember one afternoon we were in the Gulf Stream north of Bermuda and our squadron commander was putting the junior officers through these important drills choreographing things from one of the other ships. The seas were really rough and the ships were pitching heavily. When the bow of the ship next to us would come through a wave and pitch up, we could see right under the bow, back as far as the sonar dome. No wonder it was tough to sleep at night. Our messdeck was above that dome.

I was on watch as the lookout, standing on the upper bridge, exposed to the elements. The officers were all in the lower bridge, inside keeping warm and drinking coffee.

From where I was I could see that the constant pounding was beginning to tear away at some of the metal shielding which protected the gearing on the mechanism which was used to haul up the anchor chain. I dutifully reported all this to those in charge below. The deck officer was summoned and he came up to where I was and surveyed the damage. He figured it had better be fixed quickly or even more damage would be done so, he summoned a few able seamen, the ship was turned so the waves were not coming head on and once we had stabilized, the crew along with the deck officer went up to the fosc’le to repair the damage as best they could and lash everything down.

Meanwhile the squadron commander, a pompous old begger, looked over and saw that our ship was no longer sailing parallel to the others. He immediately got on the ship to ship radio and tore a strip off the officer of the watch who panicked and immediately turned the ship back into the wind and told the engine room to put on a bit more speed to get us back in line as soon as possible.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. The revs on the prop cranked up and the ship turned to starboard. The bow rose high into the air and the fo'c'sle plunged down deep into the next wave.

When the spray cleared, there was no one on the forward end. I ran over and started yelling into the tube of brass that was our intercom system and we quickly turned back to port and a more stable course.

Incredibly no one went over the side. The deck officer was picked up and slammed into a bulkhead hurting his back and a couple of others were washed down the deck scrambling and grasping for anything to hold on to. That is the most frightening feeling. I know how they felt, it has happened to me a few years later. But, they were ok.

La Hulloise at sea

The last guy was slammed into and the force of the wave pushed him across the heavy gearing on the capstan. He was cut up, quite badly.

There were no doctors on those ships, just a medical assistant, a leading seaman with basic medical training and a knowledge of first aid. His advice to the captain was that we head for the nearest post and get our guy stitched up properly. The squadron commander said “No.” We were on important exercises.

That night in sickbay the injured and delirious seaman tore off his bandages and ripped out stitches. By mid day were turned south and steamed toward St Georges, Bermuda where our buddy was taken off by helicopter and rushed to the hospital in the American air base there.

I ran into him months later. He still was in quite a bit of pain and more than a little bitter. He left the navy after his first term was up.

There was no inquiry. I guess it was all put down to unpredictable seas. No one ever asked for my version of events and I am the only one who saw it all happen.

So don’t bother asking why I don’t have any faith in military leadership, why I seldom believe what they say and why I don’t trust them much at all.

Been there, Did that. Wasn’t impressed

I was a Sonarman

Sonarman Trade Badge

They did a lot of testing in basic training trying to figure out what skills or perhaps what potential we brought to the game. I guess I figured at some point someone would say "OK kid. What do you want to do"" It never occurred to me that  he Navy would just pick a trade for me.  Yes, that is right, I didn't decide what I might like to do once I went to sea, they did it for me.

It was like they had just given me a prize. "OK Ordinary Seaman Hunter, You are going to be a sonarman." They seemed a bit offended when I wasn't all that impressed.

So there I was sewing trade patches on my uniforms. A harpoon with a bolt of lightning? What the hell was that.

My first ship was built before the end of the second world was and although the ship had been refitted and upgraded the electronics were pretty primitive. 

What I did learn pretty quickly was that as a sonarman, particularly as an Ordinary Seaman I was primirily considered a seaman. Most of the work we did was physical. We painted, scrubbed decks, we spent time in the wheelhouse, served as lookouts, painted, handled the lines (ropes for you land lubbers) coming in and out of harbour. Did I mention painting and scrubbing decks. 

Once we were in exercises, where we were supposed to see if we could actually detect submarines, we were excused from most of the seaman work and spent our time closeted in the Sonar Control Room (SCR)   listening to the sound of fish and reverberations in our headsets.

I went from that old frigate to a couple of newer destroyer escorts with upgraded technology before I figured it out. The only way we could get locked on to a submarine was when they were so restricted in their movements that we bumped into them. 

I was on the wrong team.

So at some point, I switched,

I really liked submarines. Sure they could be cold and cramped but you can't spend your day painting the deck when you are under water.

So I adapted to passive sonar. We always knew where the surface ships were, we could tell when they got closer and you knew that we always had the upper hand.

Besides, a sonarman was always the surfacing lookout so we got the first shot of fresh air after being down for a while.

Standing Watch

In the navy generally when you are on duty you are “on Watch”. In harbour that means you have to be on board and cannot go ashore. Generally crews serve what we called, one in four, which means they are duty watch one day out of four.

The crew on duty works a regular day at their normal job but also is responsible for cleaning up the ship after supper, running any errands that have to be taken care of and acting as the quartermaster at the brow. It is like a security detail.

On ships at sea, since there has to be a crew up and taking care of running the vessel 24 hours a day. Crews work a rotating four hour watch system.

• 00:00 to 04:00 was the Mid watch 
• 04:00 to 08:00 was Morning 
• 08:00 to 12:00 the Forenoon 
• 12:00 to 16:00 was the Afternoon 
• 16:00 to 18:00 and 18:00 to 20:00 were the Dog watches 
• 20:00 to midnight was the First watch 

Depending on the task at hand it might be a one in four rotation or perhaps during exercises, a one in three. The exception was the dog watches, which were two hour watches between 16:00 and 20:00. The dog watches broke up the rotation so that you didn’t serve the same time every day.

Submariner Fred Shatz at the Helm,  Sentinel Magazine Photo

That is not to say that standing watch was all the work a sailor had to do. If the crew is standing a one in four watch system for example, if they are not “on watch” during the day, the crew still has to work at their normal duties. So, if for example, if a sailor was on watch from 04:00 until 08:00, after he had breakfast he would probably have to clean up the ship then work in their department or as a seaman the rest of the day, eat early and be ready to go back on watch at 18:00 until 20:00. That night they would get the only full night’s sleep in their rotation and back on duty at 08:00 the next morning.

On watch as seaman, which were bos’ns, sonarmen, weapons underwater and weapons surface, they would rotate through standing lookout, quartermaster on the bridge, spent some time in the wheelhouse and as the lifebuoy on the quarterdeck. There was usually a leading seaman who was in charge.

Radiomen, signalmen, stokers and radar ops were not seamen although they stood the same watch system. Cooks and stores men did not generally stand the same sort of rotation although there were night cooks, early cooks and late cooks.

In submarines it was a bit different. We used a three hour, one in three, watch systems but still kept the two hour dog watches in place. That meant you never got a full night’s sleep and you got pretty good at catching short naps whenever you could.

The North Atlantic in Winter

My first few trips at sea were pounding around the North Atlantic. I don’t think there is a colder, more miserable place, particularly for a seasick kid trying to get a bit of fresh air and keep warm at the same time. I spent a long time at funnel watch in those days.

Taking a bit of spray over the bow

Off Canada’s east coast the ocean is a dark green and winter skies are often overcast giving it all a dark grey look. As a kid growing up in Montreal, I had never seen anything like it. It was as if it was alive, always moving. Sea birds skimmed the surface always in seems calculating the wave’s next move. They certainly handled the whole thing better than we did.

We strung life lines so we could have something to hang on to as we moved from place to place on the upper deck and we would steam down into the troughs of those huge waves looking at the next growing swell.

Sometimes they were huge. I recall watching as the large tribal class destroyers we were working with, all but disappeared behind a large wave. Only the top of its mast was visible.

On lookout we were wet with spray most of the time as the bow of that old frigate dug into wave after wave. We’d dig in deep and the whole ship would shudder and shake before we climbed up on the next crest. The bow would actually come out right of the water then down we’d go again

When I was well enough to eat anything more than crackers just getting a meal was a chore. I can’t imagine having to cook in that weather. So, we’d stand in line with a tray load up as best we could that try to make our way to a table. We used to put a slice or two of bread under the trays and press them down to make them stick and keep them from sliding off the table.

The ordinary seaman’s mess was probably the worst spot on the ship. The only thing forward of us was the paint locker which reeked of paint and thinners. It was like trying to sleep on a carnival ride but not as much fun and without the bright flashing lights.

In retrospect I don’t know why I stayed. Pig headedness I suspect

Flying Fish

Heading south from Halifax after three days we’d be into the Gulf Stream. The water would turn from a grey-green to a kind of royal blue with clumps of seaweed from the Sargasso Sea floating on the surface and teeming with sea life. Once we saw the orange seaweed, we’d start to see flying fish.

Flying Fish

As a kid who grew up far from the ocean I’d heard of flying fish but I’d never seen one. I was excited.

I guess to be accurate, they don’t actually fly, they glide but, it is an impressive sight none the less. Just before takeoff, the fish swims quickly towards the surface, then burst into the air. Once airborne, the fish spreads its large pectoral fins which look like wings and glide just above the surface. Amazingly they can fly through the air for 30 or 40 metres. They do it to help escape from predators looking for lunch.

I’d stay up on lookout as long as I could in those days. I loved watching those fish gliding just above the waves, sometimes 10 or 12 of them at a time.

In Barbados they offer flying fish as a delicacy. I never tried it. It just didn’t seem right.

Up Spirits

When I joined the Royal Canadian Navy it was steeped in tradition, some of it going back to the days of sailing ships – the days of Wooden ships and iron men - most of it brought over from England’s Royal Navy.

Rum on board naval vessels goes back before the 1700’s and the tradition of offering all hands a tot of rum goes back to 1824. In making the tot official they brought down the amount issued each sailor from half a pint to 2 ½ ounces of pusser’s rum.

In case you were wondering, pusser is Royal Navy slang for a purser, a ship's supply officer. the word became naval slang anything that is was supplied by the Navy, Pusser's Rum is sometimes known as Nelson's Blood, in honor of Admiral Nelson, the famous and arguably the greatest of the Royal Navy commanders it history.

In the 1960’s the pusser’s rum was supplied by Lamb's  distilleries.

At six bells, the bos’n’s call would signal “Up Spirits." It was the end of work for the morning and with the call, everyone would head back to their mess deck, grab their mug and line up for their measure of rum. Everyone had their favorite mug or glass usually purloined from some bar.

It was a social time so for half an hour or so before lunch, we’d sit around the mess talking about where we were headed and telling stories about exploits ashore.

Rum was tradition but, it was also currency. Favours were paid back by offering a couple of tots, The bigger the favours, the more rum it was worth. Offering to take someone else’s duty watch while in a foreign port could cost you a week or two’s worth of your ration of rum.

 Me and Roger Laye somewhere in the tropics

Saving your rum was very much against the rules but, if you were crafty, it could be done. You had a choice but the process was, either take it down neat when it was issued, in front of the officer of the watch or, you had to mix it with coke. The trick was, as soon as the rum was poured into your mug, you turned to walk away quickly putting your thumb over the edge of the cup holding the Coke and pretending to pour it in. Then we’d save it.

After you had done this for a couple of days, and since dark navy rum was the same colour as Coke, you could simply begin to mix your saved rum with the new tot each day. In just over two weeks you could save a full bottle. A forty ouncer pussers rum was worth a lot.

For a guy like me, not much of a mid day drinker, this practice paid off in spades.

In the 1070’s the Navy was not so much looking for “iron men” as they were seeking out people who could operate and maintain the increasingly technical weapons systems. It is tough to work your way through the electronics after a couple of tots so he Canadian Navy stopped this tradition in 1972, the last Commonwealth to do so.

A Floating Service Station

Painting and Working on my Tan

In the 1960’s I spent quite a bit of time at sea on a couple of Restigouche class destroyer escorts. They were still pretty new at that point.  We called these more modern  upscale ships the Cadillacs.

Life at sea can be pretty routine, particularly when you just cruising and not engaged in any particular exercise.

I was a sonarman by trade but, if we weren’t trying to chase submarines, I spent most of my time working as a seaman. That meant spending time in the wheelhouse, or as lookout while on watch and the rest of the time was spent painting or supervising those who were.

From time to time we’d act as plane guard for our one and only aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure - our job was to cruise behind the carrier, ready to rescue any pilot who might miscalculate his landing and have to ditch. Watching the plane's "touch and Go" exercises helped to break the routine. Luckily enough no one miscalculated their landings while we were doing the job.

A real break from routine however was when we’d refuel at sea. During my time, our moving service station was usually the one “auxiliary oiler replenishment” ship we had, HMCS Provider, but depending what sort of exercises we were on, the refuelling ship might be American or British or French.

It was a challenging process, particularly in bad weather. The oiler would steam on a straight course usually into the wind which would reduce the roll and we would move in from the rear until we were parallel to the refueller.

We’d start by shooting a projectile over to the other ship with a line attached, then we would haul over heavier line, then a cable which would be attached to our midships. The fuel line would be attached to the cable and when the hose nozzle end was pulled across on the cable and secured; the tanker would start to pump fuel oil into our tanks.

Fuel Line half way there

That is when it could start to get complicated. Our skipper would have to make sure we stayed a perfect distance from the tanker. Too far and the nozzle would pull out, too close and there was a risk of collision. To judge distance we used a small thin line, stretched between the two ships, colour coded with tags every 10 feet or so the at a glance, the captain could tell how far the ships were apart. At some point, it was my job, along with a buddy, to keep that line taut.

So there we were, steaming along in fairly rough weather when the captain decided that it would be easier for him to see if the distance line, was on the foc’sle, instead of up near the bridge, where we were normally positioned.

Down we went, on to the pointy end, the deck officer, my buddy and I. At first things were going fine. I was standing, pretty much parallel with the gun, which is quite a way forward so the skipper could see us properly. My buddy was behind me making sure the slack didn't get tangled and feeding me the line.

Rough seas are unpredictable and I was concentrating on keeping the line tight so I didn’t really notice that the bow dig into the wave until I felt the ship shudder and the first thing I knew I was knocked off my feet by the wave and the water was washing over me, pushing me toward the side of the ship. I desperately reached out for anything to grab on to. At the last moment my hand found a cleat and I held on for dear life.

I think everyone thought I was gone. The deck officer was running for the man overboard alarm. My buddy who’d seen the wave coming had dived behind the gun. As soon as the water passed over me, I scrambled for protection too.

So it was back up by the bridge for us. We finished fuelling, No one said "Sorry there Gord" I found some dry clothes and it was back to the dull routine.

Occasionally people got wet

Check out the Jackstay Transfer link  
below  for a video

From time to time while at sea one ship might need to transfer something from another. It might be something as simple as mail, something they had run out of, or if a piece of machinery had broken, a spare part and occasionally
personnel.

In calm seas when time wasn't of the essence, the ships would meet at sea, one of them would lower the cutter and it would motor over to the other ship and the transfer would be accomplished that way. If they wanted to get it done quickly or if the seas were a bit too choppy, they used what was called a  jackstay transfer.

The process was much like the one used for refueling. A small line was thrown or shot over to the other ship, then a larger line was pulled over and the crew on both ships kept it taut, manually. Using a series of pulleys the gear to be transferred then secured to a net or a  container of some kind, then pulled over from one ship to the other.

When people had to be transferred they either sat on what was called a bosun's  chair, basically a plank attached at both ends with rope or stood with their feet in an eye tied in the rope and were hoisted up and transferred the same way. Occasionally people got wet.

An old style bosun's chair

Join the Navy and see the World

Who Could Resist?

I am not sure why I picked the Navy. Before I joined, I’d never even seen the ocean. Hell, I’d never even seen the Great Lakes but they had a pretty nifty uniform and who wouldn’t be drawn in by the saying, “Join the Navy and see the world” I know it worked for me.

It wasn’t all pretty girls and foreign ports. The first year included a Sea Cadet tour of Newfoundland, a visit to Sept Isle on the north shore of the St Lawrence and a brief stop in Boston. That was as exotic as it got and I frankly, was looking for more.

I started to lose heart but, things did get better. Most winters we got into Bermuda and after a few years we worked out of San Juan quite regularly in January and February.

We worked hard too.

In winter months the water off Canada’s coastline were so cold and the seas so rough that trying to conduct exercises was fruitless. We could be more productive working well into the Gulf Stream so we spent most of our time honing our skills in warmer water. If we weren’t engaged in some anti-submarine exercise or another, the gunnery guys were lobbing four inch shells at targets on the Island of Culebra, engaging in anti-aircraft exercises, were refuelling at sea or we were acting as plane guard as aircraft flew off Canada’s only carrier.

Each year Canada would send down the Cape Scott, an old supply ship that once tied up in San Juan, seldom went to sea, except when it headed back to Halifax. I few of the storesmen would spend the whole time working ashore in the American Navy dockyard making sure those of us at sea had the fresh food and supplies we needed..

The Rose Tattoo

One of those winters a few entrepreneurial supply guys opened, what I guess we could call a blind pig. I think it was called the Rose Tattoo if my memory hasn’t failed me completely. It had no licence, (they probably paid off the local authorities) a dimly lit back stair, few markings, they served cheap drinks, no one ever checked for ID and there were a few other things going on I probably shouldn't talk about..

They must have made a small fortune.

After a few years of heading south we knew our way around most of the sea ports in Caribbean. What parts of town we were welcome in and which we were not.
This was the day when there were still signs in some upscale spots saying, No dogs or Sailors Allowed and on the other end of the spectrum there were some parts of those town any sailor with a lick of sense stayed out of.

Perhaps my best year was 1966. We spent the better part of the winter in South America.

On the way to Argentina, sailing up the Rio de la Plata, we passed by where the German Battleship Admiral Graf Spee now lies. Damaged by gunfire from HMS Exeter and Ajax, and HMNZS Achilles in 1939 she was scuttled by her crew just outside Montevideo harbour.

It sound incredible but, saw my first totem pole that year in Canada Park while we were visiting Buenos Aires. I can't remember what the history behind it is but it is still there.

When we were in Rio de Janeiro the exchange rate was 7000 cruzeiro to the Canadian Dollar and the best exchange rate was on the street from the black market guys, not at the bank. It fluctuated up and down every day. I remember going to my locker one morning after a night on the town and finding that although I had a fairly large wad of bills in my pocket, I only had enough cash to buy a soft drink.

One day, in Bahia San Salvador in Brazil I was the Shore Patrol Leading Seaman and we were working out of a small police station. We were sitting on the front steps and watched as a small curious crowd gathered outside. We didn’t know better so were watching them, watching us.

The local police got a bit nervous about the crowd and told them to move on. When they didn't immediately they waded in with batons, picked a couple of people and beat them into submission. The crowd moved on and we learned a thing or two about police brutality.

It was a tough spot. As shore patrol we had a jeep and were out late and around the town. It was deceiving too. At some point a fight broke out between a couple of drunks and what had seemed like a deserted street was suddenly full of people. People who had been sleeping in alleys and under small shelters were suddenly awake and engaged with what was going on. There were parts of town we wouldn't even go.

We were looking for someone late and headed the jeep down hill on a dark street. About half was down as it got more dark and more narrow I gave up and ordered the driver to stop, back us up the hill and get us out of there. It was just too risky.

We spent that summer in Europe working in a NATO squadron in the North Sea and the English Channel.

HMCS Restigouche

To be perfectly honest I think the whole scheme was to show Europeans how our combined navies could work together and to show the flag. We did carry out exercises during the week but we spent every weekend in a different European or Scandinavian port.

On the way over we refuelled in the Azores a few tiny, but beautiful mountainous islands about 1600 kilometres off the coast of Portugal. We were given a few hours off to visit the town and we walked to town and wandered around the port. I remember the walkways along the waterfront were all made up in swirling patterns of mosaic tiles.

There wasn’t much to do except walk around and see the town but a good friend wandered off, found a bar and managed to miss the ship when we sailed. The police much have picked him up later, not hard to miss in navy whites I don't imagine and the authorities flew him on to meet us in England. I think he was pretty much grounded after that, his shore leave was cancelled and he missed most of those good ports of call.

This trip was my first visit to England and we tied up in the Naval dockyard in Chatham where Admiral Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, HMS Victory was constructed. In 1863.

A few buddies and I somehow managed to wangle tickets to the Trooping of the Colour, also known as the Queen Birthday Parade, in London. We took the train into the city in the morning. Wide-eyed, we were given access to a standing only section just in front of the British Prime Minister of the time Harold Wilson. We were impressed.

In Hamburg, then known as the Sin City of Europe we defied expectations and went to see the zoo. In a section set aside for animals unique to North America, saw my first buffalo.

Sure we did go the Reeperbahn, a street in Hamburg's St. Pauli district, one of the centres of Hamburg's nightlife and the city's red-light district. Unlike Amsterdam, this section of town extended only a couple of blocks and was restricted to people over 18 but, it was it set up the same way, with the girls sitting in windowed store fronts. We wandered around with our mouths open like the young, naive things we were.

Who can forget St Pauli Girl Beer?

It was quite a trip. We visited Scandinavia and spent time in Oslo, Copenhagen and Malmo. I never got ashore in Belgium, I must have been on duty watch and a week or so later we tied up in the Naval base in Brest, France. Before heading home to Canada we sailed north around the Faeroes then back down between the Isle of Skye and the mainland before refuelling in Northern Ireland and heading west to Halifax.

Crossing the Line

As ordinary seamen pounding around the North Atlantic with occasional visits to ports no more exciting that St. John's Newfoundland, we come to envy the old salts with their stories about sailing “across the pond”. We loved the stories about going ashore in Pompey (Portsmouth), to hear those stories about visiting “The Rock or sailing in “the Med”.

Sailors who had been to the Far East often got dragons sewn on the inside of the cuffs of their jumpers. When they were out having a few drinks they would roll up the cuff so you could see that they had been around.

Sailing “around the horn” was a big one. It was all about credibility

One of those milestones was “crossing the line” or sailing across the equator. There was even a ceremony.

The origins of this special event are apparently very old and hard to trace. Some claim that as early as 700 BC, those historically renowned sailors, the Phoenicians celebrated such crossings. Some claim that human sacrifice was a part of their ritual, to please the sea god and ensure a safe voyage. The present day dunking of initiates in water, still now an important feature of Crossing the Line ceremony, may even have its roots in the practice of tossing a sacrificial victim overboard at moments of danger.

Luckily things have loosened up a bit. Heading for Rio de Janeiro we crossed the line January 31st 1966. When we reached latitude 0000 and longitude 37.25w the captain stopped the ship and took time to initiate all the tadpoles, those who were crossing for the first time into “the solemn mysteries of the ancient order of the deep.”

Tradition called for an elaborate ceremony presided over by King Neptune, his queen and court, those parts being taken by crew members who had crossed before. A canvas tank was built on the quarterdeck and filled with water. One by one we tadpoles were ritually humiliated, slathered in whipped cream and shaved by one of King Neptune’s shellbacks, doused with pickle juice and dumped over backwards into the tank.

There was extra beer, a significant party atmosphere prevailed for a while, then we cleaned up and sailed on for the horse latitude to our south.

Those MTBs Would Scare the Hell Out of You

Den Helder has been the site of a naval base as early as the 18th century. The docks were built during the early 1800’s and in 1947, it officially became the Royal Netherlands Navy's main centre of operations.

We spent a few days there in 1966 while working with a NATO Naval Squadron. It was a great spot, lots of good beer in town and a quick train ride from Amsterdam.

Tied up in the dockyard and close by were about half a dozen West German Motor Torpedo Boats. (MTB) At least, that is what we called them, although they might have been fast costal patrol boats for all we knew. No matter what their official designation was, they were dark, sleek and low with an open bridge. When they fired up the engines the roar was pretty impressive. These boats were all power.

We played cat and mouse in the English Channel with those MTBs for a couple of days. They headed out before us, we followed an hour or so later. It was pretty rough sailing. The water around that past of the Netherlands is quite shallow and in strong seas that causes a heavy swell.

The first day it was simply too rough for those guys so as we headed out, they were on their way back to Dan Helder. Rough or not they didn’t let up much. They ploughed through the big swells covered in spray and hanging on tight on that open bridge.

When we met these guys next it was a pitch black night and there is always a lot of traffic in that stretch of water. Their job was to try and sneak up on us and launch a practice attack before we could lock onto them with our armament.

They were good. 

The MTBs would sidle up, tight by the stern of a merchant vessel, so the radar images would blend into one, turn off all their running lights and when we reached our closest point of passing by the merchantman the MTB engines would roar into life and the boat would surge forward with incredible speed and they would carry out practice torpedo runs on us.

I remember standing lookout on the port side when suddenly out of the black I heard the roar of their diesel engines, a shape, and then their wake and they’d be gone.

You could cut the tension in the operations room with a knife. The radar plotters would call any unidentified ship, a “skunk” and keep track of them alphabetically. So they would report, “Skunk kilo, bearing 135, 3 miles, closing at 10 knots, closest point of approach ½ mile.” Then skunk Lima and so on.

When the MTB made its move you could hear the tension in the plotter’s voice. “New skunk, new skunk, ½ a mile, bearing 135 closing fast at 50 knots” then they’d be gone. 

They moved like those cigarette boats smuggler’s use today. Fast, fast fast. I know they impressed the hell out of me.

An Incident in the North Sea

One very calm and foggy morning we were scheduled to engage with the West German Luftewaffe in some sort of anti-aircraft warfare exercise. I was working on the foc’sle when two German F-104 jets flew low and over the bridge in tight formation. Minutes later we felt the ship start to shudder as we suddenly increased speed and turned hard to starboard and headed off in the direction the jets had flown in. Our small work party moved off the bow to a more sheltered location as we picked up speed.

It wasn’t long before we got the word. The aircraft had apparently collided in the fog and they both went down into the North Sea. We were closest ship and we moved quickly into the area hoping that one or both pilots had managed to eject.

We spent the day and long into the night cruising slowly inside the proscribed area searching unsuccessfully for survivors or failing that for debris that could help pin point the cause of the crash.

The seas were dead calm and there were a whole lot of things floating around in the North Sea. What we called flotsam and jetsam.

Several time during the day we sent swimmers out to try to identify and recover debris.

That night around 10:00 the lookout spotted something floating and we circled around and stopped near by. A crew member, a friend of mine, was sent out in a wetsuit, dispatched to recover whatever it could be. It was eerie, there were still patches of fog, it was pitch dark and our ship’s search lights we trained on something yellow floating off our port quarter. I remember thinking about how it must feel to be swimming out, alone, away from the safety of the ship having no idea what you might find out there. The rest of us stood around the quarterdeck waiting to help recover whatever it was, all of hoping is wasn't a body. In the end it turned out to be a slightly charred rubber life raft. We found nothing else.

The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was an American built single-engine, high- performance, supersonic interceptor aircraft It was the first combat aircraft capable of sustained Mach 2 flight, and its speed and climb performance remain impressive even by modern standards, however the aircraft had an appalling safety record. The Germans alone lost 110 pilots to accidents and shortly after this incident the Luftwaffe commander grounded all flights for a while and eventually they were all replaced.

A Story or Three About Boats

For those of you who might be confused by my terminology a ship is never a boat, unless it is a submarine, which is always a boat and never referred to as a ship.

But...ships have boats. Big ships have life boats, remember the Titanic? The ships I was on had a couple of them which were mainly used in case we had to rescue someone or if we were anchored they could provide transportation ashore.

We had what we called a whaler and a larger cutter. The whaler would normally be rowed by 6 seamen or in certain circumstances it could be rigged to sail. The cutter had an engine so generally, was a lot more fun.

Sailing with the Whaler in France

I remember while I was on HMCS Restigouche we were tied up at a naval base in Brest, France where the Germans built massive submarine pens during WWII. There wasn’t a great deal to do ashore so a group of us, all sonarmen, decided to take the whaler for a sail across the bay.

An Old Navy Whaler Under Sail

It was a beautiful day with light, but steady winds and we sailed a few miles across to a small jetty a mile or so from a small French village. A couple of the guys walked into town for some wine and we ate lunch in the shade of an old castle ruin. Beautiful.

After, we all walked into town and practiced our French at a local bar.

Late afternoon we headed back across the bay. It was a  pretty uneventful crossing until we got close to the breakwater protecting the harbour. It was then when we realized that the senior guy who was acting as the cox’n was suffering from having a bit too much wine and perhaps too much sun. It took him a couple of unsuccessful tacks before get us properly aimed into the harbour and as luck would have it there wasn’t much traffic and we managed not to hit anything.

When we pulled alongside the ship, someone threw us a line, he reached up to grab it and over he went, into the harbour.  We hauled him out, helped him up the ship’s ladder and properly secure the boat ourselves.

Coming Alongside HMCS Resitgouche

Dodging Ice Flows

In Canada’s centennial, 1967, we spent most of the year "showing the flag" visiting Canadian ports and giving people a chance to come aboard the ship for a look around.

I spent that year, in charge of the boats.

We were anchored in the Bay of Chaleur, I can’t remember why but we probably had some time to kill before the next visit. I thought it would be a good time to give the cutter a bit of a run so I got a small crew together – a stoker to run the engine and an able seaman to come along for the ride - and off we went.

It was spring so there were small patches of ice floating around. As practice we were trying to come alongside these ice flows as gently as possible. As cox’n, I controlled the tiller but had to rely of the stoker to control the engine. I had to use a small whistle to do that. I can’t remember how the system worked exactly but it was something like, one blast of the whistle for go, two for stop and three for astern.

The Cutter in th Bay of Chaleur

It was going fairly well but, from time to time we’d run up on the ice and it would break under our weight and we’d move on. That seemed like fun so it became a game. we started running up on to the ice on purpose. We were having a great time until we found ourselves lodged firmly onto a piece of ice which must have been much stronger than the others. We tried full astern, we tried rocking the boat and for what seemed like a very long time nothing worked and we  began to drift farther and farther away from our ship. Of course we had no radio and even if we did I can't imagine the embarrassment if I had to explain how I had become to be on top of the ice.

Eventually all three of us climbed onto the rotting ice flow and rocked the boat from side to side until she came free. We all hopped back in hardly getting wet at all. At that point, we figured perhaps the best plan might be to headed back. So we did hoping no one had been keeping a close eye on us with binoculars.

Showing Off at Expo 67

That same summer, my friend Fred on HMCS Fraser, was working with the same responsibilities I had. Like many ships in the Canadian Navy that summer the Fraser visited Expo 67 and tied up in Montreal's Bikerdike Basin, inside the fair grounds.

When you were responsible for the boats you had to take them out from time to time to keep the engines tuned and to make sure there were no other issues with them. So, it being a warm summer afternoon, Fred took the cutter for a run. The Fraser had been through a refit not long before and he had a brand new fibreglass cutter with a one man control panel which did away with the old whistle system. A big improvement.

Travelling back and forth in the Basin  he attracted quite a crowd of Expo visitors. It is not that often they got a chance to watch their Navy at work. Fred put on quite a show. They were impressed.

When the time came to bring the cutter back to the ship he intended show the tourists the cutter's impressive maneuverability. His plan was to bring her in at top speed, put the transmission into reverse and neatly swing the cutter alongside the stern. That would dazzle everyone.

Just about there, he pushed the control, missed full astern and dropped the engine into neutral. The cutter raced ahead a full throttle and rammed into the Fraser and throwing Fred right on his rear end. Even when he managed to regained his feet and tried to throw a line up to the sailors on deck to he could tie up, they were laughing so hard they couldn’t catch it.

When he finally got everything secured, he took a close look at the cutter. It turns out they were pretty strongly built. Not a scratch. He could hardly say the same about his dignity.

Centennial Naval Assembly

We were the second ship in from the left. The submarine is to the far right

As a part of Canada’s 100th anniversary celebrations the Navy held what they called the Centennial Navel Assembly. That is a fancy name for inviting quite a large group of ships and having them all tie up to buoys in the harbour in three straight lines. Nothing like a Centennial to encourage Navies to show off.

For those of us on ships at that time it was a real pain in the rear end. Being stuck out in the middle of the harbour was a nuisance. It made it tougher for those who wanted to get home at night adding the problem of shuttling everyone back and forth.

One evening the Restigouche played host to a cocktail party, a fancy event, with quite a crowd of dignitaries invited. As the person in charge of the boats it was my job to ferry everyone back and forth.

Everything started off smoothly enough. My first task was to go over to a Columbian ship, the A.R.C. Almirante Pidilla and ferry the captain back over to our ship. Other than mangling the ship’s name when I brought the captain alongside the accommodation ladder, things went fine.

The only problem was that as the evening went on, what was a few fog patches was turning into heavy pea soup fog. The deck officer, in his wisdom, had locked the portable compass in his cabin and there was no way I could get my hands on it.

My next task was to head to the dockyard on the Halifax side and pick up a group of dignitaries and their partners. I made it over to that side of the harbour and followed the shore until I got to where I was to pick up my group. I was pretty familiar with the dockyard and I managed without too much difficulty.

The fog was getting thicker.

We boarded everyone and I tried to pretend that I was confident about our trip out to the ship. I could hardly see a thing. We went slowly along the shore until the point where I felt lined us up best with where the Restigouche was moored. I headed out into the harbour.

I was going pretty slowly, all the Canadian ships were in the centre row and I would have to go under one of the other ships’ anchor cable which was secured to the mooring buoy. Never missing an opportunity to impress, all the cables had been painted white which of course didn’t give them the best visibility.

The whole process seemed to me to be taking much longer than I thought it would. As I stared into the fog I saw a red light which made no sense to me what so ever. As I got closer I realized it was a light at the end of an old pier. I thought I’d somehow made my way over to the Dartmouth side of the harbour.

I was very confused but steered the boat along by the pier looking for landmarks until I recognized the edge of the Navy dockyard. I had managed somehow to make a slow circle and I was back, not more than a few hundred metres from where I started.

I turned the boat back into the harbour again and this time managed to steer a straight line, slipped under the anchor cable, found the Restigouche and my passengers disembarked.

All I had to do now was get them home safe and sound at the end of the evening.

I managed to do that without getting lost but at the end when everyone was back where they belonged, except for us of course, I managed to once more get us off course.

We were heading back after that last run and again things were taking longer than they should. As we continued to head into the dark and the fog we started to feel a slow long swell. Either a large ship had just last by too close for comfort or we were headed out toward the ocean. I knew we weren’t far off track but we hadn’t a clue where we were.

Then there was a bit of a breeze, the fog lifted just enough and we made out the black shape of a submarine,   the Auriga, a British “A” boat assigned to the Canadian Navy before we took possession of our own boats.

That made it easy. We knew the boat was the last vessel in the line of Canadian ships and all we had to do was find the next one and we could follow the line back to our ship.

And Then There was the Training

To be good well rounded sailors, as well as our trade training, we all were expected  to pick up a number of other skills.

I spend a night wandering around the scrub on McNab's Island on the approached to Halifax Harbour. We were supposed to be an assault team of some sort. As I recall the exercise didn't work all that well and we were "killed" before we had much of a chance. I was hard to take some of this stuff seriously. We were seamen for God's sake not commandos.

More fun than firecrackers

I was also trained in demolition.

We sat around in a group arming and putting the fuses into hand grenades. It is a fairly simple process, you unscrew the bottom of the grenade, take a fuse out of the secure container and carefully slip it into the opening in the bottom, then screw the bottom back on. Ready to go. I was fine about it until I saw the guy beside me's hands shaking so much he could hardly get the fuse into the hole it was supposed to fit into. "Bloody hell, don't drop the damn thing." we thought.

I worked with plastic explosives, blew up things with 10- pound charges and had fun throwing the hand grenades we had armed earlier. "Jesus buddy, you are supposed to throw it a lot further than that" we said when the charge went off a lot closed than we'd like.

The navy trained us how to fight fire. We were taught to move close into the flames using a fine spray. We had to feel our way through a mock up ship's compartment wearing breathing apparatus and put out a fire in the corner with smoke so thick we could hardly see our hands in front of our faces.

It certifies that I suffered through
the tear gas chamber without
the use of a protective mask

It was time of increasing civil disobedience, particularly with the anti-war movement in the USA so we were taught crowd control. Some of it is a bit too too familiar, watching the cops during the G-20 in Toronto this summer. Much to my relief, we were never called upon. Halifax was a pretty quiet place.

Part of all that was learning about tear gas. We had to learn to use gas masks and work outside and within in confined spaces with thick tear gas smoke. Then they would make us go through the smoke house without our masks. We'd come out coughing and gasping for air, eyes burning.

It was so we knew what we were doing to people if we ever were told to use it, or if anyone used it on us.

Quite a mix of skills thinking back. I'm glad I never had to use any of them

Spy Ships

The 1960’s was right at the peak of the cold war. Taking a look at the US military presence in Europe and figuring, what is good for the goose must be good for the gander, the Soviet Union tried to set up a ballistic missile base in Cuba. That caused no end of tension but, after a bit of sabre rattling on both sides which included a naval blockade, the Soviets backed off and things went back to, what was then normal.

.Looking back things really seem a bit surreal. Tensions ran high, in a fit of pique, Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party took off his shoe and banged the table in a speech to the United Nations, At a Moscow world fair he spared with Tricky Dickie Nixon famous kitchen debate. People built fall out shelters in case of Nuclear attack and every town and city in the country saw warning sirens erected in neighbourhoods.

One of the Canadian Navy’s roles was to keep tabs on the “enemy”.

The soviets launched a very large fishing fleets in both the Atlantic and Pacific. They operated, not that far off our coasts. So, at any point in time there was a large soviet presence on the Grand Bank, big stern trawlers and smaller fishing boats that worked with large factory ships. They were big and grey with a gold hammer and sickle on a red funnel. There is no question, they were fishing but the array of antennas on many of the ships was the tip off. They served a dual role. Sure they fished but, they were also working as spy ships.

Besides fishing their job was to monitor communications traffic, to keep an eye on what Western Block navys were up to and to record signature engine and prop noise from both submarines and surface ships.

When we were on exercises in the North Atlantic they often hung around watching what we were up to, sometimes purposely getting in the way. We moved in dangerously close to their ships and their nets. We watched them. They watched us.

I remember when I was in Submarines, quietly moving at periscope depth, through their fleet, taking photographs. I never really saw the point but, I guess if you understood that kind of thing, you could tell what each ships’ capability was, by having a good look of their antennas.

They were pretty much banned from Canadian ports unless they had mechanical or medical problems that couldn’t be fixed at sea. When they did come into port provided no end of speculation as to their role. There was tight security but despite all that the odd fisherman defected.

Eventually our enemy became our friend and the fishing fleets diminished as did the Grand Bank’s cod and the world is paranoid about a whole other area of the world.

I decided to Try Submarines

I am top right. Hector Brokenshire who convinced
me of this adventure is top left

In a whole lot of ways 1967, Canada’s Centennial was a great year. Outside of our proverbial January/February trip to the Caribbean, exercises were kept to a minimum and most of the time was spent showing the flag. We didn’t mind that kind of low stress activity at all. We were sent to Expo 67 for a while and we spent a great deal of time visiting Canadian ports, large and small and for most of them it wasn’t all that often a Destroyer Escort came to visit. Town put on events for us and people bought us drinks. All was good.

Early fall things took a turn. We knew that some of the crew were off sick and as a result the whole crew had to get blood work done. Imagine my surprise when I was called down to sickbay one morning only to be told that half a dozen of us had tested positive for hepatitis A. They trotted us all off to the naval hospital and kept us for almost 6 months. I never felt sick the whole time.

After being released from hospital they decided I should be on light duties for a while so I did what seemed like useless tasks at the land base HMCS Stadaconna. One afternoon after a few months of this, a buddy dropped by my wicket, I was issuing meal tickets or some other mundane job. He told me he was thinking about volunteering for the submarine service and encouraged me do it with him.

I was bored and needed a change of pace so it all sounded like a great idea.

The first thing was to convince the medical staff that I was fine and should be put back to work classified as healthy. They agreed. I was sent back to my ship and I applied.

After several months and a battery of tests and interviews I finally got the word that I was accepted.

We were told later that 75 people had applied. They accepted 10 of us. Nine made it through.

So they taught us the basics, the history, the terminology and how things worked technically.

After graduation, the original suggestion was that I get shipped off to Chatham England to join HMCS Okanagan which was still being built, but in the end I was sent to the Onondaga.

So there I was again, a greenhorn again. The space was cramped, everything had that distinct submarine smell - diesel and hydraulics, we used passive instead of active sonar and the equipment was completely different. I didn't have a clue but, the food, crew and the attitude were great. I knew I'd fit in.

All in a Day's Work

When I was in the Navy, we were right in the middle of the cold war. I was in basic training during the Cuban Crisis. Soviet bloc ships could only visit Canadian ports if they needed repairs or for medical emergencies etc. Russian Whiskey and Golf Class missile carrying submarines patrolling off the coast and there was some tension in the air.

"O" Boat from the Starboard Quarter

The role Canada’s Navy played was pretty much focused on anti-submarine warfare. Our role, as Canada’s submarine service was twofold. We spent some time trying to figure out what those soviets were doing and the rest of the time we played target, so as to train those surface ship crews how to catch submarines.

No matter what were up to, it was all about stealth. Our “O” Boats were very quiet submarines. If we didn’t want to be found, it was tough to find us.

If we were going from point “A” to point “B” we often travelled on the surface. We could make better time that was although in choppy seas, submarines tend to roll quite a bit and it wasn’t our favourite way to travel.

Once we dove, the game changed. Things settled easily into a routine. We tried as best we could to become invisible.

The thing about being submerged was that you were pretty much out of touch with the rest of the world. At periscope depth we could communicate back and forth but any transmission made by us could reveal that we were out there and possibly almost exactly where we were. So we mostly picked up messages and instructions at set times and kept outgoing radio transmissions to a minimum. When we were deeper we were pretty much out of touch, most of the time.

The way around all that was to use a very low frequency receiver which, when necessary, could be put into service. In my experience it wasn’t used very often.

The ALK receiver was housed in an underwater buoy, which was housed within a compartment under the after casing. When it had to be used, at a prearranged time we would open large doors in the casing and the receiver/buoy, which was attached to a long cable on a spool was played out until it floated up near the surface. When you had received your messages, it would be spooled back into its spot, the doors were shut and that was that. It was cumbersome and heavy. It also reduced your manoeuvrability while the buoy was played out.

The ALK Buoy in Operation

On exercises in the Caribbean one year, arrangements had been made for us to use the buoy during an elaborate war game we were involved in. Things were going well until on one occasion halfway through the procedure we were detected by something on the surface. I can’t remember of it was an aircraft, a helicopter or a surface ship but, whoever it was, we had to skedaddle pretty quickly.

The attempt to pick up messages was abandoned, we started evasive manoeuvres and at the same time trying to spool the buoy back down to the boat and into its housing.

We thought we had managed, we got the doors shut and got away but after that, we started to hear an occasional banging noise from outside the submarine, which is never a good sign.

Later in the day, as the sun was getting low in the sky and with the coast clear, we surfaced. As it turned out, the buoy hadn’t seated properly and was sitting outside the doors being pulled along on a very short tether.

What to do? The damn thing was very heavy and we could hardly cut it loose. It probably cost a small fortune.

I was part of a group of about half a dozen of us who, wearing life jackets climbed out and onto the after casing. It was a beautiful, warm, tropical evening and I remember the sea was such a deep blue. It seemed like a very big ocean and we were pretty small. Not another vessel in sight.

The doors were reopened and the tether played out letting the buoy float a few metres away from the boat. One of the divers got into his wetsuit and swam out so he could try to get a line attached to the buoy and manoeuvre it back and into place. We pulled and he pushed and when we got it close, the skipper submerged the after part of the submarine until we were up to our chests in water.

For more info try the link to your left

This tricky and delicate operation made worse by the fact that as we were wrestling with this cumbersome contraption, there were several Portuguese Man of War floating all around us. These pretty, but lethal buggers can cause real problems for humans who come in contact with them so push and pull as we might we had to keep watching for them out of the corner of our eye.

With the stern under water the buoy was very slowly reeled in and manoeuvred it into place. When it was just right, the skipper blew main ballast. The rear of the boat resurfaced and the buoy slipped into place and they closed the doors.

We climbed back down into the boat to find dry clothes and to eat our supper which had gone cold. All in a day’s work.

In an "O" Boat Snorting

The Donks

I suppose pretty much everyone knows that diesel electric submarines use a snorkel so they can charge their batteries without surfacing. From those black and white, World War Two, war at sea movies, to later films like Run Silent Run and classics like Das Boot, people watched the snorkelling sequences without completely thinking about what was going on. It is a simple process, and then it isn't

First. let me clear up some terminology issues.

• Submarines aren't ships, they are boats. The submarines I was on were British built, Oberon Class Submarines. We called them “O” boats.

•  It may be snorkeling but, we called it snorting, so that big snorkel to us was the snort mast. 

• Diesel engines were called donks.

On  the "O" boats, which were diesel electric submarines, the propulsion system was run with batteries. Heavy banks of huge batteries but, just like those made by Excel, they run down and have to be recharged periodically. That was what the diesel engines were for.

To run a big diesel you need air, lots of air so, if the donks were running we either had to be on the surface, or snorting.

The whole point of having a submarine is to be able to operate unseen, and un-heard so when we snorted, we were at our most vulnerable. The "O" Boats were the most quiet running diesel electric submarines ever made. Every single piece of equipment was mounter on rubber cushions. The electric propulsion motors were very quiet but snorting, those donks would alert anyone who was listening for miles around that we were there. The masts were a target for radar, albeit a small one and the smoke from the exhaust could give us away in bright moon light nights. Submariners preferred to be deep and silent.

If we were on exercises and tryng not to be found, the process worked like this, and it was usually at night.

An O Boat at Periscope Depth

Before any move was made the sonar operators were asked to take a very close listen for propeller noise or any other suggestion that  surface traffic that might be around. If it was clear, the skipper would bring us up to about 65 feet. Up went the periscope and he took a quick 360 look around. If that was clear up went the electronic countermeasures mast and the operator scanned for any radar signals in the area or radio transmissions that might indicate that we were not alone. Assuming everything was ok,  the snort mast was next and the donks were fired up.

It was tricky. As you can imagine the helmsman had to have a very steady hand and pay close attention to our depth. If the seas were choppy it could be a tough job.

I remember cruising north through a tropical storm so violent that we could still feel the roll at a depth 200 feet. It was no picnic trying to snort.

Two huge diesel engines draw a lot of air when they are running so, we’d get up to the surface, stabilize as best we could then start up those engines. The air pulled down that snort mast created quite a wind down the passageway and just when we would  start to charge the batteries big wave would come over the mast, water would come down the air passage and the flap valve would slam shut and the donks would start to suck the air out of the boat. The guys in the engine room would work to shut the donks down as fast as they could and we’d all be clearing our ears like mad.

Once everything was reset, we’d equalize the pressure in the submarine with the outside and we’d do it all over again.

In the forward mess our old vacuum Silex coffee maker relied on the pressure created by the boiling water to push the hot water up into where the ground coffee was. It was meant to then be pulled back down into the pot as the pot cooled and brew the coffee. If that flap valve shut during the coffee making operation, the atmospheric pressure in the boat would change and there was no way we could get the hot water back down into the pot and we’d have to start over.

We liked the fresh air but as you might imagine in January in the North Atlantic that air was pretty cold and in the tropics it could be hot and humid. It was loud too. Two donks running full out and you could hardly stand even walking through the space. The only way the guys in the engine room could talk to each other was through a wireless system tied into the ear protecting headsets they wore.

If the weather was good it was a pretty straight forward operation and we might snort for some time, even after the batteries were at full charge. In cases like that we would "float the load" only putting in as much power as the batteries were using to run the electric motors.

The next time you go snorkeling, exploring a reef of just looking at the fish.. Take a moment to think about the submariners over the years and those sometimes hectic nights at sea.