With the imminant release of our latest title The Dawn of the Drone, we present an extract written by Professor Archibald Low for his book The Submarine at War, which presents his sincere thoughts on submarines and the remarkable men who pilot them. This extract features in the recent title The Submarine Commander Pocket Manual.
How do the men in a submarine spend their time? Sleeping, reading, eating, and working. They sleep more than most men when on patrol, partly perhaps out of boredom, partly because there is no possibility of much movement in the submarine and “lying down” is the most comfortable position. They are ready, of course, for instant action at any time and turn straight from their beds to duty; as a rule, they have only a pace or two to go. Conditions in modern submarines are infinitely better than in the little A, B, and C class boats; there is no doubt that increased comforts, although these are only comparative, make for greater efficiency and longer cruises. The conditions are quite unlike those of any other boat, for here you have from 30 to 60 men enclosed in a small space with no possibility of getting away from each other even if they wanted to do so. The absence of daylight means that one day slips into another and time moves at varying speeds. Another interesting point is the silence when the submarine submerged. In most parts of the boat, only the faint hum of the motor can be heard when it is turning, and for hours the boat may simply rest on the bottom without making any sound at all.
The crew of the submarine are in the most dangerous trade in the world; the Navy sometimes calls the submarine service “the trade.” At the time of writing, during the “Axis” war, the loss has been announced of some twenty-two British submarines. Britain began the war with fifty-eight submarines. This is a measure of the hazards of the service, more dangerous, perhaps, than even torpedo-aircraft. The submarine has been a dangerous vessel from the beginning, at first because of the inefficiency and uncertainty of its controls, later because of the improved methods of attack to which it is subject. These methods have been still further improved since the Great War; the Germans lost more U-boats in the first 10 months of the 1939 war than in any year of the great war from 1914 to 1918.
Bearing this in mind it is remarkable that there had never been lacking volunteers for submarines; the service is entirely voluntary. It is a curious fact that in civilised countries all the more dangerous jobs are voluntary. The submarine crew does not, moreover, enjoy any of the physical exhilaration experienced by the pilot of a fighter aircraft; in most cases, only one of the whole crew will ever see the target which is being attacked. Even if there were no danger attached to the work, it is most exhausting because of the physical conditions imposed by a closed vessel operating underwater. These facts apply equally to the submarine crews of Germany has to Britain.
The character of Low, his mavrick team of back-room boys, and the unmanned vehicles they designed are explored in-depth in The Dawn of the Drone, which can be pre-ordered at the Casemate UK website. Avaiable July 2019.
Follow