Edmund Schweppe

I can't really call this a "happy" birthday, given some of the rotten news I've commented about elsewhere, but today is the 107th Submarine Force Birthday:

On April 11, 1900, the U.S. Navy acquired its first submarine, a 53-foot craft designed by Irish immigrant John P. Holland. Propelled by gasoline while on the surface and by electricity when submerged, the Holland served as a blueprint for modern submarine design. By the eve of World War I, Holland and Holland-inspired vessels were a part of large naval fleets throughout the world.

(from the Library of Congress' American Memory page for April 11)

May the upcoming year be better for the Submarine Force - and for all the Armed Services - than the last one.

An explosion on board HMS Tireless has killed two Royal Navy submariners and injured a third; oxygen generation equipment is suspected as the cause. From the BBC:

Two British sailors have died in an accident on a nuclear submarine.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed there had been an explosion on HMS Tireless during an exercise under the Arctic icecap at 0420 GMT on Wednesday.

One other member of the crew of the Devonport-based submarine was injured and is receiving medical treatment.

Failed air-purification equipment is thought to have caused the explosion. The MoD expressed its "deep regret" and said an inquiry would be carried out.

My first thought upon reading this was that they'd suffered an explosion in the electrolytic oxygen generator - a piece of equipment that takes in deionized water and splits the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. We called that particular piece of gear "the bomb" for obvious reasons.

However, an official US Navy press release stated that "a self contained oxygen generation candle" exploded. I'm not quite sure how one gets an oxygen candle to explode - they give off heat and oxygen, but it's a purely chemical reaction and I can't imagine how to speed it up enough to go boom. OTOH, if there was oil or grease on the candle when it was lit, the combination of heat, oxygen and fuel might have been enough for a flash fire. (Remember the ValuJet crash back in 1996? That one was caused by oxygen generators going off in the same cargo bay as a bunch of rubber tires.)

Worse still, this incident occurred while Tireless was under the ice. The crew was very fortunate that they were able to find a thin spot in the ice and surface quickly. Casualties under the ice are right up near the top of the Really Bad Things list.

As reported in the Navy Times:

NORFOLK, Va. — The attack submarine San Juan lost communications with the outside world for several hours late Tuesday night and early Wednesday, prompting a search effort for what the Navy thought was a downed submarine, according to the Naval Submarine Force Command in Norfolk.

At the time of the incident, the Los Angeles-class submarine, based in Groton, Conn., was operating with the Enterprise Carrier Strike Group off the southeastern coast of the United States.

Because the Navy maintained communications with two other subs in the area and observers spotted a red signal flare, commanders believed the San Juan had gone down. They began search-and-rescue missions, alerted the International Submarine Escape and Rescue Liaison Office and notified crew members' families about the possibility of a lost submarine, officials said.

One of the scariest scenarios for a submariner is having some sort of casualty that leaves your boat on the bottom, incommunicado. [1] There are rescue craft available, but somebody needs to (a) realize you're missing and (b) figure out where you are before the rescue effort can get started. That can take an awfully long time. Kudos to the Enterprise strike group for jumping on the ball smartly.

OTOH, the fact that the statement about "lost communications" makes me curious. Was there a scheduled check-in that San Juan's crew missed? Were they supposed to be guarding a radio channel via their floating-wire antenna? I suspect there won't be any public announcement, unless it turns out that the San Juan's crew screwed the pooch somehow and the Navy relieves the skipper for cause.

[1] Of course, if the bottom is below the boat's crush depth, rescue is pretty much not an option. In that case, though, the crew will be dead almost instantaneously, so they won't have any agonizing wait for rescue...

As I noted on the 30th, two Submarine Force Sailors died when they were washed overboard as their ship, USS Minneapolis-St Paul (SSN 708) was sailing out of Plymouth, England. It wasn't clear to me at the time why anybody would be out on the hull in rough waters. I'd seen some other submarine bloggers speculate that they were rigging topside for dive, but that didn't really make sense to me - if you're in waters open enough for heavy seas to build up, you should have already secured pretty much everything there is to secure topside except the bridge itself.

However, the Stars and Stripes reports that according to a local constabulary spokesman, a British harbor pilot was still on board the submarine at the time of the accident. If the crew still had the pilot onboard, it does make sense that they'd need a party topside to help transfer the pilot off to the pilot boat. In fact, that's just about the only reason I can think of to have anybody topside at all.

One of the two sailors who died was the Chief of the Boat - the senior enlisted man in the crew, equivalent to a command sergeant major in other services. Had I stayed in the service - and had I stayed enlisted - that's probably the job that I'd have had right about now. Somber-making thought, that is...

Two submarine Sailors died today after falling overboard from the USS Minneapolis-St Paul (SSN 708) as she was steaming out of Plymouth, England:

Two crew members of an American submarine have died after falling overboard in Plymouth Sound.

They were among four crewmen who were working in poor weather on the outside casing of the USS Minneapolis-St Paul off the Devon coast.

Working on the deck of an underway submarine is no picnic under the best of circumstances - and those weren't anywhere near the best of circumstances. CNN's story indicates that the wind was gusting up to 47 miles per hour.
I don't know anybody from the Minneapolis, but she's a first-flight Los Angeles class boat, just like the one I served on (USS Omaha).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/devon/6217471.stm
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/29/uk.us.sailors.die.ap/index.html
http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=27209

Today is Veteran's Day in the United States. A day to remember the sacrifices made by the warriors of the past. A day to honor those being made by the warriors of the present. A day to pray that the future will not require such sacrifices.

And, for me, personally, a day to be grateful that the war I prepared to fight - the all-out battle between NATO and the Soviet Union - never happened.

Eternal Father, Strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bid'st the mighty Ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to thee,
for those in peril on the sea.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq53-1.htm

(MILSPEC memeage swiped from wcg)
( Not surprisingly... )