WAR TOPICS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 71, 11 May 1943, Page 6

WAR TOPICS

A/ 74'

BRITISH SUBMARINE

GLIMPSE OF LIFE ON PATROL

How do the men in the submarines live through the dangers and

monotony of their undersea patrol? This exeerps from Godfrey Winn's hook "The Hour Jkd'ore Dawn," provide a graphic .story of submarine life.

Two hours on and four hours off. Two hours on and four hours off. Work, cat, sleep; work, cat, sleep. You can repeat aloud the routine a dozen times and you can only capture a semblance of the monotony'of the reality. From the moment that a submarine sets out on patrol to the moment 'when it returns, three-quart-ers of the GO crew never sec the light of day, or rather, feci the night air upon - their faces when after dusk their "tube," as they call the submarine, surfaces and recharges. The light was beginning to> fade from the hills and tlie loch was very still, as I stood beside the rail of the depot ship for submarines, whose guest 1/ was. Here their "tube" is refilled, with stores and fresh "fish" arc placed upon the torpedo racks in the bows, and the crew come on board the mothership and luxuriate for a long time in a hot bath, having unpeeled their clothes for the first time for many weeks. While, if they like, they can have sunray treatment in the sickbay and go ashore to stretch' tlieir legs. After every other patrol tlicy have leave. Docs any brftnch of any service deserve it more? So I Avas thinking as I stood beside the rail and watched. For it is here, too, that they go forth again on patrol as soon as their b'oat is ready. Farewell Gesture One submarine is going now. Look the Ensign flutters from her bridge and catches the last of the daylight, whiter than the jcrsevs of some of the crew who line, the side. They do not salute as 'she glides away from her moorings beside her fellow "tubes." The only movement comes from the captain on the I bridge, who makes the thulnbs-up | gesture familiar to the R.A.F. There are no cheers for her previous successes. There is a moment of silent speculation, secret exhortation. What is in their minds? What is the make-up of a submarine? Come with me on board one of their "tubes" belonging to the latest class and. infinitely superior to anything the Germans possess. About 270 feet long, she has a displacement of 1300 tons. Think what it must, be like, for weeks on end, never to be able to take more than 270 steps, one. way or another. And the width? —there is one narrow passage which goes the length of the'boat from the torpedoes in the bows, to the "Dead End Kids," the stokers in the stern. It is no wider than the corridor of an English train, so that, two men have difficulty passing each other, and one will step aside into a mess's alcove. For the size of each mess is hardly larger than the cubicle, in a hairdressing shop, where women have their hair Avaved. One thinks of that comparison because-there is a curtain across the aperture and there are. five or six of them in a row scattered down the length of the boat. Next to the torpedoes live the .seamen and the P.O.'s, and- then the E.R.A.'s. "We run the ship/' said the engine room artificers in chorus but the petty officers say the same, so what? —and then the wardroom, and next to it, the only separate cabins in the ship, where the captain sleeps on top of the control room, which must dominate his sleeping as well as his waiting hours. And finally the "dead End kids'' again. We don't talk much, they told me, except just after we've been issued with our daily tot of rum. And they don't write, letters until the last day of the patroli and they don't read much, either, but just sit in their mess, betAveen sleeping and eating, and stare up at the silhouettes of the pretty ladies that they ha\ r e cut out from magazines and stuck over their lockers. It is something to remind you of the touch of life when you arc lying.

silent at the bottom of the ocean, drifting two knots, as 3*oll seek to> escape from the depth charges reverberating around you with a dull

plomp. plomp sound

When they know you better, they show you .something else —how .from pieces of brass, they carve exquisite little models of their "tube"' in silhouette., On their return, and it is. a liinrt of talisman for their return, they have them dipped in silver for their wives, whose pictures hang over their bunks.

They call the area of their patrol their "billet'' and the time they like least during their patrol is on their way to their "billet" and on their way back again. It is reckoned that it needs foui submarines to keep one at sea; the one on patrol, the one on its way to relieve it, , the one on its way) back and the one in dock being refilled and overhauled. The doctor on the depot ship told rnc that after their first patrol, submariners usually have lost weight; subsequently, however, they usually put it on. Perhaps this is due to the fact that, in the last few months', an evolution in catering lias taken place. Now in a two-pound tin are stored. sufficient vegetables for 160 men. They showed me the tins. One was full of what appeared to be dried .grass—it was cabbage. Another contained spinach, and from another they gave me what I thought was a piece of straw. They assured me. however, it was worth its weight in gold! When I tasted it the next second I: realised that I was eating enough compressed onions for a dozen men! I Avas not allowed to forget this* for the rest, of the day. The revolution comes from Canada in the form of dehydrated food. By a vacuum process all the moisture is drawn away from the vegetables which when they are placed in boiling water expand to their former cubic capacity and can then be cooked in the normal way. Menus for each patrol are worked out in detail in the depot ship. Here, for example, are the meals for the last day of the fifth week: for breakfast: Grapefruit, herrings in tomato sauce. For dinner: Soup, veal and ham gelatine, apples and custard. For tea: Syrup. For supper (actually eaten at the time when most of us have our lunch): Stewed tinned steak, boiled potatoes, carrots, fruit pie and cocoa. Instead of the various submariners doing their own buying from the canteen, the motor ship takes over all the catering and by clever purchases in the wholesale market, has succeeded in bringing down messing to 3s a day. Submarine, crews, like the R.A.F., have their own slang. When they are fed up, everything is threadbare —'which seems an excellent description for that mood. They make a joke, of not being able to spend anything on board, and their pay with their danger money works out at about 8s a <lav for seamen.

There are jars of boiled sweets in every mess because tliey cannot smoke, when their "tube" is submerged. All the same, when they play "Hearts'' they play for a cigarette a hand. •"That's my only claim to fame, I'm afraid." said the captain, looking at me -with a smile, "I -\voja 187 cigarettes on our last, patrol." Commander's Honours You glance at his tunic and on it arc the ribbons of the D.S.O. and the D.S.G. Before he sets off on patrol again he will have to visit London and Buckingham Palace for the investiture. "My wife's bought a new hat," he adds. For it is alwaj-s of someone else they speak, never of themselves or their exploits. As I left and was making my good-byes the captain asked me to pass on a message. I expected some, stirring call to harder work on the home front. But these men arc too modest, too self-effacing to make such demands personally. All he said was: "Bv the way, there's something we awfully want for our tube if you could get hold of one." "What is it?" The answer was unexpected: "One of those motor horns that play a tunc when you pass tliem.'' I have been searching for one ever since.