LIFE IN A SUBMARINE

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 2, 3 January 1940, Page 2

LIFE IN A SUBMARINE

Silence is the Unwritten L^w

TMAGINE yourself inside a large steel cylinder. It is electrically lit, and lined with fearful-looking mechanism and a seemingly meaningless network of pipes and electric cables, writes Lieut.-Commander K. Edwards in the Windsor Magazine. Everywhere there are hard knobs waiting to catch the tenderest parts of your anatomy as you move. Unless you can read the expressions of the blank faces of gauges there is nothing to show it, but all round the steel cylinder there is water-water exerting a pressure, seeking to crush in the man-made hull which is displacing some of it. It is a difficult imaginative exercise, and even when it is successfully accomplished it gives only the barest outline of the way of life in a submarine. The only real way to understand submarine life is to live it. Men not on watch spend most of their time sleeping, knowing that they may not get another chance of rest for long hours. When submerged sleeping is encouraged as far as possible, for air is scarce and a sleeping man uses far less air than a man who is moving about Some people believe that a submarine when submerged “makes” air. This is fallacy. The crew have to live on the air which is shut into the hull on diving. There have been various forms of “air purifiers,” but these are seldom used. The air naturally gets very heavy in a submarine which has been diving for some time. If men were allowed to smoke —which they are not —they would not be able to do so after a few hours of diving. There would not be enough oxygen in the air to keep match or cigarette alight. Curiously enough, the atmosphere after many hours of diving remains crystal clear, but as soon as the submarine surfaces and a hatch is opened a white mist rises from the men, their clothes and the sides of the hull. The aues-

tion of how long the air will last, however, is never an important one, for it will, at all events, outlast the capacity of the electric batteries which are the only source of power and propulsion when submerged. Great improvements have been made in the living accommodation in submarines of recent construction—in the modern submarine there is even a bath. But those who serve below water are still richly deserving of the “hardlying money” allowance which is paid to them. Discomfort in a submarine is largely due to the lack of space. There are some bunks, but not enough for the whole crew. Men work on what is called the “hot-bunk principle”—turning into a bunk just vacated by the man who has relieved him on watch. Even so, many men have to doss down on the deck or on a mess table. There is seldom any question of getting fully undressed. They have to be ready for instant action, and there is no room to stow a lot of clothing. Temperature, too, makes for discomfort. A submarine can be deadly cold if it is in northern waters in winter. On the other hand it can be infernally hot in the tropics. A temperature of 145 deg, fah. has been recorded in a submarine when only a few miles from the equator. Lack of exercise is, to some “sub-mariners,” a very real hardship. At sea the deck space is almost always limited to the tiny bridge, and it is no unusual thing for a submarine to embark on a voyage of 10,000 miles, taking several weeks. Silence is the unwritten law of the submarine. Nobody says more than is strictly necessary, and then it is said quietly. In a submarine there is none of that discipline which is based upon | clicking heels and smart salutes. There is an entirely different form of discij pline. It is based upon the sure know- | ledge that a mistake by one man may mean the loss of them all.