The Submarine Machinery Handbook

for Part 2 & 3 Training

Written by Godfrey Dykes

©RN Communications Branch Museum/Library

For many years after the end of WW2, the UK Submarine Service was manned from a mixture of volunteers and from quota-men who were drafted into submarines often against their wishes. In the post-war years, all drafting and appointments were done from and through Depots, Port Divisions, chiefly Devonport, Portsmouth and Chatham. HMS Dolphin at Gosport, was the drafting authority for submariners, and it made its requirements known to the Depots when volunteers were not enough to fill all billet spaces. This lasted until the time of the Suez Crisis (1956) and at that time, 1956/7, Depots lost their drafting/appointing powers, and these manning functions became part of central drafting which was established at NDA (Naval Drafting Authority) @ Lythe Hill House, Haslemere in Surrey, using the cap tally of HMS President. In 1970/71 the NDA lost it title, its cap tally and its location, re-established as CND (Commodore Naval Drafting) in HMS Centurion at Gosport Hampshire. When all pay and drafting documents had been moved to Gosport, the Haslemere establishment closed down.

By the time HMS Centurion had been established at Gosport, all submariners were volunteers and the quota-men requirement was history. HMS Centurion is now no more as a naval establishment, and HMS Dolphin has long since ceased to be a submarine depot.

Naval training until recent changes, had always been understood to be a two part package covering recruitment to first sea job. Part 1 consisted of basic training and Part 2 was branch career training. In many cases both Parts were conducted in the same training establishment but there were exceptions. A rating remaining in the surface fleet (General Service) required no further 'Parts' training, and simply progressed in branch training through sources provided by his branch alma mater. His substantive rate was controlled on a points system administered by the NDA/CND. Apart from additional Part 3 training, these rules also applied for a qualified submariner.

However, a rating having completed his career Part 2 training, joining a specialist service, required a 'Part' training for that role -Part 3 for example - and this was the case for the submarine service. Prior to recent times, a rating could not join the submarine service direct from civilian life and volunteered from General Service to become a submariner with certain age and qualifications limitations: perhaps the old way of having MATURE ratings joining from naval service/sea service in the surface fleet, might have avoided the situation which occurred at Southampton of Friday the 8th April 2011. Once in the submarine service his Part 3 training was delivered in two quite separate packages. Firstly, he underwent a detailed and demanding classroom training course of many weeks (in the old days in HMS Dolphin known as the 'Brown Area') which included an escape from the Submarine Escape Training Tank (SETT), culminating in a written examination where achieving a given percentage allowed you to proceed to the second stage or to take a boat across Portsmouth Harbour back to General Service as a failed candidate. The next stage of this Part 3 training was at sea on a submarine where the theory gained was put into practice under supervision. The final challenge, now many weeks on since joining the submarine service, was an oral examination with practical application. This was conducted by the First Lieutenant of the boat and the 'Outside Wrecker' (an ERA, whose full time task was to look at the hull fittings of the submarine) and the pass mark was high. It involved hands-on functionality throughout the length and breadth of the submarine. Ratings were allowed one failure and a re-scrub of the Part 3 sea examination after which, a subsequent failure meant that boat ride across the harbour. On successfully completing his submarine Part 3 training, the man was eligible to receive submarine pay. In the early days, apart from pride (and relief) the extra pay was the only reward, but from 1958 he was awarded the first RN submarine badge, a cloth badge, which was worn on the cuff of the left sleeve see THE RN SUBMARINE BADGE ! which came in the standard colours of gold, red and blue. Later, in 1972, a newly qualified Part 3 submariner could "put up his dolphins" and wear them with pride, a gold coloured metal badge worn on the left hand side of the jumper/jacket above the medal ribbons.

To give you a little insight into the knowledge a submariner had to acquire, especially as he became a more senior submariner, I am showing a Part 3 book entitle "BR 2194 - The 1960 Submarine Machinery Handbook" which was a 'bible' for all submariners - this one is my own when I was in HM Submarine 'TURPIN'. The text which covers 'T' 'A' and 'PORPOISE' Class submarines supersedes PR8107/55 (yes, PR) which covered 'U' 'S' 'T' and 'A' Class submarines. Regrettably, the state of some pages in my handbook makes it difficult to crop them without some loss to end of line words: however the story does not suffer!

The Submarine Machinery Manual