Page 21 - Demo

29I then had to spend a week with the Royal Navy as part of my training.And so, towards the end of September, I reported to HMS Dolphin at Gosport. I think that I was the only cadet who volunteered for submarines, most asked for aircraft carriers which they actually found quite boring as there was nothing they were allowed to do. I was to spend my week on an %u201cA%u201d boat but I cannot remember which one. The submarine I was allocated to had just had some kind of refit and so the crew needed to be worked up again. I had a bunk space in the wardroom. All the officers lived there although I have a feeling that the Captain had a cabin in the sail but could not access it when we were submerged. He certainly kept asking permission to enter the wardroom but never waited for anyone to say anything. Once aboard, the first problem was that my RAF holdall was too large for the locker space beneath my bunk. However, after a certain amount of pummelling we got it in. I am only 5ft 8ins but the bunk was shorter than that. Luckily there was an open hatchway at the end about half the width of the bunk and I was able to get my legs down that if I wanted to stretch out. The other problem was that whenever we dived a sailor would leap into the wardroom and onto my bunk to wind a valve round above my head. This was always a rush job and so I tended to get trodden on a bit. I learnt to squeeze against the hull of the boat whenever I heard him charge in. One of the first things that I was taught was how to use the %u201cheads%u201d. It was made clear to me that if you moved the valves in the wrong order the boat could sink. To begin with the sailors were obviously nervous when they saw me squeezing into the small cubical. I was also shown the escape hatches that we would have to use if the boat did sink. There was one at each end and I noted the positions carefully, especially after the Captain spoke to the whole crew to say that cracks had been found in the hull during the refit and so we were limited to 300ft rather than 600ft. (the depth is from memory and so may be wrong). One of the officers had been posted while the submarine was being serviced and so all their du-