This appalling death toll might have been much reduced if Norwegian search and rescue support had been sought promptly, but the Soviet Union still remained a very secretive state, reluctant to seek the help of others, even in such extreme conditions when, it might have been thought, considerations of humanity overrode all else.
The loss of the Komsomolets could, in part, be attributable to the Soviet Union pushing technical boundaries in their submarines beyond safe limits in their quest to outdo the Western alliance. Clearly, the technological challenges of the Cold War, particularly in the high-risk underwater confrontation played out largely in the North Atlantic and its adjacent seas had come at a tremendous cost. Having spent considerable quantities of national treasure trying to match the West’s military capability, the Soviet Union was teetering towards bankruptcy and the Komsomolets disaster was but one symbol of its failure. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the implosion of the Soviet Union, the loss of power of its Communist Party and the break-up of its empire in eastern Europe were only around the corner.
On a warm, sunny spring morning, a few weeks after Captain Vanin and his crew had been fighting for their lives, several hundred British submariners and their families gathered on the parade square of HMS Dolphin for the monarch’s presentation of her colour to the Submarine Flotilla. This flag is periodically presented to branches and regiments of the armed forces and this occasion reflected the nation’s recognition of the Submarine Service’s achievements and its contribution to national security since the colour’s previous presentation in 1959. It was also a rare opportunity for submariners — traditionally the more relaxed wing of the Royal Navy — to enjoy and participate in a gathering of some pomp and ceremony.
The Royal Navy’s Submarine Service was reaching its zenith, with twenty nuclear and twelve diesel submarines in commission, including the brand new Upholder, first of a new class of twelve conventional submarines. Three of these were under construction at Cammell Laird ’s shipyard in Birkenhead and further up the coast at Vickers Shipbuilding & Engineering (VSEL), Barrow, HMS Talent and HMS Triumph, the final two SSNs of the Trafalgar class were being completed. Work was also progressing apace upon the build of the first two massive 14,000-ton Trident-class submarines, Vanguard and Victorious. Added to these projects the MoD was drawing up the specification for a new, highly capable third-generation SSN which would eventually replace the ageing Valiant class. The future of the Submarine Flotilla seemed very bright and this was reflected in the happy, family atmosphere of those gathered for the colour presentation, with a Marine band playing and a spectacularly smart guard of honour paraded to greet the sovereign.
Conley and a contingent from STWG were invited to attend the occasion with their wives. He proudly presented his team members to the Queen, relating to her their individual achievements and successes in trials and evaluations from the high Arctic to the tropics. His early days in STWG, struggling with Tigerfish submarine certification in the rain-swept mountains of northwest Scotland seemed a lifetime away.
Few who woke in the West on the morning of 9 November 1989 had much idea of the day’s significance. Disturbances which had begun in the Polish shipyards of Gdansk and spread to other Warsaw Pact countries had precipitated an apparently expedient loosening of the constraints of Communism under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, but on that November evening, for the first time since the start of the Cold War, East Berliners were allowed unrestricted access to the western part of their city. As the ‘Ossis’ swarmed through the Berlin Wall, they were greeted by ‘Wessis’ waiting with flowers and champagne amid wild rejoicing. There followed a remarkable example of the domino effect: the withdrawal of Soviet forces from their satellite states in Eastern Europe, the break-up of the Warsaw Pact, the overthrow of Gorbachev and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Almost at a stroke, the Cold War was effectively over.
In the years of chaos in Russia in the following decade of the 1990s, its submarine force, like most of its military arms, suffered serious neglect and upheaval. Added to the difficulties of running a large submarine arm with many different classes of boat, dangerous weapon systems, and conscript crews of varied ethnicity, was a chronic lack of money for pay, fuel, stores, maintenance and upkeep. 1987 had seen the last major surge of Russian submarines into the Atlantic and this was not to be repeated. Many hulls were laid up for disposal and the number of operationally available submarines decreased significantly. The Russian Navy withdrew its warships from the Mediterranean and other distant theatres and, in due course, with the rise of new nations within and outside the Russian Federation, the old Soviet Navy was split up. The most significant breakaway was the transfer of most of the Black Sea Fleet to the Ukraine. All of this resulted in the Russian Navy and its offshoots tending to stay in harbour and the tempo of its submarine operations declined remarkably.
Any sense of triumphalism in the Royal Navy was muted partly by a suspicious incredulity at what was happening, and the sensible precaution that a dying bear was capable of lashing out, but also because of sobering news from Devonport Dockyard. Here, that same November, the SSN Warspite was undergoing a routine refit when a technician, inspecting part of her reactor system, discovered alarming signs of cracks in critical welds within her two steam-generating boilers. This discovery was to have a crucial impact upon the Submarine Flotilla.
The defective welds joined two 14in diameter pipes — colloquially known as ‘trouser legs’ because that was what they looked like — through which the highly pressurised reactor cooling water flowed from the reactor core into the boiler heat-exchanger pipework which, in the non-nuclear secondary part of the plant, generated the steam necessary to drive Warspite’s turbines. The welds were about an inch thick and in Warspite’s case the cracks extended across half their depth. This was extremely worrying, because if a weld failed an uncontrollable loss of reactor coolant would cause a major accident. Furthermore, it had to be assumed that potentially all the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines might well been in a similar condition.
In the prevailing situation of grave international uncertainty it was imperative both to limit submarine operations pending a thorough investigation, but very importantly to sustain one SSBN on deterrent patrol. As the problem was considered age-related, the older Valiant-class boats were immediately withdrawn from sea service whilst a testing and repair regime was developed, the newer Swiftsure and Trafalgar SSNs having priority for checking and repairing.
The ageing SSBN force was equally affected by the ‘trouser-leg’ problem but somehow continuous deterrence at sea was maintained by a thread. On occasion, deterrent patrol durations were significantly extended beyond the normal sixty-day mark, whilst the SSBNs in port had their steam generator welds examined and made good. Since access to the affected welds was through a very small hatch on the bottom of the generator, this required the innovative design and manufacture of robotic welding equipment. Such was the anxiety generated by this serious flaw that even the new Trident submarines under construction had their ‘trouser-leg’ welds strengthened. Sadly, all this appeared to fulfil Admiral Rickover’s prediction — made in the 1950s when American nuclear reactor technology was passed to the British — that the Royal Navy would be incapable of the technical challenges of maintaining a nuclear submarine fleet.