SAOC West 1 A Bit Late For Year End 2019 SAOC West 2 Is Published Quarterly Occasionally Opinions expressed are those of the Editor and may not align with views held by other submariners or, collectively, by the Submariners Association of Canada West An ‘All Around Look’ …….……. 3 Bulletin Board ………………...…… 4 Top Gun 50th & Trieste I 60th ….... 5 Kootenay Tragedy 50th …….… 6 NATO 1st Female CO ………….. 9 Late & 1,000 Words ...…...………. 10 Japanese Launches …….………… 11 NASA Picture ……………….……. 12 Irving Cuts & Dwight Honours … 13 Another year and another decade have USN Littoral …………….…………... 14 sidled into the mists of time with only wisps Top Student ……………..………….. 15 of their essence lingering. And even those Celebrations of Life ……….………. 16 fading as we speak. Fatigue ………………………..……. 18 During this decade we have celebrated th Touch Stone ……………….…………. 20 the 50 anniversaries of rebirth of the Ca- nadian submarine service and the commis- Lost Subs ………………..………… 21 sioning of all five of the cold war boats. We Aircraft Carrier Life Span …………. 22 celebrated the centenary of the submarine Innovate with what you’ve got ….. 30 service itself (the Navy’s 100th was at the Tech Change ………...……..…...… 31 tail end of the previous decade) and the Charity & RAN Dolphins ……….... 32 long delayed commissioning of HMCS Chicoutimi with appropriate homage to the Dancing With China ………………… 33 reasons for the delay. We celebrated the Overdue Apology …...…...…..……... 34 introduction of a lively march specific to the Sub Surgery …………………………... 35 submarine service and now even have a USS Grayback Found …..……….... 41 mess dinner version for those occasions. Mirror, Mirror ……………………….. 42 Sadly we also saw an inordinate number of our brothers of the phin cross the brow Missiles or Dollars …………………. 44 on eternal leave. Submariners all … may The Back Page ……………………...... 45 they always be remembered. A Bit Late For Year End 2019 SAOC West 3 donations should be used to for the provision of amenities for members who are in hospital or care facilities. We thank the Peggy Riley estate, Steve St. Amant and Mitch Ewan for their very generous donations. Our Annual Christmas luncheon had to his year will see the changing of key be postponed last year due to a fire at the T positions on our Executive. Jim Scott Four Mile House. Rather than re-locate to and Paul Hansen will be stepping down as an alternate facility, we decided to reschedule Secretary and Treasurer respectively. I the luncheon as a Valentine’s luncheon at the th shall be relinquishing my position as Four Mile House on Sunday, February 16 . president. It is imperative that we have Once again we presume a fun time for mem- members step forward to fill these posi- bers and their families. tions. In closing, I wish to thank Jim Scott and Skip Whitfield and Paul Hansen have Paul Hansen for their dedicated service as volunteered as the Nomination Committee Secretary and Treasurer – they have done an and will be recruiting members to fill these excellent job – BZ! positions. For myself, I have very much enjoyed Our Association received three notable serving as your President for the past three donations in 2019. years. After stepping down, I shall continue to be an active member and assist in the run- The first was a bequeath of $10,000 ning of our organization. from the estate of Peggy Riley, widow of a retired WWII RN submariner, Daniel H.V. Riley. Daniel was a member of our Associ- The Cover ation when it was it was still affiliated with the Submarine Old Comrades Association, We don’t know. The picture appeared a num- The based in Great Britain. ber of times on FaceBook but Update’s re- The second donation was for $200 from search Department was not able track down Steve St. Amant who is very active in the from whence it came. To the unsophisticated submarine and veteran communities. He is eye of your editor it could particularly noted for his work with the Nova be one of our boats, given Scotia Last Post Fund and its Unmarked the shoreline hugging Grave Program. clouds with the mountains rising above. We do as- And the third donation was for $500 from sume that Santa and his our member, Commander (Retired) Mitch reindeer were added and Ewan who resides in Hawaii. not captured in the original Our Association has decided that these photograph. A Bit Late For Year End 2019 SAOC West 4 RESCHEDULED CHRISTMAS LUNCHEON Four Mile House Sunday, February 16th Gathering at 1:00 Luncheon at 2:00 Roast Beef and fixings If you would rather have something else PLEASE CALL KEN CAPRON 250-478-3930 A Bit Late For Year End 2019 SAOC West 5 n the late 1960’s Admiral Tom Moorer, Barely eight and one-half years before Neil I Chief of Naval Operations ordered a re- Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped down view to be conducted by Captain Frank onto the surface of the moon on July 20th, Ault of the dismal air-to-air missile perfor- 1969 humans reached the very bottom of the mance of the Navy’s fighter jets in Vietnam. ocean for the first time. Ault recommended in his 1969 report that In what was admittedly a rather lengthy the Navy establish an ’Advanced Fighter article in the last issue we described that first Weapons School’ at the Miramar Naval Air descent to the very bottom of the Hadal Station in San Diego. Two months later Zone by Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard. they were operational. As a result, by 1972 That article described Walsh and Piccard’s the Navy’s success ratio against the Vi- accomplishment as background to the main etnam People’s Air Force was up five-fold. focus of the story which was the Texan, Vic- Today’s gradu- tor Vescovo’s climbing of highest mountain ates are still among on each of the seven continents plus skiing the best fighter pi- the last degree to both poles plus descending lots in the world. to the deepest point of each of the world’s In honour of the five oceans. And even that was just a vehicle 50th anniversary to talk about the ‘Limiting Factor’, the in- the US Naval Insti- credible submersible that is certified to go full tute dedicated the -ocean depth over and over and over again. cover and a large January 23rd will be sixty years since portion of their Sep- Walsh and Piccard made history. And, for tember 2019 issue the curious, a crew member had strapped a to the program. Click the cover to go to Rolex watch to the ladder. Surreptitiously, the group of fascinating articles, from Top- as both the Navy and Walsh would have ve- Gun’s ‘Beginnings’ to ‘Next Challenge’. toed. To read the USNI article Click HERE . A Bit Late For Year End 2019 SAOC West 6 ladder and all on fire”, he said later. “You’re on fire and your skin is falling off … and I knew that I was going to die”. He lived and went on to join the submarine service. n Wednesday, October 23rd, 2019 a The smoke was so thick and engulfed crowd of several dozen survivors, fam- O the ship so quickly that crew throughout ily and friends gathered on the shoreline of were crawling on hands and knees to find Point Pleasant Park, at the south end of the ladders to escape. Halifax peninsula, to mark the moment, fifty years ago to the day, that scarred their A truly exacerbating factor was that stor- lives, forever. age for a lot of their fire fighting equipment was HMCS Kootenay and just outside the engine her 249 crew were part of room and was, of course, a ten ship task force that damaged in the explo- had left Canada on the sion. 5th of September, with stops in Bermuda, Den- Speaking during the th mark and Plymouth, Eng- 50 Anniversary Service, land. John Montague who had been a junior officer at the time and who On that fateful day all ten ships were would later retire from the Navy as a Cap- headed home. About 200 miles west of tain, told those assembled that “the smoke Plymouth Kootenay and Saguenay broke was so thick and travelled so quickly off to conduct full-power sea trials, a re- . quired quarterly routine. even the bridge had to be evacuated” Just after 0800 (8 bells for the purists He recounted how “the heat had been and 8:00 am for those who’ve left all that so intense it actually melted an alumi- behind) the ten crew members in the en- num ladder in the engine room”. gine room reported a sound ‘like a rising or- And bizarrely, “There was so much gan note’. Mere seconds later a massive damage in the initial stages following explosion erupted from the starboard gear the explosion, that the main engine box, with a fireball that engulfed the engine couldn’t be shut down so the ship con- room crew and shot through the main interi- tinued on at full speed and completely or passageway. out of control”. Twenty-one year old, Able Seaman Allan “Even our communications system ‘Dinger’ Bell, one of only three of that en- was out with no way to contact the gine room crew to live, had third degree other ships in the flotilla since they burns to nearly half of his body. were over the horizon”. “All of us … trying to get up the Even once the other ships started to A Bit Late For Year End 2019 SAOC West 7 was compounded when families were told only two from each family arrive and transfer fire fighting crews to would be flown to England for the services, the Kootenay, it still took over two hours eliciting about the reaction you’d expect.