This particular one is somewhat unique. It is chromed--most were workaday hard steel tools. Also, the non-spanner end is shaped into a coarse screwdriver, perfect for screwing down deck fittings on an O-class submarine.
Each of the officers in the commissioning crew of HMC Submarine Okanagan was presented with one of these handy keepsakes by Her Majesty's Dockyard Chatham in 1968. Mine is on a shelf in front of me as I write, a constant reminder of those long-gone days.
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Thank you for the most interesting article. A couple of years ago at a garage sale I spotted an unusual item. As I have an engineering background and a collector of old tools, I figured out its purpose and so bought it. Later cleaning it revealed stamped the owner’s rank and name. “S/Lt A. T. Chalmers R.N. P68”
A little research revealed that it belonged to Andrew Thomas Chalmers DSC, RN serving on HMS Venturer and who later commanded the submarine.
The Wiki page for HMS Venturer (P68) revealed:
“…HMS Venturer (P68) - her most famous mission was her eleventh patrol, which included the only time in the history of naval warfare that one submarine intentionally sank another while both were submerged. Prior to this attack, no target had been sunk by torpedo where the firing ship had to consider the target's position in three-dimensional terms, where the depth of the target was variable and not a fixed value…”
Today at a local junk market I spotted in a box of rusty tools a modern wheelspanner. Dated 1999 and with NATO stock number. The seller told me that it had come from a recent scrap sale at Portsmouth dockyard. I couldn’t resist it at just two GB Pounds.
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