Monday, September 8, 2014

Cold War Submarine Gunnery

 Ed Falstrem, retired submarine commander, has kindly sent along a photo of one of his RN boats, HMS Aeneas. The photo was taken off Portsmouth.

 Aeneas was immortalized for playing the part of a submarine in the 1967 007 movie, "You Only Live Twice".

Ed commented:
"Note the gun.I remember the drill for preparing to surface and fire the gun. We did fire it on a couple of occasions onto an army range in Dorset. I was the XO at the time."

The last 4" round was fired from a Royal Navy submarine in December, 1974, by HMS Andrew.

In my novel "Terror on the Alert" the crew gets a couple of rounds away to good effect in 1962. The book launches September 30th.

2 comments:

Lamont said...

Seems strange to think of a gun on the deck of a submarine. Must have been well greased. Did it not fill up with water when the sub dove?

Robert Mackay said...

Yes, it certainly did fill up with water. There was a liberal amount of grease all round, including in the barrel. I'm told the first shot always fell short because it had to blow out the grease!

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