Submarine Week in Victoria (2)

From Tuesday to Friday last week, August 5th to 8th, submariners from across Canada met in Victoria and environs to celebrate 100 years of Canadian submarines. One of the highlights was the banquet in the wardroom, just outside the gates of the Dockyard. It was a glorious summer evening, with inspiring views from the deck outside.

Here are a few of the attendees, from left to right: author and photographer Julie H. Ferguson, myself, Diane Davie, Nancy Houle, and Ted Davie, submariner. Ted had much to do with the acquisition of the Victoria class (formerly Upholders) from the RN. Thanks to Chief Petty Officer Jens Simonsen of HMCS Chicoutimi for taking the photo.

Diesel-electrics Doing the Job

Diesel-electric submarines have a long pedigree. In fact, Canada's first diesel-electrics were CC1 and CC2 (shown at left), purchased almost exactly 100 years ago to defend the west coast. And our current boats, HMCS Victoria, Chicoutimi, Corner Brook and Windsor are diesel-electrics. Needless to say, much has changed.

The world's major navies, and some of the less major ones, now have moved on to nuclear boats. The USN and Royal Navies no longer operate any diesels. But that doesn't mean diesel-electrics are outmoded or useless. At times, and in particular during the Cold War, they performed yeoman service. And no navy wants to ever send unprotected surface ships into waters where a hostile diesel-electric could be lurking. As Canada's ongoing use of them indicates, they are effective as deterrents, extensions of sovereignty, and intelligence-gatherers.

For an appreciation of the role of diesel-electrics in the Cold War and elsewhere, Iain Ballantyne, author of Hunter Killers, has written a very informative online article.

HMCS Chicoutimi--Preparing For Action

Royal Canadian Navy submarine personnel must be breathing a sigh of relief as HMCS Chicoutimi completed a camber dive. (RCN photo at left via the Ottawa Citizen.)

The camber dive, which took place recently at Ogden Point in Victoria, is a major step toward getting the boat to operational condition.
It has been a long process. Originally built as one of the last Royal Navy conventional diesel-electric submarines, Chicoutimi started out life as HMS Upholder, the name vessel of the class.

Britain's Ministry of Defence had other plans, however, and tied up the Upholders in favour of going to an all-nuclear submarine force. After years of dithering, the Canadian government purchased the four boats of the class. Only one of them, HMCS Victoria, is currently operational.

In my next blog I'll look at Chicoutimi's hard-luck timeline.

And speaking of timelines, five months from now my cold war submarine thriller, Terror on the Alert, will hit the stands.

Submarine Follies--Elsewhere

The popular press loves to jump on the bandwagon and kick the Victoria-class Canadian submarines when they are down--and that happens far too often, I must admit.

HMCS Victoria

 From the time they first appeared in Halifax from England, where they had been allowed to deteriorate in salt water for years, the Victoria, Corner Brook, Windsor and Chicoutimi have had chequered careers. Indeed, Victoria suffered a fatality at sea and has only relatively recently become a reliable member of the fleet. But the Victorias are potent seagoing Canadian assets. For a glimpse of the potential effectiveness and usefulness of the boats, see an earlier posting, here, dealing with a live torpedo firing by Victoria.
Related stories have appeared at times regarding the difficulties and inevitable delays when new construction of ships is undertaken. Thus we see periodic reminders about the ongoing letting of contracts to build naval ships on the east and west coasts. Be that as it may, Canadian ship constructors can wipe their furrowed brows in relief when they see how bad things could be. Here is a story about a Spanish submarine that the most devil-may-care submariner would hesitate to board.

Canada's Undersea Navy

A recent article in a South African newspaper reported one of the country’s three German-built diesel-electric subs was out of action. She actually joined her two sister boats in that regard, as a result of a groundings, electrical problems, hydraulic failures, etc. All of which will sound familiar to readers of Canadian news stories about our four British-built boats. The South African article also pointed out that the Royal Navy had recently bumped bottom with a nuclear-powered boat, and the Russian navy suffered a fire on board one of their submersibles.

Canada's originally British Upholder-class subs (Victoria-class in Canada), HMCS Victoria, Windsor, Corner Brook and Chicoutimi have been the subject of much derision and negative comment. Some of that has been deserved—it is always hard to explain how, in this day of electronic marvels, a modern warship can accidentally hit bottom. And only recently have the collective Canadian submarines started racking up days at sea on a sustained basis. But—and it’s a big but—there is a lot more to the story of why the Victorias have such a checkered history.

More to come!