AST month we reported on the Canty family’s record of service in the Royal Navy, including that of Brian Canty, former PO Radio Electrician and


L


Governor of Anguilla. We also mentioned that Brian


was involved in the search for the submarine HMS Affray, which went missing in the Channel on April 16 1951 – and Brian has been in touch to pass on his recollections of the operation, as described in his autobiography The Lives of Brian. Here is an edited version of


Brian’s account: In April 1951, HMS Reclaim


was due to go into the dockyard to have a new diving bell fitted. I was granted permission to


return to HMS Collingwood for a week’s training on the Canadian 268 radar, and did my joining routine on Monday, April 16. The following morning I


reported to the 268 Radar building for instruction. It never happened. The only instruction I got was


from a Tannoy broadcast, ordering me to report immediately with my kit to the Officer of the Watch for return to my ship. A staff car rushed me to Gosport, where a naval launch awaited me at the ferry pontoon. Willing hands propelled me and my kit aboard, and the launch set off for the other side of the harbour. There, I could see Reclaim was


preparing for sea, with the special sea duty men already closed up fore and aft. The gang-plank was being taken in as I scrambled up the harbour wall, necessitating a pier-head jump across the last three feet to the ship and a quick duck to avoid my kit which was following, through the air, closely behind. Down below, in the mess, there


was an air of excitement, and I soon learned that HMS Affray, a submarine from HMS Dolphin, had failed to surface following exercises and was now overdue. ‘Subsmash’ signals, that alerted


all ships to the possibility of an accident to a submerged vessel, had been transmitted, and every ship in Portsmouth Harbour was putting to sea to join in the search. I went to the radar office and


reported my presence to the bridge. I was told to switch on the radar and hand over to the operators for continuous watchkeeping. Heading for the W/T office behind the bridge, as I stepped on deck Reclaim was picking up her full speed of about ten knots, and was closing the entrance to the harbour, where I saw what I think was an old Grimsby-class frigate flying an Egyptian flag. She was on a head-on collision


course with us. Both ships veered to port simultaneously,


and


Reclaim slid unscathed down the starboard side of the frigate, missing her, I believe, by inches rather than feet. I stood transfixed, until the pressure of both bow waves forced Reclaim to heel violently to port. Before I could change position, I was deluged by the wake of the now fast-receding, frigate. We had only just left harbour, and already I was cold and wet... In the W/T office, the air was


alive with static and the sound of Morse signals, as the various ships in the channel kept in touch with each other and reports and instructions were flashed to and from the shore. With everything working well,


I stayed in the W/T office to lend a hand. My Morse code was well below operational


standard, so


I manned the R/T position and listened on the broadcast network. All I had to do was listen for Reclaim’s callsign – Mike Sugar Victor Peter – and alert the Leading Telegraphist who then operated the key. Dusk was falling on the first day of the search. There was no news, and no respite from the tension we all shared. It was going to be


44 APRIL 2012:


l The experimental underwater TV camera used to locate HMS Affray on the well deck of HMS Reclaim during diving operations in 1951


a long night.


together. HMS Affray, a modified A-class submarine,


Piece by piece the story came had sailed


for exercises in the Channel on Monday April 16. She was due to surface the following morning but never did. At 1.45pm a full search was ordered and the Admiralty released the news to the public. The submarine’s patrol area was to the south of the Isle of Wight, and a fleet of ships now fanned out across the area, scanning the seabed in the hope of finding some trace of her. That


first night, there was


a report that a submarine had detected underwater signals from 37 miles south of St Catherine’s Point on the Isle of Wight. All ships converged on this area,


and their searchlights tracked to and fro across the calm black sea in an attempt to locate survivors. The consensus on Reclaim was


that no survivors would attempt to come to the surface until daylight – the crew of the Truculent had made the mistake of escaping in the dark and had been swept away unnoticed on the ebbing tide. Hand grenades were dropped


overboard to let any trapped submariners know that aid was at hand. We waited anxiously, but there was no response, and when the dawn broke, we realised that the submarine was not below us.


The search became more frantic as the hours went by, with the


knowledge that Affray’s air supply could not last much longer. No buoys, wreckage or oil on the surface gave any clue as to where she might be, and so much wreckage lay on the seabed, following two world wars, that good Asdic contacts were made every few miles along HMS Affray’s assumed track. Gradually, more


than 150


contacts were logged, any one of which could have been Affray. Reclaim’s divers could not dive and identify even a fraction of them in the time available. Strong tides and currents made it difficult to keep the ship in position, and even when a diver was lowered over a seabed contact, he was liable to be swept off his feet.


Poor visibility on the bottom often meant that the diver had to rely on his sense of touch to recognise even the type of wreck. On the third day the search


was scaled down, and the frigates, destroyers,


other vessels and


aircraft went back to their routines – the experts had calculated that there was no chance of anyone on the submarine still being alive. It would now be left to Reclaim,


over the summer, to work through the long list of Asdic contacts, putting divers down on each one until the mystery of Affray could be finally solved. The knowledge of failure was hard to bear as we returned to port to refuel and re-supply. Parliament and the public expected better of the Royal Navy, and we were determined to do better. A small flotilla was formed,


comprising RFA Salvictor, sister- ship to Reclaim, and two boom defence ships which were to be used to put mooring buoys down at sea when required. The operations were, I believe, controlled from HMS Vernon by the Director of Naval Salvage. The problems of putting divers


down in the Channel remained, and in the weeks that followed, progress in identifying the charted wrecks was painfully slow. One contact proved to be the wreck of an American Liberty ship from World War 2 with a cargo of tanks still on deck. A hatch was broken open, and a trapped air bubble boiled to the surface, bringing with it tyres in their original yellow wrappings; as pristine as the day they were loaded.


Another, off Portland, turned out to be an old British submarine that had apparently broken free from a tow to the breaker’s yard, and sunk in bad weather sometime between the two wars. There were others, probably the huge experimental submarines M1 and the M2. Our Captain, I recall, was hoping to find a sunken ship with an undamaged bridge, from which a diver might retrieve a good pair of binoculars. His luck was out... A team from the RN Research Establishment came aboard in Portsmouth one


day in May,


bringing crates labelled fragile. As they were unpacked, I was summoned and questioned about electrical supplies, test equipment and spares carried aboard. I helped unpack a crate in the Captain’s cabin, which contained a domestic TV, an English Electric Model 1550 – with its 15in tube, this monochrome, console model was in the luxury class. In Portsmouth, however, we


were well beyond the coverage of the scheduled BBC TV service from the Alexandra Palace and Sutton Coldfield


Evidently it had another purpose. On the well deck,


l A diver from HMS Reclaim prepares to descend to HMS Affray in the Channel


transmitters. crates


were opened to reveal a Heath Robinson contraption containing a Marconiphone TV camera which, thanks to a local garage, had been sealed in a watertight metal drum and fitted to a tubular steel frame, mounted with


Subsmash: the loss of HMS Affray


underwater lighting. The contraption was intended


for lowering to the seabed, and would hopefully speed up the identification of contacts. The equipment had been put together by civilian scientific officers, members of the Home Civil Service, some of whom sailed with Reclaim to help with the operation of their invention. They were accompanied by an acknowledged expert in underwater matters,


one circumstances Lt


Cdr ‘Buster’ Crabb, the famous frogmen, who disappeared in mysterious


five


years later. We soon discovered that, even with an underwater camera, the search operation was not going to be easy. The metal drum leaked badly under the pressure of deeper water, which shorted the electrics. Strong currents also caused the


camera rig to drift, and visibility for the TV lens was no better than for a diver; indeed, with bright lights reflecting from a fog of mud and plankton, it was often worse. Though it was better than


risking the life of a diver, we were still restricted to waiting for periods of slack water and dead calm weather. Then we got lucky.


On June 4, investigating the ninth contact of the 150


logged, in ideal conditions the camera was lowered in 258ft of water, 67 miles south west of St Catherine’s Point. In the Captain’s cabin, the TV screen began to reveal the outline of something large on the seabed. As the current moved the camera, a more distinguishable image came into view, and the letters Y A R F F A slowly began appearing. The camera had, fortuitously, focussed


on the submarine’s


nameplate, on the side of the fin, as it tracked fore to aft. HMS Affray had been found


some seven weeks after she sailed on her final voyage. An investigation into how the disaster had occurred could now begin. It was quickly established that


Affray appeared undamaged, but before the divers could get to work on a minute examination, it was necessary to secure Reclaim accurately over the submarine’s last resting place. The


boom defence vessels


l A DAN buoy marks the last resting place of HMS Affray in the Channel, as seen through HMS Reclaim’s starboard diving hatch


laid mooring buoys and made Reclaim’s


huge manila ‘grass’


lines fast to them. By making adjustments with the ship’s capstan and winches, it was possible to manoeuvre the ship above the wreck with the degree of accuracy required.


The camera had done the job for which it was intended – its next task was to be as an aid in making a detailed examination of the boat’s hull and superstructure. We remained moored over carrying


Affray, out diving


operations throughout the summer and well into the autumn; except for the occasional return to port for supplies.


Reclaim became a beacon in mid-Channel that summer. Ocean liners


passed by


regularly on their way to and from Southampton – Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary and Mauritania became so used to us being there that they would pass the time of day by signal lamp as passengers lined the decks to take photographs. Visitors also came from the


corridors of power, by MTB from HMS Hornet in Gosport. Reclaim’s divers quickly


discovered that the snorkel or breathing tube, had broken off. Metal fatigue was suspected, and all other submarines fitted with snorkel equipment, were surveyed as a matter of urgency. One was found to have faulty


welding, and an opinion formed that a similar failing might have contributed to the loss of Affray. The damaged snorkel was raised and sent back to Portsmouth for examination,


which confirmed


that an accidental fracture of the tube would have been a possibility. However, other opinions were


advanced – the break could have occurred when the submarine hit the bottom, after the crew had


l HMS Affray’s broken snorkel tube is winched to the surface of the Channel by HMS Reclaim


been overcome and lost control of the vessel, for example. A battery explosion was suggested. It became clear that the only


way to be certain as to what had happened would be to raise the submarine, and bring her back home, or at least to gain access to her by some means. It was


especially important


that the cause of the disaster be determined because Affray had not been on just another routine patrol. She had on board, in addition to her usual complement, another 20 submarine officers under training and, it was whispered below decks, a special group of Royal Marines. They, it was said, were rehearsing a secret technique for clandestine shore landings which involved exiting the submerged submarine by way of the torpedo tubes. It had been ascertained, with almost complete certainty, that the submarine was flooded throughout and as such would weigh more than 2,000 tons. A salvage operation to raise the vessel in this condition was beyond the capability of RN resources, and to mount a commercial operation would take time. Furthermore, it had now been discovered that the wreck had become unstable, and was in danger of slipping into the Hurd Deep, where old munitions had been routinely dumped. Further investigations had to


be carried out where she lay, and as quickly as possible – though in diving terms, ‘quickly’


involved


weeks, possibly months, of work, dependent as


it always was on


fine weather, calm seas and good visibility on the sea bed. Apart from a few seamen


involved with diving operations, the rest of the ship’s company now had little to do with the daily routine. Moored in mid-Channel, our lives became as exciting as those of lighthouse keepers. The Channel Islands were clearly visible on the horizon, and to keep up morale, the Captain decided that occasionally, when the weather permitted, a boom defence


vessel could come


alongside and take small groups of off-duty crewmen to Jersey for a few hours run ashore. In mid-summer,


during a


particularly hot spell, cargo nets were lowered over the side and swimming was permitted at periods of slack water. Other technical advances


followed the introduction of underwater TV. An electro- magnetic grab was designed to rip steel plating from Affray’s hull; it was never able to pick up anything more than a few loose stanchions. A radioactive isotope was sent


out to the ship, with some X-ray plates, so that the divers could capture images through the hull. The isotope went missing, and we all had to check to see if we had become radioactive... In mid-November 1951, with


the onset of winter storms, further attempts to unravel the mystery became impossible, and all ideas of salvage were abandoned. We sailed back to Portsmouth to resume a normal diving training programme in time for Christmas. There was, to the best of my


knowledge, never another attempt to unravel the mystery of Affray’s last voyage – I believe the broken snorkel and metal fatigue were officially accepted as the most likely causes of the disaster. The Lives of Brian is published


h


by Authors Online Ltd, ISBN 978-0755213870.


www.navynews.co.uk


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