9th-12th-Lancers - Year 2004 - Page 0061
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| Regiment | 9th/12th Lancers |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
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REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE 9TH/12TH ROYAL LANCERS (PRINCE OF WALES’S) 59 HMS Tireless ICEX 2004 MS TIRELESS was the first UK submarine to conduct an ICEX since HMS TRAFALGAR in 1996. The preparation for such an event takes years of planning and with little under ice experience in the Navy there was a lot to learn. After an arduous week, training off the West Coast of Scotland, we were declared fit for under ice operations and our journey began. We called into Faslane Naval Base to embark a team of under ice specialists, including experts from the Scottish Association of Marine Science and an Ice Pilot from the Arctic Warfare Laboratory in San Diego. The first leg of the trip took us North towards the ice edge aim- ing to cross it between Greenland and Spitzbergen. Although we had been warned the initial sounds of the ice crashing together up ahead was quite intimidating. As we got closer the seawater temperature dropped to below freezing and the upward looking cameras were frequently darkened by threatening lumps of ice. We said goodbye to our daily visit to Periscope Depth and passed into an empty, unfamiliar ocean. With thick ice above we soon realised that, should anything go wrong, we were a long way from safety. Our onboard specialists quickly weighed in with their requests for surveys assuring the CO that, although Icebergs could hang down deeper than the submarine was able to dive, the likelihood of encountering one was “fairly remote”. The following fifteen days were spent surveying Arctic features such as the Molloy Deep Eddy and an Ice Camp North West of Greenland as well as the bottom Topography and the thickness of ice above us. As we looked at charts devoid of soundings and watched colossal Seamounts rushing up to meet us on the Echo Sounder. We were told that the data we were collecting would be of great importance to the scientific community and would take many years to analyse. On completion of the Survey we rendezvoused with the USS HAMPTON, our playmate for some Sub v Sub tactical games. This was an interesting stage because now we were under thick ice the ocean was deathly silent and once silent killers of the deep could be heard in their every move. After five days of improving relations with the Americans we emerged victorious and headed North for the final few miles to the Pole. Once there we went on to circumnavigate the globe twice, albeit a trip of only a few miles each time. The next event was to find a gap in the ice known as a Polynya. This area of thin ice would be our ticket to surface and conduct the eagerly anticipated visit to the Polar Ice Cap. A suitable area was found a mere mile and a half from the Pole andpreparations to were made to surface. This was a tense time onboard with the aim of stopping a 4000 tonne submarine below an area only 300yds across, then, vertically ascending through it. After much mapping and deliberation the submarine rose through some thin ice and the periscope was raised. It broke through into a clear blue day with the midnight sun shining across an empty white expanse. Once on the surface the hatches were opened and the look out and rifleman were sent to the fin to repel Polar bears! Finding the coast clear we drove our makeshift icebreaker to the edge of the Polynya where our Ice Pilot tested the ground the before the pipe was made “ice open to visitors”. With everybody suitably wrapped up to ward of the dangers of frostbite and hypothermia the ship’s company began to pour onto the ice, cameras in hand. For many of the crew this was their first time on Polar ice and, for one Fijian, the first time he had ever seen snow. Everyone made the most of this once in a lifetime experience taking hundreds of photographs with all manner of props including an improvised North Pole, footballs, several well known men’s magazines and a toilet? We then watched the USS HAMPTON surface through the ice nearby and an expeditionary party was sent to exchange gifts and stories from the previous six days. Their CO came over to visit presenting our newly qualified submariners with their Dolphins in the traditional manner, at the bottom of a large glass of Rum. The submarine dived again after nineteen hours on the surface and began the long journey home to Plymouth. This had been a rare, exhilarating journey that we would all remember for a long time to come. We were all happy in the knowledge that we had been to a place where few others will ever go. Lt john Rider RN |
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