The hero of my submarine novel, The Custom of the Trade, is partially based on the exploits of Lieutenant Commander Martin Nasmith during the Dardanelles campaign. By coincidence, Nasmith was later to command the 7th submarine Flotilla in the Baltic and to become the senior naval officer at Revel (now Tallinn) in Estonia during the campaign by the Baltic States for independence from the Bolsheviks. The story of the Baltic submarine flotilla is the subject of the novel I am

A continuing theme of my novels is the often unsung heroes and largely unknown activities of the Royal Navy in WW1. My aim is to bring to the fore once again the courageous deeds of great men and highlight that the Royal Navy wasn’t just involved in the Battle of Jutland. In my first novel, The Custom of the Trade, I have focused on the early days of submarine operations. Submarines in those days were in their infancy and extremely dangerous and unreliable. As will often b

I am now about two thirds of the way through the first draft of my latest and fourth WW1 naval thriller, Where the Baltic Ice is Thin. I have decided to include in my tale an embellished version of the true account of German perfidy in the sinking of the submarine HMS E13 in the neutral waters of Denmark. E13, under the command or Lieutenant Commander Geoffrey Layton, was despatched to the Baltic in August 1915 to assist the Russians intercept German shipments of iron ore fr

Several readers of my WW1 submarine thriller, The Custom of the Trade, have expressed surprise at how difficult it was to detect and sink submarines during the first half of the war. We have been brought up with images from WW2 submarine films of destroyers locking on to the dived submarine and attacking it with depth charges. It comes as a surprise that neither sonar nor depth charges had been invented before 1916. Prior to 1916, the only means of detecting submarines was

This weekend, I watched a dreadful submarine film, K-19: The Widowmaker’. It had an all-star cast, including Joss Ackland, Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, but it annoyed me for its historical and technical inaccuracies. As ever, the writer of the screenplay distorted the science of nuclear physics to suggest that a reactor meltdown could somehow become a bomb capable of starting WW3 by accident. It is such a popular myth I suppose it can be forgiven. However, the true stor

In my submarine thriller, The Custom of the Trade, I describe an accident in an early submarine caused by hydrogen gas. Even today, hydrogen gas can be a killer in submarines. It has been reported that the recent accident in the Russian nuclear submarine, Losharik, was caused by a hydrogen gas explosion. Before the advent of nuclear propulsion, submarines were entirely reliant on battery power when dived. Today, batteries are a back-up in the event of having to shut down t

The forgotten, but outstandingly successful submarine campaign in the Dardanelles and Sea of Marmara, deprived the Turks of vital supplies at Gallipoli, such that when the Allies withdrew from the beaches, the Turks were within a week of running out of ammunition. Four Commanding Officers of Royal Navy submarines were awarded the VC in the campaign. The hero of my first novel, The Custom of the Trade, is loosely based on Lieutenant Commander Martin Nasmith’s exploits. He wa

I open my first novel, The Custom of the Trade, with a tragic submarine accident, in September 1911. The inspiration for my story came from a newspaper article of March 1911 reporting the sinking of the German submarine, U3. The submarine sank off Kiel harbour, fortunately in shallow water. The stern was completely submerged, but her bows pointed out of the water. Boats were quickly sent to the scene and the submarine crew released a telephone buoy to communicate news of t

In submarines it is quite common not to shave when on patrol. This is a throw- back to the days when the Royal Navy operated conventional submarines and fresh water was in short supply. Accordingly, on my first submarine patrol, I stopped shaving and sported a full set. This patrol was a top secret, intelligence gathering mission in the South Atlantic. However, every four weeks or so, we approached the Falkland Islands to meet with the General commanding the islands to exc

Following the popularity of my post last week, I am bowing to demand by dredging up other tales from my memory banks about the more interesting events during my time in submarines. Whilst most are too highly classified to repeat, I can think of a few more, but not all equally as dramatic. I recall some excitement in my first four weeks at sea in a nuclear submarine. I had joined her as a trainee in dock a few months earlier. Following the docking period we had to go throug

During my days in submarines, I and several others spent far too much time down near the Falkland Islands for our liking. This was in the early 1980s, when we were conducting ‘back to back’ patrols of thirteen weeks or more down there. The tedium was broken up by many moments of excitement, most of which are too highly classified to be shared in an open forum. However, one moment of excitement I can share, and which is described in my novel, The Custom of the Trade, was th

My third book, The Wings of the Wind, is with my publisher for scrutiny. Whilst I await my fate, I have begun work on my fourth novel, about the Royal Navy's submarine flotilla in the Baltic. There, a squadron of nine submarines worked with the Russian Navy to disrupt the supply of Swedish iron ore to the Germans. The presence of such a potent force denied the Baltic to the German Navy as a sea training area. The work of the submarine flotilla was severely hampered by the Rus

Today (4th February) in 1915, the German government announced that it would impose a submarine blockade of Great Britain with effect 18th February 1915. It meant that any shipping, including that of neutrals, could be sunk without warning. Until this change in policy, German submarines, as with those of the Allies, had surfaced in the vicinity of merchant ships and given the crews time to take to their boats in safety before sinking the ships. The introduction by Britain o

Last night my mother ticked me off for my book, The Custom of the Trade. She has now read the book and, whilst she thought it "fabulous", stayed up all one night to read it and cannot wait to read my next novel, she was displeased with the language attributed to one of my hero's commanding officers, Lieutenant Mullan, a Protestant Ulsterman who hates Catholics. My mother is, also, Northern Irish and she was shocked by some of my Irish colloquialisms. Although the CO does no

A few days ago it was reported in the Daily Express that in order to protect the UK’s fishing rights after BREXIT, Michael Gove had placed an order for four new fishery protection ships, the first of which will be called HMS Forth. However, the printed photograph is that of HMS Forth, a former WW2 submarine depot ship. If indeed the new HMS Forth is to be another submarine depot ship, it rather suggests the remaining fishery protection vessels will be submarines. This woul

Imagine yourself onboard the last HMS Queen Elizabeth in April 1915. It’s a hot day off the island of Lemnos, in the eastern Mediterranean. You’re seated in the cabin of the Chief of Staff to Vice-Admiral Roebuck, the Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet. There’s no air conditioning, but you’re not feeling drowsy. You’re on edge. You’re the commanding officer of a submarine and you’ve just made the long voyage from England. Why? What’s the nature