Toughing it out army diver-styleBy Simon Brown
All photos by Simon Brown
Lying on the concrete dressed in frayed, olive, drab overalls, the diver-training aid was like no other I had ever seen. Missing a head, the mannequin looked more like a missing prop from a horror movie, but I was assured it was an important part of army diver training.
'That's Diver Hunt,' Scouse announced, giving the prostrate figure a prod with his boot. 'If trainees cock up they have to carry him for the whole day. Try picking him up.'
The lifeless lump of rubber and rope weighed as much as my 10-litre 300-bar twin-set. 'His first name is Mike, and he has two twin brothers. All of them are coming on the beach run this afternoon,' Stottie chipped in. Behind me the steep, loose shingle slopes of Chesil Bank stretched 7km as the crow flies along the Fleet, and back towards Portland in Dorset. As I looked on, the memory of a shore dive off Chesil - specifically, the effort required to get kit up and down the beach - played on my mind.
Just as Diver Hunt was a unique mannequin, the course instructors were like no other instructors I had met. Nicknamed Stottie and Scouse, the dive instructors held the ranks of Sergeant and Lance Corporal respectively, and it was apparent from the glint in their eyes that Diver Hunt was held in high regard. Stottie and Scouse clearly enjoyed the job of weeding out those who were on the course for the money (divers receive enhanced pay), from those who wanted to be an army diver.
The British Army - specifically, the Royal Engineers and Royal Logistical Corps - has around 350 trained divers at its disposal. The opportunity to train as an army diver is open to any recruit who has completed combat and specialist trade skills training, and selection for diver training is by aptitude test. The aptitude test is tough; civilian diver-training agencies take as little as four days to train a diver, the army takes five days - not to teach anything, just to assess the mental and physical potential of a recruit.
On the morning I joined them, Class Two diver trainees were on the dockside, unloading the truck and preparing kit for a morning dive in Portland Harbour. Class Two divers are on the bottom rung of the army diver-training ladder and, halfway into the five-week course, the men looked tired and fatigued, working in an almost mechanical way assembling scuba gear. With the kit assembled, Stottie lined up the trainees for a briefing, detailing the task of surveying the wreck of a tank landing craft that sat just inside the harbour wall, adding for my benefit a request not to disturb the silt. Diving in two waves, one group surveyed the wreck while the other provided surface support in the form of safety swimmers and operated the underwater communications.
Alongside the wreck I awaited the arrival of the first divers. The briefing about 'Don't touch the silt' was clearly forgotten as the first pair descended and set about kicking up a brown soup around themselves. Unlike civilian divers, army divers do not view buoyancy skills as a high priority. Army divers have a job to do and stirring up the silt is considered secondary to completing the task. In addition, army divers are always roped to a surface buoy. Used as a back up if the underwater comms fail, the 8mm rope is much thicker than delayed surface marker buoy string, and can be used in an emergency to recover a diver, or help recover an object. Diving without a rope is a strict no-no, and the only time anyone could remember a non-tethered dive being authorised was a body recovery operation from a trawler draped in fishing nets.
As I clambered back into the RIB I could hear a diver being hauled over the coals. The neoprene hood couldn't hold back Scouse's choice words as he let fly into one of the trainees, leaving the individual clear about what he thought of the last dive, and in particular the ascent rate used. I felt it was perhaps not a good time to mention the complete disregard for maintaining good visibility and not stirring up silt that was explicitly requested in the briefing…
Later that afternoon the divers demonstrated their fast-water search technique in the Fleet, a narrow channel of water behind Chesil Beach. The Army measures 'fast' as being any flow too strong to fin against, and judging from the rush of water on the flood tide trying to rip my fingers from the descent line, this dive would qualify. Working either side of a jackstay the pair of divers faced into the current, slowly moving downstream. Amid seaweed that was bent almost flat by the tide, they were conducting a fingertip search for lost equipment - a diving unit is always in attendance when the Royal Engineers bridge a river, providing both safety cover and a search-and-recovery capability.
For the next exercise trainees were ferried across the Fleet to the waiting instructors. Each trainee carried an empty sandbag.
'We like to look after the beach,' Scouse remarked. 'The boys are collecting litter. They can ditch the bag at Ferry Bridge. As long as it's full.'
The trainees set off for their run along the bank, zigzagging every 50m or so down to the shoreline and then back up to the top of the shingle. Taking the easy option I drove to Ferry Bridge with the Land Rover, which carried both a resuscitation unit and the 'Brothers Grimm' - Diver Hunt times three!
The trainees ran into the car park drenched in sweat, and dropped off the rubbish-filled sandbags before collecting Diver Hunt. Scouse grinned as they departed and reminded them, 'It's not over until you are in the shower,' as Messrs Hunt and the team headed back towards the beach and the finish in Portland.
The eight-week Class One course takes an army diver beyond kit and skills not unfamiliar to civilians and firmly into the commercial world of hard-hat surface-supply diving, including skills to handle an impressive array of tools and construction techniques. Underwater concreting skills are taught at the Defence Diving School at nearby Horsea, with liquid concrete piped underwater into a mould. The diver works by feel; once the concrete starts to flow, visibility is reduced to zero, but the concrete must be laid evenly.
As soon as the concrete block has set, the jackhammer is brought out and trainees are tasked with reducing the concrete block to rubble. Other tools (see box) are equally impressive, but the chainsaw is in a class of its own and, as far as the Royal Engineers are concerned, there is no substitute when it comes to clearing wooden obstacles.
The training an army diver receives is a long way from the touchy-feely world of civilian dive agencies, but it needs to be. The Royal Engineers have operated in conflict zones the world over, and going for a run with Diver Hunt and his brothers is just one way of preparing a diver to perform beyond their personal limits, if the job requires. On a personal note, if I ever find Stottie or Scouse being introduced as 'my instructor' on my next BSAC course I will run a mile. And without Diver Hunt for company!
TOOLED UP
Army divers have a wide range of tools at their disposal, both hydraulically and electrically powered. Disc-cutters, jackhammers and drills are used, but the most dramatic piece of equipment is the underwater chainsaw. Invoking memories of 1970s horror movies (with the added fear of drowning or being hacked to death!) the hydraulic chainsaw is used anywhere where a wooden obstacle needs to be cleared. The chainsaw does not have an on or off switch. Control of the tool is managed by the surface team running the hydraulic pump, with the diver asking for power as required.
Cutting through steel with the minimum of effort calls for the Broco. This underwater thermal cutting tool is powered by a surface generator which pumps 100 amperes of electricity and 100-per-cent oxygen through a hollow magnesium and steel rod. Once fired up, the underwater flame cuts through steel like a knife through butter.
BACK IN THE WATER
The Royal Engineers have been working in the underwater world since 23 April 1838, when a Colonel Pasley donned the primitive dive gear of the period, slipped below the waters of the River Medway in Kent and made history by becoming the first member of the British armed services to dive. In 1842 Pasley detached a member of his diving team to HMS Excellent to train the Navy in the science of diving - a fact that the Royal Engineers are quick to point out - and the initial training tank at the combined Defence Diving School in Horsea, Portsmouth, is named in the Colonel's honour. The Royal Engineers always travel with a dive team, and in recent conflicts, dive teams have helped clear debris from Kosovan hydro-electric plants, searched wells in Bosnia for evidence of ethnic cleansing - a particularly grim task - and have dealt with a Second World War vintage German bomb found in the bottom of a gasometer in London's East End.
KIT CHECK
The army uses a lot of off-the-shelf civilian dive kit, but with modifications to suit specific needs. The SABA (Swimming Air Breathing) unit comprises a standard BC and a standard 12-litre cylinder plus 3-litre bail-out. For communications and comfort, full-face masks are used - there is a valve block allowing the diver to switch from main to bail-out cylinder without swapping regulators. The valve block also has an external connection point, allowing the standby diver to connect a 7-litre emergency bottle into another diver's air supply.
Although divers are issued with Suunto dive watches, the entire dive is managed and controlled from the surface, with the diver being told when to ascend or make a decompression stop.
For serious underwater work, the industry standard Kirby Morgan hard hats are used for surface supply work, with the umbilical cord supplying air and communications.
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