Navy wives who didn’t want sailor girls on board have been proved right

FOR the rest of us, nuclear submarines are terrifying instruments of war that could end civilisation. But for the sailors who live on them, it is their workplace.

Cocooned in a cramped vessel, they are ready to jump into action to defend against a potentially catastrophic attack – or launch one themselves. ‘Anyone who says submariners have an easy life, ought to see for themselves,’ said the Navy’s Rear-Admiral Henry Parker.

Claustrophobia is an occupational hazard, with a working pattern of six hours on, six hours off. At one point in the Seventies, the length and regularity of patrols meant no crew member would ever be present at the birth of his child.

A typical cabin consists of nine bunks, arranged in three tiers of three. There’s not enough room to sit up to read in bed.

As one sailor on today’s Vanguard-class sub, which carries Trident missiles, put it: ‘You are literally on top of each other.’

Of HMS Vigilant’s 168 crew, seven are women. They have separate cabins, showers and loos from the men.

Britain’s first three female submariners graduated three years ago, ending 110 years of all-male tradition.

Women were excluded from subs amid fears that carbon dioxide in recycled air could damage their fertility. But a report concluded such concerns were ‘unfounded’ and the ban was overturned in 2011 – despite unease from some male colleagues’ wives over the close conditions men and women would be working in.

To accommodate mixed-sex crews, up to £3 million was spent modifying HMS Vigilant, another Vanguard-class submarine, and two Astute-class hunter-killers.

One of the first women to qualify as a submariner was Lieutenant Alexandra Olsson, then 26, from Tranmere, Merseyside.

Describing the living conditions, she said: ‘It’s slightly more cramped than you would be used to. It’s a bit of an odd place to live – everything smells the same, it all has this diesel oily smell which you have to get used to.’

Women endure the same privations as the men: Not a glimpse of daylight, no fresh air and very long periods during which they cannot speak to loved ones.

Then there’s the smell of body odour. Submariners cannot use perfume or deodorant because they would contaminate

the atmosphere. In an anecdote related in Sub, a book by Danny Danziger who spent two weeks on a Navy nuclear submarine, one submariner described his wife waiting for him at the front door with a bottle of household odour spray Febreze when he came home from leave – she doused him before he was allowed in the house.

Food-wise, much of the produce is frozen and the menus are inevitably repetitive. And entertainment is scant. In the mess room, crew can play games or watch DVDs, and there’s also gym equipment such as rowing machines. Smoking, hardly surprisingly, is banned and alcohol strictly rationed.

All water used on subs has to be distilled from seawater, so showers tend to be brief and sporadic.

Nevertheless, showers are the most common place for trysts, as it is almost impossible elsewhere unless you are, say, the captain or his second in command with your own cabin.