Prince William may be a helicopter pilot attached to the Search and Rescue service – but hey, he’s also Commodore-in-Chief of Submarines. Superman or what?
Joking apart, – well no, we’re only starting – the reluctant bridegroom will present submariners with a Royal Navy Deterrent Patrol Pin this Thursday (28th October 2010).
Since the Prince will see a shamefaced HMS Astute back in port for an indeterminate future after its unwillingness to tear itself away from the Isle of Skye, perhaps the Deterrent Patrol Pin is aimed to deter sea-floor engagements?
Since we’re well into Ruritania here, it’s worth noting that the Deterrent Patrol Pin is the first of its kind in the UK. While it can be said to to honour the work of the 500 sailors at the base, the bald fact is that it has been invented to give the Prince something to do as he beds in to royal duties on the safe periphery.
Wouldn’t it be a better recognition of worth just to give the submariners up to date Admiralty charts to use – and to spare them from having to use non-see-through tracing paper over them when they’re on exercise?
The Deterrent Patrol Pin has been established as an award for submariners who have qualified and served on patrolon a Ballistic Missile submarine (Polaris and Trident).
Much like campaign medals, it is to recognise the contribution made to in this particular service.
It most certainly has not been fabricated to give Prince William something to do at Faslane.
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For Martin Douglas: Regardless of the utility of the availability of the Pin and our joint spectrum of innocence to cynicism, we absolutely recognise – and find it hard imaginatively to grasp – the particular calibre of the servicemen in the submarine fleet. Some of us draw the line at the Clyde Tunnel.
Everything about this service is particularly mysterious – the character required, the self-reliant community, what must be an odd balance of the mundane and the extreme – and the risk factor which, with the introduction of stealth technology, must multiply.
Like everyone, we couldn’t resist joking about Vanguard’s bump with Le Triomphant but it will have been very far from funny for both sets of submariners when it happened.
In the end, the one recognition that matters is our own. It is often only we ourselves who know just what we have achieved.
There’s a fabulous fable of a lizard in the (non-specific) ‘African jungle’.
He’s always wanted to climb this very tall tree in a clearing and dive off the top into a pond below. He keeps on climbing the tree and bottling out when he gets to the top and looks down.
One day he decides he’s going through with it, come what may. He climbs steadily to the top of the tree. He looks down quickly and only to check where the pond is – and hurls himself into space.
He falls, spinning, hits the water hard, almost loses consciousness, plunges to the depths – but starts ascending. He reaches the surface, pauses to breathe the air, swims to the side (can lizards swim?) , clambers onto the bank, composes himself proudly – and waits for the applause.
None comes. He is, of course, alone There were no witnesses to his deed.
He waits. He realises. He shrugs.
He says: ‘I congratulate myself’.
We’re with the lizard but we celebrate with all of those – like submariners – who occasionally surface to find that there are witnesses, there is applause and there is external recognition.
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For Newsroom.
Nicely put.
Awards like the Deterrent Patrol Pin serve more as a “Club Badge” and their worth is only truly acknowledged by other holders.
The overriding character of any individual within the submarine fleet, is knowing that the individual achieves only as a member of a team.
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Omg i was there my dad is alan cowie , see if you type in http://www.stvnews.com and in the search box type the heading in and my dad is at the bottom!!
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