Submarines: Pakistan
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Sea Phoenix: A True Submarine Story
July 23, 2006
REVIEWS: Survivors of the deep
Reviewed by Shahzad Hasan
SEA Phoenix is a true story about a tiny submarine of the Pakistan Navy, the men who sailed her, the men who rescued her and one chicken bone.
This remarkable story was not exactly kept secret, but was low profile enough. Most people in Pakistan are not aware that we lost a Midget submarine to the ocean depths in September 1995. What people know even less about is the superhuman rescue effort the Navy successfully put into the operation to recover this submarine. And it all starts with a chicken bone.
First of all, we should know what a “Midget Submarine” is. The ones that the Navy uses are called “X-Craft”. These are small 100 ton submarines that are quite lethal. They are a much more advanced model than the Midget that was mounted at Karachi’s “Submarine Chowk” sometime back. That was an old generation Midget in which one could not stand up straight, and the submarine itself had no radar, poor sonar and a lousy periscope, so they had to navigate blind or do it by dragging a diver behind the sub who knocked on the hull with a hammer to tell the crew inside to turn left or right by five degrees. And if one wanted to go to the toilet, one either did it outside the sub or in a bucket. The new generation of Midgets, the X-Craft — one of which is the subject of this book — are far more advanced. They suffer from none of the problems of the earlier models, they have full underwater navigation abilities, room to stand up straight in, and a real toilet. Plus, they have real firepower, which has been doubled on the X-Craft since 1995, including the X-Craft that had drowned and was rescued. And they are double the size of the old ones.
The book is full of details about the internals of the X-Craft. But far from boring the reader, they provide a backdrop that removes confusion as they are woven in seamlessly with the narrative. The writer of Sea Phoenix, Mian Zahir Shah, a submariner himself, has done an excellent job of rendering technical details understandable for the landlubbers amongst us. To help, he himself has drawn all the drawings and cartoons like a pro (in colour), explaining the events and conditions and techniques. Many of the cartoons are humorous, especially those that explain life in the Navy (like a wife, holding her nose, ordering her sailor husband to take a shower).
The book is basically in three parts. The first part is when the crew of X-Craft 01 went on a training exercise off Karachi on Saturday, September 23, 1995. They settled the submarine on the ocean bottom at about 100 feet depth and had lunch that involved lots of chicken. The captain had a choice about what to do with the leftover chicken bones — he could toss them overboard once they surfaced — or he could use this opportunity to instruct the crew in the use of the “trash ejector”. He chose the latter.
Not going into details, one stuck chicken bone and the use of too much force to close the stuck ejector resulted in the ejector malfunctioning and tons of seawater flooding the submarine. The whole scene is described in the book and is as clear as if one were watching a movie, thanks to Shah’s superb writing. The crew should have died then and there, if it hadn’t been for their training and specially for the captain, Lt. Commander Noor-ul-Islam’s leadership.
As all survived, miraculously escaping “the bends” by minutes, they floated on the ocean but kept together until they were rescued. This can be considered the second part of the book — the rescue of the crew. The book tells us how they were rescued even though it wasn’t clear where they were as they were drifting in the ocean currents.
The third part of the book is about the salvage operation, something the Pakistan Navy had never tried before with a submarine. In fact, there were only three submarines that had sunk, been salvaged and then put back into service — a British, and American and a Russian sub (which was later leased to India). The Pakistan Navy’s X-Craft, makes it the fourth such case in the world, which puts our service in an elite bracket. What makes it further unique, is that all our crew survived.
And now for a few words and facts that made an impression on this reviewer:
Most memorable orders shouted: “What’s all this? WHAT’S ALL THIS??”, by Capt. “Rasyoon walla Baba”, of the PNS Kalmat ... the ship that brought X-Craft out of the ocean and back home.
Most laconic press release: Appearing in the middle pages of Dawn, “Naval Accident — A submersible used for training of Special Services Group (Navy) met with an accident in the training area off Karachi. All crew members, however, were recovered unhurt.” A fine example of how to say everything while saying nothing. This is all the public knew about the incident until this book.
Most hopeful question: “Tum zinda ho???” (Admiral Bokhari)
Most impressive punishment: If a SSGN trainee and his “buddy” get separated in the water (during training), they are tied together by a length of rope five feet long, until they learn their lesson. Yes, they even go to the toilet together.
Most impressive encounter with Marine life: A whale came to see the salvage operation and “scanned” the underwater divers with its Ultrasound. The divers felt the power of the whale’s Sonar as a shrill whistle, even though they couldn’t see the whale itself. Satisfied, it then went back. What an intelligent animal! Thank God Admiral Fasih Bokhari, who was personally supervising the salvage operation (he was the inspiration behind it in the first place), stopped someone on the deck from shooting the magnificent creature, as it was considered a threat to the divers underwater.
Most telling encounter: Admiral Mansoor-ul-Haque, who had zero faith in his men and announced that he intended to go to the US and beg for their help in the salvage. Damn the cost to the nation.
Most useful gentleman: Lt. Commander Karim Bukhsh (retired but reemployed by the navy), Engineering Officer of PNS Iqbal base. Without his knowledge and skills for inventing the needed equipment, the salvage operation would have been impossible.
Most appetizing fact: The Navy lives on “Paratha” and the divers live on “Mithai”. They need the extra energy. And there seems to be something of a love-hate relationship between the cooks and the men.
A piece of equipment that refused to die: The Captain’s Casio watch that he lost when the X-Craft sank. After encountering crushing pressures, mud, acid and seawater ... it was found still working.
The man who most deserved a gift of bullet-proof vest: OOD Iqbal base. (Officer on Duty).
When M. Zahir Shah was writing this book, he collected enough material about the operation itself and life in the navy, for a book that would be over 800 pages long. He whittled that down to 400 plus pages and streamlined the book. It reads like a thriller and doesn’t have any slow bits. One can not put it down.
This is the writer’s second book, the first being the very successful, Bubbles of Water about life in the Pakistan Navy. We eagerly look forward to more of his works.
And yes, they also recovered the chicken bone stuck in the trash ejector.
Sea Phoenix: A True Submarine Story
By Mian Zahir Shah
PN Book Club, NES Directorate,
NHQ, Islamabad
Email: dpr@apollo.net.pk
426pp. Price not listed
Pns Ghazi
The Ghazi story
PNS Ghazi was a US-made submarine that was leased to Pakistan in 1963 It was the first submarine operated by the Pak navy and saw action in the 1965 and 1971 wars In 1971, Ghazi sailed from west Pakistan to the east, hunting for India’s aircraft carrier INS Vikrant The Indian navy claims that INS Rajput, which had already been hunting for Ghazi, destroyed the submarine around midnight of December 3, 1971 Pakistan, and some observers, say Ghazi was destroyed by either an internal blast or an accidental blast of mines when they were being laid All 92 on board Ghazi were killed, and the wreckage of the submarine still lies off Visakhapatnam The sinking of the submarine helped India effect a naval blockage of the Bangladesh coast SINKING OF RECORDS Did we create false war heroes? New Delhi: If the Army made a mess of preserving documents relating to the spectacular 1971 victory over Pakistan, the Navy’s not far behind. Records on the sinking of Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi have gone missing. On June 22, 1998, Rear Admiral K Mohanrao, then chief of staff of Visakhapatnambased Eastern Naval Command, in a letter to Vice Admiral G M Hiranandani, who was writing the official history of Navy, said, “We are still continuing to search for old files and as and when they are located, I will send appropriate documents for your project.” Mohanrao also referred to inquiries with Commodore P S Bawa (retd), who worked with the Maritime Historical Society, to find out about the artifacts. Here also, the Navy drew a blank.
What Mohanrao’s letter does not disclose is the letter written by Bawa himself in 1980. On December 20, 1980, Bawa, then a commander with the Maritime Historical Society, said, “In Virbahu, to my horror I found that all Ghazi papers and signals were destroyed this year. Nothing is now available there.” He was writing after a visit to Virbahu, the submarine centre at Vizag, where the documents, signals and other artifacts recovered from Ghazi were stored. His letter (MHS/23) was addressed to Vice Admiral M P Awati, the then chief of personnel at the naval headquarters.
Over the years, in the 1990s, as Vice Admiral Hiranandani sat down to write the official history of Navy, he made several efforts to get the Ghazi documents, records show. In one of his letters to the then chief of eastern naval command, Vice Admiral P S Das, he sought the track chart of the Ghazi, the official report of the diving operations on the Ghazi from December 1971 onwards and any other papers related to the submarine. But none of it was available for the official historian of the Navy.
A retired Navy officer, who saw action in 1971, said the destruction of the Ghazi papers and those of Army in Kolkata are all fitting into a larger trend, many of them suspected about Indian war history, of deliberate falsification in many instances. It is high time the real history of those past actions were revealed. “We have enough heroes,” he said. “In the fog of war, many myths and false heroes may have been created and many honest ones left unsung,” he said.
