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TheFlood - Episode 3: We are sinking · The Front

0:04
Speaker 1: Hi, it's Claire from the Front. We're bringing you a
0:07
Speaker 1: new mini series from The Australian called The Flood, and
0:10
Speaker 1: this is episode three. The series is hosted by Chief
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Speaker 1: International Correspondent Cameron Stewart and created by Cam with me
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Speaker 1: and our audio lead Jasper Leik, plus all of us
0:21
Speaker 1: here at The Australian. It tells the incredible true story
0:25
Speaker 1: of how sixty Australian sub mariners saved their own lives
0:29
Speaker 1: and their boat. The Flood is a truly inspirational story
0:32
Speaker 1: of human courage, resilience, teamwork and ingenuity. You can follow
0:37
Speaker 1: the show by searching The Flood wherever you listen and
0:40
Speaker 1: going to the floodpodcast dot com, where you can also
0:44
Speaker 1: watch it as a video. The Flood is brought to
0:54
Speaker 1: you by the Australian War Memorial. Some stories define a nation,
1:00
Speaker 1: others reveal what it means to be human. Through Their
1:03
Speaker 1: Eyes is a new podcast from the Australian War Memorial
1:06
Speaker 1: that uncovers powerful human stories, revealing war through unexpected perspectives
1:11
Speaker 1: and immersive storytelling. Through Their Eyes will be live soon
1:15
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.
1:21
Speaker 2: I'm married, we have a daughter.
1:25
Speaker 3: Ah.
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Speaker 4: There are certainly moments when my mind went to them.
1:39
Speaker 4: Certainly a moment.
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Speaker 2: Where you know, just the you know, the young lad. Sorry,
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Speaker 2: just take a moment.
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Speaker 5: My wife so may at night and knows I have
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Speaker 5: nightmares mots nights about it. What do you do? You
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Speaker 5: either get on the horse and keep going or you
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Speaker 5: let it rule your life. And it'd certainly changed my life,
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Speaker 5: but it's not going to own me.
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Speaker 6: From the Australian I'm Cameron Stewart and this is the Flood,
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Speaker 6: Episode three. We are sinking. It is February twelve, two
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Speaker 6: thousand and three, and the Royal Australian Navy submarine Hmasdshano
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Speaker 6: was seconds away from sinking to the bottom of the
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Speaker 6: Indian Ocean, taking her sixty crew with her. A catastrophic
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Speaker 6: flood engulf the submarine after a seawater hose burst while
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Speaker 6: it was at its deepest diving depth fifty nautical miles
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Speaker 6: off the coast of Perth.
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Speaker 4: We worked out later that we had a ton of
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Speaker 4: sea water coming into the submarine every second. A ton
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Speaker 4: of sea water is the same as one hundred crates
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Speaker 4: of your favorite lager coming into your submarine every second
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Speaker 4: through a hole about that big.
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Speaker 6: But At this moment, Commander Scott had no idea how
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Speaker 6: much seawater had flooded his submarine. It didn't even know
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Speaker 6: for sure if the flood had stopped. His crew had
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Speaker 6: just performed the emergency procedures designed to try to save
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Speaker 6: the submarine and themselves. They're blowing all of the boats ballast,
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Speaker 6: shut all of the dashana's external hole valves, and increased
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Speaker 6: the motor to full speed while angling the submarine at
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Speaker 6: twenty degree upward tilt, double the usual to try to
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Speaker 6: gather enough momentum to climb back to the surface. There
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Speaker 6: was no margin for error.
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Speaker 4: I had a well trained crew, I had an exceptional
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Speaker 4: boat with a lot of redundancy. I've been in sticky
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Speaker 4: situations before, I've seen submarines, and I knew that if
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Speaker 4: we kept our call, did what we knew we needed
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Speaker 4: to do, exercise discipline, bring all the sort of expertise
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Speaker 4: that we had to bear on board, then we would
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Speaker 4: have the best chance of pulling through.
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Speaker 6: The trouble was that in the first few seconds, the
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Speaker 6: crew in the control room did all that they could
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Speaker 6: to save the submarine. That initiated all of the emergency
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Speaker 6: operating procedures quickly and flawlessly. There was nothing more they
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Speaker 6: could do but sit and watch the depth gauge. The
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Speaker 6: men and women aboard the Dushano were entering the longest
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Speaker 6: minutes of their lives, waiting to see if they had
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Speaker 6: saved their crippled submarine and themselves.
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Speaker 2: It went very quiet.
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Speaker 4: They went very quiet because we've kind of done everything
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Speaker 4: we knew we could do. There are a few outstation
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Speaker 4: reports and stuff coming in, but you know, there's a
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Speaker 4: few moments there we were kind of going, Okay, we've
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Speaker 4: done what we've been taught and trained to do, and
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Speaker 4: we haven't won this one yet, so where are we
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Speaker 4: going from here? You get to a point where you've
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Speaker 4: certainly done everything you can with blowing main ballast, But
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Speaker 4: of course the submarine takes a moment to.
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Speaker 2: Build up speed.
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Speaker 4: Very powerful main motor, but it's a big submarine and
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Speaker 4: it takes time to build up speed. The more speed
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Speaker 4: you get, the more control you have with your hydroplanes.
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Speaker 4: It's that combination of effect.
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Speaker 2: Blow your main.
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Speaker 4: Ballast, get rid of that weight, build up the speed,
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Speaker 4: get the boat pitched at the right angle to be
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Speaker 4: heading towards the roof, and start pumping to get rid
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Speaker 4: of any other weight that you possibly can all ideally
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Speaker 4: before you know that combination goes the wrong way irreversibly.
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Speaker 6: Commander Scott was too busy in the control room to
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Speaker 6: know exactly what was happening in the lower motor room
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Speaker 6: at the back of the submarine, where the flood had occurred.
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Speaker 6: He did not know that Petty obviously Jordi Bunting, had
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Speaker 6: almost drowned before being saved by his crewmates. He had
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Speaker 6: not yet been told that the flood had been halted
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Speaker 6: by the shutting off of the external whole valves, and
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Speaker 6: he still had no idea how much seawater flooded into
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Speaker 6: his boat. In short, he had no way of knowing
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Speaker 6: whether the Dushana was going to make it back to
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Speaker 6: the surface.
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Speaker 4: It might have been physical mayhem at the back of
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Speaker 4: the boat. I think the crew were actually pretty darn cool,
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Speaker 4: calm and collected. So there were a number of folk
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Speaker 4: stationed after the main watertight bulkheads, and they would have
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Speaker 4: been providing reports back up into the control room about
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Speaker 4: where they'd seen the flood, what was occurring, and what
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Speaker 4: they were doing about it.
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Speaker 2: But it took quite a while to.
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Speaker 4: Develop any real understanding of the total damage and the
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Speaker 4: turtlemount of water and the stadium.
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Speaker 2: Of people back there.
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Speaker 6: Even after Greg Sullivan and Michael Morris had pulled Jordie
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Speaker 6: Bunting out of the flooded lower motor room, the lives
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Speaker 6: of everyone in the main motor room were risk as
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Speaker 6: the sea water washed over electrical equipment, putting the crew
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Speaker 6: there in grave danger of being electrocuted.
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Speaker 4: I'm sure it would have been pretty terrifying as they
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Speaker 4: saw the submarine pitch up and all the water that
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Speaker 4: had flooded into that motor room move aft and around
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Speaker 4: the main motor which has got huge voltage and power
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Speaker 4: going going through it.
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Speaker 6: At the time, Chief engineer John Ryan had run the
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Speaker 6: length of the submarine to jump into the flooded lower
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Speaker 6: motor room to try to identify the source of the flood,
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Speaker 6: but as the water swirled around him, he realized the danger.
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Speaker 3: I mean the water was swirling where there was water
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Speaker 3: pouring in there under pressure. We yield up to isolate
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Speaker 3: some of the equipment so that it didn't fry, or
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Speaker 3: we didn't fry in the water.
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Speaker 2: Because what was the danger there electrocution?
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Speaker 3: We were standing ways deep in seawater.
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Speaker 6: For what felt like an eternity. The submarine refused to
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Speaker 6: respond to efforts by the crew to get it to rise.
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Speaker 6: It was traveling at full speed, with its whole point
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Speaker 6: at twenty degrees upwards, but still it did not respond. Then,
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Speaker 6: to the horror of everyone on board, it began to
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Speaker 6: sink further. The submarine was heading into the Abyss. Twenty
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Speaker 6: years after the flood, Peter Scott published his memoir Running Deep,
8:27
Speaker 6: an Australian Submarine Life, which we heard an excerpt from
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Speaker 6: in episode two of this series. Here, Scott vividly recalls
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Speaker 6: the moment his cruise fate hung in the balance.
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Speaker 2: My heart is beating through my neck. I know, we
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Speaker 2: all know.
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Speaker 4: If we go down in this stpth of water, we
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Speaker 4: will be crushed by the pressure before we hit the bottom.
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Speaker 4: Once the pressure will splits, the ocean's onslaught will be
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Speaker 4: absolute in its violence. Though it be the world to us,
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Speaker 4: the ocean would fill our submarine as effortlessly as it
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Speaker 4: would fill my lungs, without a moment's hesitation or a
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Speaker 4: sciric of remorse.
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Speaker 2: There's no coming back.
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Speaker 4: We've been here before, We've trained for this. Some of
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Speaker 4: us have trained for our whole adult lives. I have
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Speaker 4: the submarine, I say, resuming full command.
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Speaker 6: Now you're at the deepest diving depth. You were looking
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Speaker 6: at the gauge to see whether you were sinking or otherwise.
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Speaker 6: You're already at the deepest diving depth. What did you
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Speaker 6: initially see?
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Speaker 2: So the boat just hung for.
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Speaker 4: What seemed like an eternity and then began to slowly sink.
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Speaker 6: What went through your mind?
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Speaker 2: Then this is all about the wrong way.
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Speaker 4: I had enough experience to know that it would take
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Speaker 4: some time for the impact of the high pressure air
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Speaker 4: to blow the ballast out of the ballast tanks, and
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Speaker 4: you know it wasn't over until it was over kind
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Speaker 4: of thing. But to see that depth gauge going the
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Speaker 4: wrong way at that time, was that was pretty difficult.
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Speaker 6: The crew react. They would have seen the same depth gate.
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Speaker 4: Anyone who anyone who could see a depth gauge would
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Speaker 4: have been looking at a depth gauge at that stage.
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Speaker 2: They probably would have had similar reaction to myself.
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Speaker 6: Commander Scott could feel the eyes of his crew upon him.
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Speaker 4: So I'm standing in the middle of the control room.
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Speaker 4: Control room's fully crude. Everything's pretty tight in there. There
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Speaker 4: was a sailor sitting probably arms for each away on
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Speaker 4: the SNAr set, and I remember he turned and looked
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Speaker 4: to me. He wasn't saying anything, but he was very
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Speaker 4: clearly asking, you know, we're going to.
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Speaker 2: Get out of this. And I was not in a
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Speaker 2: position to say, she'll be right, mate.
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Speaker 4: What I was in a position to say was we're
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Speaker 4: going to fight like hell to make sure we do
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Speaker 4: and we'll see how it goes. One of the remarkable
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Speaker 4: things about a circumstance like that was the crew members
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Speaker 4: who were in a position to do something did exactly
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Speaker 4: what they needed to do. There were a lot of
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Speaker 4: members of the crew who were not in a position.
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Speaker 2: To do anything.
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Speaker 4: Their job at that time was to trust their shipmates
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Speaker 4: and be ready to lean in when they could so.
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Speaker 6: Owner Operator Melanie Ellerton was one of those crew members
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Speaker 6: who could only watch the drama unfold around her.
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Speaker 7: Okay, like, how far past is is limit going to go?
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Speaker 7: Before the submarine says no, you can't handle that pressure
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Speaker 7: anymore to actually say we're going back up. But when
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Speaker 7: you're looking at that death gauge, you're going that's our limit,
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Speaker 7: and now we're going below that limit. There was a
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Speaker 7: lot going through a Heathan, please budge Ally God that
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Speaker 7: we come back up.
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Speaker 6: Every sailor knew were going down.
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Speaker 7: Would mean very much like a coke can getting crushed.
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Speaker 7: Pretty the best way to describe it. It would have
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Speaker 7: been a very quick, very swift and probably the one
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Speaker 7: if you're thinking about it now, it'll be that it
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Speaker 7: would have been the best way to go. If you're
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Speaker 7: going to go on a submarine, it'll be the best
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Speaker 7: way because you wouldn't feel it. That's one saving grace
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Speaker 7: of it all.
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Speaker 6: At that moment, down the back of the submarine in
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Speaker 6: the motor room, a dazed and drenched Jaydie Bunting was
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Speaker 6: trying to recover as seawater washed it dangerously over electrical equipment.
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Speaker 5: I didn't know where I was. There was a lot
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Speaker 5: of noise. Despite the fact that the whole vals was
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Speaker 5: shot and the flooding was no longer rising, the submarine
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Speaker 5: is still extremely heavy and it wasn't coming up. The
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Speaker 5: angle at the boat was on was pretty scary.
13:23
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14:00
Speaker 4: Very soon after the flood occurred, I was trying to
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Speaker 4: work out how to shape, how to behave, how to
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Speaker 4: think through the problems that we were facing, so that
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Speaker 4: we could achieve advantage a month to three months downtrack,
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Speaker 4: because I knew that the incident was serious enough that
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Speaker 4: it could have long term impact on the ship's company
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Speaker 4: and that would either be long term positive or long
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Speaker 4: term negative. And what was said and the way we
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Speaker 4: behaved and the way we went through the immediate was
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Speaker 4: going to have an impact on the long term. So
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Speaker 4: my head was in a lot of different places. It
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Speaker 4: was certainly there watching and understanding everything that the ship's
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Speaker 4: can company was doing and just tracking all of that
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Speaker 4: as the flood occurred, but it was also part of
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Speaker 4: my mind too, how do we shape this to create
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Speaker 4: a long term positive impact at the back end.
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Speaker 6: Now that's Captain Scott, that's you as captain having that responsibility.
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Speaker 6: What about the private Peter at that moment when the
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Speaker 6: flat happens.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know there's a few private Peters.
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Speaker 2: I'm married, we have a daughter.
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Speaker 1: Ah.
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Speaker 4: There are certainly moments when my mind went to them.
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Speaker 1: Ah.
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Speaker 2: There certainly a moment ah where you know, just the
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Speaker 2: you know, the young lad. So I just take a moment.
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Speaker 2: That was not the way the young boy who eventually
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Speaker 2: joined the Navy wanted to go. I didn't want to
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Speaker 2: meet the guy who took that crew to the bottom.
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Speaker 6: But then a miracle happened.
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Speaker 4: It did start to flatten out and recover, and once
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Speaker 4: the boat started moving, it really started moving.
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Speaker 6: Colin's Class submarines can travel it up to twenty knots
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Speaker 6: just under forty kilometers per hour. For the past three minutes,
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Speaker 6: although it felt like forever, the crew had been hanging
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Speaker 6: between life and death Nobody's boat. As the boat rose
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Speaker 6: towards the surface, slowly at first, then picking up speed
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Speaker 6: as it went. Finally, the Shana's black hole exploded out
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Speaker 6: of the Indian Ocean and into the summer sunlight.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, we came through with a bit of speed on
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Speaker 4: and a bit of angle, so we sort of bounced
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Speaker 4: through the roof and then sort of willow back down.
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Speaker 6: Is everything like at that point or is? I mean,
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Speaker 6: tell us about the dangers that you still faced even
17:27
Speaker 6: though you were now at the surface.
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Speaker 4: So it comes to the fact that we did not
17:33
Speaker 4: know the state of our submarine. We didn't know the
17:35
Speaker 4: state of our hydraulic systems, electrical systems.
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Speaker 2: We didn't know how much water we had on the boat.
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Speaker 4: We didn't know what casualties we'd suffer and therefore we
17:44
Speaker 4: know what expertise we'd lost and so on. We didn't
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Speaker 4: know probably at that point, whether there'd been other issues,
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Speaker 4: like you know, had fire started or whatever. So once
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Speaker 4: we were on the roof, a really serious damaged control
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Speaker 4: battle kind of began, and that just became a long
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Speaker 4: and difficult battle to understand the situation and get control
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Speaker 4: of where we're at. It took about three minutes from
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Speaker 4: the time of the initial flood to conduct all those
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Speaker 4: coops and get the boat moving and break the surface
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Speaker 4: was probably about about three minutes in time.
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Speaker 6: The Duschano. We made it back to the surface, but
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Speaker 6: it was not yet out of trouble. It had blown
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Speaker 6: all of its ballast tanks and there was no certainty
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Speaker 6: that it would not sink again. Could it make it
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Speaker 6: back to port? Was everyone safe? How would the Navy
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Speaker 6: handle this near disaster? What would it mean for the
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Speaker 6: Duschano and for all of the Colins class submarines which
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Speaker 6: were already under serious scrutiny. Geordie Rocker, Bunting and John
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Speaker 6: Ryan recall the moment.
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Speaker 5: It was a long trens at back. I can remember
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Speaker 5: that because we were severely speed restricted because of the
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Speaker 5: damage that had been done to the main mater cooling gear.
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Speaker 5: There was a lot of work going on to try
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Speaker 5: and get systems back up to get us home safe,
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Speaker 5: and that was obviously carried out.
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Speaker 2: But that time coming back in.
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Speaker 5: Well, I guess just the time to reflect and come
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Speaker 5: to groups with what had just happened.
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Speaker 3: As a general rule, you can't smoke anywhere on the submarine. Saturday,
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Speaker 3: I just went to the boss and said, you know,
19:28
Speaker 3: I'm going to take rock and we're gonna have a smoke.
19:31
Speaker 1: Ye VISs Episode three of our four part series, which
19:41
Speaker 1: the Australian subscribers here first at the floodpodcast dot com
19:45
Speaker 1: and Apple Podcasts. Next week.
19:48
Speaker 2: On the Flood, I wrung my.
19:50
Speaker 5: Wife and said we've had a bit of a mishoe.
19:52
Speaker 5: Can you come and pick me up and pick up
19:55
Speaker 5: some cigarettes? Whine I got wet.
20:07
Speaker 1: The Flood is an audio and video investigation for The
20:10
Speaker 1: Australian by Cameron Stewart, executive producer Claire Harvey and editor
20:14
Speaker 1: Jasper Leigue. You can watch the video right now at
20:17
Speaker 1: the Flood podcast dot com. Our theme is composed by
20:21
Speaker 1: Jasper Leik, cinematography is by Andy Taylor and video editing
20:25
Speaker 1: by Lachlan Crear. Additional footage was shot by Luke Geldard
20:29
Speaker 1: and Peter Aqualina. Our graphics of by Sean Callanan and
20:33
Speaker 1: animations by Franklin. Special thanks to Kristin Amiot, Ryan Elfin,
20:38
Speaker 1: the Australian National Maritime Museum and the Australian War Memorial. Captured, Imprisoned,
20:52
Speaker 1: Determined to Survive through first hand accounts from the Australian
20:56
Speaker 1: War Memorial's archives. Through Their Eyes reveals what it meant
21:00
Speaker 1: to endure captivity, maintain hope and survive against the odds.
21:05
Speaker 1: Listen to Through Their Eyes wherever you get your podcasts,