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The incredible submarine survival story you've never heard · The Front

0:05
Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, June to twenty twenty six. The government's been
0:14
Speaker 1: doing some creative accounting when it comes to defense. It's
0:17
Speaker 1: pledged to increase spending to two point eight percent of GDP,
0:21
Speaker 1: but that's only if you count veterans affairs and a
0:25
Speaker 1: giant unpaid superannuation entitlement for staff. That's an exclusive live
0:31
Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au ahead of
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Speaker 1: tonight's big summit Defending Australia, which you'll be able to
0:38
Speaker 1: watch live on our website. Twenty seconds to save sixty
0:44
Speaker 1: Australian lives deep in the Indian Ocean. It's a story
0:48
Speaker 1: of courage and fortitude most of us can only imagine today.
0:53
Speaker 1: The remarkable undersea emergency of hmas D'shano is told for
0:58
Speaker 1: the first time in the Australian new documentary series The Flood.
1:02
Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart, the journalist who's been chasing this yarn for decades,
1:07
Speaker 1: is here. In just a moment, there was.
1:25
Speaker 2: A sharp hiss and then an almighty explosion bang.
1:38
Speaker 1: The flood is the most unbelievable story you've never heard
1:41
Speaker 1: about what happened in Royal Australian Navy submarine in two
1:46
Speaker 1: thousand and three. And the journalist who's been working for
1:49
Speaker 1: decades to bring this story to light is Cameron Stewart.
1:52
Speaker 1: He's now The Australian's chief international correspondent, but Cam spent
1:56
Speaker 1: a long time as our defense reporter and the bane
1:58
Speaker 1: of the existence of Navy as it rolled out the
2:02
Speaker 1: controversial Colins class submarines. Cam, take us back to the
2:05
Speaker 1: days when you were a young reporter causing trouble for
2:09
Speaker 1: the Navy. What was the story of the Colins class
2:12
Speaker 1: submarines and why was it such a rich field of
2:15
Speaker 1: endeavor for you?
2:16
Speaker 3: Well, Claire, look, it was an accidental story. Really, I
2:18
Speaker 3: guess Australia had built this new class of submarine. Australia
2:22
Speaker 3: never built the submarines before. The previous submarines came from Britain.
2:25
Speaker 3: These were the Colins class submarines that built in Adelaide.
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Speaker 3: And understandably, looking back, there were so many problems with
2:30
Speaker 3: building and they were over budget. They had problems with
2:33
Speaker 3: their propulsion, even their periscopes couldn't focus. I mean, these
2:36
Speaker 3: submarines we had so many teething problems, and of course
2:39
Speaker 3: this eventually got out and journalists like myself reported on it,
2:43
Speaker 3: and so it was a real problem for the Navy.
2:46
Speaker 3: It was an issue though called dud subs. You might remember,
2:49
Speaker 3: they were loud as rock concerts under the water, et cetera,
2:51
Speaker 3: et cetera. So it was a really difficult time, I guess,
2:54
Speaker 3: for the Navy to get the submarines right. And so
2:58
Speaker 3: really at that point in time it was rich pickings
3:01
Speaker 3: for journalists, but it was important to also keep them
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Speaker 3: to account.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that issue of sound for the Colins class submarines
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Speaker 1: is something that maybe submarine experts, maybe only submarine experts
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Speaker 1: would really understand. Why is it so important for submarines
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Speaker 1: to be silent under the water or as silent as.
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Speaker 3: Possible, because they're basically not supposed to exist as far
3:21
Speaker 3: as the enemy is concerned. Like you basically have to
3:23
Speaker 3: go silently under the water as quite as you can be.
3:25
Speaker 3: When I went on a submarine, the chef would shutter,
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Speaker 3: he said, whenever he slammed a cupboard door, because they
3:30
Speaker 3: have to be really quiet so that they can sneak
3:33
Speaker 3: up on the enemy or they can inspire. They spy
3:36
Speaker 3: vehicles as well. They go to a port and basically
3:39
Speaker 3: listen to everything around them, gather intelligence, and if an
3:42
Speaker 3: enemy knows that they're they're they're vulnerable. So that is
3:45
Speaker 3: the critical thing. So the submarines have to be quiet.
3:47
Speaker 3: The Commons class weren't quite in the early days. They
3:49
Speaker 3: certainly are now, but that was a real problem for them.
3:58
Speaker 1: In an attempt to probably quite literally get you on board,
4:00
Speaker 1: the Navy invited you on board a Collins class submarine
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Speaker 1: that was hmasdshano What was that like for a young
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Speaker 1: reporter to go on boarder a submarine at sea.
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Speaker 3: Well, I'm six foot four, so it's not perfect, but
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Speaker 3: it was. It was very interesting because they couldn't get
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Speaker 3: submarriners to join because of the problems of the Comins
4:18
Speaker 3: class submarines, so they wanted to I was interested in
4:21
Speaker 3: doing a big feature on life as a submariner. They
4:23
Speaker 3: took nine months to approve my request. Next thing I know,
4:26
Speaker 3: I'm on a zodiac flying out through the water in
4:29
Speaker 3: the night into the ocean, and then this huge apparition
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Speaker 3: of a submarine came in front of me and it
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Speaker 3: was the HMAS to Shano I gotsked into the submarine
4:38
Speaker 3: and I spent forty eight hours on that submarine as
4:41
Speaker 3: they did wargames in the Indian Ocean.
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Speaker 4: Americans have christened the exercise Silent Fury. Rankin's mission is
4:54
Speaker 4: to elude detection and pass through a choke point. To
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Speaker 4: achieve this, the captain has a cunning plan.
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Speaker 3: I mean, going down in the submarine, you sort of
5:05
Speaker 3: had to just park your concerns as best you can.
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Speaker 3: But I went down. It was amazing. A middle of
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Speaker 3: the crew, obviously the captain, they didn't like a journalist
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Speaker 3: on board, but honestly, by a few hours they got
5:17
Speaker 3: pretty relaxed and it was extraordinary seen the way they
5:19
Speaker 3: went through the motions and actually conducted themselves. I've had
5:22
Speaker 3: absolutely fascinating life.
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Speaker 1: Back then, in the early two thousands for submariners all
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Speaker 1: over the world had an extra kind of level of fear,
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Speaker 1: probably because of what had happened to the Curse.
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Speaker 3: What happened there, Yeah, the Curse was a Russian submarine
5:38
Speaker 3: and a torpedo exploded on board and it punctured the
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Speaker 3: shell of the submarine. It sank to the bottom of
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Speaker 3: the Barns Sea in a relatively shallow patch of water
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Speaker 3: but still too deep for rescue vehicles.
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Speaker 1: Western military analysts had been suggesting earlier on in the
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Speaker 1: day that if no breakthrough came within forty eight hours,
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Speaker 1: that the crew would be in a very grave situation.
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Speaker 3: Indeed, and tragically, the one hundred and eighteen crew, some
6:03
Speaker 3: of them survived and were sitting on the seabed and
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Speaker 3: they were writing notes to their loved ones awaiting a
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Speaker 3: rescue that never came. And we'll probably remember very well
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Speaker 3: the heartbreaking scenes of the mothers and the loved ones
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Speaker 3: on land waiting and hoping for the rescue. And then
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Speaker 3: this is something which in the submarine community, with every country,
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Speaker 3: just really impacted on sub mariners. It was only about
6:26
Speaker 3: three years after the event when I went on to Dashana.
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Speaker 3: It was a huge issue among the submarine community because
6:31
Speaker 3: it was their worst nightmare.
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Speaker 2: Cameron, I'm Commodore. Peter Scott retired from full time service
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Speaker 2: in the Royal Australian Navy half a dozen years ago
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Speaker 2: after a career of thirty four years, vast majority of
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Speaker 2: which was either in or around submarines in one way
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Speaker 2: or another. Absolute highlight of that career was my command
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Speaker 2: of first h MAS Collins and then h Master Shona.
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Speaker 1: Peter Scott is a really interesting person. He went on
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Speaker 1: to run the Australian Submarine Fleet for the Navy. An
7:03
Speaker 1: amazing leader, a really interesting man, and he's been someone
7:06
Speaker 1: who you've maintained a relationship with over the years, and
7:09
Speaker 1: you've been wanting to get him to tell you one
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Speaker 1: story in particular, What is that story and how did
7:14
Speaker 1: you finally get him over the line?
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Speaker 3: I wanted him to tell me the story of what
7:19
Speaker 3: happened under the ocean in February two thousand and three
7:23
Speaker 3: when the Dashano was some fifty emilii miles off the
7:25
Speaker 3: coast of Perth. They're about to go on a top
7:27
Speaker 3: secret mission to Asia for several months. So what they
7:30
Speaker 3: were doing was testing the submarine systems, which is what
7:32
Speaker 3: you do before you go on deployment. The way they
7:35
Speaker 3: do that, clear is they go down to something called
7:37
Speaker 3: deep diving depth, which is the deepest depth of a
7:39
Speaker 3: submarine is designed to operate at. Now, the actual depth
7:42
Speaker 3: itself is classified because to give that would give an
7:45
Speaker 3: advantage to the enemy, and so Commander Scott took that
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Speaker 3: submarine of the Dashano down to test the systems all of
7:52
Speaker 3: a sudden, there was a huge explosion. What happened was
7:55
Speaker 3: a seawater hose in the very back of the submarine,
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Speaker 3: a place called the lower motor room, exploded and the
8:01
Speaker 3: Indian Ocean came flooding into that submarine at a rate
8:05
Speaker 3: of a thousand liters of water a second. Now, in
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Speaker 3: that back lower motor room was a very unfortunate sub mariner,
8:13
Speaker 3: chief petty officer, Jordie Bunting was his name, and the
8:17
Speaker 3: water completely knocked him off his feet and it filled up.
8:20
Speaker 3: He was underwater for most of the time. He was drowning,
8:23
Speaker 3: trapped behind the ladder. So this drama was happening at
8:27
Speaker 3: the back of the submarine, and all of a sudden,
8:29
Speaker 3: the pipes they call at the intercom had the words flood, flood,
8:34
Speaker 3: flood in the lower motor room. Now those words were
8:38
Speaker 3: enough to freeze the blood of the entire du Chena crew,
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Speaker 3: because at deep diving death that is the worst possible
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Speaker 3: thing that could happen to a submarine. And so all
8:46
Speaker 3: of a sudden you have the captain with these words,
8:51
Speaker 3: not knowing exactly what the flood is, not knowing exactly
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Speaker 3: how much water had come in, and not knowing whether
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Speaker 3: the water had stopped coming in, or of course the
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Speaker 3: big picture, whether he could rescue his submarine.
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Speaker 1: You have finally got Peter Scott to tell you that story,
9:08
Speaker 1: and we've used that as the basis or the spine,
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Speaker 1: I guess of a four part documentary series that you've
9:14
Speaker 1: been making along with me and our audio lead Jasper Leak,
9:18
Speaker 1: along with many other members of the Australians team. It's
9:24
Speaker 1: a ripping adventure yarn. It's an incredibly inspiring story of survival.
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Speaker 1: You know, spoiler alert, they did survive. Because Peter Scott
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Speaker 1: still alive today. How did you finally get him to
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Speaker 1: talk to you about it? Because this was a very
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Speaker 1: sensitive issue for the Navy.
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Speaker 3: It was a sensitive issue. I mean, I'd written a
9:43
Speaker 3: part of the story. What happened was after the actual
9:46
Speaker 3: dashane of incident, after the flood, the Navy glossed over it.
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Speaker 3: What they did was they didn't entirely lie. They just
9:51
Speaker 3: didn't quite tell the truth. They said that a number
9:54
Speaker 3: of tons of water had come on to a submarine
9:56
Speaker 3: after it's sprang a leak if you like, but it
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Speaker 3: wasn't enough to They didn't suggest that the submarine was
10:01
Speaker 3: in any danger. The sixty men and women on board
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Speaker 3: were in any danger, nothing like that. So it was
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Speaker 3: a very minor news story that sort of vanished within
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Speaker 3: about twenty four hours. And then about two years later,
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Speaker 3: defense contact whispered to me. He said, by the way,
10:14
Speaker 3: did you hear the Navy know the lost a submarine?
10:16
Speaker 3: And of course I was like intrigued. Then I heard
10:19
Speaker 3: it was the Shanno and I'd been on the Dashano,
10:22
Speaker 3: so I had the contact numbers with the crew. So
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Speaker 3: I avoided the big defense pr machine and went straight
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Speaker 3: to the crew, and to my great delight, they were
10:29
Speaker 3: happy to speak to me. These days, they'd probably get
10:31
Speaker 3: wrapped over the knuckles hugely, but they spoke to me.
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Speaker 3: So I wrote the original story. I broke the original
10:37
Speaker 3: story in two thousand and five about what happened, but
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Speaker 3: only really had you know, I didn't know two thirds
10:42
Speaker 3: of the story, if you liked, because I didn't have
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Speaker 3: the key voice, the person who saved the lives of
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Speaker 3: those sixty people, the captain, Commander Scott, and so I
10:49
Speaker 3: was in loose touch with him over the years. This
10:52
Speaker 3: is a long time ago, and he was never interested
10:55
Speaker 3: in really telling his story. If you like he was
10:57
Speaker 3: in the Navy. Of course he couldn't do it while
10:58
Speaker 3: he was in the Navy, So anyway, he left the
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Speaker 3: Navy and I literally called him up and over summer
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Speaker 3: and I said, Peter, this is getting to be history. Now,
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Speaker 3: what do you reckon And he said, yes, let's do it.
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Speaker 3: And the great thing I've gone back to the crew
11:12
Speaker 3: of that day, of course, who were in that submarine,
11:15
Speaker 3: who helped to save it, and all of them, Claire,
11:17
Speaker 3: were willing to tell their story. In fact, I think
11:19
Speaker 3: they found it quite cathartic in a way to tell
11:22
Speaker 3: their story. And so what we do in the video
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Speaker 3: audio podcast is that we go through the drama, the
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Speaker 3: incredible drama of what happened in those minutes under the ocean,
11:33
Speaker 3: second by second in each part of the submarine, as
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Speaker 3: the life of the submarine and the life everybody on
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Speaker 3: board literally hung in the balance the moments when they
11:43
Speaker 3: are watching that depth gauge. Because the submarine had so
11:46
Speaker 3: much water to have taken on, it could not rise
11:48
Speaker 3: to the surface, and if it went lower, they would
11:52
Speaker 3: have died. It would have been crushed by the ocean's
11:53
Speaker 3: pressure before it reached the bottom. So for those terrible
11:58
Speaker 3: minutes that they all describe as an internity in their life.
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Speaker 3: They were watching the depth gauge, the single gauge that
12:05
Speaker 3: would determine whether they would go home to their children
12:07
Speaker 3: and the family or not. It's an extraordinary moment and
12:11
Speaker 3: it's been an extraordinary moment in their lives. And I
12:14
Speaker 3: think what's been fascinating for us making this has been
12:18
Speaker 3: to go back to the crew twenty years later and
12:21
Speaker 3: to realize that this moment has in many ways shaped
12:26
Speaker 3: a lot of their lives.
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Speaker 1: The emotion that's come out in those interviews that we've done,
12:38
Speaker 1: shot by cinematographer Andy Taylor, who's one of Australia's pre
12:42
Speaker 1: eminent television Current affairs cinematographers, is just amazing. Everybody, I
12:47
Speaker 1: think got a bit emotional when they were talking to you, Cam,
12:50
Speaker 1: and I certainly have had tears in my eyes while
12:52
Speaker 1: watching these interviews.
12:54
Speaker 5: I didn't want to meet a guy who took that
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Speaker 5: crew the bottom.
13:05
Speaker 1: There's a cliche that you can't be brave if you're
13:07
Speaker 1: not scared, and they certainly were scared, and they certainly
13:11
Speaker 1: were incredibly brave. But the legacy of that moment, even
13:15
Speaker 1: though it was a very short experience. It was a
13:18
Speaker 1: matter of minutes before they managed to get the submarine
13:21
Speaker 1: to the surface. Then, of course they went through a
13:23
Speaker 1: long process of finding out what had gone wrong. Those
13:27
Speaker 1: minutes have haunted these people. One of them tells you
13:30
Speaker 1: that he has nightmares about it every single night. Everybody,
13:33
Speaker 1: I think had some tears while they were talking to
13:36
Speaker 1: you about it. Were you surprised by the level of
13:38
Speaker 1: emotion and trauma that they are still suffering.
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Speaker 3: I was surprised, Yes, I was one of the ladies
13:45
Speaker 3: we spoke to on the boat. She said she has
13:47
Speaker 3: anxiety start that she can't take a job that has
13:50
Speaker 3: an your responsibility anymore. Even that commander Peter Scott, I
13:54
Speaker 3: mean he served in the RAQ in Afghanistan later and
13:56
Speaker 3: he went on two days you said, run the submarine
13:58
Speaker 3: body the whole all submarines in the Navy. Even he
14:03
Speaker 3: was very emotional. And this is a sort of the
14:04
Speaker 3: commander from Central Casting, the Brave Rangy. He was thirty
14:09
Speaker 3: seven years old at the time. The crew loved him.
14:11
Speaker 3: He was calm under pressure, and he was very calm
14:14
Speaker 3: during those desperate seconds when everyone on the submarine thought
14:18
Speaker 3: they might die. But even he was very emotional looking
14:22
Speaker 3: back on it, because I think he also felt in retrospect,
14:25
Speaker 3: of course, the burden of sixty lives in his hands.
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Speaker 1: It's not a depressing story though in any way. In fact,
14:32
Speaker 1: it's extremely uplifting. And what really stunned me is how
14:37
Speaker 1: positive they all are about their service in the Navy,
14:40
Speaker 1: their time on Dushino, the years that they all served
14:43
Speaker 1: after that.
14:45
Speaker 2: The people are phenomenal. They tend to be the sort
14:50
Speaker 2: of characters who are driven by purpose and look for challenge.
14:56
Speaker 1: All the crew came back for the next mission of
14:58
Speaker 1: this submarine, which is a likable thing in itself. What
15:01
Speaker 1: is it about the Navy and about submarine life? Do
15:04
Speaker 1: you think that made them all come back and made
15:07
Speaker 1: them now today still talk about this as a positive
15:10
Speaker 1: experience in their lives.
15:12
Speaker 3: Well, I think this is one of the most amazing
15:14
Speaker 3: things about this story, and in fact, especially from a
15:16
Speaker 3: Savilan perspective looking in on it, these people have gone
15:19
Speaker 3: through the most horrific near death experience. I mean, you
15:22
Speaker 3: can't think of a more horrific concept of being trapped
15:24
Speaker 3: in a leaking submarine with a flood about to sink
15:27
Speaker 3: to the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Yet every single
15:30
Speaker 3: one of them we spoke to said they'd do it
15:32
Speaker 3: all again. So morale was amazing on that boat. I'd love,
15:37
Speaker 3: I love just relive it again. I think what they
15:41
Speaker 3: loved about it was the camaraderie of the crew, and
15:43
Speaker 3: of course the crew coming together in those desperate minutes
15:46
Speaker 3: to actually save the submarine. They saved each other's lives. Frankly,
15:49
Speaker 3: that's really what happened. But they just loved the life
15:53
Speaker 3: of a submarine that they loved the time on submarines.
15:56
Speaker 3: And interesting they did go back on a mission just
15:59
Speaker 3: a few weeks after the event. But even now, even
16:02
Speaker 3: after some of the trauma that some of them have
16:03
Speaker 3: suffered in their lives, they said they'd do it all
16:06
Speaker 3: over again. And it's a fantastic career.
16:09
Speaker 2: If I tell a scary story about life on submarines,
16:12
Speaker 2: I'm often asked why would you do that? And my
16:15
Speaker 2: answer comes down to three really simple things. Purpose and
16:18
Speaker 2: challenging people.
16:20
Speaker 3: And as I'm talking to them, you'd have heard them
16:22
Speaker 3: as well. They're encouraging because Australia, of course it's going
16:25
Speaker 3: to get nuclear powered submarines. We're going to have to
16:27
Speaker 3: triple the size of our Submarine Force. And so we're
16:30
Speaker 3: going to recruit all these submarine and they're on the cameras.
16:33
Speaker 3: I'm talking to them literally, just saying please, everyone come
16:35
Speaker 3: and join. It's fantastic, and I'm just talking about their
16:38
Speaker 3: need experience. So it's really been a fascinating experience to
16:41
Speaker 3: see how the humans remember things and what drives them.
16:44
Speaker 3: It's very much a people's story, this story of the
16:47
Speaker 3: near sinking of the Chada. I see it not so
16:49
Speaker 3: much at all of it as a flooding submarine about
16:52
Speaker 3: to sink. I see it much more as a story
16:55
Speaker 3: about how people come together, how they sort of look
16:58
Speaker 3: after each other, the incredible things they do under pressure,
17:02
Speaker 3: and then how they deal with it afterwards.
17:04
Speaker 1: I can't wait for everyone to experience it, Cam, It's
17:06
Speaker 1: a beautiful piece of storytelling. Congratulations and thank you very much.
17:11
Speaker 3: Thanks Claire.
17:13
Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart is The Australian's Chief international correspondent and host
17:16
Speaker 1: of The Flood, a new four part documentary series from
17:20
Speaker 1: The Australian, also made by me and Jasper Leik. Episode
17:24
Speaker 1: one is out now and subscribers hear new episodes first.
17:28
Speaker 1: Just search for The Flood on Apple Podcasts or listen
17:31
Speaker 1: on the Australians app and at the floodpodcast dot com.
17:36
Speaker 1: For all the nation's best news, sport, politics and business,
17:40
Speaker 1: visit the Australian dot com dot au