Sea Control - Sea Control 444 - Dutch Cold War Submarine Operations with Jaime Karremann

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

Links1. In Deepest Secrecy: Dutch Submarine Espionage Operations from 1968 to 1991, by Jaime Karreman, Naviesworldwide.com, October 1, 2018.2. marineschepen.nl.

Hey, folks, it's Jared. My guest today is Jamie Carman, and we're going to be discussing his book on Dutch Cold War submarine operations. This episode was edited and produced by Nathan Miller. I'd like to pause here to highlight our local chapters. Whether you're in South Korea, Egypt, Singapore, France, New York, India, or the Caribbean, chances are there's a SimSec local chapter near you. You can find a full listing of our chapters, contact information on the website at simsec.org.

So if you're interested, please reach out. Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec podcast network, The Bilge Pumps. so you can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and a pot of Iron Brew bottles wherever you download your podcasts. And with that, Kimbersman. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. My guest today is Jamie Carman.

We're going to discuss his book, In Deepest Secrecy, Dutch Submarine Espionage Operations from 1968 to 1991. And Jamie, welcome aboard. Could you tell the audience a little bit about yourself, please? Yeah, thank you. And thank you for having me. I worked in the Navy for more than 10 years, mainly in a civilian position, although I started on a frigate. And in 2011, I started full-time as an independent naval journalist.

And since then, I write for my Dutch language website, marinescheep.nl. As a reminder to our listeners, all opinions are our own and not reflective of any institution with which we might be otherwise associated. One note on the time here. So we're recording this Saturday, April 29th. So we start talking about a topic that something has occurred, most likely in the Black Sea. And we're not discussing it. The reason is it hasn't happened yet, or at least it hasn't become public yet, if that's the case. So, Jamie, what did the Dutch submarine force consist of in the years immediately following World War II? And what steps did the force take to prepare for operating in support of NATO against the Soviet Union? Yeah, I think it is good to start with that the Netherlands is a really tiny country.

You can fit the Netherlands easily between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. But we had colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific, the Dutch East Indies. now Indonesia. And Indonesia is a huge country with many islands stretching from, if you pick the country up, from Seattle all the way to Bermuda. So small coastal submarines might have been okay for the Netherlands, for the North Sea, but because of the distance between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies and the vast areas they had to defend against,

against the Japanese in the Pacific, They needed large submarines that could operate far from their own base. So the Dutch submarines fought hard during the Second World War in the North Sea, the Atlantic, Mediterranean, but mainly in the Pacific. They started with about 20 submarines, but after the war only seven were left, and they were worn out. but thanks to the UK and later the US, the Dutch Navy

received new or fairly new submarines, T-class and Gapri submarines so only a tiny but modern force was left and especially after the commissioning of the Dutch desire to build triple hull submarines

so there was only a small force left after the Second World War and you asked about the steps the submarine service took to be prepared for the NATO missions. Well, you know, the thing is that partly they were already prepared thanks to the geographic circumstances I mentioned. And they had experience with long-range operations.

And also, after the war, Dutch submarines were only for a few years involved in operations in waters of the Dutch New Guinea. But they did some preparation. For example, the deployment of the D-class submarine Dolphine to the high north in 1950, and that submarine had to snorkel in the Arctic Ocean, and that appeared to be very dangerous, and that submarine was not designed for that. But during a later test with the Gavrius submarine, things went a lot smoother. And another preparation that was in the form of NATO exercise, because navies at that time started to use submarines as a weapon against other submarines, because earlier it was mainly used against Serb ships. And that started in the 50s with top secret exercise called fish play, and the submarines were also in violence. So that's how they slowly started to get used to operating with NATO partners in that area in the Atlantic.

Can you explain some of the difficulties they encountered in the initial operations in the high north? Because it's pretty harrowing to read about some of the near catastrophes as they ironed out which systems were particularly vulnerable to the cold. well the thing was that that they had they experienced a lot of problems it was those else they were a bit unlucky and they had a fire to start with uh but but when they were in the north in the in the up north they experienced some uh icing conditions in the snorting mast and they didn't know them so that slowly they they started to experience some problems with thinking clearly and that kind of

things. They acted slowly and then someone realized that the snorting marsh was closed but the diesels were still running. That was one of the things they experienced, but they had a lot of problems at the time

during that deployment. Why did you choose 1968 as the starting point for your book? Well, before 1968, Dutch submarines were mainly operating as a part of a service task force. And when there was a possible submarine, the Dutch submarine was tasked to investigate the contact. But mainly the submarines were like a training submarine to do for the service vessels to train in anti-submarine warfare. But in 1968, the long individual intelligence patrol started, and from that moment on, they were tasked to go somewhere and to gather intelligence from the Soviet Union, the Soviet Navy.

And the first test was in the beginning of 1968. And later, the first patrol was in June 1968. What were the tank battles? Well, you know, the largest tank battles were fought at sea during the Cold War. You know, when they were, especially in the beginning, when the dark submarines were operating in the North Atlantic, there were sometimes really quiet operations because there was not a lot. There was a lot of sea.

There was only a small submarine with a limited range for their sonars at the time. So it was really quiet. There was not a lot of time that they didn't encounter anything, and especially no Soviet naval ships. So it was kind of boring. And just to keep up with the spirit, I think someone just started with building model tanks and then that evolved into big, later on,

big epic tank battles on the day after the patrol. so they all came arrived on board of their submarine before the patrol with a new kit and they were building that tank during the patrol when they had time and then afterwards

they were fighting against each other with these tanks That was one of my favorite parts of the books because a lot of people always wonder what it is exactly that we're doing out there at sea to occupy ourselves We're not all sitting at rapt attention at a consul the entire day focused on something. There is a lot of time to kill.

And that was one of the more interesting things that I found in the book. What sorts of operations did the Dutch Navy engage in in the High North? Those were patrol operations. And they had to look for Soviet vessels. and most of the time they were sent to a certain area box where they had to patrol and they had some of course targets of interest vessels they had to investigate there was some intel that that vessel passed and that was also the point that most of the time the Soviet vessels

passed the North Atlantic and with a submarine with a limited sonar range at the time, they didn't have a towed array like they have nowadays and they didn't have any advanced

system to analyze their acoustics. So they could recognize a vessel. At that time they only had the sonar operators they had to listen World War II style

to what they heard on their sonar and if they counted the number of propellers and propeller blades and so that way they tried to identify the contact so that is what

they did at the time in the beginning and some operations they looked and they had for example and a research vessel that they had to investigate. But those were exceptions. Why were the Dutch submarines

so effective in the Mediterranean and what sort of things did they do there? If you look at the time from 1968 at the start of these operations until 1991, the end of the Cold War, There is a, you can divide it in two parts from the Dutch Submarine Service point of view. In the first, let's say, 10 years, they were operating in the North Atlantic.

North Atlantic, that were, in fact, boring missions with only some highlights. But then they realized that the Russians had, they didn't have any ports in the Mediterranean. they tried to get a port they could operate from nowadays they have a port in syria but at the time they didn't have one so what they did have was anchorages so near the coast of egypt tunisia libya and near crete they had the anchorages and then the the fifth fleet of the fifth squadron sorry of the the soviet union was operating from those anchors they had some submarine tenders there and some other support vessels that were most of the time at that spot in this shallow area next to the to the coast and uh that was ideal for diesel electric submarines like the

the Netherlands had, and still have, because those submarines were very small, and they could operate in shallow water, but also they were also large enough to operate far from home. So what they did was they went there to the Mediterranean with a submarine that was larger than, for example, At the time, German submarines or other submarines, there were Swedish submarines that were mainly focusing on the Baltic.

And they had larger submarines with a lot of people on board so they could analyze also the intelligence they got at sea. And also a lot of technicians to work on that. And they were in control for six weeks. and what they did there was they were gathering intelligence from Soviet vessels that were on the anchorage, so they were there

not for a snapshot a visit like an aircraft would do but there for weeks just to gather not only the technical intelligence but also discovering behaviour

and patterns of their of the Soviet activities. What happened when the Dutch encountered the Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev in the Mediterranean? Well, the Kiev was, we know it as an aircraft carrier, but at the time it was called an aircraft carrier destroyer. And that was because an aircraft carrier was not allowed to transit the Bosporus to the Maxian, to the Mediterranean.

so they had a different name it was a destroyer but still it was an aircraft carrier with airplanes of course and that ship was 6 years old I think but it was in the Mediterranean it was near Egypt

in the Gulf of Solom it was spotted there in January and the Tonang one of the triple hull submarines that is of the Tonain is nowadays a museum

submarine, the Naval Museum, but that submarine was sent to Solomon to get intelligence from the Kiev and also a diesel-electric submarine of the Soviet Union

called Foxtrot class submarine that was also spotted there but their task was to collect to do a basic intelligence a bit and that is to collect radar emissions acoustic emissions and take visual pictures of pictures of the of the ship with the periscope at once because if you have with your electronic support measure equipment you record the radar emission that is valuable

and it has some value to take some pictures. But if you combine it, if you have it at once, you can see the antennas, the radars that are rotating and what emissions you record. And if you add to that the acoustic emissions, then you have a complete picture of this ship. And that was what they had to do. But, you know, it is not easy to operate there.

they had to wait the Kiev was spotted in the anchorage and sometimes the Mediterranean is really can be a really cold sea and the surface is sometimes really flat and they just

had to wait there for quite a time until there was something happening because the Kiev was there on the anchorage and they didn't of course know what the program was and on a certain morning they heard the chain of the anchor

the anchor chain that was pulled in and it was of course for a sonar operator a huge noise in that morning and so they knew well okay there is some action on the anchorage

and that must be the Kia so they went there and they saw all the radars turning and they saw the Kia heading their way And that was the moment they recorded everything, all the information. And then they had to go deep because the Kiev was passing over them and still recording. They were still recording all the acoustic data.

So that was a really, well, their mission was to be successful. Final question. How did the end of the Cold War impact the Dutch Navy and what has it been doing since? I almost said it didn't end well because at that time there were some things the operations we were talking about we were talking about were

really secret so nobody knew about this and that is great for if you do secret operations but when something happens like the end of the Cold War and people start to think well why do we spend so much money

to the armed forces, most of the people and politicians thought, well, the submarines were not doing anything. And at the time when the Dutch Navy had six submarines, two older submarines, 20 years old, but recently modernized, and four brand new submarines, the Walrus class, they are currently in service, still in service. So what happened was there was a discussion about what should we do with the Submarine Service. They didn't do anything in the last decade since the Cold War.

They only did some exercises. That's also what the Dutch Navy said. And, you know, even the crew, the people, the crew that did the patrols, they were not allowed to say anything about it. And they didn't receive any medals. They were not seen as veterans because those missions were so secret. So no one was thinking about, we need those submarines. Of course, the Dutch, the submarine service tried to do something.

And so there was decided that the two, all the submarines had to, would not be replaced. They tried to sell them to Malaysia, but that didn't work out. So the submarine service went from six to four. And they still did some really good operations during the Civil War in Yugoslavia. But I think it was 10 years ago that it was the first time that it was more or less recognized the importance of the Dutch Submarine Service. And since then, there's a project to replace the submarines. and of course you asked what has it done since

still submarine operations are very frequent so I also don't know anything about it but apparently they are still important and I think they have done

a lot of interesting operations since then well unfortunately that's all that we have time for today I'd like to thank my guest Jamie Carman And, Jamie, where can we find you online and what are you working on next? Well, you can find me online on my Dutch website, marinescheenke.nl. But I also have an English website, naviesworldwide.com. But that's only, as you said, for some articles.

And I'm working currently on articles about submarines during the Cold War. So, but mainly about the submarines that did, about exercise that submarines did, Dutch submarines did. and they encountered the NATO aircraft there's also an interesting part of the book but I dig in deeper in a future article

and of course the replacement of submarines and hopefully there will be a documentary about this topic that we discuss about the Dutch Cold War operations yeah you actually started the book with a really interesting story

about the Dutch submarine getting into the Mediterranean and having to go past a NATO exercise. They were not supposed to be advertising their presence in any way and had to sneak through a bunch of different NATO screens that were not necessarily set up for them, but were set up as part of an exercise and getting through there. And then we worked against Walrus myself on a German frieze. I understand how formidable those can be.

But I will tell you, we will have the links to both your Dutch and naviesworldwide.com in the show notes here. So if listeners want to see what else you're up to, you can click on those. But thank you again for joining us. And to the listeners, thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next time. I walked up to the powerhouse counter Way, hey, put it in the alley

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