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Stephen Bridgman MBE
In May 2000 the British nuclear ‘hunter-killer’ submarine HMS Tireless limped into Gibraltar harbor using emergency propulsion and with her nuclear reactor shut down. Several days earlier, while tr...view moreIn May 2000 the British nuclear ‘hunter-killer’ submarine HMS Tireless limped into Gibraltar harbor using emergency propulsion and with her nuclear reactor shut down. Several days earlier, while traversing the Straits of Sicily the crew had discovered a crack in one of the nuclear reactor pipes, requiring them to shut down and de-pressurise the reactor in order to prevent a potential reactor accident, an operation never before conducted on a British submarine at sea.
The previous six days had been a desperate time for the crew of the submarine. Initial indications of a problem with the nuclear reactor had very quickly escalated into a full scale potential nuclear reactor accident at sea, requiring immediate and decisive action by the crew to make the reactor safe, to identify the defect and attempt to repair the reactor, and then to surface the submarine and to sail her safely back to the nearest safe harbor using emergency propulsion machinery designed for very limited use. The lack of power onboard had resulted in the crew having to sacrifice lighting, air-conditioning, bathing facilities and even hot food until their return to harbor, and to suffer in the excessively hot interior of the boat. Throughout, there remained the fear of exposure to deadly radiation and the uncertainty that the reactor might still be one step away from a major accident.
For one man onboard in particular, the strains of the last few days had formed something of a natural culmination of a 25 year naval engineering career which seemed almost fated for this moment. Charge Chief Stephen Bridgman, the senior nuclear propulsion technician onboard, had needed all of his engineering knowledge and experience gained in a long and varied career in the identification and eventual repair of the leaking reactor.
It had indeed been a remarkable career, starting as a 16 year old Stoker on the final ‘proper’ British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal in 1977, through the Falklands War, being selected for Technician training and submarine service, submarine training, submarine patrols in the supposed ‘post cold-war’ period, the Kosovo conflict from beneath the water, progression through the ranks, submarine refitting and refueling and through to the nuclear reactor accident onboard HMS Tireless. Lack of educational qualifications would ensure that promotion would be a slow and painful process, and it took marriage at age 21 for Stephen to eventually realize that it was time to grow up and take control of his future. Finally knuckling down and achieving some educational qualifications in 1981, he caught the studying bug and through hard work managed to get selected for training as a Naval Engineering technician, a three year apprenticeship leading to promotion to Petty Officer. Selection for submarine service followed, and Stephen rose to the challenge of working in the confined and tense environment onboard Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet, rising to the rank of Chief Petty Officer within two years. Gaining valuable seagoing experience during long and challenging patrols, he was selected to become a Senior Technician with responsibility for the nuclear propulsion machinery in 1994, and was forced in remarkably trying circumstances to display all of that knowledge and experience in responding to a very near nuclear reactor accident onboard HMS Tireless in 2000, actions for which in 2001 he was awarded Membership of the British Empire (MBE) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
During this stressful military career, the tense moments were often balanced by a home life far removed from the close-knit submarine environment, and strangely ordinary. Stephen was married to his wife of 30 years Anna at the age of 21, and together, they build a family life around the frequent requirements to move between naval bases in the UK.
Stephen and Anna moved lock, stock and barrel to the beautiful island of Malta at the culmination of naval service in 2001.view less