You can bet your buttons that visitors to HMCS Ojibwa, as enthralled as they are, want to know how submariners could get out of the submarine in the event resurfacing was not an option - and neither were the doors that visitors use today! Such trepidation is not a matter of too many scary movies; it is a matter of too many lives sacrificed to the deep. Former submariner Paul Connolly, had a moment of fame in the midst of HMCS Ojibwa's role in the development of Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicles (DSRVs) to serve that purpose.
That's Paul straddling the beast during Royal Navy trials in Scotland in 1975. This image appeared in the October 1975 issue of the NAVY NEWS.
| HMCS Ojibwa, under the command of Lloyd Barnes (beside ladder),was chosen to participate in Royal Navy trials with a commercial submersible to determine whether it was a viable option to their own tried and trusted method of up you go and don't forget to exhale all the way up. The back up, where time permitted, involved a SEIE (Submarine Emergency Immersion Equipment) aka, the orange suit. Over the two days (August 9-10) ten transfers were made taking submariners from the after hatch to the fore hatch and bringing another group from the fore hatch back to the after hatch. |  |
Other Claims to Fame
| In addition to Paul's 12 years of service aboard Ojibwa as well as a stint on Onondaga, he went on to serve in the Naval Dockyard. Paul is a talented artist as well as a musician and according to his good friend Gilles Poirier with whom he served on HMCS Onondaga, he has 'more funny stories than Mr. Carter has liver pills'.  |  Paul Connolly visiting Ojibwa in 2015. |
Sunrise in Slackers
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