Submariners' News: The Peculiar Press of the Underwater Mariner

Submariners produced "local newspapers" for many years, starting with Cdr Edward Young's single-sheet newspaper on the submarine HMS Seraph in the Second World War, now housed in the Submarine Museum. With the advent of the nuclear submarine, Xerox machines and unlimited electrical supplies, the magazines really took off. They enjoyed a long popularity and were held in much affection by submarine crews for their irreverent and decidedly un-PC approach to underwater life from the 1970s-1990s, though the practice of producing magazines has tailed off in recent years with the rise of the internet and the age of "political correctness." Keith Hall examines the development of this strange "underwater journalism," collating the articles and anecdotes, jokes, cartoons, and stories that have been published over the years to brighten up the lives of submariners far from home, and providing an insight into the bizarre, self-contained world of the submariner.