Scholars’ Masterclasses are back, and they certainly returned with a bang for the first instalment of the Autumn Term where scholars, pupils, and other members of the Shiplake College community were treated to a fascinating presentation on the submarine service.
The Masterclasses are often delivered in the Lecture Theatre and last 30-45 minutes. Topics are often varied, and previous speakers have included a Cold War spy, scientists, historians and many more. While compulsory for our scholars, they are open to the College community for all to enjoy.
For the first Masterclass of the term, we welcomed Mr David Wozencroft on Monday 16 September to talk about the Submarine Service. One of our rugby coaches, Mr Wozencroft previously spent over 27 years with the Royal Navy, working aboard their submarines. Having always wanted to be a ‘pirate’ growing up, Mr Wozencroft joined the submarine service in 1988 where back then, submariners were known and referred to as ‘pirates’ and often flew with the Jolly Roger flag due to their autonomy.
Throughout Mr Wozencroft’s captivating talk, there were anecdotes about life on board a submarine as well as about the different types of submarines. He went into the detail about the anatomy of a submarine in addition to a general cost breakdown of each submarine and as one can imagine, it's a lot!
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Masterclass was hearing about what life is actually like on a submarine. Mr Wozencroft spoke about the rating system as well as the different roles, a general schedule for the day, and about some of the equipment on board. This included the weapons systems available, and Mr Wozencroft went into detail about the different systems for each type of submarine including nuclear missiles, underwater missiles, and other land-attack missiles. He also spoke about the several types of missions that a submarine and its crew could undertake including recovery, protection, intelligence and special operations, anti-trafficking and piracy, and survey and environmental work.
Mr Wozencroft also spoke about the history of the submarine service and how the service developed from its first submarine – Holland 1 – to 316 submarines later where the service is now regarded as an elite force often referred to as the ‘Silent Service’. Many submariners do not receive military medals for operational tasking as officially, ‘they were never there’!
Thank you to Mr Wozencroft for taking the time to talk to our pupils about this fascinating topic. We now look forward to our next Masterclass taking place after the Exeat weekend which will feature an artist who has worked on various marvel projects!
