February 2012

Royal Navy Diving Expertise – It is usual for the Fleet Diving Squadron to have two divers always on ten minutes notice to deploy anywhere for explosive ordnance disposal, and within 24 hours a five man team can be sent anywhere in the world for fleet maintenance and repairs.    The Fleet Diving Squadron is a 150 strong team from its HQ in Horsea Island, Portsmouth, with assets located in Portsmouth, Plymouth and Faslane.    The Northern Diving Group (based in Faslane) is primarily responsible for providing bomb disposal teams and underwater engineering capability whilst the Southern Diving Group is one of two Fleet Diving Squadron Area Diving Groups under the command of the Fleet Diving Group whose mission is to deliver Maritime explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Force, Protection, Diving and EOD to the Fleet.

It was not surprising therefore that the Italian authorities asked for and were given the services of “Scotland's top Royal Navy diver” (Lieutenant Commander Kevin Stockton) who flew to for multinational discussions on the best way to recover remaining bodies trapped in the capsized cruise ship COSTA CONCORDIA.    Experts from Italy, Germany, Sweden and Denmark discussed the options available to divers in what is now the sixth week since the liner keeled over off Isola del Giglio, off the coast of Tuscany, Italy, on 13 January 2012.

The Northern Diving Group in December 2011 the Group won the Royal Navy's 2011 Diving Unit Effectiveness Trophy after responding to 120 explosive ordnance device call outs in the year, including carrying out crucial forensic work as part of the Celtic Football Club parcel bombs investigation. In that case, they dismantled the packages by hand, photographing and x-raying them before handing them over to scientists and detectives.   In another incident, a team of divers from the unit were airlifted to a nuclear submarine in the Atlantic and worked for 36 hours non stop to free a fouled propulsor unit, enabling the submarine to return to its patrol duty as quickly as possible.