AB(D) James Grogan qualifies as Specialist Clearance Diver
30-year-old Able Seaman Diver James Grogan from Edinburgh has just completed specialist clearance diver training at the Defence Diving School (DDS) in Portsmouth, Hampshire, receiving his certificate and diving log from guest of honour Captain Rob Vitali RN, Commanding Officer of HMS Collingwood.
Originally from London, James joined the Royal Navy for an interesting and varied career, citing the deep diving and search phases as highlights of his training. He is the first member of his family to join the Services.
The ex-Craigdon Mountain Sports employee enjoys mountaineering in his free time and is looking forward to doing the job for which he has been training so hard.
Speaking of his course, James said, “I have enjoyed my training and I’m looking forward to continuing my Royal Navy career.”
During the graduation event the newly qualified divers put on a ‘real life’ display for their visiting families and friends to demonstrate the challenges they will face after deployment.
Navy divers are currently serving in a variety of theatres including Afghanistan. As newly trained RN Clearance Divers they will initially be employed in either MCM1 based in Scotland (Faslane) or MCM2 in Portsmouth and will deploy in a MCMV as required to support worldwide operations. They will thereafter join either an area diving team based in Scotland, Portsmouth or Plymouth to conduct underwater engineering tasks and to support military aid to civil powers (MACP) providing explosive ordinance disposal in a conventional sense and, after further training, improvised explosive device disposal.
Image courtesy of Keith Woodland, Crown Copyright.
