Roger Ralph Chapman,

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(29 July 1945 – 24 January 2020) was a British submariner and businessman. A former

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

lieutenant, Chapman was one of the two survivors of the deepest sub rescue in history in 1973, when his small

submersible A submersible is an underwater vehicle which needs to be transported and supported by a larger ship, watercraft or dock, platform. This distinguishes submersibles from submarines, which are self-supporting and capable of prolonged independent ope ...

'' Pisces III'' was lifted to the surface from a depth of 1,575 ft (480 m). The founder of the first all-electric

ROV ROV may refer to: *Real options valuation, a financial discipline that uses option valuation techniques to analyse capital budgeting decisions *''Realm of Valor'', Thai-marketed version of multiplayer online video game ''Arena of Valor'' *Remotely ...

company, he later went on to designing subs designed for rescue operations. Using one of his subs, he successfully rescued 7 Russian sailors in 2005 for which he was awarded

in 2006.

Biography

Born in Hong Kong in 1945, Roger Chapman joined the Royal Navy in 1963 and reached the level of lieutenant. He worked in submarines starting in 1967, but was later forced to retire due to worsening vision. Thereafter he founded a company to provide telephone cable laying services. It was the first UK all-electric remote underwater vehicle operator. The company was later acquired by Vickers Oceanics and he was kept on as a manager. In 1971 Chapman married June Sansom, and they would go on to have two sons, Marcus and Sam. In 1973, Chapman was aboard the small

'' Pisces III'' when it became trapped on the seabed at a depth of , off

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

in the

Celtic Sea The Celtic Sea is the area of the Atlantic Ocean off the southern coast of Ireland bounded to the north by St George's Channel, Saint George's Channel; other limits include the Bristol Channel, the English Channel, and the Bay of Biscay, as wel ...

. The 76-hour multinational rescue effort resulted in the deepest successful submarine rescue in history. In 1975 he wrote the book ''No Time on Our Side'' about his experience. Inspired by his experience, Chapman founded the submarine company Rumic in 1984, which designed and built the '' LR5'' submersible for submarine rescue. In 2000, ''LR5'' was mobilised to rescue the Russian submarine ''Kursk'', but for political reasons was never deployed. Another Rumic submersible, Scorpio-45, was used to rescue the Russian deep submergence rescue vehicle ''AS-28'' in 2005. Chapman was appointed

in 2006 for services to shipping. After selling Rumic to James Fisher in 2002, he and his wife June founded the RUMIC Foundation, a children's charity. In 2020, Chapman died of cancer.

Bibliography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chapman, Roger 1945 births 2020 deaths People educated at Bedford School Royal Navy officers Royal Navy submariners 20th-century British businesspeople 21st-century British businesspeople Commanders of the Order of the British Empire