The Silent Deep

by James Jinks

  Conqueror’s CO, Chris Wreford-Brown, was also reflective. ‘In my own heart I hoped that our Task Force would be sufficient deterrence to persuade the Argentinians to withdraw from the Falklands without a fight,’ he wrote, ‘but it soon became clear that we would be involved in some form of conflict.’81

  Conqueror was part of the first significant engagement of the Falklands conflict, Operation ‘Paraquat’, the reoccupation of South Georgia. Conqueror entered the Argentinian 200-nautical-mile Exclusion Zone around South Georgia on 18 April 1982 and arrived at the island at 0630, where she conducted a sonar sweep along the coastline to check for contacts as well as to give the SBS the opportunity to see the coastline. There was little activity at the two inhabited areas on the island and Wreford-Brown decided to ‘open from the coast. Set up an Anti-Shipping Patrol, knowing there is “nothing over my shoulder”.’82 As the reoccupation of South Georgia continued with Conqueror patrolling offshore, two helicopters from HMS Antrim were lost while trying to land SAS troops on a glacier.83

  Conqueror’s crew were immediately reminded of ‘the truth and drama of the situation’ when on 21 April, during the forenoon watch, they ‘detected the classic signature of a submarine running on diesel engines’. As Conqueror’s Navigator, Jonty Powis, recalled:

  The bearing rate was high enough for a snorting submarine to be close. The Captain was summoned and we rushed to periscope depth at action stations with tubes ready. Nothing was in sight so we assumed that the submarine was dived and snorting at slow speeds just outside visual range. We returned to the depths to approach the firing position. As we left the layer we lost contact and never regained it. We tried all sorts; going shallow again then deeper, active sonar, springing beyond supposed maximum range and looking back at the target actively and passively; all fruitless.84

  After searching, tracking and even going active failed to produce a solution or indeed confirmation, Conqueror came shallow again. On 24 April, Conqueror was ordered to find the Argentinian ‘Guppy’ class submarine Santa Fe, which was reportedly operating in the area, but before she could do so, on 25 April the Santa Fe was caught on the surface by helicopters from HMS Endurance and HMS Antrim which disabled her as she attempted to enter Cumberland Sound. ‘The event brought us to the realization that we were actually at war and could have fired real torpedoes at a real target full of real people,’ wrote Powis. ‘Furthermore they would probably have a go at us too if we were careless. We became sharp.’85

  Thereafter Conqueror’s contribution to Operation ‘Paraquat’ was limited and in its final days the decision was taken to offload 6 SBS and their equipment to HMS Antrim via helicopter. Bad weather complicated the transfer and at one point two men and a full load of equipment were washed off Conqueror’s casing by rough weather before being recovered by helicopter. Conqueror’s crew were sorry to see the Royal Marines go. 6 SBS had integrated into life on board the submarine. ‘I will have an everlasting memory of their officer’s amazing ability to eat food any time it was put in front of him,’ recalled Wreford-Brown, ‘he was always appearing in the wardroom in the wrong uniform, which normally resulted in the mess president fining him a bottle of port.’86

  With the Royal Marines disembarked, Conqueror dived and resumed course for the Falklands to join HMS Splendid and HMS Spartan. During the passage south in very rough weather, Conqueror’s communications wireless mast had been damaged: bent forward slightly by the harsh waves, while the submarine was at periscope depth attempting to receive a broadcast. Thereafter the communication mast repeatedly caught the top of Conqueror’s fin when it was lowered. This made communication with Northwood next to impossible and was extremely frustrating. ‘I have had enough,’ wrote Wreford-Brown on 19 April. ‘Isn’t communicating FUN!?’ SSIXS reception was so poor that a number of copies of each signal had to be patched together in order to get a fair copy, a lengthy process that on occasions took up to one and a half hours.87 Recognizing that the position was untenable if Conqueror was to continue to play an active part in Operation ‘Corporate’, Wreford-Brown kept Conqueror at periscope depth and at a slow speed of 7 knots with the mast slightly raised until nightfall, eventually surfacing the submarine to allow two of Conqueror’s crew to clamber out of the fin and into the freezing conditions to remove the antenna from the mast.88 The antenna was then taken inside the submarine and repaired while two crew members attempted to fix the mast so that it would once again retract into the fin. Although communications were eventually restored, they were very intermittent.

  While Argentinian submarines preoccupied the SSNs operating in the South Atlantic, the War Cabinet was far more concerned with the Argentinian Navy’s sole aircraft carrier, the ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (25 May). Although old – the carrier had been built for the Royal Navy and commissioned in January 1945 as HMS Venerable – it posed a considerable military threat to the British Task Force. It could carry between seven and nine Skyhawk and up to five Super Etendard fighter aircraft, both of which were capable of mounting air-to-surface and air-to-air attacks from a distance of around 400 miles. The carrier also possessed helicopters, which provided a limited anti-submarine warfare capability, as well as six Tracker aircraft that could undertake radar surveillance operations at distances of up to 500 miles, and able to direct carrier aircraft as well as other air and naval units into attack positions.

  On 21 April, after a meeting of the War Cabinet, Lewin told Mrs Thatcher that it had been possible to identify the location of an Argentinian naval force, including the carrier, in a patrol area between the Argentinian coast and the Maritime Exclusion Zone. Intelligence reportedly indicated that the carrier was operating a few miles off the Argentinian coast, some way south of her Puerto Belgrano base. Fieldhouse had already ordered HMS Splendid to leave the MEZ and proceed in the direction of the area in which the Argentinian naval force was patrolling in order to reduce the time which it would take the submarine to carry out an attack if ministers decided that this is what it should do. He told Thatcher that it would take Splendid about two days to reach the carrier and as it was sailing outside the MEZ it would be under ‘high seas’ Rules of Engagement – meaning Splendid could not attack it except in self-defence. Fieldhouse proposed that any submarine detected by Splendid and not classified nuclear should be presumed to be Argentinian and attacked.89 Mrs Thatcher agreed.

  HMS Splendid was operating off Port Stanley when orders from Fieldhouse arrived. Lane-Nott immediately set a northwesterly course at maximum speed in order to intercept the carrier. But back in London, as Splendid sped north, the Foreign Secretary, Francis Pym, who had not been consulted, was concerned that Splendid’s orders increased ‘the risk that an Argentine submarine may be engaged and sunk when it is neither in the MEZ itself nor in the direct path between the British task force and the Falkland Islands’. Pym, who was about to visit Washington, was nervous about the political ramifications of any possible engagement and protested that ‘The option of an attack on the Argentine naval force outside the MEZ and in its current patrol area would be a major policy decision which has not yet been considered by Ministers.’90 As a result of Pym’s political negotiations in Washington, surveillance of the Argentinian Task Group was no longer considered acceptable and the next day Thatcher was persuaded to suspend the orders. Splendid was instructed not to leave the MEZ and if she was already outside it she was to change course immediately and return within it.91 When Lane-Nott received the recall Splendid was ‘within a few hours/miles of our quarry’. ‘It was an extremely frustrating moment,’ commented Lane-Nott. ‘I really thought I had her.’92 Rather than allowing Splendid to remove the primary threat to the Task Force, the Government simply conveyed a warning to the Argentinians through the Swiss Government that any approach on the part of Argentinian warships which could amount to a threat to interfere with the mission of British forces in the South Atlantic would be regarded as hostile and was liable to be dealt with accordingly.93

  On board HMS Hermes, Admir
al Woodward observed all of this with dismay. He was deeply unhappy with the command and control arrangements for the submarines operating in the South Atlantic. Although he was the overall Commander of the Task Force, he had no authority to command and control the submarines, which comprised the separate Task Force, TF 324.3, commanded by Herbert back in Northwood who reported directly to Fieldhouse. ‘It was my opinion,’ wrote Woodward, ‘that I should take control of them myself, rather than have them run directly from Northwood by the Flag Officer Submarines’:

  I felt there were several good reasons for this:

  a) I had Captain Buchanan on my staff, and one of the main reasons he was with me at all was to act as the local Submarine Force Coordinator.

  b) It made more sense, to me at least, that the submarines should be under my command locally in case it became necessary to deal with a quickly changing set of circumstances which required very early action.

  c) It might be alleged that I knew something about the subject of submarine warfare in my own right since I had been appointed, admittedly only for a week or two, to command the Submarine Flotilla in 1981.

  d) Hermes was fully equipped with all the necessary submarine communications channels to do the job.

  Above all, I wanted to change the operating methods – make them better suited to the conditions prevailing in the south.94

  Woodward certainly knew a great deal about submarine warfare, but his confidence in Hermes’ ability to handle submarine communications was misplaced. Although Hermes was equipped with all the necessary submarine communications equipment and channels, as the Task Force proceeded south communication demands increased steadily as the conflict intensified. Woodward later noted that his Operations Officer was reading over 500 signals a day and, with communications under such considerable strain, taking responsibility for the submarines would have only added to the problems. There was also the distinct possibility that Hermes, a high-value target, would at certain periods of time have to go radio silent in order to avoid attack by Argentinian forces.

  Woodward had also never experienced the comparatively new, but highly successful, arrangements of centralized operational control introduced in the 1970s with the creation of CTF 311. Northwood had transplanted the system it used to run submarines when in the North Atlantic to the South Atlantic, carving up the areas around the Falklands into three separate grids; Northeast, Northwest and the South. An SSN was allocated to each grid and under the Rules of Engagement was forbidden from crossing into another grid even if it was pursuing an important target. This method of operating submarines was in part a reflection of tried-and-tested Cold War missions in the busy North Atlantic, where, with a large number of submarines patrolling, there was always the risk of so-called ‘blue-on-blue’ incidents. Woodward wanted to give the submarines in the South Atlantic free rein to search for Argentinian surface units and then, if necessary, sink them once authorization had been granted. As far as he was concerned, given the limited number of Argentinian submarines in service with the Argentinian Navy it was ‘no longer necessary to confine our SSNs to separate areas, provided they were forbidden to engage submerged contacts. By releasing the SSNs from the constraints of separate areas, I could attach any of them (or they could attach themselves as the chance offered) to any group of Argentinian surface ships, ready to attack the moment they got final clearance from London.’95

  Lieutenant Commander Jeff Tall, Admiral Woodward’s submarine Staff Officer, also shared this view:

  We were subdividing the South Atlantic into just three areas. It took away all flexibility. I asked the question ‘What if something happens over here and we need more than one submarine?’ I didn’t get an answer. So we began to understand at a very early stage that Northwood had no feeling for either the fight in hand or what was needed to fight a fast-moving scenario. I suggested that we could have a hot pursuit scenario, where if one of our submarines was in hot pursuit of a high-value surface unit they could cross into the other sub’s water. I got a reply saying that ‘The Mark 24 [the new sonar-guided torpedo on the submarines] can’t distinguish between friend or foe.’ Well that was nonsense. What you do is the submarine in contact with the surface target sets a floor depth to the torpedo and the other submarine stays below it.96

  But Fieldhouse and Herbert were determined to retain control of the submarines. Prior to taking up his position on board Hermes, Tall witnessed some of the early discussions at Northwood between Fieldhouse and his staff about command and control arrangements. ‘It was obvious to me there was disagreement,’ recalled Tall. ‘It was clear that he was not going to give away command and control of his submarines.’97 This was how it had always been throughout the Cold War and, as Herbert has pointed out, ‘The whole philosophy in the Iceland–Faroes Gap and so on was based on this and so everybody understood it. Why change that philosophy suddenly and chuck all that away. It was so simple. I was determined there was going to be absolutely no possibility of blue on blue. They were going to always be separated.’98 With so many SSNs operating within the vicinity of the Falklands, the possibility of a blue-on-blue, friendly fire incident was very real and one of which Herbert had to take account. On 26 May, HMS Valiant, which was equipped with a towed array, held a contact that later turned out to be HMS Splendid. ‘There’s no doubt in my mind,’ wrote Tall, ‘that the overriding consideration was do not lose a reactor in the South Atlantic. Because the political ramifications of that, I think, would have been extremely serious.99 The Royal Navy was and continues to be distinctly aware that it is always one accident away from the end of the nuclear-submarine programme.

  Woodward recognized that he was in no position to argue, especially against two such seasoned senior submariners as Fieldhouse and Herbert. ‘I retired from the debate with as much grace as I could summon, which, as I recall, was not all that much.’100 Operationally, there were mixed views about the command and control system. The CO of HMS Valiant, Tom Le Marchand, concluded that the standard of command and control was ‘very impressive’. ‘I felt that I was in touch with a Controller who was in full possession of all the facts and who was managing up to four SSNs and one SSK as a team, without straying towards being oppressive,’ he later wrote.101

  Taylor in Spartan was also content with the system. ‘I had the assurance that Northwood was still going to be there in the morning and not some burning bit of wreckage,’ he says. ‘When we actually got into the South Atlantic I was sending daily sit reps for Operation “Corporate”. I just started sending my daily reports in the format we used in the North Atlantic and in the Norwegian Sea. To me this was just another submarine operation. Why would you invent something new? This is what we do, this is where I am, where I’m going to be, where the opposition is, any new problems, defects. Basically it was a format. My operational authority knows what that is. I didn’t even know if Admiral Woodward and his staff had a copy of this document. What did they want me to tell them every day apart from “I’m here”. What could they offer me in terms of material support? I wanted the whole package … How did I know that they were going to be on the end of that circuit twenty-four hours a day, for all three submarines, all four submarines, eventually five and six submarines? You can’t do it. You just can’t do it. At the end of the day I had no absolute assurance that my command and control headquarters was still going to be floating.’102

  Lane-Nott was also satisfied that the ‘division of the operating areas was found to be manageable’, but this was partly because both Lane-Nott and James Taylor had come to an arrangement. ‘I promise not to attack a nuclear submarine, if you do too.’ Spartan and Splendid both strayed into each other’s respective patrol areas, exercising the degree of flexibility and ambiguity that was expected of submariners.103

  As the Task Force neared the MEZ, the SSNs attempted to find the main Argentinian surface task groups. On 26 April, Spartan was ordered southwest to cover any move by the Belgrano group towards South Georgia and was tasked with intercep
ting, and reporting and gaining intelligence on, the MV Río Carcarañá which was believed to be engaged in resupply operations. The Río Carcarañá was far further west than anticipated, but before Spartan could reach its target the search was abandoned in favour of pursuing one of the Type 209 submarines which intelligence indicated may have been approaching the Falklands from the north. By 28 April, Spartan had moved north of the Falkland Islands, clear of the 100 fathom line and established an ASW patrol, ‘searching along likely enemy track with finger on the trigger’.104 But due to poor weather conditions significantly reducing detection ranges Spartan found nothing. ‘Whether he was there or not I haven’t the faintest idea,’ says Taylor.105 On 29 April, Spartan was ordered to patrol to the west of the Falklands to search for a far more worrying target: the still elusive Argentinian carrier group.

  On 24 April, intelligence had indicated that the carrier had left its home port of Puerto Belgrano with two escorts, and sailed south. HMS Splendid was also ordered to locate it and, if possible, sink it. But the carrier continued to elude Lane-Nott. 25 April proved to be a ‘quiet day with very few contacts … no Argentinian military activity at all’ and the next day, 26 April, Splendid was facing the possibility of ‘being dragged South again’ to search for the Argentinian submarine San Luis.106 Lane-Nott was deeply unhappy and 27 April was yet another ‘frustrating day with no contact whatsoever’. On 29 April, his luck changed. After spending the night and early morning searching, Splendid finally detected something promising.