Cold War Command: The Dramatic Story of a Nuclear Submariner

12 From Barrow to Bear Island

Despite his achievements in training submarine crews, Lieutenant Commander Dan Conley was glad to receive a new posting and in September 1978 he returned to Vickers’ shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness. His new appointment was to HMS Spartan, the fifth and penultimate SSN of the Swiftsure class, in which he would serve as executive officer, or second in command.

HM Submarine Spartan had been launched that April by Emily, Lady Lygo, a charming and lively Floridian, wife of Vice Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Raymond Lygo. As the traditional bottle of champagne broke against the hull, Spartan started a slow passage down the slipway, leaving behind as she slid into the murky waters of the Walney Channel the last of the class, HMS Splendid, still in the early stages of construction. She was then moved through the harbour lock system into a non-tidal berth for final fitting out and the testing of her machinery.

Conley observed sadly that the mode of working at the Vickers yard had changed little since his earlier spell there in 1972, despite its nationalisation. The slow decline of the British shipbuilding industry had provoked the Labour government to take the entire industry into public ownership and while these circumstances ought to have alarmed the management and workforce, the backing of the state had merely encouraged an endemic ennui. The shipyard, a sprawling complex of shabby, soot-stained Victorian buildings, sheds and workshops, was badly in need of modernisation to improve its production processes and to update much of its obsolescent plant, while its workforce continued its old ways, oblivious to the dangers of aggressive foreign competition. While shipyards building commercial shipping could go to the wall, a yard building the vessels so essential for maintaining and supporting Britain’s nuclear deterrent, it was assumed by most at Barrow, was safe from such vicissitudes.

With a workforce of over12,000, Vickers was heavily overmanned, but the management were hamstrung by very strong unions, which had an undue influence upon how the yard was organised and run. Whilst there was no significant industrial strife during Spartan’s building, this era marked the dog years of Jim Callaghan’s Labour government and was a time of very weak management throughout British industry. Therefore, on occasions, Conley got the impression that the workforce dictated their own terms to the management and there were many practices of very evident inefficiency — for example the so-called night shift was a misnomer, as after midnight the shift workers took to sleeping in the most innovative of places. Nevertheless, he became aware that many of the senior management were legendary in terms of their ability to build and deliver nuclear submarines and they exuded a great degree of pride and confidence that they would produce a first-rate ship for the Royal Navy.

Apart from the two SSNs, Spartan and Splendid, the only other vessel under construction in the yard was the aircraft-carrier HMS Invincible. A year earlier a project to build three German-designed Type 204 coastal submarines for the state of Israel had been completed. Against a background of the loss of the Dakar and increasing difficulty in maintaining its ageing former British submarines built in the Second World War, the Israeli Navy badly needed new boats. Acquiring replacements from German shipyards would have been politically unacceptable, so a contract to build under licence was awarded to Vickers, a construction programme that was accomplished with a minimum of public notice.

Following a quick handover from the officer who had been appointed as executive officer on a temporary basis, Conley assumed the responsibility of second in command to an engineer commander, Spartan’s senior officer until relieved by the commanding officer when the boat was nearing completion. Conley found himself accommodated in a stark office in a draughty, prefabricated building, and got to grips with his task, the preparation of Spartan for her contractor’s sea trials, only five months away. Well aware that in shipyard terms, five months was as the twinkling of an eye, there was much to be done. Pressing problems were exacerbated by the lack of any other seamen officers, due largely to external circumstances as the Royal Navy’s Submarine Service went through a period of expansion. There were simply no qualified officers to fill several of the boat’s key posts until the pressure of approaching sea trials compelled the necessary appointments. Indeed, even the captain, Commander Nigel Goodwin, did not arrive until after the trim dive in the yard basin had occurred in early December.

There was no such shortage of ratings and Conley had the challenge of keeping occupied an almost full complement of seamen, men who were well and truly engrossing themselves in the delights of Barrow. This was further complicated by the removal of one senior chief petty officer, the coxswain, who was under a charge in expectation of a court martial, owing to his dubious handling of the junior ratings’ lodgings arrangements. Conley was not entirely sorry about this, as this was the same individual who had been his coxswain in Otter and whom, Conley was convinced, could have been much more forthcoming about the Mary Millington incident. However, although in the long term a blessing in disguise, this remained a setback, because the coxswain was not only responsible for discipline and the administration of the ship’s company, but had the task of drawing up the watch and quarter bill, which set out the manning of the submarine when it was in different states of readiness, such as proceeding to sea or preparing to dive. Needless to say, there was also a shortage of submarine coxswains and a relief was not available until after the contactor’s sea trials.

As was to be expected, the engineering department was provided with comprehensive formal documentation and operational procedures for the management of the nuclear propulsion plant. However, remarkably for such a complex vessel, there was no equivalent setting out the actions to be taken in the case of the failure of the general ship systems, or those specific to emergencies. For example, there were no properly documented procedures for what was to be done in the event of the after hydroplanes jamming. If this were to occur, vital and rapid steps needed to be taken and a drill by which the crew could swiftly and effectively deal with the problem should have been standard. The Swiftsure project in conjunction with FOSM’s staff should have produced standard operating procedures, not least because system failures could imperil life and endanger the submarine, and were the moral responsibility of the design team.

However, such philosophical considerations would not solve the immediate problem and it was clear to Conley that it was up to him to produce Spartan’s own procedures. The task was made complicated by changes in the standard system of valve numbers adopted in earlier Swiftsure-class boats, so it was not just a matter of copying the documentation of Spartan’s predecessors. Without any seamen officers or a coxswain to share the load, Conley had his work cut out. On top of the daily demands on his time and attention, he was obliged to work late into many evenings, producing the myriad of operational and organisational documentation required before Spartan was ready to proceed to sea early in 1979.

Determined that the ship’s company would be well prepared for the forthcoming sea trials and the work-up which would follow it, he started training the crew onboard in the early evening, before the night shift clocked on. This was an unpopular initiative, disrupting the ratings’ routines, most of whom found their unpressurised existence in the yard highly congenial, and the pleasures of Barrow after work far more attractive than onboard training.

In spite of these multiple tribulations, Conley experienced immense job satisfaction. During his time in Swiftsure he had built up an excellent knowledge of this type of submarine’s systems and characteristics which few, if any, of the crew could match. Pressed as he was, he felt himself very able to undertake the challenges with which the preparation of Spartan confronted him. To this there was also the compensation of some regular home life. Having packed up his work for the day, he would then head to the cottage he had rented near to the town of Broughton-on-Furness close to Coniston Water, a journey of twenty or so miles of winding roads edged with dry stone walls in stunning moorland countryside, providing a pleasant relief from the industrial grime of the shipyard.

Gradually, success bred success, and over time Conley experienced excellent co-operation between the shipyard managers and the submarine’s staff who had, by now, accepted responsibility for the nuclear plant and watertight integrity of the submarine. Perhaps more important to future operational morale, the naval overseers appointed by the Ministry of Defence ensured that the crew’s aspirations in terms of unauthorised improvements and embellishments were met, provided they were kept within reason. Conley took quiet pride in the number of unofficial changes which were achieved to meet the aim of ensuring that the submarine’s habitability was to the best of standards.

Meanwhile, the final fitting out of the submarine progressed and the pace of individual machinery trials increased. Before the reactor was made to go ‘critical’ and start generating heat, a special barge secured alongside produced steam to test the main engines and the electrical generators. The first time of criticality of the reactor was an important milestone, when the control rods were gradually raised to allow a chain reaction to be initiated, thus generating the heat which would be turned into steam in the two boilers inside the reactor compartment. From a monitoring station — which had been set up on the dockside as a safety measure — Conley observed the elation of the engineering staff as the reactor went critical for the first time.

Another important event in the pre-trials process was the trim dive in the dock basin. HMS Spartan would carry both solid and seawater ballast to enable her to submerge without problems, having regard to a range of seawater densities and internal weight conditions. The easily removable liquid ballast allowed for the weight of additional equipment which would inevitably be fitted during the life of the vessel. The trim dive was a prerequisite to ensure that there was the right quantity of ballast and the boat was properly balanced fore and aft. This evolution took place in the yard’s fitting-out basin which, whilst adequate for the trim calculations, was not deep enough to completely submerge the boat, the top of the fin remaining above the surface.

It was Conley’s responsibility to ensure that when the submarine submerged in the basin it did so in a safe manner. Mindful that one of the previous Swiftsure class had ended up bow down, stuck in the shipyard mud, he ignored the official naval architect’s diving ballast calculations because to him they appeared unsound. Instead, he rang around other vessels of the class and got hold of their trim data and calculations. On the assumption that the shipbuilder had built the submarine roughly the same size as the other Swiftsures, it was not difficult to make an adjustment for stores and water density, and to work out a very acceptable and safe trim condition for the basin dive. The trim dive was successfully completed without incident, but the naval architect concerned stuck to theory in directing the shipbuilder to apply the final solid ballast corrections to the submarine.

In early 1979 the two key officers responsible for the navigation and sonar departments joined Spartan. Their unfamiliarity with the boat and her equipment required a great effort from them to get up to speed before the contractors’ sea trials. The short space of time available necessitated Conley assisting, and their training was added to his daunting burden of tasks and responsibilities. The trials themselves would involve eight weeks of tests and evaluations, where the submarine was fully put through her paces in order to ensure all plant and equipment worked properly and that she had been built to the contract specification.

Late February 1979 saw Spartan, with tug assistance, move gingerly out of the dock complex into the open sea. The final culminating thrill of all his hard work in, as the phrase had it, ‘getting underway in nuclear power’, was tempered by the new captain, as he arrived on the bridge for departure, declaring that his children had contracted mumps and that he had feared he had caught the disease.

As Spartan moved past Invincible, the bow of which had been damaged earlier when she was being moved into the entrance lock, it was a reminder of the risks of locking back into the dock system, because it involved crossing a strong tidal stream. (Later, the entrance was significantly improved for the Trident submarines.) A shipyard joker had painted a large sign above Invincible’s damage, indicating that the remedial work was going to be undertaken by the local car body repair company. In the event both Spartan’s departure and re-entrance were achieved without incident.

Clear of the Walney Channel, Spartan moved out into deep water, having discharged her tugs, and headed north. On her maiden dive, undertaken in the sheltered waters of the Clyde Estuary, it proved difficult to submerge Spartan as she proved too lightly ballasted. Thus the submarine was obliged to spend a weekend in Faslane while a number of the Vickers shipyard workers attending the trials undertook the miserable task of securing tons of solid ballast under the casing in driving rain. With something of a sense of vindication, Conley saw the theoretical trim calculations disposed of to the ‘classified waste’.

Proceeding back to sea for crew safety training, prior to embarking on full power trials, a serious problem soon emerged in that many members of the crew had become ill with violent stomach-ache and dizziness. Fortunately the symptoms, although very unpleasant, were short-lived, and the cause was determined as coming from contamination in a freshwater pipe. Meanwhile, the embarked shipyard personnel, who could be up to forty in number, had established themselves in the torpedo stowage compartment, nicknamed the ‘casbah’ owing to the amount of coloured material separating their temporary bunks. Fitted out with film projector and other comforts, this compartment was their sanctuary and was even out of bounds to the Faslane-based submarine work-up staff.

After several days of evolutions and emergency drills, the crew were cleared by the work-up staff as safe and competent enough to proceed with the trials. It was at this point that the captain’s concerns on sailing proved accurate. The mumps laid him out and he was obliged to be landed, leaving Conley in command. This might have seemed like Conley’s moment, a reward by providence for all his hard work, but prior to the acceptance of the new submarine into regular naval service — an important moment marked by the ceremonial hoisting of the white ensign — she was still technically the property of her builders, regarded as a merchant ship, and flew the red ensign. In recognition of his theoretical role of being their appointed shipmaster, Vickers paid Conley 5 pence per day, a sum deriving from the old Board of Trade payment of one shilling per diem to a supernumerary aboard a British merchantman and reducing him — with something of an ironical twist of fate — to the status equivalent of a ‘distressed British seaman’.

Having landed the captain, the first major element of the programme was to undertake machinery proving tests in the Irish Sea, working up to full power when dived. These were achieved travelling up and down the undersea valley known as Beaufort’s Dyke, which bisects the Stranraer — Larne ferry route. This relatively deep trench of water is about thirty miles long but just over two miles wide. Working up to a maximum speed of 30 knots when only a few hundred feet above the seabed, and executing a sharp reversal of course at either end with a rather green crew, posed what today might have been an unacceptable degree of risk, not least because over two million tons of explosives had been dumped in the bottom of the Dyke after the Second World War.

For Conley this proved a nail-biting period. During all the high-speed runs he stationed himself in the control room, closely supervising the submarine ship control team, and ready to react immediately to any equipment failure. In particular, loss of control of the rudder or hydroplanes could have had catastrophic consequences. However, all went smoothly and on reaching 30 knots a 50-pence piece was successfully balanced on its edge on the wardroom table: there was virtually no vibration — an excellent example of British engineering at its best.

The remainder of the sea trials were completed very successfully and the first deep dive to a maximum safe depth of well over a thousand feet was undertaken without too many doors jamming or compartment partitions bulging from hull compression. To avoid this, the shipbuilder allowed adequate margins of clearance, and Vickers had achieved this very successfully. Meanwhile, the crew enjoyed the finest of cuisine because, although the catering staff ordered the food, the shipbuilder was paying for it. Surprisingly, the Faslane NAAFI food depot was not to be defeated by orders from Spartan at sea, which included such delicacies as frogs’ legs, lobsters and Alaskan king crabl. It was all a bit of a game to see how far Vickers could be pushed, including charging them corkage on their own beer and wine, the proceeds of which went towards the ship’s company commissioning dance, although, in reality, little of either was actually consumed.

Returning to the shipyard in April, Spartan embarked on a normal three-month ‘post sea trials build completion phase’. In the event, however, this was extended by two months for her to be fitted with special protection to a number of her vulnerable external fittings. This would enable her to undertake the role of a target, the first Royal Naval nuclear submarine to be so modified and indicating to Conley that, like Otter, she was destined to spend significant periods of time at the AUTEC and BUTEC ranges. The prospect of having a variety of practice and test torpedoes fired against her, sometimes intended to actually strike her, added a zest to the future. The AUTEC trials were very welcome to the crew, who knew that they inevitably meant port visits to Florida.

On a fresh, sunny September morning, the commissioning ceremony took place in a shipyard berth back in Barrow, where a pavilion and stand had been set up. There was a substantial gathering of the families of the crew, Vickers’s staff, local dignitaries and other guests, with the shipyard band providing a jaunty musical accompaniment. There was also a welcome contingent of ‘old Spartans’, veterans who had served in Spartan’s Second World War predecessor. Their Vickers-built Bellona-class light cruiser had been sunk off Anzio in January 1944 by a guided bomb. It was very much a humbling experience for the crew of the SSN to meet these stalwarts, several of whom had been severely wounded during the attack and, needless to say, they were delighted to be honoured guests and to be given a tour of a nuclear submarine. The crew were also extremely pleased that Lady Lygo was able to be present and, indeed, she was to maintain a strong interest in the submarine during its succeeding commissions.

The commissioning berth and everything around it had been spruced up and painted. This included the starboard side of Spartan, the side facing the bigwigs, making it at least five and a half coats of external paint applied since the initial coat. Indeed, the submarine had been completed to absolutely immaculate standards of finish and cleanliness, although Conley considered the employment of two women on their hands and knees using hacksaw blades to scrape off the piling from the wardroom carpet a bit over the top.

At the start of the commissioning proceedings the ship’s company proudly marched on and formed ranks in front of the commissioning stand, their standard of marching and appearance absolutely outstanding for submariners. The commissioning ceremony was led by the Chaplain of the Fleet conducting a short service of dedication, which culminated in the captain reading out the commissioning warrant which authorised that HMS Spartan join the Fleet. On completion of the reading, the shrill of a bosun’s whistle was the cue for the white ensign to be hoisted for the first time at the stern of the submarine and the Union Jack raised at the bows.

After the commissioning ceremony the VIP guests were conducted round the submarine and ended their visit with a glass of champagne in the wardroom. This plan encountered a hitch when the Mayor of Barrow’s well-built wife proved a bottleneck, nervous of descending the vertical ladder of the main access hatch, despite much persuasion. The situation was resolved when the mayor himself threatened her with the deployment of the torpedo loading gear to get her below. All then proceeded well and was followed in the evening by a very successful ship’s company dance in the town hall which concluded a happy and memorable day.

The seemingly interminable leaving parties now over and the final modifications and improvements extracted from the shipbuilder, HM Submarine Spartan prepared to leave her birthplace. After her work-up in Faslane she would join the Second Submarine Squadron, based in Devonport. However, the moment for Spartan to sever her connections with Barrow-in-Furness was not universally welcomed by the ship’s company. A number of the crew had married Barrow girls and, characteristically, their young wives were not inclined to move out of the town and follow the drum. Their influence encouraged an aspiration in their husbands to return to another submarine under construction as soon as possible.

As he waited for the passing of the order to close up to stations for leaving harbour, Conley contemplated the moment of transition. He felt a strong attachment to Spartan, forged by the heavy but important workload that he had perforce been compelled to deal with on joining her. Moreover, he thought privately, those few days of command during the sick leave of Commander Goodwin had, in some odd way, confirmed this relationship. Sailors never quite love their ships, but they often have a regard for them and the part they play in their careers.

Her Britannic Majesty’s submarine Spartan had cost about £200 million to build at 2013 values, much less than the cost of the Astute-class SSNs, which exceeded £1,000 million and were commissioned from 2010 onwards. She nevertheless had her limitations. Although fitted with the latest sonar and weapon-control equipment, against surface ships Spartan would have to resort to the over forty-year-old Mark 8 torpedo. However, she was equipped with the Tigerfish anti-submarine torpedo which, although a marked improvement on the Mark 23, as recounted in the previous chapter, suffered from serious defects.

Satisfaction with his new boat did not totally extend to the performance of her crew. To Conley’s disappointment, and not for the want of enthusiasm and effort, the ship’s company did not excel in the subsequent safety phase or the operational work-up. They were assessed to have achieved a satisfactory standard in both, but the breakdown in the personal relationship between the commanding officer and the captain heading the work-up staff undoubtedly proved an inhibiting factor in the outcome. Privately, Conley considered that the crew were capable of achieving a higher standard.

Once again, Conley observed that, exactly as in his Perisher course, the operational work-up programme was mainly geared towards fighting an ‘enemy’ who operated on identical lines to one’s own or allied forces. To this was added training in intelligence-gathering techniques, but there remained a gaping lack of time devoted to dealing with the threat of hostile submarines. Apprehensive of the thrust of Soviet naval ambitions, Conley felt that they had received inadequate preparation for any forthcoming deployment against Russian submarines.

Although post-commissioning trials and work-up revealed few technical problems, an irksome fault was experienced with the anchor system, fitted under the bows outside the pressure hull. The anchor itself housed flush with the submarine’s hull and behind it the cable lay in a cylindrical chain locker. Whilst serving in Swiftsure, Conley had witnessed a severe problem on weighing the anchor in a remote Scottish loch. As the final section of cable was hove in, it rode off the whelps of the windlass. The whelps grip each link, enabling the rotating windlass barrel to heave the cable in but once unshipped, the weight of the anchor would reverse the process. With a roar the whole of the cable ran out totally out of control, onto the bottom of the seabed. It was fortunate that the securing arrangements in the cable locker proved robust, or else all would have ended up at the bottom of the loch.

Employing manual seamanship techniques with which Nelson’s sailors would have been familiar, the crew had had to haul in sufficient slack cable to work it back over the whelps on the windlass. This was a difficult and prolonged task, for the weight of the entire submarine had to be taken off the cable, while the weight of the cable itself as it dangled into the depths had to be lifted to recover a sufficient amount to accomplish its relocation. Once this was achieved the winding-in process could to be restarted. After many frustrations in trying to get the last part of cable into the locker, this proved so tight a fit that its accomplishment required the removal of one section of cable in order to house the remainder. This was a near-impossible task in the wet, cramped conditions of the Swiftsure’s windlass compartment. It was soon clear to all concerned that whilst the locker was adequate in capacity for initial use, as deposits built up on the cable, it became too small for the stowage of the full cable, causing the outer section to back up and jump off the windlass.

Based upon this experience, Conley had attempted without success to persuade the overseeing authorities to shorten the length of Spartan’s cable. It was therefore to his consternation that after anchoring off Rothesay one evening during the work-up, the crew endured a repeat performance of Swiftsure’s travails. Infuriated by the disconnect between the practical seamen and the naval architects which, in this case, had been made manifest by Swiftsure’s wretched experience, Conley had to be prevailed upon not to truck the surplus removed cable section to the submarine design department in Bath.

In April 1980, seven months after commissioning, Spartan was on operational patrol in the Norwegian Sea. For the first time she was fitted with a towed acoustic array — passive sonar — but the crew had no prior training in its use for target motion analysis (TMA) which was, in any case, rudimentary and underdeveloped. Submarine target motion analysis is derived from the changing bearing of a target yielding the data necessary to calculate its course, speed and range. That said, the resulting answers can often only be said to give a general indication of a target’s location and movement.

The towed acoustic array consists of a long line of hydrophones — an acoustic array — streamed behind the submarine at a distance of several hundred yards. This ensures that the array is well clear of the submarine’s own noise, while its features enable it to make long-range detection of discrete low-frequency emissions from the target’s machinery. For example, a particular piece of plant, such as a generator, might emit noise at a very distinctive 270Hz. Such emissions, known as tonals, both aided the classification of a targeted submarine, but also provide information which assisted the TMA calculations. The disadvantage of the towed acoustic array is that it becomes destabilised for a period after any manoeuvre by the towing submarine. An alteration of course or depth results in a loss of contact for several minutes until the towed acoustic array is straight again. This breakdown in data acquisition inhibits the steady garnering of bearing change that resolves the course, speed and range of the contact. Other complications arise, compromising the accuracy of the acquired data, from sources such as the presence of anomalous sound propagation caused by contact noise reflecting off the bottom of the seabed, before being received by the array. Accordingly, TMA using towed acoustic array data is very complex and requires great skill and expertise to achieve the satisfactory results which, in themselves, tend to provide the ‘ball park’ referred to earlier.

Not long after Spartan’s patrol had begun, contact was made with a Charlie II-class cruise missile submarine (SSGN). Intelligence reports had indicated her to be participating in an exercise involving her trailing and marking the Russian helicopter carrier Leningrad and her surface escorts. This group was replicating an American aircraft-carrier strike force passing through the Norwegian Sea with the SSGN in the role of interdicting opposition. With the ability to launch its lethal SSN7 anti-ship missiles whilst submerged and at short range — thus affording very little warning — the Charlie II-class sub-marine at the time was the United States aircraft carrier’s most dangerous foe.

Spartan patiently maintained her trail of the Soviet boat for two days at a range of about ten miles, but she never got close enough to generate an accurate ‘fire control solution’. This would have marked the trail as a success but, in the event, only a rough ‘range assessment’ was held on her. Meanwhile, above the waves other intelligence sources recorded that the Russians had conducted simulated air attacks on the group, complete with gunnery exercises. Eventually, contact with the Russian force was lost among the noise made by coastal shipping and fishing vessels off the Norwegian coast as the Russians closed the final phase of their exercise. Despite the disappointment in failing to achieve that fire control solution, for the Spartan’s crew it was a good start; they had had practical experience in the field, trailing a potential ‘hostile’ using their towed acoustic array.

Spartan was next ordered north to intercept an Alfa-class SSN, reported to be the first which had deployed to seaward of local patrol zones off the north Russian coast. It was thought she too was partaking in a large Soviet maritime exercise. Soon Spartan’s operators were in contact with the Russian, which was detected at a range of over one hundred miles in an area to the north of Norway, but there was concern that she might be heading back to port for May Day celebrations and that a close-range intelligence-gathering approach might not be achieved. Accordingly, the captain was very keen to close on her as rapidly as possible. Unfortunately, Goodwin and Conley had not organised themselves into a proper command rota and over a period of several days with little sleep, their stamina was being stretched.

Heading east at high speed to intercept her quarry, but unable to hold the target on sonar whilst at speed, Spartan was slowed at periodic intervals to regain contact. About twelve hours after the initial sonar contact, Conley was summoned by Goodwin to the sound room. On entry he quickly observed that the towed array displays were indicating a very confused picture, almost saturated by noise from the Alfa, but curiously there was no contact on the hull sensors. Puzzled at first, he realised that the displays were indicating the close proximity of the Alfa, confirmed shortly afterwards by a contact of high rate of bearing change detected on the hull sonar on the port beam. This indicated the Russian was passing in the opposite direction and was evidently not too far away. Commander Goodwin now put his helm hard over and Spartan banked to port to maintain contact with and follow the Russian. It was soon evident, however, that the Alfa was herself altering course inside the British SSN’s turning circle and had skilfully manoeuvred to a position astern of Spartan.

The Russian commander had clearly effected counter-detection and a situation had developed akin to an underwater dogfight, the two opposing submarines manoeuvring less than two miles apart and risking collision. Goodwin decided it was time to break away from the Russian and increase the distance between them. However, he had hardly done so when two very strong sonar transmissions were heard coming from directly astern. It was clear that the Russian commander was using his active sonar to classify Spartan as a submarine contact. Sonar transmissions now came from astern at regular intervals, a clear and unambiguous indication that ‘the opposition’ was well and truly in active contact and that, quite simply, Spartan was now the Russian’s quarry.

It was evident that urgent evasion techniques had to be called upon and Goodwin put his boat through her paces, heading westwards at a speed approaching 30 knots. This proved insufficient, for with a top speed of 42 knots, the trailing Alfa remained on Spartan’s quarter, very close and clearly having no trouble in keeping up. There was little that could be done, other than hope the Russian would find it increasingly difficult to maintain sonar contact in the high-speed chase. Meanwhile, Conley observed that his captain, very much lacking sleep, looked absolutely drained and exhausted and was clearly upset about the loss of tactical control and the counter-detection.

Within an hour, the sonar transmissions had become faint and it was evident that Spartan’s evasive manoeuvres had confused the Alfa’s sonar operators and contact had been broken. Having disengaged and continued to head west, no further Soviet contacts were gained during this patrol and Spartan returned to her base in Devonport.

There was no subsequent reproach for this incident, but there was a degree of concern expressed at headquarters that the Royal Navy’s latest and quietest SSN had been detected by a relatively noisy Russian submarine. Close scrutiny of the results of a pre-patrol noise-ranging indicated a noise-short on a piece of machinery which could have given Spartan’s presence away. However, it was clear to Conley that tactical control had been lost and a very creditable detection at long range had developed into a less than satisfactory close-range encounter, in which the advantage had swiftly and decisively passed to the Russians as Spartan stumbled on top of her quarry. Conley concluded that a key lesson was the need to develop specific tactics when using data derived from a towed acoustic array. The question was — could better and more reliable bearing accuracy be obtained from the array itself? He privately felt that the designers and shipbuilder had been let down, and he became determined that Spartan would do a lot better in any subsequent patrol in which he participated.

By early February 1981, Spartan was back on operational patrol in the North Norwegian Sea, trailing a Victor SSN which was heading northeast towards her Northern Fleet base. In the intervening period the Spartan’s crew had had the benefit of two weeks’ experience of operating with American submarines in a tactical evaluation exercise aimed at improving and refining the use of the towed acoustic array. They were therefore much better trained and prepared than they had been. This greatly encouraged Conley, who now found himself in a different situation. A new commanding officer had just joined: Commander Jim Taylor, who had had little previous experience in nuclear submarines or in encountering the Russian opposition. After discussing the matter with his executive officer, he had wisely delegated the tactical control of the submarine to Conley, who naturally relished the opportunity to make amends for the Alfa encounter.

The Russian Victor SSN had been detected to the northwest of the British Isles. However, owing to the difficult acoustic conditions of the Iceland— Faeroes Gap, caused by the noisy activities of fishing vessels and the confluence of ocean currents, the Gulf Stream meeting cold Arctic water, Spartan had broken off contact. Instead, she headed deep into the Norwegian Sea ahead of the Russian along his predicted track. This gambit paid off and, on cue, contact was regained and the trail continued.

When about a hundred miles southeast of Bear Island, hull sonar contact was achieved on the Victor, which had stopped moving forward and was randomly manoeuvring around a certain area. Using the much more accurate hull sonar bearings, Spartan closed range to about three miles to the east of the Victor’s search locus and waited as events unfurled. Soon there was great excitement in the control room as a Delta-class Soviet SSBN was detected and classified, heading on a southwesterly track. Maintaining a prudent range, Spartan’s crew observed the Victor circling round the SSBN, conducting not very effective so-called ‘delousing manoeuvres’, aimed at detecting any trailing ‘hostile’ submarine. However, in this case, the inverse had occurred and the Victor had acted as a lure to a more valuable quarry. Using his experience from the Alfa encounter, Conley manoeuvred Spartan with great care to avoid any risk of counter-detection. At the same time he retained firm tactical control by carefully monitoring the movements and positions of the other submarines. He was well aware of the collision risks involved, with a trio of submarines operating within a three-mile radius of each other and remained alert for any unusual alterations in course or, a chilling thought, any hint of a fourth participant.

After several hours, having evidently completed his sanitising manoeuvres, the Victor headed southeast. Contact faded shortly thereafter, but now Spartan had established a trailing position on the port quarter of the Delta-class SSBN as she headed northwest. There was a great buzz throughout Spartan as word passed that they had collectively undertaken a unique piece of intelligence-gathering, of a Russian Victor SSN sanitising a deploying Delta SSBN. Moreover, they were now in chase of a strategically important contact; it was exactly what Spartan had been designed and built for, and for which they, as a ship’s company, had trained.

Satisfied that all was under control, Conley left the control room for an early supper before relieving the captain for a stint as ‘duty command’.

An hour or so later he returned to the control room and the boat was handed over to him. To his intense disappointment, contact with the Delta had been lost. Resolutely, Conley sought their elusive quarry. After two hours of searching to the northwest, Conley had the satisfaction of regaining contact and reported this to Taylor. Gratifying though this was, the evening was to have more surprises in store. Just before midnight it was clear that confusion existed in the sound room regarding the bearing of the Delta. The operators could not determine whether Spartan was on her port or starboard quarter, until it became clear that two distinctly separate sets of contact characteristics were being held on two different bearings. Conley quickly realised that Spartan was now behind not one but two 10,000-ton Delta-class SSBNs, which were about ten miles apart and heading deep into the Greenland Sea towards the ice edge. A second report went to the captain that they had additional company.

For the next day Spartan maintained her trail of the two Deltas as they headed towards the ice. On the second evening of the trail, as they approached the Greenland Sea oceanic front, a confluence of the remnants of the Gulf Stream and very cold Arctic water, a marked rise in sea noise ahead was detected: the characteristically noisy edge of the Arctic ice sheet. With no shipping contacts on sonar, Conley regarded this as rather eerie. Moreover, owing to the absence of an accurate navigational fix for some time, somewhat limited charts and a lack of knowledge of the exact location of the ice edge, he felt uneasy. To this sensation he had regard to the fact that neither of the Deltas had been held on SOSUS, so that naval headquarters at Northwood would have no idea where Spartan was operating in the very large patrol area designated to her. She was now approaching the limits of her sanctioned operational zone and, not being fitted with satellite communications and having no secure method of radioing for extra operating space, reluctantly her crew were obliged to abandon her wards and head south away from the ice. Despite the disappointment, however, both Taylor and Conley were satisfied that they had achieved a very successful and unique trail and that Spartan’s presence had not been detected.

A few days later, when back in the middle of the Norwegian Sea, contact was made with a homeward-bound Charlie II SSGN. The Spartan trailed her for a day or so before breaking off and returning to base. For Conley, who was about to leave the boat for a new appointment, it was a very satisfying end to his time in Spartan and their joint progress from fitting out to creditable operational patrol. The submarine returned to Devonport to accolades from the headquarters staff for what had been an outstandingly successful period at sea. Spartan was to go on to conduct several very accomplished operational patrols and took an active part in the Falklands War.

Although Conley would take no close part in the Falklands campaign, his experience in Spartan had brought him into contact with the potential enemy of the Cold War. They had crossed swords and been bested once, but he built upon this to achieve a coup de main. Commander Taylor’s decision to delegate to him had given him a further opportunity to test himself and he consequently felt closer to his life’s purpose and to his personal ambition, for his career had undergone a step-change. His performance and achievements in Spartan had erased the after-effects of his time in command of Otter and the ghost of Mary Millington had been laid to rest. Now selected for promotion to commander, his first appointment in his new rank would be on exchange duty with the United States Navy. He found himself a member of the staff of Commander Submarine Development Squadron Twelve, in Groton, Connecticut. Not only was this a prestigious posting, indicating some degree of official approbation of his conduct, but it would give him the opportunity to bring the extensive resources of the United States Navy to bear in his adopted crusade of developing towed acoustic array tactics. This was, he felt, a unique way of improving British SSN effectiveness in engaging the Russian submarine.