Cold War Command: The Dramatic Story of a Nuclear Submariner

10 First Submarine Command

On a bleak winter’s day in early December 1975, Lieutenant Dan Conley boarded the Third Submarine Squadron’s Oberon-class diesel-electric submarine Otter, to take over as her commanding officer. The submarine was in dock in Faslane and, whilst his initial impressions were that she was in overall better shape than Sealion had been when he joined her, he soon realised that the machinery of the thirteen-year-old boat needed a refit and thorough overhaul. Altogether she was rather tired in condition and appearance.

As was traditional in the Submarine Service, the handover was brief and took less than two hours. Having met those officers who were not on leave, mustered a small quantity of highly classified commanding officer ‘Eyes Only’ material and codes, checked out the small holding of medicinal drugs, including a rather pathetic six ampoules of morphine, Conley declared he was happy to take over. The departing commanding officer was then ‘piped over the side’ for the last time and Otter was his.

HMS Otter was unique in the Royal Navy, being the only submarine acting as a target for torpedo tests and evaluations. To be able to withstand hits from practice weapons, the fibreglass superstructure standard in the Oberon class had been replaced by steel. She also had protective shielding fitted to those small areas of her pressure hull which were directly exposed to the sea and to the vents on top of the main ballast tanks, which were so vital to the boat’s ability to dive and surface. These measures created additional top weight which reduced the boat’s righting stability and Conley was to discover that in heavy weather she rolled much more than others of her class.

A quick walk-through revealed the submarine to be in a state of engineering upheaval, as the main work whilst in dock involved completing the final phases of a general programme throughout the Submarine Flotilla to replace a number of hull valve casings which were suspect. This was a messy job which incurred a considerable amount of restorative work after the base repair staff had finished.

In Otter, Conley inherited a boat containing much obsolescent equipment; even her outfit of ancient Mark 8 torpedoes were of a particular type which had been phased out elsewhere in the Flotilla. Her sonar was similarly antique, remaining essentially the same set as fitted on her completion in 1962. Of particular concern to the new commander was that the long-range wireless communication equipment relied solely upon hand-keyed Morse for both the reception and transmission of signal traffic. Conley was only too aware that the number of shore radio stations competent to handle this slow, out-of-date mode of transmitting messages was diminishing. Clearly, signal traffic handling was going to be at the top of his list of problems thus far.

On the other hand, for the first time in his career in submarines, Conley had his own cabin, a tiny cupboard-like space adjacent to the control room into which was squeezed a settee-bunk, a wardrobe and a fold-down washbasin. Apart from breakfast, as was the tradition in British submarines, he would eat in the wardroom very much on the understanding that this was the first lieutenant’s fiefdom and he was a guest.

The Otter’s officers seemed a mixed bunch in terms of ability, very much less experienced than the Swiftsure team; the same could also be said of the ship’s company, although in the event they were to prove a lively, high-spirited group of individuals, and they were sometimes a problem when on shore leave.

After the completion of repairs and with Christmas leave over, Conley took his first command to sea for the first time. Otter’s first major assignment in 1976 was to deploy to the Caribbean to the AUTEC range to act as a target submarine for a series of sonar and torpedo trials. First, however, was a short post-refit workup, allowing him to get to grips with the boat, her equipment and her crew. On the second day at sea Conley conducted practice torpedo firings in the Clyde Estuary using the torpedo recovery vessel as a target, but the results were disappointing: the two Mark 23 weapons fired stubbornly refused to run, emphasising the uselessness of this weapon, and one of his salvo of four Mark 8s failed to surface for recovery at the end of its run.

Conley’s next task was to take the boat into deep water in the Northwest Approaches where he would conduct a deep dive to test out the new hull valves and undertake other proving trials before heading across the Atlantic. During the deep dive the radar mast flooded, rendering this navigation and ship safety system inoperative, the first intimation that defective radar was to plague Conley’s time in command of Otter.

Prior to final departure for the AUTEC range, Otter had to return to Faslane and experienced Storm Force 10 conditions on her return passage, made on the surface. During the night, a major electrical earth registered on the forward battery section and an inspection of the battery compartment revealed that the heavy rolling was causing acid to spill out and track across the tops of several defective battery cells, creating sparking and arcing. With a very real risk of a fire or an explosion, this was a potentially highly dangerous situation which required the boat to be rapidly put onto a course which reduced its movement, whilst electrical maintainers entered the very tight confines of the battery compartment to effect repairs and clean up the acid. Given the risks, this was a commendable though necessary process, revealing to Conley the spirit of some of his people.

Meanwhile, the remainder of the crew had been woken and ordered to their diving stations to ensure that they were in a high degree of readiness to contend with any eventuality. It was the first of many serious equipment problems Conley was to encounter in his three submarine commands, but since it was, after Perisher, the first real mishap he was called upon to deal with, the incident remained sharp in his memory.

On the return to Faslane to complete repairs to the defects which had arisen, and to undertake the final loading of stores and provisions before deploying, there was more excitement awaiting Conley. As he made his first night approach into a very tight berth, with the sterns of the SSN Courageous and the SSBN Resolution ahead and astern respectively, the rating in the control room operating the main motor telegraphs responded wrongly to orders from the bridge. Bringing Otter to a minimum speed in the final 200 yards of his approach, Conley ordered the propulsion astern; instead he got an ahead movement. As Otter lurched forward towards Courageous’s propeller, Conley ordered ‘Full astern!’ which had the opposite effect: Otter now began to make sternway towards Resolution. This was checked by a ‘Full ahead!’ order and eventually, after a series of further urgent telegraph movements, the ahead and astern oscillations diminished and Conley got his charge under control and somehow completed the berthing without causing damage to either of the two very important neighbouring submarines. Meanwhile, the squadron greeting staff gathered their breath having sprinted back and forwards up and down the jetty towards where they thought impact was about to occur.

A quick investigation revealed that the rating working the telegraphs was an inexperienced trainee who should have been supervised by an officer but the latter, about to be harbour duty officer, was in the wardroom changing his uniform. Later in the evening when his adrenalin had subsided, Conley made it very clear to the officer concerned that his absence from the control room at a critical time when berthing was an act of negligence, which could have resulted in millions of pounds of damage and the need to dock the other two vessels. But owing to the officer’s inexperience, the matter ended there. In the privacy of his cabin, Conley mused self-critically on the last few days. They had been horribly eventful and did not amount to a very good start as a commanding officer. What, he wondered, lay ahead, on the far side of the Atlantic?

Otter left Faslane at the end of January 1976 for a transatlantic passage on the surface. Her first commitment was to act as target for sonar trials with the brand new SSN HMS Sovereign in an area to the northeast of Bermuda. Five days out, in mid Atlantic she encountered severe Gale Force 9 conditions and started suffering from a series of main engine problems and a recurrence of battery earths owing to her heavy rolling. As if this were not enough, one of the starboard engine’s major hull valves had begun leaking and seawater was entering the submarine at a significant rate. With her obsolete wireless equipment, severe difficulties were also being experienced in both sending and receiving signal traffic concerning her engineering problems. As Conley sat in his cabin, his ears alert for the increasingly familiar sound of an engine stopping, the possible prospect of breaking down in the middle of the ocean with inadequate communications to call for assistance appalled him. For the first time he appreciated the meaning of that phrase ‘the loneliness of command’. However, somehow his engineers managed to keep the engines running and when the gale eventually abated and the sea conditions moderated, the battery earth problems disappeared.

Having met up with Sovereign, a radio conversation with her commanding officer revealed that she too had had her own problems during the crossing. Her oxygen-making equipment had failed and it had been necessary periodically to ventilate the boat at periscope depth through the snort mast air-induction system. Whilst ventilating in the rough seas, she had incurred a small but serious explosion caused by seawater making its way down trunking to come into contact with the highly sensitive electrolysers which generated oxygen. This had been attributed to a defect arising from build — a stray piece of polystyrene left in the induction system seawater drain tank.

However, despite all this and after a slow start, the sonar trials were successfully completed. Owing to her leaking hull valve, Otter had been limited to periscope depth where the ingress of 20 tons of seawater an hour could just be coped with. Anything deeper was out of the question. The trials over, Otter headed for a port visit to Hamilton, Bermuda, where Conley was very glad there would be an opportunity to rectify at least some of his growing list of defects.

Whist strolling through the centre of the city on the second day of his visit to the Bermudan capital, Conley spotted a local newspaper with the front-page headline ‘Sub Runs Aground’. On buying a paper to find out which unfortunate boat had had a mishap, he soon realised the headlines referred to Otter. As he had turned the boat round to make the final approach to the berth in the shallow, pristine, azure blue waters of Hamilton harbour, the propellers had stirred up a cloud of sand which an observing reporter assumed was caused by the submarine hitting the bottom. This was not to be the first time in his career that media misreporting would make life uncomfortable for him. A signal was sent to Flag Officer Submarines and the Squadron, refuting the newspaper article, but he knew that the promulgation of bad news, no matter how unfounded, tended to have an adverse effect.

Shortly after departing from Bermuda, Conley received a personal signal from the regional admiral expressing displeasure that the crew had caused some damage to the hotel they had been billeted in. With the engineering problems in the Atlantic passage, the reported grounding and crew misbehaviour ashore, he reflected that the deployment had got off to a somewhat dismal start.

Otter was now bound to the United States Navy base at Charleston, South Carolina. Here, during a ten-day stay, many much-needed repairs were undertaken by a very helpful submarine support team. The sprawling Charleston shore complex then based two large submarine squadrons, together with numerous destroyers and frigates. However, in 1996 as a cost savings measure at the end of the Cold War, it was completely shut down and no longer serves as a naval base.

As was a common experience in most American ports, Otter’s crew received immense hospitality from their hosts, despite the fact that they were beginning a year of commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the start of the American War of Independence. Otter’s host boat was the USN SSN Grayling, a unit of the Fourth Submarine Squadron, which had more operational nuclear submarines than the total in the Royal Navy. This fact alone emphasised to their British guests the scale of the American submarine fleet. The Grayling wardroom excelled themselves as hosts and for his part Lieutenant Conley was feted by the area admiral and senior officers from the submarine squadrons, undertaking a number of official calls and attending several receptions and dinners. He got on very well with his American peers and was to make enduring friendships with two of the submarine commanders he met.

However, the serious business was about to start, and on departing Charleston, Otter headed for Port Canaveral, arriving there in late February for the fitting of range-tracking gear and special noise augmentation equipment. This was required for those trials where the Tigerfish torpedo would be tested. On 1 March Conley celebrated both his promotion to lieutenant commander and his first wedding anniversary, sharing a glass of champagne with his officers.

On the following day, Otter left Port Canaveral for six weeks on the AUTEC range. Here she would predominantly act in the target role in a dived state at varying depths for sonar and weapons trials. Her trial consorts were again the SSN Sovereign and the Leander-class frigate Cleopatra, the former firing Tigerfish heavyweight torpedoes at her and the latter launching the American-manufactured lightweight Mark 44 and Mark 46 weapons, either from her torpedo tubes or from her helicopter. Otter’s equipment problems continued, with the reliability of the diesel engines and their associated main electrical generators a constant source of worry. Conditions onboard when submerged, with sea temperatures of around 28 °C, were extremely torrid. The air-conditioning system proved totally inadequate both in maintaining reasonable temperatures and reducing humidity, and consequently the deck-heads dripped with condensation.

During the weapon firings the boat’s watertight compartment bulkheads were shut down as a precaution against the effects of damage from an inadvertent hit. This meant that ventilation had to be stopped, whereupon the air temperature soared into the 50s. On leaving Port Canaveral, several members of the crew had reported that they were suffering from symptoms of flu and this soon swept through the ship’s company, its effects exacerbated by the very high humidity and the temperature differentials of up to 30° between the interior of the submarine and the bridge, when the submarine was running on the surface.

Conley succumbed, his symptoms becoming evident on the passage to AUTEC but with no one else available to take over command, there was no alternative other than for him to keep on going; it took over a week for him to recover to a near normal condition.

To give the crew a break and to enable them to get away from these very unpleasant conditions, two short port visits took place to nearby Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. The first harbour entry, arranged at short notice and at night to allow proper medical care for the worse infected members of the crew, was very challenging for Conley. Full of influenza, with no operational radar, he discovered the buoys and beacon lights marking the approach were either extinguished or displayed totally different characteristics to those described on his charts. This fraught situation might have been eased by the early embarkation of the pilot, but this worthy boarded when just off the berth and was clearly in a very inebriated state. Once alongside, two of the crew who were showing signs of developing pneumonia had been landed into a local hospital where they were to make a good recovery. The following day, heading back to sea in daylight, viewing the harbour entrance and its various reefs and hazards, Conley counted his blessings that Otter had not come to grief.

A few days later Otter made a second, official, visit to Nassau. Conley’s wife, enjoying her end of service leave from the WRNS, was able to join him here, but first he made his formal calls. These included the British High Commissioner, the Governor General and the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Lynden Pindling, the first leader of this fledgling independent nation. The Bahamas had been granted independence in 1973 and Pindling was to serve as prime minister until 1992. Later in the visit, Pindling was clearly very pleased to be invited onboard Otter for a tour of the boat and arrived very informally dressed, accompanied by his two daughters. Conley found him to be a highly intelligent and personable man but was saddened to learn in later years of the allegations regarding the fortune he had made as payback for turning a blind eye to the use of many remote Bahamas islands, or cays, being used as a staging post for Colombian drug traffic into continental America.

A less welcome female guest had come onboard two days before the prime minister’s family visit whilst the Conleys were dining with the High Commissioner. The young woman in question had obligingly removed her clothing, to the delight of several of the junior ratings. Seemingly harmless enough at the time, the ramifications of this incident were to bear heavily upon Conley and his officers when they came to light four months later.

Back at sea, engine and other mechanical problems persisted. Often only one of the twin diesel engines was in working order, parts of the defective engine being repaired ashore in the AUTEC workshops on Andros Island. The wireless mast was also defective owing to seawater ingress, making communications with the AUTEC staff or Squadron difficult. On one occasion, after surfacing in the evening at the end of a day’s evasive manoeuvres against torpedoes, with the main battery absolutely exhausted, the one good engine available could not be started. With the submarine stationary, wallowing in a long swell, with very little power available other than for a few lights and essential equipment, internal temperatures climbed into the 50s from the heat exuding from the exhausted main battery. To a weary Conley, sitting perspiring in the near darkness of his cabin, the two hours it took to get the engine going seemed interminable. The roar of the diesel starting, and sucking relatively cool fresh air into the boat’s interior, was one of best sounds he had ever heard.

Added to the myriad of electromechanical problems onboard was the external damage caused by several practice torpedo hits. Shortly after the trials had started, it became evident that the Tigerfish torpedoes were failing their specification. Although Otter had been fitted with special noise augmentation equipment upon which the weapons were supposed to home, in practice it was found that because of control deficiencies, the Tigerfish was finding it difficult to locate her, despite the boat’s enhanced noise. These problems augured a long and difficult gestation for this well overdue antisubmarine weapon. There were many delays and aborted runs and Conley sensed a degree of frustration onboard the firing submarine, HMS Sovereign. Eventually, one good run was achieved with the weapon using its sonar in an active, transmit mode but perhaps overcome by exuberance, the Sovereign command team failed to heed the range control instructions to turn the weapon away from Otter. The high-pitched whine of the approaching 2-ton, 36-knot torpedo heard through the pressure hull was followed by a loud bang as the weapon struck forward in the area of the torpedo tube bow caps.

The boat was immediately surfaced and the range staff quickly flew out divers by helicopter to inspect and assess the damage. Braving a group of hammerhead sharks which were not too far away, the divers checked out the forward part of the submarine and on surfacing, clutching small fragments of torpedo, reported that a starboard torpedo tube bow cap was badly stove in, otherwise there was no other damage. A few days later a second inadvertent Tigerfish hit damaged the starboard battery cooling intake arrangement, followed by a tube-launched Mark 44 making an impact upon the starboard propeller shaft. Otter was taking a battering.

It had not been all hard work and no play during the boat’s time in the Caribbean. In addition to the visits to Nassau, there had been calls at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Freeport, Bahamas. Conley also ensured that, where possible when on the AUTEC range, some of the crew were landed ashore for relaxation in its facilities. Much to the pleasure of the sailors these included a pleasant beach bar. When there were breaks in the trials programme and the submarine was surfaced, the crew sometimes enjoyed a barbecue on the casing, or exercised their skills in attempting to catch game fish, albeit with very little success.

In early April, however, the trials were over and Otter headed back across the Atlantic on the surface to Faslane. Despite a series of mechanical problems, owing to Herculean efforts on the part of the engineering staff the boat had met all her commitments and was always at the right place at the correct time. Meanwhile, Conley had continued to drill the crew in emergency procedures, significantly improving their competence and efficiency, and in gaps between trials runs he took the opportunity to exercise his attack team against the other participating warships.

On returning to Faslane the boat was taken in hand for a docking and several weeks of repairs. It was cold comfort to Conley that on inspecting the main generators the shore maintenance staff expressed surprise that they had kept running and that the boat had made it back across the Atlantic at all. Meanwhile, two new officers had joined and were to prove highly competent. In particular, the new first lieutenant took a grip of crew discipline and set about improving the appearance of the boat. On the home front, Conley’s wife Linda, having herself returned from her brief trip to the Bahamas, had set up home in temporary married quarters whilst the pair set about house-hunting in the local Helensburgh area.

The maintenance period over, Conley took Otter back to sea to participate in a number of major exercises. Gaining in self-confidence, he continued to improve the effectiveness and capability of the crew and the submarine began to gain a reputation for efficiency and tactical innovation. In July Otter took part in a large-scale Royal Navy exercise in the North Sea and achieved a host of successful simulated torpedo attacks against stiff escort and airborne opposition. During one part of the exercise Conley was required to surface and simulate a Russian Juliet-class submarine firing her missiles. These submarines were armed with Shaddock anti-ship cruise missiles with a range of 300 miles, but required the boat to be surfaced for launch. For exercise purposes two RAF Phantom fighters would replicate the missiles and their flight profiles once Otter had surfaced in a simulated launch mode. Conley assessed that it would be difficult to do this undetected since the area was under intense radar surveillance by maritime patrol aircraft radar. He therefore located a Spanish fishing boat lying stationary as she hauled her nets, knowing that if he approached close enough she would provide him with cover against radar detection.

Surfacing within 200 yards on the side of the fishing boat opposite to that over which she was hauling her nets, Conley recalled sighting through the periscope the great surprise on the swarthy fishermen’s faces as the submarine unexpectedly arose abeam of them, to be followed within a minute by the roar of the two Phantoms streaking right over the top of their vessel at a very low height, before climbing near vertically as they assumed the character of missiles heading for their targets many miles away. Otter was back under the water within another minute, totally undetected by her hunters.

It proved a very successful exercise for HMS Otter and Conley was looking forward to the debriefing ‘wash-up’ in the Naval Base at Rosyth. However, on his arrival alongside he was met by the deputy squadron commander who was bearing bad news which was to utterly suppress his elation.

Once onboard in the confines of Conley’s cramped cabin, the commander related that a well-known glamour model and pornographic actress named Mary Millington had approached the London Evening Standard and the Sunday People, selling the story that whilst Otter was in Nassau she had been invited onboard by the crew where photographs had been taken of her in the nude. In addition, a salacious article had been written in a pornographic magazine, which she owned and published, implicating the complicity of the boat’s commanding officer in the invitation to her to board Otter. It was also alleged that she had then personally obliged several members of the crew. The deputy squadron commander’s first question to Conley was whether he or his officers knew of any of this, to which the answer was a definite ‘no’. It was, therefore, agreed that a full ship’s investigation should be conducted forthwith and meanwhile Conley and his crew should be prepared for a barrage of unwelcome publicity. It was also decided that there was no point in Flag Officer Submarines’ public relations officer attempting to refute Millington’s claims, as this would risk putting the story into page three of the Daily Telegraph.

The investigation revealed that Millington had been staying in the same Nassau hotel as the crew. Meeting some of them, she had asked that she visit the submarine. On her arrival at the pier, the duty officer had granted permission for her to come onboard, where she was given a tour by some junior ratings of the duty watch. When aft in the engine room and motor room areas, she produced a camera and invited her escorts to take pictures of her in various sates of undress. Nothing else untoward happened onboard, although the investigation revealed that later on the same day she had intercourse in the hotel with one of the crew in the hotel at a cost to him of $50 and his wristwatch.

The story duly hit the front page of The People the following Sunday and included a rear shot of Millington in Otter’s motor room wearing only a sailor’s cap. It also featured to a lesser extent in several other magazines and newspapers, and shortly afterwards a formal question about the incident was raised in the House of Commons and was responded to by Roy Mason, the Secretary of State for Defence. The sailors involved were subsequently disciplined by Conley, but awarded relatively light punishments in line with the official view that it was a caper which went badly out of control.

For Conley, the incident was an undoubted blemish upon his time in command of Otter. There was never an issue of complicity by his officers, while he himself had been lunching, with his wife, with the British High Commissioner. However, questions were asked about why, after the event, the officers were never informed by the senior ratings who had themselves known about it, but not reported it up the command chain. With an air of suspicion being sustained at Submarine Headquarters against Otter, the whole Fleet, of course, got to know about the story and on occasions at sea on encountering other warships Conley would be asked by signal if Mary Millington was onboard. Meanwhile, Millington had undertaken a similar jape appearing topless with the policeman standing outside No. 10, Downing Street and she was also rumoured to be having a relationship with a member of the Labour Cabinet.

Having relinquished command of Otter when she went into refit a year afterwards, Conley called upon Flag Officer Submarines, Rear Admiral John Fieldhouse (later Admiral of the Fleet followed by appointment as Chief of the Defence Staff). When the discussion got round to the Millington affair, the admiral declared that having survived the incident, the young commander could successfully meet all unexpected challenges. Privately, however, Conley was only too well aware that no matter what the circumstances, the behaviour of his ship’s company and the good name of his boat were ultimately his responsibility. Later still, in 1979, he learned that Millington had committed suicide.

Across the Atlantic a few months previous to Millington’s visit to Otter, as the US SSN Finback departed from Port Canaveral, a topless go-go dancer performed a routine on top of the boat’s fin. It was very evident that the commanding officer had been complicit in this stunt and he was subsequently relieved of his command for being ‘guilty of permitting an action, which could have distracted the attention of those responsible for the safe navigation of the nuclear-powered submarine maneuvering in restricted waters’.

As the publicity around the Millington affair gradually faded, Otter continued with a varied programme of tasks at sea. As the Royal Navy’s target submarine, she participated in a number of torpedo trials at the British equivalent to AUTEC, the much smaller and more limited British Underwater Test and Evaluation Centre (BUTEC) situated in the Sound of Raasay to the east of the Isle of Skye. Compared to AUTEC, in addition to being much smaller in size and having less capable facilities, BUTEC was a very unprofessionally and inefficiently run set-up with which Conley, in due course, was to become intricately involved in after he left Otter.

A highlight of Conley’s time in command was the conduct of two short operational patrols where he was directed to gather intelligence upon a large oceangoing Russian tug bristling with radio antennae, which had been stationed for some time just outside the then three-mile territorial limit to the west of the Shetland Islands, near the island of Foula. Otter’s task was to establish whether she was more than just a contingency tug, on station to provide assistance to Russian navy vessels in trouble in the northeast Atlantic. This would mean the submarine conducting an underwater survey of her hull to confirm there were neither sonar fittings, nor exit facilities for a submersible craft.

During the first patrol in October 1976, Conley spent two days covertly monitoring the Russian through the periscope, but she remained at anchor throughout the period, which made it almost impossible in the murky visibility conditions to obtain photographs of the underneath of her hull. To undertake an underwater look at a vessel at anchor required a final accurate, undetected visual set-up on the vessel on its quarter at a range of about 1,000 yards. Then, having gone deep to the observation depth (the top of the raised periscope about 15ft under the hull of the target), starting an approach at slow speed at an angle which offset effects of the tidal stream and current, ensuring at all costs that the other vessel’s anchor cable be avoided. It was hoped there would be a few seconds glimpse of the under hull, sufficient to capture detail on the periscope-mounted cameras. However, in conditions of a strong tidal stream Conley found this extremely difficult to achieve without hazarding both vessels: if he had inadvertently got Otter’s forward hydroplanes entangled in the tug’s anchor cable there was the risk that his 2,000-ton boat would drag the other craft under the sea.

On returning the following February to the Shetland Islands to continue the intelligence-gathering task, Conley had better luck. Shortly after starting to observe the Russian, the latter got underway at slow speed heading out to sea, enabling a successful underwater pass to be conducted without worrying about the anchor cable. Achieving a good station under the Russian for about half an hour, this surveillance produced high-quality photographic shots of the vessel’s bottom and her underwater fittings, all of which revealed that the tug had neither unusual fittings nor sonar.

HMS Otter was also tasked to undertake two Perisher courses, embarking during the first his own Teacher, Commander Rob Forsyth, and on the second occasion a new Teacher, his mentor, Commander Geoffrey Biggs. Much to Conley’s relief and satisfaction, both commended Otter’s crew for being thoroughly professional and well prepared. Clearly, the Otter’s reputation was gradually being restored after the Millington affair. Indeed, having quickly established confidence in Conley’s periscope ability, Biggs significantly delegated to him, allowing him to take charge of a substantial proportion of the attack runs, barely a year after he himself had completed the Perisher course.

Between work at sea there were several port visits. A week in Gibraltar in the early summer of 1976 followed a Submarine Flotilla training period at sea involving a substantial number of submarines. After this Otter ‘showed the flag’ by visiting Rotterdam in the Netherlands. There were also two homeport visits to Blyth and Birkenhead. Apart from crew rest and recreation, the aim of the British visits was to afford the local community an opportunity to visit a submarine. In addition to the standard cocktail party in the control room for local dignitaries and officials, open to the public days were always very popular. Long queues formed of people very eager to gain an insight into life under the sea, and Conley’s young crew rose to the occasion.

Blyth was another coal port in serious decline, but the crew enjoyed great hospitality from the locals, the older generation well remembering that the port was an operational submarine base during the Second World War. Indeed, Conley was invited to visit a local pub, the Astley Arms, which was a favourite of wartime submariners, where he was presented by a barmaid from the war era with a contemporary wartime bottle of Johnny Walker Scotch whisky which was an unclaimed raffle prize. The winner, a submarine petty officer, had failed to return from patrol to claim his prize, but the bar staff had kept the bottle in a safe place. The bottle, its contents now very dark in colour, is on display at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Gosport.

In early December faulty radar almost resulted in catastrophe during the final stages of the Otter’s passage into Birkenhead, the shipbuilding town situated across the Mersey from Liverpool. Arriving early in the morning at the pilot station, Conley gloomily noted a bank of fog sitting on top of the Mersey Channel. Soon after embarking the pilot and starting to make a cautious passage up the buoyed channel, visibility came down to only a few hundred yards and the boat had made no more than one mile into the channel when the radar failed completely. As it was soon evident that there would be no easy fix to the equipment, and having consulted with the pilot, Conley decided to turn Otter round in the narrow channel. Constrained by tidal bank training walls only about 400 yards wide, Conley had to stop the submarine to turn her short round, using her two propellers running in opposition, one ahead and one astern, to swing the long hull.

Notwithstanding a warning to all nearby shipping that a submarine was swinging short round in the channel, when halfway through the manoeuvre a small outward-bound Danish cargo ship appeared out of the fog heading straight towards Otter’s broadside. Conley ordered, ‘Full astern!’, sounded a siren warning to the other ship, ordered the crew to ‘Emergency stations’ and to brace for collision, shutting down bulkheads and closing hull valves. In the event, the cargo vessel passed less than 50 yards ahead, its officers in their enclosed bridge apparently oblivious of their near-miss with the submarine. Thoughts of Truculent’s sinking in the Thames after being rammed by a Swedish freighter flashed through Conley’s mind for a few seconds, but his immediate imperative was to avoid the mudbank looming astern and to get the boat out of the narrow channel as soon as possible. The pilot’s handling of the situation had been less than satisfactory, as Conley was unconvinced that he had clearly relayed to the harbour control authorities the intention to turn the submarine around in mid channel.

Having cleared the channel and left the fog bank, the radar fault was soon rectified, but although the visibility had improved considerably, the tidal window for entry into the Birkenhead dock system had been missed. Therefore, in late morning, having heard a forecast of reasonable visibility, Conley made the decision to head into the Mersey and to anchor off Cammell Laird’s shipyard, Birkenhead, and await the evening tidal slot. This was achieved without difficulty and on this occasion the radar held up. However, having anchored, the visibility closed down again and the commanding officer’s confidence in the pilot took a further knock when it became evident that having anchored in the position that he had advised, Otter was in poor holding ground and had dragged her anchor several hundreds of yards, right into the middle of the Liverpool — Birkenhead ferry crossing route: there was now a strong risk of being hit by one of these vessels.

With visibility down to 100ft, Conley moved the submarine to a more secure anchorage just out of the main Mersey shipping channel and then spent several very tense hours awaiting the rising tide. Unseen merchant ships passed only a few hundred yards away as Conley pondered how he was going to move into the locks when he could hardly see the Otter’s bows and forward anchor light from the bridge. Perhaps, he reflected, his decision to attempt an entry into the Mersey dock system had not been the right one and he had been over-keen to meet his programme. Now, confronting unpredicted and dismally poor visibility and with the possibility of the radar failing again, his only option was to somehow get into the safety of the Birkenhead docks.

At about 2000 the visibility improved a little, to about 200 yards, and after discussion by radio with the Birkenhead dock authorities it was agreed that they would place cars on either side of the dock entrance with their headlights full on to assist identifying the entrance through the murk. Having got underway once more, Conley found this improvisation to be a great help in identifying the entrance and safely got Otter into the harbour entry lock. Standing on the bridge awaiting the gate astern of him to close and the one ahead to open once the water level had matched that of the harbour, he was very relieved that he had not hit anything so far. However, again the visibility plunged to less than 100ft. Not trusting the pilot to direct competently the tug standing by to tow Otter to her berth, it was agreed that this vessel would lead the way while Conley stationed his second in command right forward in the bows in radio contact with the bridge to give guidance on the helm and motor orders.

Gingerly moving out of the lock and just able to see the powerful deck working lights of the tug which was only about 30 yards ahead, Conley negotiated a narrow swing-bridge gap, but in the final approach to his berth became totally reliant upon the first lieutenant forward giving the engine and rudder orders to get the boat alongside. The berth only appeared out of the pea-souper during the final swinging in of the submarine as she closed the dock wall. Once finally alongside, through the wet swirling fog Conley could see his wife and others of the welcoming party on the wharf and remembered that the boat’s cocktail reception for local dignitaries and guests had been cancelled a few hours earlier. However, that had been the least of his worries in what had been a long and very tense day, during which he was relieved to have avoided collision or grounding. As he relaxed, the thirty-year-old lieutenant commander reflected that he had really earned his 30 pence command pay that day. Meanwhile the non-duty watches very cheerfully decanted ashore to their hotels, showing no semblance of appreciation of the risks encountered in the previous twelve hours.

In early March 1977, looking very smart and businesslike, Otter departed from Faslane with a large paying-off pennant streaming from her wireless mast to her stern. She was heading on surface passage for refit in HM Dockyard at Portsmouth, calling on the way for a visit to the port of Vjele, situated in southeast Denmark. After his Birkenhead experience, notwithstanding the impending refit, Conley insisted that the Faslane base support staff thoroughly overhaul the radar system — every component of it from the aerial downwards. This was fortuitous as, heading down the narrow channels of the Kattegat off the east coast of Denmark, thick fog was again encountered, but this time the radar performed well and the crew conducted a flawless night navigational passage to arrive off Vejle, where a pilot was embarked. In making the berthing, Conley was required to turn the boat in a very confined basin and then to undertake a difficult stern-first approach up the port’s narrow harbour channel. This he skilfully achieved with no tug assistance and a minimum of manoeuvring: his first, very ragged, berthing in Faslane seemed a lifetime away.

Soon after arrival at Portsmouth for de-storing and final pre-refit preparations alongside at HMS Dolphin, Conley left Otter, admitting to a degree of relief that he had survived a number of near-misses. After leave, he was appointed to join the Submarine Tactics and Weapons Group (STWG) in Faslane, taking charge of the team responsible for the introduction into service of the contentious Tigerfish torpedo.

On looking back at his sixteen months in command it had certainly been a very eventful period in his life. Plagued by equipment and machinery failures and notwithstanding the Millington affair, which he considered his leaving interview with Rear Admiral Fieldhouse had at least mitigated, he felt that he had faced the challenges providence had strewn in his path. He had learned lessons, and the lonely experience of command had taught him that there would be more to learn; but the key to his sense of achievement was that he was able to meet and, as far as was humanly possible, overcome problems. As every commander must, he acknowledged that this had been due to the efforts of those supporting him and if there had been moments when he felt they had let him down, there were countervailing and important occasions when they had risen unequivocally to his support. Privately, he could do nothing other than welcome this as deeply satisfying. HM Submarine Otter was, he knew, in better shape at the end of his command time than she had been when he joined her. Her crew were a well-knit, happy, efficient team who had worked very hard to ensure Otter always met her commitments and tasks in a timely, well-prepared manner. Indeed, his final performance report from the captain of the Third Submarine Squadron lauded his strong leadership and ‘priceless ability to raise his subordinates from a trough to a crest’. So much for his internal management and leadership, but what about the grand strategic picture that formed the great backdrop to Otter’s passing woes?

True, there had been little direct contact with the Russian opposition but in Otter’s target role Conley felt he that had made a significant contribution to improving the effectiveness of the Royal Navy’s anti-submarine weapons and his new appointment offered an opportunity to carry that work forward, particularly in respect of the Tigerfish torpedo. In short, the whole experience of commanding Otter was, he felt, an excellent apprenticeship for whatever the future held in store.