With his entire armed forces in revolt the Tanganyikan president, Julius Nyerere, appealed to London for help. The aircraft carrier Centaur was despatched from Aden with a portion of the garrison and an escort of destroyers including Cambrian. The Centaur and her consorts stood off Dar es Salaam until a request was received from Nyerere in writing, whereupon Royal Marines were landed on 25 January under the cover of a brief bombardment. As part of this intimidation, Cambrian fired at the mutineers’ barracks, using anti-aircraft shells which, bursting in the air, did minimal damage. Casualties were light and little resistance was put up as the Royal Marines stormed ashore and attacked the barracks. Destroying the guardroom with an anti-tank missile, the cowed mutineers soon afterwards capitulated. Later that day the armoured cars of the Queen’s Royal Lancers were landed and soon afterwards the remaining mutineers of the 1st Rifles threw in the towel. Hearing of the collapse of the rebellion in Dar es Salaam, the 2nd Rifles signalled their willingness to surrender, and a party of Royal Marines arrived at Tabora the following day to secure this. Within a week of the outbreak Nyerere’s government was secured.
So much for Cambrian’s main armament, but what of her anti-submarine weaponry? This consisted of short-range sonars of Second World War vintage and six Squid mortars which, contrary to logic, were fitted aft. These had range of less than 400 yards and could only be effectively fired ahead. When discharged, the 300lb bombs soared in an apparently leisurely arc over the foremast to plunge into the sea a short distance ahead of the ship. In live firing trials they were invariably fired with the ship proceeding at slow speed and the bomb fuses set to explode quickly at a shallow depth to minimise the risk of damage to the warship. This system was no different from the final stages of anti-submarine weapons development during the Second World War and its effectiveness was limited to the conventional submarine of the day.
Programmed to sail for the Far East in January 1965, the inefficiency of Chatham Dockyard delayed her departure by prolonging her refit. Regarding the very sizeable workforce of 4,000 as they worked around the yard, Conley’s sceptical opinion of the Royal Dockyards was confirmed. Frequent instances of work avoidance and poor efficiency, to which the upper management appeared indifferent, guaranteed that Cambrian’s departure date slipped further and further. Far from any sense of urgency to get the ship completed and ready to rejoin the Fleet, Conley sensed an almost palpable inclination in the opposite direction.
At last, in mid December, having completed post-refit trials, Cambrian finally left Chatham to the sound of a Royal Marine band on the jetty playing the tune of a popular song: ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’. This hit by a group called Peter, Paul and Mary had been adopted by the crew, reflecting the ship’s badge of the red Welsh dragon. Although HMS Cambrian was due to undergo several weeks of trials and work-up off Portland before deploying to Singapore, she was not at sea long, for Christmas was imminent. A few days later she entered Portsmouth, which was noticeably busy with more than sixty warships and submarines alongside, their crews enjoying leave over the festive period.
On New Year’s Eve, all members of the wardroom went ashore to welcome the New Year in one of Portsmouth’s pubs. Although this fell short of the spontaneity of a Scots Hogmanay, retreat to the home of one of the officers enabled conviviality to be maintained into the small hours of New Year’s Day. However, 1 January was the day appointed for the port admiral’s inspection which, despite the endemic hangovers, went well. The following day Cambrian sailed for Portland where her work-up would begin, her crew in a high state of morale, adopting the slogan ‘Keepa sensa huma’ for the duration of the forthcoming period of intensive training.
By the time of Cambrian’s departure for Singapore, the Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation had become a hot war in all but name. Strenuous diplomatic efforts to suppress any sense of escalation had proved successful, but in the dense rainforest of Borneo/Kalimantan, the probing patrols of both sides had engaged in fierce and deadly skirmishes, while it seemed that the old piratical days of the Orang Laut had been revived, with incursions from the sea on peaceful but isolated settlements along the littoral.
The importance of Singapore extended beyond the economy of the fragile new Federation of Malaysia, for it was an important port where cargoes were exchanged between oceangoing and smaller vessels and vice versa. Of global significance, Singapore was a great hub of world trade whose long curved sweep of Keppel Harbour was always fully occupied by vessels loading and discharging cargoes, with tankers servicing the offshore oil refinery and tank farm at Pulo Bukum, and two extensive anchorages, the Eastern and Western Roads, in which vessels of all descriptions either awaited berths, or transhipped cargoes from coasters or smaller craft. Protection of the port, and of the comings and goings of merchant shipping, was an important strategic concern and although the Royal Navy maintained a dockyard and naval base at Sembawang on the northern shore of Singapore, the island itself, situated at the southern extremity of the Malay Peninsula, was only a few miles from the northernmost islands of the vast archipelago that constituted the hostile state of Indonesia. Vulnerable to commando raids, or to the planting of limpet mines on ships at anchor or alongside, defence of the port and approaches to Singapore was the responsibility of the Royal Navy in its support of the Malaysian naval forces. Further offshore, the Malacca Strait lay between peninsular Malaysia and the large island of Sumatra. The strait was an international waterway of great importance, while Indonesian raids could be launched across it towards Port Swettenham.
There had been several exchanges of gunfire between British warships and Indonesian gunboats, the Leander-class frigate Ajax having engaged several of the latter in the Malacca Strait. Meanwhile, the minesweeper Fiskerton had suffered several casualties, including a midshipman killed, when she had encountered an enemy craft off Singapore.
With battalion-strength raids by Indonesian forces across the disputed border between Borneo and Kalimantan increasing, British troop reinforcements had been flown out to increase the strength of the land forces opposing the Indonesians. In support of these operations small craft of the Royal and Malaysian Navies were involved in intelligence-gathering operations, a role in which several submarines were also utilised. Four British minesweepers and two inshore patrol craft had been taken out of reserve to bolster these inshore operations and these joined a force in excess of sixty allied warships in Malaysian waters. Besides the Royal and Malaysian Navies, these were drawn from Australia and New Zealand, and comprised men-of-war of all descriptions, from large warships to high-speed launches. Knowledge of this activity made the ship’s company of the Cambrian eager to reach the scene of action.