HMS Wizard boasted two cadets’ mess decks where the youngsters slept in hammocks. Conley never quite got used to this, either in or out of his berth. His usually badly stowed hammock which, when not in use, was supposed to be available to plug the hull in event of damage in action would rarely have been fit for purpose. Happily, however, being largely free from the curse of seasickness, he quickly settled into the cramped confines of living and working on a frigate, even one as miserable as HMS Wizard.
Under supervision, the cadets manned many of the watch-keeping and weapon system stations including the high-angled 4in anti-aircraft guns during live firing exercises. The most demanding position on the mounting was that of the loaders, who were required by hand to ram the 100lb combined shell and charge into the gun, keeping their fingers well clear as the breech block closed automatically once the cartridge was in place. This was followed by the piercing crack as the twin guns fired simultaneously, whereupon the gun recoiled, ejecting the brass cartridge casings which could catch an unwary cadet a nasty blow should he be in the way. The whole process was repeated at an interval of once every four seconds. Below the gun mounting, the aluminium bulkheads would audibly protest, bits of insulation fell from the deckhead, while loose gear flew around. It was all quite thrilling, despite the fact that the chance of hitting any of the aircraft targets was slender. Furthermore, the standard antiaircraft shell fuse only exploded if the shell came close to the target. This differed from the earlier form of timed fuse which detonated a shell, thereby creating an intimidating barrage through which an attacking pilot must fly. Unless very close to the target, the proximity fuse produced nothing visible to put the attacker off his aim.
HMS Wizard was the oldest vessel of the Dartmouth training squadron and was accompanied by the more modern Type 12 antisubmarine frigates Torquay and Tenby, then both about eight years old. That summer the three warships visited Bergen in Norway and then Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, before passing into the Baltic Sea. Here the squadron was met by a Soviet minesweeper which was soon joined by a Riga-class frigate, which were to be the squadron’s constant escorts until it passed into Finnish territorial waters approaching the port of Turku.
This was Conley’s first encounter with the Soviet Navy, the Royal Navy’s principal Cold War opponent, and the actions of the Russians were but a foretaste of what he would come to know well as a game of intimidating cat and mouse as the two Soviet men-of-war came within a few hundred yards of the British warships. On leaving Turku, heading south, the three British frigates were again accompanied by Soviet warships units until they passed into Danish waters, a clear and demonstrable marker that the Soviet Navy regarded the Baltic as mare nostrum — ‘our sea’.
After very enjoyable port visits to Gothenburg and Steinkjer in Norway, Wizard headed back home across the North Sea. It was noticeable on the homeward passage that three of the crew had been incarcerated in separate, temporary cells, and when not locked up could only move about under escort. This did not help an already fragile ship’s company’s morale and later the cadets found out that the three prisoners faced charges of serious assaults upon their shipmates. After being court-martialled, all three were given prison sentences.
The cadets’ final week on Wizard was spent in the Firth of Clyde with her two other squadron consorts, acting as a targets for the strenuous command course undertaken by submarine officers. Known as the ‘Perisher’, owing to its relatively high failure rate, the unsuccessful suffered an instant termination to all hopes of a promising career in submarines. This was clearly an indication of standards of excellence as yet unseen by Conley and his fellows, an emphatic reflection of an elite, placing submarine commanders firmly and demonstrably in a class of their own. The lesson was not lost on Conley.
Each evening the three frigates anchored off Rothesay, where they were joined by the participating submarine, which emerged from the dark waters with an air of mystery. Along with other cadets whose interests were inclining them to consider specialising in submarines, Conley volunteered for a day at sea aboard her. The course submarine involved was HMS Narwhal and on the passage down to her diving position Conley found himself alongside the officer of the watch on her bridge. Wearing spectacles, very unusual for a seaman officer at that time, the officer of the watch (OOW) was a studious looking Lieutenant Gavin Menzies, who in later years would not only command a submarine, but would go on to write the highly acclaimed but provocatively controversial bestseller 1421, which rather convincingly set out the theory that in the fifteenth century the fleet of the Ming Emperor of China, commanded by the eunuch Zeng-He, had ventured as far as the North American continent and beyond.
Once Narwhal had dived, the ‘Perisher’ students, taking turns as commanding officer, were then put under the great pressure of having to contend with several warships proceeding at full speed towards their position with the instruction to ram the periscope if sighted. Of course there were copious safeguards to avoid this happening and the course instructor, known as ‘Teacher’, ensured the submarine went deep, well below the keel depth of the frigates, with plenty of margin to avoid collision. Spending some time in the control room, observing the students perform, gave Conley a vivid insight into the extreme intellectual pressures and emotional stresses he would place himself under if he made as far as the Perisher command course. As he returned that evening to the unhappy Wizard, Conley had a lot on his young mind.
3
Midshipman
The cadets disembarked from Wizard in late July 1964, the deployment ending the elderly frigate’s service in the Dartmouth training squadron. Paid off the following year, she was sold for scrap three years later. For the cadets, however, their naval career was about to begin in earnest, for they were about to be promoted to midshipmen, Conley being destined for five weeks’ training aboard the aircraft carrier Eagle. This was to be followed by appointment to the destroyer Cambrian, which was due to deploy to the Far East as part of the build-up of British forces assisting the Malaysian Federation in its ‘Confrontation’ with an aggressive Indonesia.
This would prove a long-lasting crisis which erupted in 1963 when President Achmed Sukarno of Indonesia threatened to withdraw his country from the United Nations (the first to do so since its establishment) and announced a policy of ‘Confrontation’ against the newly formed Malaysian Federation. This was little short of a declaration of war. Sukarno objected to the unification of the Federated States of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah (until recently British North Borneo), and claimed Sarawak and Sabah as Indonesian territories. To support the legitimate aspirations of the peoples of the new state, a significant proportion of the Royal Navy was deployed to the Far East, to be based in Singapore.
Although not a Communist himself but heading up strong nationalist armed forces, Sukarno’s relationship with the well-organised Indonesian Communist Party had troubled Western intelligence services since the Second World War. During the late 1950s the latter had supported rebellions in the Indonesian territories of Sumatra and Sulawesi, the American CIA participating in some strength, including clandestine bombing. Sukarno’s unfounded suspicions as to Western involvement in the establishment of the Malaysian Federation led him to declare ‘Confrontation’ with the new state. Incursions across the long, indistinct Borneo — Kalimantam border, combined with hit and run raids on isolated communities in Borneo and Sarawak, together with the threat of raids on international shipping in Singapore’s Keppel Harbour and elsewhere in Peninsular Malaysia — where in the event parachutists were landed — led to major elements of the British armed forces being committed to support the Malaysians. Confrontation might have been a euphemism, but it became a war by any other name, forming part of the Western policy of ‘containment’ wherever Communism or its destabilising influences manifested itself. The Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation ran concurrently with the first movements of American forces into Vietnam, which would in time lead to the United States’ ultimately unsuccessful engagement in the long, bloody and very costly Vietnam War.