As a consequence of the crisis, the MoD decided to decommission forthwith the SSNs Warspite, Churchill and Conqueror. The two remaining boats of the class in service, Valiant and Courageous, were in the early 1990s to fall victims to the British government’s post-Cold War defence cuts — the so-called ‘peace dividend’. Other savings in the defence budget were effected by decommissioning HMS Swiftsure, along with the remaining diesel-powered Oberon class, six of which had been modernised. Finally the decision was made to dispose of the four brand new Upholder-class boats and not to proceed with any new orders. The result was to geld the Royal Navy’s Submarine Flotilla to a much reduced all-nuclear force of four SSBNs and twelve SSNs.
In this period of rapid retrenchment, Conley was selected for promotion to captain and in August 1990 he left STWG. In his last few months in Faslane he had observed with sadness the bored crews of the submarines tied up alongside whilst the ‘trouser-leg’ rectification progressed. For many it was up to eighteen months of inactivity, even extending to long-term uncertainty about their boat’s future. For some junior officers this prolonged hiatus was to become a void in their career development, while the overall erosion of their core operational skills was an irreparable loss. The high standards achieved and maintained by Conley and his generation of highly competent submarine commanders inevitably waned, with only a single intelligence gathering SSN being tasked to patrol the Barents Sea to watch the now largely supine Russians.
Even though the full impact of the ‘trouser-leg’ problem had still to be revealed and as yet unaware of the extent to which Soviet submarine activity was in decline, Conley left a depressed Faslane. On his appointment to STWG he had begun writing a manual encompassing tactical guidance on the approach and attack of Soviet submarines. Completing it just before he handed over to his relief, he was not to know that his publication would gradually gather dust on the bookshelves of his successors, but a hint of the future could be discerned from the parting remark of one frustrated submarine commander. ‘You were very lucky to see the best days in submarines,’ he was told. ‘The good times are over’. The words rang in his ears long afterwards.
The threat of change breathed in the air of Faslane was obvious elsewhere. Despite his recent promotion, Conley sensed a likely curtailment of his aspirations as a naval officer. The looming prospect of a culling of senior officers resulting in redundancy called to mind the old adage, always useful at sea and equally sensible ashore, that one might hope for the best but should prepare for the worst. Before taking up his new job as the deputy of the Ship and Submarine Acceptance section, part of the Royal Navy’s procurement organisation at Foxhill, near Bath, Conley found he had time on his hands. Not due to start at Foxhill until April 1991, he embarked upon a six-month sabbatical at Strathclyde University Business School, undertaking a Master’s degree in business administration (MBA). Such a qualification would be an advantage if he had to leave the Service.
18
Back to the Shipyards
On 2 August 1990 the Iraqi army invaded the kingdom of Kuwait. In response, an international coalition led by the United States of America began building up forces in the Middle East, prior to liberating the emirate from the Iraqi occupation. Conley, checking into Strathclyde University Business School in September, was aware that as a captain on sabbatical leave between appointments, he would probably be assigned to augment the Naval Staff in Whitehall. In the absence of any indication that the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, would comply with the United Nations Security Council’s resolution demanding the withdrawal of his forces, it thus came as no surprise when Conley receive a telephone call instructing him to join the Naval Staff for watch-keeping duties in January 1991. Having successfully completed his first term examinations, he withdrew from his MBA studies, which he completed in due course by distance learning.
In London, Conley joined a small group of naval officers, known as the Naval Advisory Group, whose task was to disseminate incoming campaign and logistics information and subsequently provide briefs to senior officers and ministers upon recommended actions or decisions to be made. An area of the MoD main building had been set up as an operations and intelligence centre from which the specific commitment of troops, ships and aircraft was determined in what was known as Operation Granby. The centre also managed logistical support and, when necessary, urgent equipment procurement. The main operational control of the British element of the coalition was undertaken at the RAF Headquarters, High Wycombe, just outside London. In the theatre of operations British ground and air forces came under the tactical control of the charismatic and ebullient American coalition commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf.
The MoD experience, both its organisation and its culture, was very new to Conley as, indeed, was the extensive intelligence and information network which supported the ultimate decision-makers. This included information gleaned from CNN and other television broadcasts. Indeed, in many cases television reporters at the scene of an action or event provided the most accurate and timely source of intelligence. Nevertheless, he was shocked by the amount of political micro-management that influenced the decisions under which the campaign was managed.
Early in his watch-keeping duties he received a request from the British air commander in theatre, asking that two additional Wessex commando helicopters be deployed to enable the eight of these aircraft already near the battlefront to be rotated out of the front line and fitted with additional protection devices. It astonished him that this very obviously pragmatic requirement, involving a modest expenditure, required the development of a written brief for the personal approval of the Secretary of State for Defence, Mr (later Lord) Tom King. Although this was rapidly effected, from his experience of dealing with this relatively minor issue Conley sensed that mistrust existed between the politicians and the military, the former being alert to the latter achieving inessential equipment improvements under the pretext of ‘urgent operational requirements’. This would bypass the normal procurement process, characterised as it was — and is — by slow and prolonged scrutiny and cumbersome contracting procedures.
The air campaign of Operation Desert Storm began on 17 January. On 7 February, Conley’s day of duty was spiced up when a series of loud explosions were heard coming from nearby. A rumour rapidly spread that the MoD main building was under attack by Iraqi special forces, but the alarm subsided when word was passed that the detonations were that of a mortar bomb fired by the Irish Republican Army from the back of a van in Whitehall. The mortar was aimed at No. 10 Downing Street where a War Cabinet meeting was in progress and although there had been some damage, no one had been seriously injured.
The coalition forces entered Kuwait on 24 February, rapidly rolling up the Iraqi army, which retreated across its own border in complete disarray. In four days the war was effectively over, though besides the withdrawal of coalition troops there remained the daunting tasks of clearing minefields and extinguishing blazing oil wells deliberately sabotaged by the retreating Iraqis. Despite these residual tasks, to minimise cost Britain rapidly withdrew its forces.