The commitment of the Western nations to a mutual containment policy encouraged the Royal Navy’s high command, despite constraints on material resources, to nevertheless view hull numbers as an overriding factor. Set against the limitations in its warships’ anti-aircraft defence systems this was a risky strategy, particularly since the major air threat to the Royal Navy in the 1960s was assessed to be the Soviet anti-ship cruise missiles launched from ships, submarines or aircraft. These missiles after launch would guide themselves to the target.
The first line of defence was the fighter or attack aircraft embarked on the five fleet carriers. However, although four of these ships had been completed after the Second World War, they were built to wartime design and were fitted with old-fashioned, inefficient steam propulsion machinery which was very expensive in fuel consumption and manpower-intensive to operate and maintain. Two, HMS Hermes and HMS Centaur, were not really big enough to operate efficiently and safely the 20-ton Sea Vixen and Buccaneer fighter and strike jets coming into service and whilst the others, Victorious, Ark Royal and Eagle, had the advantage of armour protection, particularly on the flight deck, this was at the cost of the number of aircraft embarked. Although the 45,000-ton Ark Royal and Eagle were the largest in the Fleet, they carried a maximum of fewer than fifty aircraft compared to the seventy or more carried by their American equivalents.
Ideally, the carriers would be operated in battle groups of two, which enabled comprehensive, continuous airborne protection to be maintained, together with the necessary capability to contend with multiple attacks. However, with a maximum of four operational carriers about to be reduced to three following the paying off of Centaur in 1965, it would have been impossible in practice to provide carrier air cover in more than two combat scenarios. The incoming Labour government of 1964 was quick to realise how costly the carrier force was. However, their 1966 decision to phase out the fixed-wing carrier force ignored the considerations that it provided vital early airborne warning to the Fleet, and that the capability of its destroyers and frigates to protect themselves from air attack was very limited. These shortcomings were to make the Falklands War in 1982 a close-run thing, highlighting severe vulnerabilities in anti-aircraft defence of the Royal Navy.
In the early 1960s, besides the aircraft carriers, the Royal Navy possessed only four guided missile destroyers, the County class. These were armed with the rather cumbersome Sea Slug missile which was designed to destroy high-flying anti-ship missiles. As demonstrated in the Falklands War, this system was totally ineffective against attacking aircraft. The Fleet’s medium-range gunnery systems depended upon the target remaining straight and steady so that the prediction systems could place the shells near the attacking aircraft: this type of co-operation could, of course, not be expected from an attacker. The Sea Cat missile was being introduced to provide short-range defence, but it was highly unreliable and was of low effectiveness. The remainder of the Fleet’s short-range anti-aircraft capability depended on the 40mm Bofors gun, a weapon of Swedish design and Second World War vintage, which was also very limited in its effectiveness.
Indeed, it was not until the 1970s that the much more capable medium-range Sea Dart system was introduced into service. However, this was another missile much more effective at eliminating high-flying missiles, with their inherent predictability of trajectory, than successfully engaging a low-flying aircraft or missile, owing to its sluggish reactivity. This, then, was the state of play when Conley joined HMS Eagle at Plymouth, in company with a dozen or so fellow midshipmen.
The aircraft carrier had just emerged from an expensive five-year modernisation where she was fitted with a much better angled flight deck, a state-of-the-art and very capable detection and tracking radar, improved aircraft maintenance facilities and upgraded accommodation.HMS Eagle was, therefore, regarded as the premier ship in the Fleet, very smart in appearance as she emerged from the dockyard with spotless, comfortable accommodation which seemed to possess the ambience of a new ship. Against this was the depressing fact that she still had her original propulsion machinery fitted in 1946, including eight inefficient low-pressure open-furnace boilers.
On the arrival of the midshipmen, Eagle was undergoing a maintenance and leave period before completing a series of post-refit trials with no aircraft embarked. She was destined to take on onboard squadrons of twelve Buccaneer low-level strike aircraft and sixteen Sea Vixen fighters. Aerial reconnaissance and radar early warning would be provided by flights of Scimitar and Gannet aircraft, with a squadron of six anti-submarine Wessex helicopters topping out the complete air wing of over forty aircraft.
For the newcomers, familiarisation tours of the ship quickly revealed how complex she was internally. With a crew of over 1,500 required to navigate, operate her machinery and weapons systems and to meet the necessary logistical demands of stores, catering and personnel administration, she was a complex floating community. With the air wing embarked the complement would increase to 2,500. Armoured and subdivided into many watertight compartments to enable the ship to sustain substantial damage and yet remain afloat, Conley and the three of his colleagues who were also destined for small ships, and thus only onboard for a few weeks, were soon to get to know these compartments well.
Her fixed-wing aircraft would be launched over her bow by either of two steam-propelled catapults. On landing they would be arrested by hooking onto one of four wires which provided incremental hydraulic resistance. This was a crude but effective system which, although dating back to the early days of naval aviation, nevertheless proved adaptable to the jet age.
Conley and his three companions were initially allocated to train with the engineering department. However, on their first day with the department they soon realised there was a major problem which threatened the operation of this complex vessel. Inadvertently, seawater had been used to feed two of the ship’s massive boilers. If the consequent salt deposits were not promptly removed, the intricate boiler tubes would suffer severe and disabling damage. Conley and his mates were soon into overalls, joining the boiler-room staff in the clean-up. This filthy task involved crawling into the pipework of the lower boiler, choking in the scale dust, and collecting small wire brushes which had been injected into the boiler tubes and propelled down them by compressed air. This abrasion would, it was hoped, remove the salt deposit. When all the brushes had been retrieved into a bag they were then carried up to the top of the boiler where a petty officer mechanic would again restart the process of firing them down though the mass of boiler tubes. Two days of continuous shift work completed the clean-up and gave the midshipmen experience of the many very unpleasant tasks they would expect their subordinates to undertake as a matter of course.