HMS Conqueror's Cold War secrets

18 October 2012

Stuart Prebble, author of new book Secrets of the Conqueror, tells DefenceManagement.com how he came to learn about HMS Conqueror's covert mission to secure a Russian towed array sonar rig after the Falklands War

On 2 May 1982, British submarine HMS Conqueror became the first nuclear-powered submarine to fire torpedoes in anger when it sank Argentine light cruiser General Belgrano.

Conqueror returned to Faslane two months after the much-discussed sinking of the Belgrano and was soon deployed again on an intelligence mission on the edge of Russian territorial waters. A new book by journalist Stuart Prebble claims that the 1984 admission that Conqueror's Control Room logs had gone missing was in fact intended to cover up this sensitive Cold War intelligence-gathering mission.

In Secrets of the Conqueror, Prebble writes about life on board the submarine during the Falklands and Operation Barmaid, which began in August 1982 and saw Conqueror tasked with intercepting a Polish-flagged spy-ship and bringing back its Russian towed array sonar equipment.

Conqueror did this, Prebble writes, by deploying specially designed pincers to shear the cable which attached the sonar array to the spy-ship in a way that appeared accidental to the ship's crew. Here, he answers DefenceManagement.com's questions about the operation and how he came to learn about it.

How did you come to hear about the missing logs from HMS Conqueror and how easy has it been to research the information needed for this book?

More than two years after the sinking of the Belgrano by HMS Conqueror, the row over the circumstances of the action was still going on in Parliament and the press. The then Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine amazed everyone when, in November 1984, he announced that the Control Room log book from HMS Conqueror was missing, and that a Board of Enquiry had been set up to investigate. Immediately it was assumed that the Log had gone missing because it contained information which would contradict the government's version of the circumstances of the sinking of the Argentine cruiser, and hordes of journalists went in search of it.

Meanwhile the Supply Officer from the submarine, Lt Narendra Sethia, had written a diary during the Falklands War, and this was being used by critics of the government to contradict the official version of events. Sethia was also accused in the press of having stolen the Control Room log, and he brought an action for defamation against several newspapers, which he subsequently won.

I befriended Sethia and produced an episode of ITV's current affairs programme World in Action, featuring his story. During the research for the programme I managed to contact a number of submariners who had been on Conqueror during the war, and one of them suggested to me that the reason why the log had gone missing might not be because of anything to do with the Belgrano. He pointed out to me that the logs covering a three-month period after the end of the war were also missing, and perhaps their loss was to cover-up the operations of the submarine after it returned from the South Atlantic.

I therefore began making enquiries about what the Conqueror had done in the weeks following the war, and eventually I was told about Operation Barmaid – a top-secret Cold War adventure. It was an amazing story of Royal Navy derring-do; however it was also plainly a proper military secret, and I knew that I would not be able to reveal it at the time. I therefore decided to wait – which I did – for thirty years.

Unearthing the whole story has been very difficult indeed. Submariners are notoriously reluctant to talk about their work, and extracting details has been like pulling teeth. However in the end, enough people have been sufficiently proud of what was a difficult and dangerous achievement, that I have been able to piece it together for this book.

What have you learned about the Royal Navy from researching Operation Barmaid?

I can scarcely overstate how much I admire the skill and professionalism shown by the officers and crew involved in this difficult and dangerous operation. When I first heard the nature of what they were trying to achieve, I thought that it must be impossible. To manoeuvre nearly 5,000 tons of boat, in hostile waters, with inch-precision, without alerting the enemy, is (to use an overused word in its proper meaning) awesome. Apart from their skill and professionalism, I have also learned that they require no thanks from anybody – they are content with the knowledge that they have done a good job, and don't seem to mind that the rest of us know so little about it, and therefore show no gratitude whatsoever. It's partly to try to redress this unfairness that I have written the book.

What do you feel the lasting effects of Operation Barmaid have been?

The capture of the towed-array sonar being used by the Eastern bloc will have enabled intelligence analysts to ascertain whether the Soviets had developed this advanced technology independently, or whether it had been developed as a result of espionage. The array was immediately put on a plane and sent to the United States for the investigation to be carried out. In the event, one year after Operation Barmaid, the Americans arrested John Walker, a former US Navy officer who had been selling military secrets to the Soviets for 18 years, and it is thought likely that the towed-array technology was part of what they learned from him.

Secrets of the Conqueror, published by Faber and Faber, is available now

HAVE YOUR SAY

18 October 2012

This is certainly a story that needed to be told. I have to agree on the fact that the submariners' exploits having to always go under silence is quite unfair. Even if most of the time there are obviously good reasons for the silence.

What's even more impressive is that, no doubt, there are countless other operations as impressive and daring that we don't yet know of.

"Silent Service" to the very end.
Gabriele - Piacenza, Italy

18 October 2012

"What's even more impressive is that, no doubt, there are countless other operations as impressive and daring that we don't yet know of."

No surprise.

I believe USN and RN SSN's routinely operated in Soviet waters, trying to track Soviet SSN and SSBN's and carrying out Sigint and Elint missions.

My issue of Soviet Military Power from 1986 has USN and RN subs snooping about near Murmansk and Severomorsk, bases of the Soviet Northern Fleet.

Of course, they were doing the same to us!

And I very much doubt this has ceased either.
Daniele Mandelli - Guildford

18 October 2012

It was all in a days work back then.
Rob cooper (Henry) - Prestwick

18 October 2012

The silent service means just that only when it is of public interest should it be known. I had the honour of serving on the cox s on both occasions. We came back from down south without all the pomp and ceremony of the surface fleet (god bless them) as we should we carried out our missions to the letter and although we felt as though we were the bad guys for sinking the Belgrano because of the press coverage and a certain Tam idiot. I for one am proud to have served in the submarine service who are the best of the best
Steve (Bonnie) Tyler - Derby

19 October 2012

If a US submarine had been involved in this mission, the details would probably have been made public years ago. A big Hollywood blockbuster would also have been released by now, starring Brad Pitt, portraying American naval ingenuity and heroism.
Mikey

29 October 2012

Prebble argues that the Conqueror Logs were deliberately destroyed in order to cover up an operation ('Barmaid') in August 1982 that stole Soviet spy equipment. Accidental shredding is discounted because of the bulk of the missing data and Sethia's involvement is dismissed because half the missing log books were compiled after his retirement.

In short in October 1982 the Military disposed of vital evidence concerning a controversial incident that implied wrongdoing by British Forces (Belgrano) just to cover up an operation that could only cover it with glory in the long run. No one ever thought of extra deep storage or of removing or blacking the pages involving Barmaid and no one thought that preservation of the Belgrano data was vital to defend the reputation of the RN amidst the storm of controversy already raging.

Prebble's theory simply doesn't add up. His book appears more as a whitewash of his own journalistic efforts in 1984/5 that exonerated the chief suspect of the missing material, Lt Sethia RN, than any serious academic account.

He makes no mention of the signal data concerning the Belgrano that was also missing or of Robert Green and his aunt Hilda Murrel (despite listing his recent book in the bibliography). Prebble accepts every assertion by Sethia without challenge and considers the self admitted theft of a 'lorry load' of Naval equipment and the improper use of his mess account after his retirement as completely acceptable behaviour for an honest man.
Moreover the witnesses against Sethia are either ignored, ridiculed with lurid physical descriptions or simply dismissed as paranoid. The crucial facts that the main witness had been initially approached by the Security services to assist them because he had publicly announced the theft of the log books at least a year before Heseltine's statement and that he had approached Prebble for protection on the direct advice of Tony Benn and Tam Dalyell are completely erased by Prebble. Instead our truth searching author suggests that the witness was approaching the media merely as a practical joke to get a free ride to the Carribbean! What utter rubbish.

The truth of the matter is that 20Kg of clearly marked material does not get accidentaly shredded by trained RN personnel. And neither does the MOD deliberately destroy material relating to secret missions for otherwise the vaults would be half empty. Operation Barmaid was not an unusual event for the MOD. The normal practice is to merely lock data away until such time it can be safely released - however long that is. Accordingly the hand of maverick involvement in this affair still appears probable.

Besides the witness accounts, the details of Sethia's diary also suggest that he was in some way involved in the fate of the log books pertaining April, May and June 1982. After their loss the three subsequent log books could easily have been disposed of to create the very theory that Prebble so eloquently describes. Our author does not even consider this possibility. Instead his book serves to turn public attention away from what is really important (namely Conservative Government malpractice) and towards a matter (anti Soviet ops) that has no relevance whatsoever in today's world. One must wonder whether Prebble has any political masters!

It was all a very entertaining read - but let us not take the work of a self admitted 'competitative' career journalist too serioiusly.
Richard Morley

29 October 2012

Fascinating, although I find it difficult to understand why the log for the Falklands War would be made to disappear in order to conceal something that happened months afterwards. It also doesn't appear likely to me that the command room log is something that could easily go missing. If it did, the commanding officer would be in a spot of bother I think.
J. Southworth - University of Hull

01 November 2012

The controversy over the sinking of the Belgrano, like the more recent "sexed up dossier" controversy, is a controversy manufactured out of nothing by left wing journalists, because there is no mystery about how the ship was sunk. The Conqueror detected and shadowed the Belgrano for a period, then they were ordered to sink it, so they carried out their orders.
What it comes down to is people looking for excuses for the failure of the 1982 miners' strike. The general idea they want to promote is that the NUM were defeated by some especially dastardly manoeuvering on the part of the government, which is rubbish.
Where the disappearance of the Conqueror's control room log is concerned, I would say that the likely reason for this was the desire to protect members of the crew and their families from the unwelcome attentions of certain sections of the media. Or it may be that they had information suggesting that the Argentinian intelligence services were trying to form links with left wing groups in the UK, with a view to carrying out terrorist reprisals against members of the Conqueror's crew or their families. There are a lot of possibilities.
J. Southworth - University of Hull