Valor Friday

HMS Conqueror (S48)

Submarines played a pivotal role in World War I, the first conflict in which subs were in wide use by multiple combatants. While World War I proved the submarine was a viable type of warship, World War II would see even more wide use of the type. Germany was the most prolific user of subs during both World Wars.

Germany started WWI with 48 subs and built another 360 built during the war. The UK, the world’s dominate naval power, had 137 subs by the end of the war, with 78 more under construction. The US amassed a fleet of 72 by war’s end. The Japanese started the war with 63 subs and built 111 more.

Loses were high though, as this new type of subsurface warfare commenced. Germany lost 178 of their boats while engaging in unrestricted submarine warfare (in which they shot at any enemy ship at any time). The Brits lost 54. In exchange for that blood and oil, the submarine punched well above its weight class, and was able to sink ships orders of magnitude larger than themselves. The policy of unrestricted warfare meant navies had to send considerable escort forces with transport fleets, tying up naval resources. The sub’s ability to sneak up on a ship, strike without warning, and slink off after destroying a ship also was a tremendous psychological weapon.

After WWI, the Treaty of Versailles limited the post-war German government’s ability to build up a large military force. By the 1930s, the Nazis would begin openly flouting these restrictions, but before that, the submarine was the one area in which the Germans could pretty freely operate. Building large, heavy warships like battleships would invite conflict as they were forbidden from building them, but submarines didn’t run afoul of these concerns.

Therefore Germany entered WWII with a sizable submarine (U-boat) force, and they expanded it greatly throughout the war. Subs were even more successful during the Second World War, giving Nazi Germany’s navy a global reach. While Germany built almost 1,200 U-boats, they lost 785. Thousands of subs were built, and they claimed kills that totaled millions of tons. The Germans claimed more than 14 million tons of Allied shipping (merchant and military), which was more than 70% of their total naval losses.

After World War II, the development of submarine launch ballistic missiles (SLBM) and nuclear powerplants saw a new age of submarine. One in which a sub would remain underwater for months at a time, armed with dozens of nuclear warheads. They became a key component of the nuclear triad (SLBM, ground-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles [ICBM], and bombers fitted with nuclear weapons) of the major world powers during the Cold War (US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union).

With how widely used and how devastatingly effective submarines were in World War II, it might surprise you to learn that only three warships have been sunk by submarines since 1945. This is most likely because there has not been a major war between two major powers. The wars of the post-World War II era have seen only regional conflicts where one side usually has total naval superiority. There have been only a couple of conflicts where near-peer adversaries have engaged in naval warfare, and two of those are two of the three sub kills since the end of WWII.

First was the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War. India has long been the bigger of the two countries, both in raw numbers of men and in the sizes of their fleets and air forces. Pakistan for its part can hold its own against their much larger neighbor.

Around midnight on the night of 9 into 10 December 1971, Pakistani sub PNS Hangor attacked two Indian frigates, INS Kirpan and INS Khukri. Shooting from a depth of 131 feet, Hangor missed with her first shot at Kirpan. While Kirpan responded to the attack by fleeing, Khukri had seen the source of the torpedo and moved to attack the sub head on. Before Khukri could fire though, Hangor got off another shot. Hitting Khurki’s magazine, the warship sunk in less than two minutes. Nearly 200 men went with her.

This was the first submarine “kill” scored since the end of the Second World War. It was, and remains, India’s costliest wartime casualty in terms of lives lost.

The most recent submarine action was in 2010. A North Korean midget submarine (a small sub with a very small crew that’s little more than a manned torpedo) has been blamed for firing a torpedo at South Korean corvette ROKS Cheonan. The surprise explosion cleaved the ship in two and killed dozens of sailors. The explosion’s source was initially a mystery, but South Korea and the US raised the ship and conducted a forensic investigation. They blame North Korea, who in turn says they had nothing to do with it.

In between these two events was a short but major war between the United Kingdom and Argentina. The war was fought over the remote Falkland Islands. The south Atlantic archipelago has been under British rule since the early 19th Century, but nearby Argentina has long also laid claim to them. Tensions had been ratcheting up, and the conflict boiled over when Argentine forces invaded and captured the islands from the small British garrison (less than 100 men supported by 20 very lightly armed militiamen).

The British retaliated, and used their considerable naval resources to swiftly retake the islands. The conflict lasted just over two months. During that time though, both sides lost several ships and dozens of aircraft. It was the largest naval conflict since WW2, and the closest since then to have seen anything resembling two nation peers duke it out.

It was in this south Atlantic battle for a spit of land inhabited by only a few thousand people that the subject I’ve been building up to this whole time finally shows up. Two ships. One Argentinian, the other British, were about to square off.

The Argentine ship was the flagship of their fleet. The largest and most powerful of their surface vessels. ARA General Belgrano was a light cruiser. A cruiser is smaller than a battleship, but larger than a destroyer. Cruisers were split into two categories that usually have to do with the size of their main guns; heavy cruisers sported guns 6.1 to 8 inches in diameter (battleships had the bigger gun) and light cruisers had guns 6.1 inches and smaller.

ARA General Belgrano had started her life as the American USS Phoenix (CA-46). A pre-WWII ship of the Brooklyn-class, she was anchored northeast of Ford Island on 7 December 1941 when the Japanese attacked. She survived that battle unscathed, and was able to get underway by noon that day and joined an impromptu task force that hunted (unsuccessfully) for the Japanese fleet.

She continued throughout the war with extensive service in the Pacific Theater, and earned a total of 11 battle stars during the war. Decommissioned in 1946, she was sold to Argentina in 1951. She was commissioned as ARA Diecisiete de Octubre (17 October). Her name is a reference to “Loyalty Day” when in 1945 protesters demanded the release from prison of Juan Peron. Peron would later become the on again, off again president of the country. After Peron was overthrown in 1955, the ship would be rename General Belgrano in 1956, and underwent modernization in 1967-68.

HMS Conqueror (S48) was a Churchill-class submarine in port at Scotland when Argentina kicked off the war. She had just come off a six-month deployment and was due for a rest and refit. Two days before the Argentine invasion, with diplomatic and intelligence alarm bells alerting the Brits to the coming war, the crew of Conqueror were ordered back to ship hastily.

Conqueror was a nuclear-powered fleet submarine. A fleet submarine is what the Brits call their attack submarines. Conqueror was placed under the command of a new skipper, Commander Christopher Wreford-Brown, and the crew was ordered to make way for Argentina. They set sail on 3 April 1982, the day after the Invasion of the Falklands.

Then-Commander Chris Wreford-Brown, HMS Conqueror, Officer Commanding

When the British reinforcements started to arrive at the Falklands, they instituted a 200-mile “Exclusion Zone” around the islands. The exclusion zone was declared on 25 April, and the British advised their enemy the Argentines that they would begin to enforce it in seven days.

On 30 April, Conqueror located a small task force of Argentine Navy ships. This included Belgrano and two WWII-era destoryers that Argentina had bought post-war. Belgrano had already been upgraded significantly, and the destroyers had recently been fitted with the noted French anti-ship Exocet missiles.

The task force of Argentine ships were operating just outside the exclusion zone to the southwest of the islands. A similar Argentine Navy task force was operating in the north. When the two fleets made to enter the exclusion zone, the local British commander felt they were going to be caught in a classic pincer move. Permission was given for Conqueror to engage Belgrano. By now it was 2 May, and the exclusion zone was to now be enforced against all shipping.

When the northern task force radioed to Belgrano that they weren’t ready to make their attack, Belgrano made to move out of the exclusion zone. Unfortunately for her, she was within the exclusion zone, and had been making a threat on the Royal Navy ships within. Wreford-Brown and his crew lined up their sub to take a shot and silence that threat.

Wreford-Brown fired three Mark 8 torpedoes at the enemy ships. Two immediately struck Belgrano, causing massive damage. The ship was down, and within 20 minutes the abandon ship order had been given. Electrical problems meant that Belgrano couldn’t give a mayday message, and poor weather meant the two destroyers that had been accompanying her didn’t know that Belgrano had gone down for several hours.

Actual photo of Belgrano listing before she sank

The third torpedo Conqueror had fired struck one of the destroyers, causing multiple gashes down her side, but didn’t sink the ship. The two destroyers continued on their course and fired depth charges to try to sink Conqueror. After evading the depth charges, Conqueror returned to the area to hunt for the two destroyers, with Wreford-Brown believing them to still be a threat to his and other British ships, instead of looking for Belgrano survivors.

It was the combination of Conqueror continuing to hunt and the two Argentine destroyers unaware of the loss of Belgrano that led to so many deaths. More than 320 men from Belgrano died, about a third of the ship’s complement. By the time the destoryers realized that Belgrano had foundered, it was dark and the weather had worsened still, scattering the life boats.

Distinguished Service Order

Conqueror went into the history books as the first (and so far only) nuclear submarine to have sunk an enemy vessel. For his actions, Wreford-Brown was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), at the time the second-level valor award for commissioned officers (making it analogous to an American Navy Cross).

The sinking of Belgrano shocked Argentina, probably about as much as losing HMS Hood had for the UK in the Second World War.  The government of Argentina would agree that it was a legitimate military attack during a time of war, but the large loss of life has made it something of a debate in both Argentina and the UK as to its necessity. The 323 lives lost on Belgrano is about half of the total Argentine dead in the war, and the UK lost 255 in total during the conflict.

The executive officer of Conqueror would go on to become a vice admiral. Vice Admiral Sir Tim McClement to this day defends the attack on Belgrano as righteous. He told BBC4 in 2022, “In my mind, it was definitely not a crime and it was the right thing to do. [General Leopoldo] Galtieri had invaded the island where British people were living peacefully and their independence was brutally threatened. It was our duty and responsibility to recover the islands for them. They started the war, it was our duty to evict them. They were a threat and they had to be dealt with, and it was exactly the right thing to do.”

Wreford-Brown would also defend it, with characteristic, dry British wit. Some years later he said, “The Royal Navy spent thirteen years preparing me for such an occasion. It would have been regarded as extremely dreary if I had fouled it up”.

A few days after sinking Belgrano, Conqueror was spotted by an Argentine Air Force patrol plane when she was at periscope depth. It’s believed that the Argentines fired American-made anti-submarine missiles at the Royal Navy ship, but were unsuccessful. For the remainder of the war (which ended mid-June), Conqueror would use her sophisticated surveillance equipment to report on Argentine Air Force flights as they departed the mainland.

Wreford-Brown (on left) and Petty Officer Libby

Among Conqueror’s crew was sonarman Acting Petty Officer Graham Libby. The son of a navy diver, he’d enlisted into the Royal Navy himself when he was just 16. He’d been a member of Conqueror’s crew for three years and was a rated navy diver by the time of the Falklands War.

After torpedoing Belgrano, and surviving a brush with the Argentine Air Force on 7 May, it was the 25th of May when Conqueror drove through a floating piece of wire. The wire got fouled into the nuke sub’s propeller. This caused a significant amount of noise, which is the bane of a nuclear sub. They were forced to surface at nighttime, with Libby volunteering to leave the ship to cut the wire loose.

Libby did so despite the great personal danger involved, as if the ship were to be spotted by the enemy, the sub might have to make an emergency dive before they could recover the diver. Getting on deck, Libby was joined by several other divers as support, but he would be the only one in the water. A large wave washed him and another man overboard almost immediately. Both men’s lifelines remained attached, and the other man was pulled back in. Libby meanwhile was being battered against the hull of his own ship by the rough seas. Swirling around him was a collection of tools he thought he might need for the task.

Libby worked his way astern. Even with the engines off, the propeller was still being slowly turned by the currents. Libby hacksawed away at the entanglement as the prop threatened to foul up with his own lifeline. For 20 minutes, Libby went out into the dark alone with just a lifeline that might snap or get cut by his own ship’s propeller in the rough water at any moment. He freed the obstruction, and Conqueror was able to continue her war patrol. Oh, he also did this all without gloves, as he needed to have dexterity, so he was barehanded through this whole ordeal.

Distinguished Service Medal

For his actions that night, Libby was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM). This was the third-level decoration for heroism in action for Royal Navy other ranks (enlisted men) and petty officers. It is analogous to an American Silver Star. Libby’s DSM was one of only 11 total awarded during the Falklands. Libby and Wreford-Brown’s medals were the only two valor awards given to submariners during the war.

Libby later said of his act of gallantry, “I was a[n unmarried] man. I was quite happy to go out there because I was all pumped up. We had just sunk a blooming great warship – this could be the icing on the cake, you know? It’s just something exciting that I might never ever get a chance to do.”

Conqueror returned to port in Scotland, proudly flying a Jolly Roger (skull and crossbones) flag. This is a tradition for a submarine that has scored a kill as they come home. The flag, now in the Royal Navy Submarine Museum at Gosport, featured an atom for Conqueror being the only nuclear submarine with a kill, crossed torpedoes for the type of weapon used, a dagger indicating a cloak-and-dagger operation, and the outline of a cruiser for what kind of ship was sunk.

This wasn’t his only brush with personal danger in the South Atlantic seas. A few days before Conqueror sunk Belgrano, Libby (as chief diver) was helping unload a group of Special Boat Service (SBS) commandos embarked on Conqueror. The SBS team was being transferred to the destroyer HMS Antrim. The South Atlantic being notoriously rough water, two men were washed off the deck of the submarine. Petty Officer Libby and one of the SBS men were tossed into the icy waters, the SBS man in his dry suit, but Libby wearing only waterproof clothing.

Libby felt the warmth immediately leave his body. A rescue helicopter was launched, but as the two men treaded water, who would take the rescue hoist first? They were able to hash it out in the heat of the moment by both getting into the sling. Libby was returned to his ship and put into a warm water bath straight away. It took him six hours to get back to normal.

Conqueror didn’t rest long after going back home. In August of 1982, just a couple of months after sinking a cruiser, she was dispatched for a top secret mission. The submarine would tail a Polish ship with a state of the art towed sonar array. Pincers were installed on the front of Conqueror. Her mission: Sneak up behind the Soviet ship, snip off the sonar array, capture the sonar array, and slink off without being detected. To the Polish ship, it would seem they snagged their array on something and lost her. They’d never be the wiser. At least that’s the plan.

It’s hard to believe they did it, but that’s exactly what they did. Libby, as the boat’s top diver, helped guide the ship in. Wreford-Brown must have had ice water in his veins. They caught up to their prey in the Barents Sea. A towed sonar array is specifically designed to detect subs just like his, as they crept up on him. At any moment, you could have a real Hunt for Red October moment and be spotted.

The cable by which the vaguely torpedo-like sonar array was attached was three inches thick and steel. Once cut, the Conqueror’s divers would have to stow the array onto the submarine so it could be brought back. American and British towed arrays were neutrally buoyant, but it was unknown if the Soviets made theirs that way. Once cut, it was unknown if the array would just sit there as ours would have, if it would pop to the surface, or sink to the depths. Either of the latter two scenarios made the job of the divers that much more dangerous than they already were.

The precise location of the intercept is still something that’s not officially discussed, and even the crew themselves won’t broach the topic. It’s known they were near Soviet waters, but it’s all the more likely that they were actually in Soviet waters near the Murmansk naval base. Getting caught there would be doubly problematic.

Finding the surface ship, Wreford-Brown slowly crept up on the Polish vessel. Getting under and just slightly behind it, they then moved very carefully up. They were mere feet away from the Polish ship. Through the periscope, Wreford-Brown could see the hull of the trawler, just a couple yards away from his boat. The propellers of the Polish ship nearly striking his periscope mast.

Then on the monitors displaying a camera view from the front of the submarine was the cable. It was just a couple feet away from the pincers that were to cut it. They moved the bow of the boat into position and watched as the cutting jaws closed around the cable, then began to saw through it. This was the most critical time, as any mismatch between the course and speed of the two ships might be felt on the Polish spy ship. If they were discovered, Soviet help was nearby and might see rocket propelled depth charges pursue the submarine as deep as 3,000 meters.

The cable severed, the weight of the array was transferred to the sub. The Soviet design was heavier (prone to sinking) than the western design. The sudden increase in weight made the sub dive dramatically. In the control room there was concern that a sudden down current would be noticed aboard the Polish ship, but it wasn’t. The other problem now is that the Conqueror was descending uncontrolled. The typical reaction is to blow water out of the ballast tanks, to get more buoyancy, but that would create a tell tale sign on the surface as well.

Slowly the men of Conqueror got her under control and away from the Polish ship. When they had some distance from the Eastern Bloc ship and some daylight, they surfaced. The forward torpedo tube of Conqueror was brought level with the sonar array. Libby and two other divers then went out the tube and pulled the array in and carefully wrapped up all the excess cabling. Completing this dangerous work, the torpedo tube was closed and Conqueror returned home with her prize.

This mission, codenamed Operation Barmaid, was kept secret for more than 30 years. The crew of Conqueror were more elated at completing this operation than they were with anything they felt during the Falklands. Prime Minister Thatcher remarked, “Thank goodness it was one of our submarines which had done it.” Who could have thought that torpedoing an enemy capital ship wouldn’t be the most harrowing and dangerous thing a submarine had done that year?

Wreford-Brown retired from the Royal Navy in 1996 at the rank of captain. He would then be a director at Paignton Zoo in Devon. He retired from that position in 2010.

Libby sold his medal set to a collector in 1988. When that man died, the medals were auctioned off for £55,000 in 2019. They are now part of the Lord Ashcroft Collection, which is home to the largest collection of Victoria Cross medals.

Category: Historical, Navy, UK and Commonwealth Awards, Valor, We Remember