CHAPTER FOUR
It was still the case that, in the political battles for carriers, cruisers, and fixed-wing flying at sea, there had as yet been few decisive victories or defeats. CVA-01 was dead. But, otherwise, the fight was still on. It was helped by a new political twist. In the middle of 1970, Harold Wilson called, fought, and expected to win a general election. He lost. The Conservative Party under Edward Heath upset the predictions.
The Treasury suddenly saw the opportunity to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat over the cruisers. On 19 June, the day after the election, as Harold Wilson was conceding, a Treasury official suggested that the Ministry of Defence should be asked to put its plans for the new cruisers ‘into cold storage’ while the new government worked out its position.1
That official’s motivation was probably in part a suspicion that the Conservatives might want to revisit the whole issue of phasing out the carriers; not reviving CVA-01, of course, which was never going to be on the cards, but at least extending the lives of the current ships, as Raymond Lygo was arguing.
With the change of government, the carrier enthusiasts in the Navy Department certainly looked seriously at the options for keeping a force going throughout the 1970s after all. It would amount to just two ships, Ark Royal and Eagle. But Eagle would need a two-year ‘Phantomization’ from 1973 to 1975. And there would be serious manpower implications. One assault ship would have to go into reserve, as well as the cruiser Blake, plus two County-class destroyers, one of which would be scrapped early.
In the end, in October 1970, while Ark Royal was in Malta, the government announced that it had agreed to keep her going until 1978 at the minimum cost possible to plug the gap until the new cruisers arrived. Lygo heard the news in Malta, and his first response, typically, was ‘what about Eagle?’. But it was too much. There would no reprieve for her. She would go in 1972. With this solution, the government argument went, the Navy would get the maximum value out of the money spent on Ark Royal. She would thus be available to cover the withdrawal from East of Suez, and would then ‘provide a valuable asset’ for NATO in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
Ark Royal would soldier on. So long as she remained in service as a fully fledged strike carrier, she appeared to confer on the rest of the Royal Navy a certain elite status not enjoyed by anyone else except the Americans – not even the French, whose own two carriers at the time never quite seemed to measure up in comparison. But as a single unit, the Navy would find it increasingly difficult to fashion a worthwhile role for her. She really did seem like a floating monument to the past, increasingly at odds with the concept and the capability of the future Fleet, rather than the shape of things to come. Still, at least she kept certain important skills alive.
But to what end? The Navy still had a fight on its hands with Invincible and, even more significantly, with what aircraft she and her prospective sisters would carry.
Detailed design work on the new cruiser was well under way. A key early decision, as the outline studies were turned into a fully-fledged design, was that the new ship would be powered by gas turbines, in keeping with the other new classes that would make up the future Fleet. This would have a very great bearing on the appearance and operation of the new cruiser.
As this process unfolded, there were some subtle and not-so-subtle changes. The ship’s estimated displacement crept up again to 19,200 tons. A provision to carry four Exocet surface-to-surface missiles also appeared, with the weapons to be sited alongside the Sea Dart missile launcher.
It was also becoming apparent just how deft the Naval Staff had been this time in winning agreement from the other services, and especially the Treasury, for rather more than they actually realized. The outline requirement was for the design to accommodate twelve helicopters or V/STOL aircraft in its hangar. But, because of the length of time that the ships would be in service, the Navy had successfully argued that provision was also to be made for possible growth in the next generation of aircraft that they might operate – a generous margin of ten per cent in dimensions and twenty per cent in weight for the anticipated follow-on to the current large ASW helicopter, the Sea King.
That meant, studies now showed, that the ships would safely and sensibly be able to operate not twelve but seventeen of the current generation of aircraft, and twenty-one at a pinch for short periods. To some, that looked like an Admiralty sleight-of-hand.Whatever it was, it was going to prove its value.
But, to the frustration of the Naval Staff, getting political agreement to place an actual order for the new ship continued to prove hard work.Two years into the new government, it was still not forthcoming. Time was running out if the first of the class was going to be ready by 1978, when HMS Ark Royal was due to retire. And the prospect of further defence cuts was looming.
And, in August 1972, no doubt to the consternation of the Admiralty Board, the Defence Secretary, Lord Carrington, a veteran from the struggles over CVA-01, asked once more for the reasoning – on just one sheet of paper this time – behind why the Navy wanted the new cruisers rather than more frigates and destroyers. The distillation that the Navy sent back was illuminating. It remained government policy, it said, to maintain a fleet capable of a full range of maritime operations. And, for once, the Navy had seemed to grasp the broader political inclinations of the government of the day, and especially the Prime Minister, Edward Heath. The Royal Navy was the only navy in Europe with that broad range of capabilities, it said, and it might one day form the basis of a European navy.
The paper went on to argue that two critical elements in its capabilities were the deployment of one of the most effective anti-submarine weapons, the Sea King helicopter, and the ability to command and control British and NATO maritime forces. The most cost-effective way of carrying out both tasks, it said, was with the proposed cruisers, with the bonus that they might also be able to operate V/STOL aircraft.
Carrington’s problem, as he pointed out, was that giving the go-ahead for even just the first ship would imply a commitment to the whole, very expensive programme, which was for three such vessels. But the Navy shot back that, even if it was to be faced with new cuts in its budget, unless there were to be a major change in government policy, it would still want to go ahead with the cruisers, accepting that the later ships might have to be delayed somewhat.
Just then, the Treasury relented just a little, agreeing to allow an invitation to go out to Vickers Shipbuilding to tender for construction of the first new cruiser. It made it clear that this was still no commitment to a first order. But things were inching forward at last.
At about this time, one other decision of great symbolic importance was taken. For a while, the Navy had been mulling over what names to give the new ships. And, perhaps not surprisingly, the favourites were former aircraft carrier names.
But it was recognized how politically sensitive this would be. So, in the end, for the first ship at least, it was decided that discretion was the better part of valour. The Admiralty Board decided that, because of the emphasis on the command and control aspect of the ships’ design, the first-of-class should bear the name of a battle-cruiser or heavy cruiser of the past which had seen service as a famous flagship.
In the end, it came down to two names. One was Invincible, the flagship of Vice Admiral Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in 1914. The other was Lion, from which the legendary and controversial David Beatty, at the time a vice admiral, had commanded the British Battle-Cruiser Squadron and Battle-Cruiser Fleet, including at the Battle of Jutland in 1916.
The problem was that there was an HMS Lion in the Fleet at the time, albeit in reserve, and she might not have been scrapped by the time the first through-deck cruiser arrived. So the Admiralty Board’s choice, finally, on 27 February 1973, was Invincible, little knowing what a coincidence the Falkland Islands connection would prove to be.
There was another connection as well. The previous Invincible, like this one, was a novel design, and one that divided opinion. She had appeared in 1908, two years after the revolutionary battleship HMS Dreadnought. She was the first battle-cruiser. The man behind both ships was the mercurial, inspirational, visionary, and galvanizing First Sea Lord of the time, Jackie Fisher. He saw battle-cruisers as great hunters of the sea. They would be a cut above the armoured cruisers of the day. They would have the big guns of battleships, but would sacrifice armour protection for greater speed.
When the fifth Invincible appeared, she was a captivating sight: a great three-funnel vessel of 17,000 tons, with characteristic tall tripod masts. But she and her sisters were a flawed and fragile concept, especially after Germany switched to building battle-cruisers as well. As the prototype of the breed, Invincible would be quickly overtaken by newer classes in the Anglo-German naval arms race that preceded the First World War. She would perform much as Fisher had envisaged in that first Battle of the Falkland Islands. But her flimsy protection would mean that she would be shattered and literally blown in two – and lose all but six of her crew of over a thousand – in a duel with German battle-cruisers at Jutland a year and a half later.
Two months after the decision on the name, the order for the new Invincible was placed with Vickers Shipbuilders at Barrow-In-Furness. As yet, though, the aircraft that the Navy wanted her to carry were still seemingly beyond its grasp.
The Admiralty had not been slow to consider the possibility of using V/STOL aircraft at sea, even back in the 1950s. But, for the most part, it was with a high degree of scepticism. The penalties associated with such planes seemed too high. On one hand, they did not have the performance of the conventional aircraft that the Navy had set its sights on. On the other hand, the V/STOL idea posed a potential threat to them, and more particularly to the big carriers. Similar suspicions would stifle the prospects of V/STOL in the US Navy.
Many in the Royal Navy, like many in the RAF, dismissed the early V/STOL models as toys. The public may have marvelled at the early prototypes of the P.1127, which became first the Kestrel and then the Harrier, as shining examples of British technical ingenuity. Despite its rather hunched-shoulder design, and its peculiar appearance when hovering like some kind of giant insect, the aircraft was a thing of fascination, and well in tune with the spirit of bounding technological change of the 1960s. But it had very limited performance, especially when operating from a ship. It made its first deck landing at sea on Ark Royal on 8 February 1963. But, even when the Navy was forced to take a fresh look at it after the CVA-01 cancellation, it was still easy to dismiss it as a very questionable proposition.
In fact, the P.1127 nearly died on the same day as CVA-01. At that same fateful Cabinet meeting, the Chancellor, James Callaghan, raised it as a potential sacrifice. But it survived.
Two things changed the balance of the argument in the late 1960s: the determination of the Naval Staff, particularly under Admiral Le Fanu’s leadership; and the development of a more powerful version of the Harrier’s Pegasus vectored-thrust engine. So, in a debate on the Navy Estimates in the House of Commons in March 1969, David Owen had declared that, now the engine had been up-rated, ‘it makes it worth looking at for flying from ships’.2 He knew, of course, exactly what the Naval Staff’s hopes were by this time. He insisted that there was no question of building ships specifically to carry the Harrier, only that it might operate from ships already planned. And he clearly still held to the position in public that any aircraft that went to sea would be the RAF’s. But the rumour, the speculation, and the political mood seemed to be moving the Navy’s way.
The Treasury had been reluctant to endorse the provision of a V/STOL capacity in the proposed cruiser, fearing – correctly, of course – that it was opening the door to further expenditure down the line. But it, like other potential adversaries, was probably lulled into a false sense of security by the very limitations of the aircraft under consideration.
The Navy began to press the case as a limited capability, not to provide full air defence for the Fleet, or as a major strike weapon, but to fill a gap between what ship-borne weapons and land-based air cover could provide. The Navy raised the spectre of fast patrol boats armed with anti-ship missiles which might escape detection in time for anything other than an on-the-spot aircraft to take on. But the principal threat that the Navy focused on was the long-range ‘shadower’ out to sea, the reconnaissance aircraft which could direct weapons from other planes, ships, and submarines against a western task force.
Again, the Navy was haunted by a Second World War spectre – the long-range, four-engined Focke-Wulf Fw-200 Condor, which used to patrol far out into the Atlantic, and circle convoys out of the range of the ships’ defences, radioing their positions to the marauding U-Boats. It was the advent in growing numbers of small, cheap ‘escort’ carriers based on merchant ship hulls that helped put paid to the Condor threat. Now, though, it had a very direct modern equivalent, the Tupolev Tu-95 Bear. For the Navy’s task forces, when they were operating far out into the Atlantic, beyond the range at which the RAF could quickly provide air cover, that was a problem. The term ‘hack the shad’, the Navy’s main rationale now for taking the Harrier to sea, would become something of a mantra in the years ahead, indicative of a real need that, at the same time, would supposedly not usurp the main role of the RAF in defending ships at sea.
So, as the Ministry of Defence had considered options for the incoming Conservative Government in 1970, the Navy had managed to slip past the chiefs of staff a statement that it had agreed with the RAF. It acknowledged that ‘an embarked force of fixed-wing V/STOL aircraft could provide a valuable quick-reaction capability, dealing with shadowers, for reconnaissance and probing, and for surface strike to supplement shore-based air support’.3
But any brief truce that had existed with the RAF on the question of actually equipping the new cruiser with V/STOL aircraft had quickly faded as it became increasingly clear that the Navy wanted to put its own planes on its ships.
The air marshals may have come to regret their moment of weakness in agreeing that statement, basically acknowledging in principle something that they probably did not think would ever come to pass in practice, except on their terms. But it would still take another five years of hard Whitehall infighting, another change of government, and another defence review, before there would be a ministerial green light.
As it started to regroup, the RAF now basically reversed its position, arguing that the Navy’s proposition was in fact so limited as not to be worth the money. It also had its eyes fixed on something altogether more ambitious and more to its liking, an ‘Advanced Harrier’ to be developed in conjunction with the Americans, much more expensive than anything the Navy either felt it wanted or could afford. The RAF argument was for delay, to find out exactly what US plans were and maybe eventually to press for a joint programme with the Americans. The Navy proposal it described as ‘pointless’.
So what exactly was the Navy proposing? In early 1972, it produced an outline specification for the new plane that it would like, in Naval Staff Requirement 6451. It was ‘to provide the Fleet with an organic capability for air interception, reconnaissance, probe, and limited surface strike based on the Harrier aircraft’. It would be as similar as possible to the Harrier GR3, the RAF’s latest version. But it would have a lightweight air intercept radar, which the Harrier lacked. There would also have to be the provision of air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles. The proposal was for just fifteen aircraft in all, with eighteen pilots, to be ready by 1977.
For once, the modesty of the Navy’s proposal seemed to be getting it into trouble. On one key central committee, the non-Navy members wondered if the proposed plane would really be up to the job of an interceptor at sea. And the RAF was dismissive of its strike capability. Attacking a large warship would require five to seven Buccaneers; the proposed maritime Harrier force would not come even close to that capability. It must have been a bitter pill for the Navy to have its old Buccaneers – which the RAF had been so reluctant to operate – used against it in Whitehall arguments. But it insisted that its proposal was a ‘worthwhile’ capability, albeit not everything that it would have liked. The committee remained unconvinced.
The Navy was looking for just 900,000 pounds for a nine-month project definition study. Still, it would be difficult to over-estimate the Treasury’s hostility. It expressed grave reservations, and ‘the most serious objections’to the cost-effectiveness of a maritime Harrier.4 There were the costs of development, balanced against the limited numbers envisaged, and the limited performance of the aircraft itself.
The Treasury believed that it had plenty of sympathizers in the Ministry of Defence, not just within the RAF. But it also acknowledged that this was something that the Navy was very keen on. Rather sneeringly, one official described the combination of the through-deck cruiser and the V/STOL as ‘the next best thing to the aircraft carriers that some sailors still secretly hanker after’.5
He was right, of course. But, this time, the Navy had more political sympathy behind it. Questions were being asked in the House of Commons about what was happening and why a decision was taking so long. Eventually, the Ministry of Defence squeezed reluctant agreement out of the Treasury for the project study to go ahead, but only on the understanding that there would be a public statement that this committed the Government to nothing further.
And then the political pendulum swung again. In February 1974, in the midst of economic turmoil and a confrontation with the coal miners, the Prime Minister, Edward Heath, called a general election, and lost. The Labour Party under Harold Wilson was back and, within days of taking office, the new administration decided that what was needed was … a defence review.
Under this review, the Navy actually fared relatively well. Its most vulnerable capability was its amphibious forces. They were almost as high on the Treasury’s target list as the carriers. The review did see the abandonment of a British presence in the Mediterranean, which the Treasury had continued to fret was still a half-open door to wider naval ambitions. But the Navy managed to save the Royal Marines and its amphibious forces when it was deemed in the review that reinforcement of the NATO Northern Flank was vital to the security of the United Kingdom.
The maritime Harrier had by this time had more scrutiny from the chiefs of staff and within the Ministry of Defence than most other projects involving a similar, and by implication relatively limited, sum of money. But still there was no definite approval. Was the investment of an estimated 100 million pounds really worth it, some asked, when the return would be no more than ten operational aircraft at sea at any one time? And would the maritime Harrier be able to cope with the kind of threat that it was likely to have to face in the 1980s? Still, the Navy continued to press hard. And, perhaps reluctantly, the other chiefs of staff agreed at least to keep it alive.
At this time, there was an unlikely potential benefactor who played a part in the debate. It was hoped that the Shah of Iran would buy a through-deck cruiser for the Iranian Navy. And it was thought that his decision could hinge on whether the maritime Harrier went ahead, so that he could equip his ship with them. So, potentially at stake were orders for both a cruiser and perhaps sixteen Harriers worth an estimated 200 million pounds. Some in Whitehall argued that the maritime Harrier should not go ahead until there was an unequivocal commitment from the Shah. Others, briefly, suggested that perhaps Iran could help fund development, although the potential complications that this could pose meant that the idea quickly faded.
The maritime Harrier was kept going – just – during 1974 with a drip-feed of funding. Each month the Ministry of Defence went to the Treasury to ask for a cheque – 38,000 pounds one month, 23,000 another, 21,000 the next. Meanwhile the wrangling went on.
By the beginning of 1975, pressure was mounting again for a decision. Still the doubters persisted. One official questioned how a project that had teetered on the brink of cancellation for the last twelve months of the previous government could now survive a full-scale defence review. And the outward appearance of consensus among the chiefs, it was argued, hid a different reality– a lengthy and at times bitter argument in which the Chief of the Naval Staff was essentially isolated, but attached such importance to the project that he was willing to bear almost any other cut to keep it going. In such circumstances, it was said, the other chiefs would not risk a split by standing against him.
Critically, the new and pugnacious Defence Secretary, Roy Mason, a sceptic at first, seemed to be won over. And, in the final analysis, the Treasury decided that, if the Defence Secretary believed that the project was important enough that he would find the money, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should not stand in the way. In May 1975, finally, the go-ahead was agreed.
The order was for just twenty-four examples of what would become the Sea Harrier. It had the designation FRS.1, for fighter, reconnaissance, and strike. For its interception mission, it would have a radar, called Blue Fox, and a raised cockpit, which helped the pilot with visibility. It would carry two short-range Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. And it would have a new anti-ship missile. But perhaps the most important thing for the Navy was that it would appear in the traditional colours of, and be operated by, the Fleet Air Arm.
It had been such a fight for so long for just a couple of dozen aircraft of rather modest performance. But – like the stay of execution for HMS Ark Royal, and the go-ahead for the new cruisers – it kept an idea alive. And those aircraft would pay almost incalculable dividends in a very short space of time.
Did the Navy in this strange period from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s lose the big battles and win the small ones, or was it the other way around? It lost a new generation of full-size fleet carriers, but the rusty old Ark Royal was allowed to soldier on honourably for a few more years. The alternative perspective was that a flawed CVA-01 concept finally fell foul of its own contradictions, and what was salvaged was the continuation of fixed-wing flying at sea in another and potentially more exploitable form.