Naval Operations and Exercises That Went Awry

In actual operations as well as peacetime exercises, things can go awry due to human errors or material defects despite due diligence. Occasionally, the errors can be serious with heavy damage and loss of life. In August 1959, shortly after we, the 14th Course midshipmen, were transferred from Mysore to smaller ships, the former collided with a Royal Navy destroyer, Hogue, during Commonwealth Joint Exercises (JET) off Trincomalee. This happened at night with ships completely darkened. One sailor from Hogue was killed and both ships were damaged with Hogue eventually having to be written off. I was on board Ranjit also participating in the same exercises and it was a scary sight to see both the damaged ships the next morning.

Then there was the Khukri-Betwa collision during fleet exercises early 1964. I was on Khukri till December ’63 and had served under Captain ‘Pat’ Telles who was still commanding the ship when the collision took place. Capt Telles was a fine officer and a gentleman and took the entire blame on himself exonerating the Navigating Officer who many felt was to blame. Captain Telles’ naval career thus came to an untimely end.

Enough of tragic stories. Let me now dwell on incidents where errors resulted in situations which were embarrassing at that time but can be laughed at now.

A story which I cannot guarantee the veracity of but many oldtimers have sworn by, dates back to the 50s when during an exercise, Gomati fired a shell which went through Godavari’s open starboard door close to the Captain’s cabin, through the alleyway and out the port door without causing any damage! This was during what is called a throw-off firing where the gun direction system seemingly points towards the target but the guns are 30* off. Apparently Gomati’s gunnery crew forgot to apply the throw-off but the target, Godavari, had a miraculous escape.

My friend Viji Malhotra tells me of two incidents which took place during the ’65 Indo-Pak war. Viji was on the flagship Mysore as Flag Lt to the Fleet Commander (FOCIF), Rear Adm ‘Chippy’ Samson. The fleet was at sea when Betwa mistook Mysore for Pak ship Babur and started firing at it. The shells fell close to Mysore and Viji says he first thought the splashes caused by shells falling into the sea were whale spouts. In true Moby Dick fashion, he was about to shout, “Thar she blows” when the Fleet Gunnery officer realized what was happening and desperate signals were made to Betwa to stop firing before the required correction was applied to hit the target!

In the second case, Mysore saw an aircraft and mistook it for a Pak surveillance one. Anti-aircraft guns were brought into action before the Fleet Aviation Officer, Cdr Tahiliani, screamed that it was an Air India plane and firing was ceased. Bad aim once again saved the day but the Air India crew apparently saw the shell bursts as FOCIF got an angry signal from the Naval Chief the next day.

In the 1971 war, the landing ship Magar made a crazy signal that delayed landing of troops at Cox’s Bazar by a couple of days. Preparations were afoot for the landing with a number of naval and merchant ships carrying army personnel proceeding to rendezvous (RV) off the landing site. In the midst of all this, Magar made a signal to the Fleet Commander, “Periscope sighted. Confirm friendly”. We knew that none of our submarines were in that area and if at all it was a Pak submarine, defenceless Magar would be toast! Magar took sometime to find that it had mistaken a fishing stake in tidal waters for a periscope and made a corrective signal but its first message was heard by everyone on the radio network and the merchant ships had immediately turned away and cleared the area at top speed. It took some time and a number of messages to convince them that there was no enemy submarine in the area and to get them to head again for the RV.

In early 1971 some ships of the fleet based in Bombay were to visit Cochin. An exercise was planned in which the fleet ships were to attack the Cochin naval base which was to be defended by a couple of ships based there. Captain RS Malia, Commanding Officer Venduruthy, was in-charge of the Cochin force ably assisted by Rolly Lewin of ND School and self of Signal School. Godavari was already at sea and since there was no time to recall her to Cochin, it was decided that she would be joined at sea by Ganga and Gomati and thereafter proceed to intercept the fleet ships.  Details of an RV position designated RR (phonetically ‘Romeo Romeo’) were transmitted by wireless to Godavari and given by hand to the other two ships before sailing.

The exercise commenced and soon Godavari signalled that she was at RR awaiting the other ships which in turn signalled that they were at RR looking for Godavari. Both units were asked to check and recheck their co-ordinates and both confirmed that they were correctly at RR as directed. While these units were searching for each other, the Bombay ships sneaked in and carried out their attack. All ships were told to return to harbor and it was only there that the two Cochin units finally met.

In the debrief that followed, it was discovered that an error had been made in the radio transmission of the position to Godavari and whereas the latter was in the correct position as received by her, the other two ships were in the right position as given to them on paper. East was east and west was west and never the twain would meet!

Early next morning, Capt Malia, Rolly Lewin and I were witnessing a basketball game when the Captain came out with a gem. He said that at night he was reading “Julius ‘Kaiser’” by Shakespeare  and visualizing Godavari, Ganga and Gomati searching for RR uttering Juliet’s immortal lines, “Romeo Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” We all had a mighty laugh and Rolly and I would often make fun of the Captain’s mispronouncing of Caesar and attributing Juliet’s quote to the wrong play. It was many years later that I came to know that Captain Malia was an MA in English and the errors were perhaps deliberate to provoke laughter! Incidentally, Capt Malia, a Sikh, spoke perfect English with no trace of Punjabi accent.

In 1973, when I was FCO (Fleet Communication Officer) on the staff of FOCEF (Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet) Rear Admiral Ronnie Pereira, Some ships of the Western Fleet including the cruiser Delhi, the senior ship commanded by Captain Kewal Nayyar, were visiting Vishakhapatnam (Vizag). As usual, an exercise was scheduled wherein the Western force was to attack Vizag defended by Eastern fleet ships headed by Captain AC Malhotra commanding Kamorta. Capt Malhotra came up with a plan in which he would lead his force to intercept the Western ships well away from Vizag rather wait for them to approach the base for the attack. As it happened, he missed the Western ships completely allowing them to carry out their attack successfully. In the debrief that followed, he explained what his intention was and how it could have succeeded. Everyone including the C-in-C Vice Admiral Kulkarni and FOCEF listened intently, impressed by Capt Malhotra’s plan but unfortunate failure. Just then, Capt Nayyar got up and said, and I repeat his exact words, “Gentlemen, as Lord Fisher said, ’farting around the ocean is neither good strategy nor good tactics’”. There was a stunned silence for a while after which the debrief was declared closed. People were seen consulting each other on who Lord Fisher was and whether he could have said what was quoted. For those keen to know, Lord Fisher was the First Sea Lord, head of the Royal Navy, twice, from 1904-10 and again ’14-’15 when he resigned in the midst of the First World War due to differences with the naval minister, Winston Churchill. Extensive research to find the quote attributed to Lord Fisher is still a work in progress!

Ten years down the line, Kewal Nayyar, then Vice Admiral commanding the Western Fleet (FOCWF), was to be at the receiving end. I was his Fleet Operations OfficerFOO). In an exercise, ships were divided into two forces, one headed by Admiral Nayyar embarked on his flagship, Rajput, and the other by Captain ‘Baby’ Anand, CO Vindhyagiri. Rather than operate as a composite force, the Admiral’s plan was to disperse our missile-armed ships so that there was a greater chance of finding the other force and attack with missiles. In the ‘fog of war’ friendly Rana reported detecting an enemy ship and fired its missiles. The exercise was being controlled personally by the CNS, Admiral Stan Dawson, not on best terms with Admiral Nayyar.  The CNS ruled that Rana had actually fired at Rajput which was declared sunk. We were removed from the exercise and ordered to return to harbour which was a big snub to FOCWF.

Six months later, Naval Headquarters scheduled an Anti-submarine Warfare (ASW) exercise with an aim to check the sonar capability of ships in monsoon. With the weather particularly bad during the exercise, over 90% personnel were badly seasick and ships were going all helter skelter. CNS Admiral Dawson was himself on board the flagship and I was still FOO. I remembered a story my father-in-law had told me a number of times which went something like this- at a musical conference, a particularly bad group was on stage. The audience was restive and started hooting when a Pathan climbed up on stage brandishing a sword. The frightened group started getting up and scurrying away from the stage. Pathan calmly said to them, “Where are you people going? You please keep performing, I have nothing against you. I am looking for the person who invited you in the first place.” In the Operations Room, I recounted this to the CNS’s Naval Assistant and said, “Don’t blame the ships, let them do whatever they are doing. Let us look for the person who scheduled the exercise.” The message must have been conveyed to the CNS as for the rest of the time on board, he gave me askance looks whenever he saw me.

To conclude, here is a story which is neither about an operation nor an exercise but is very interesting nevertheless. It was told to me by my good friend Satish Bindra, God bless his soul, who vouched for its veracity and it involves the landing ship Magar again. In the early ‘50s after commissioning in UK, the ship was on its maiden voyage to Bombay with Satish on board. After the ship came through the Suez Canal and entered the Arabian Sea, real rough weather hit them as the south-west monsoon was in full fury. With no satellites and radio aids, navigation was completely dependent on landmarks of which there were none in mid-ocean, and heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon and the stars, which to be of any use, had to be visible. This they were not in those conditions.

So after a couple of days away from land and nothing in sight, the Captain, dependent as the ship was on just a compass, felt distinctly uneasy. Ships at sea drift with wind and current and can actually be quite away from the estimated position as determined by course, speed and any known tidal streams. While the Captain and the Navigating Officer (NO) were pondering over this predicament, a merchant ship was sighted coming from the opposite direction. As per tradition at sea, Magar flashed a signal by light to the merchant ship, “What ship, whither bound?” Came the reply, “Indian ship Sabarmati, bound from London to Bombay. And you?” To which Magar’s signalman replied, “Warship Magar, proceeding to Bombay”.

Now the Captain and the NO quickly conferred and concluded that their compass must have drifted and decided to follow Sabarmati since it was also headed for Bombay. Orders were given to the helmsman to turn around and get into Sabarmati’s wake. Soon however, they were astounded to see Sabarmati also turning around and trying to get in Magar’s wake! Obviously, it was a case of blind leading blind with Sabarmati as unsure of her position as Magar.

It must have been quite a sight to see two ships going round and round in circles for some length of time! Just as desperation was setting in, a fishing trawler was sighted. Magar went close to it and asked the fishermen over a loud hailer in which direction did Bombay lay. Fortunately, the trawler had come from Bombay and gave accurate directions which the good ship Magar followed with Sabarmati following close behind.