Rear Admiral Ronnie Pereira assumed command of the Eastern Fleet on 02 April 1972; perhaps he too was wary of April Fool’s Day! The staff had changed with only me continuing as FCO from RAdm Sarma's days. Cdr PP Sivamani was from the old staff too but he had been elevated from Navigation to Fleet Operations Officer (FOO). Cdr Basudev Mukherjee was the new navigator (FNO), Lt Cdr VK Ramchandani, Torpedo and Anti-submarine officer (FTASO) and good old coursemate Lt Cdr JK Roy Chowdhry, the gunner (FGO). On the personal staff, Satish Bindra had given way to Cdr AV Bharath as the Secretary and Lt PK Vijayan was the new Flag Lt.
A few sailings were enough for us to get to know the new Admiral who was easy to serve under provided you were honest and straightforward. He liked people to be brief and direct and hated long diatribes. I remember one meeting where a commanding officer was holding forth for a considerable time on some trivial issue. Suddenly we heard a tap-tap-tap and the Admiral shouted, "Come in". There was silence while all eyes went to the door but there was no one there. Smilingly the Admiral declared that the knocking sound must have been his tapping the filter- tipped cigarette on the table! The meeting came to an end on a happy note.
A relatively free period in the summer saw me taking some leave and Akhila and I proceeded to Jaipur. En route we made a brief stop in Delhi where I met Shashi Mama who was posted in NHQ. He told me that he had run into the Deputy Director Of Personnel (DDOP) at a party recently and had inquired about the state of my representation on non-selection for Staff College. The terse and haughty reply was, "Tell Sharma to forget about Staff College". Indeed, my name was not included in the 1974 list.
A few days into the leave, I received a telegram to proceed immediately to New Delhi and report to the Director Naval Intelligence (DNI). On arrival, I found that two other officers, Lt Cdrs Roly Lewin and MS Narayanan had been similarly summoned. We were met by the Deputy DNI, Cdr HD Madhok, head of the counter-intelligence section, who told us that there had been a mini mutiny on board the cruiser Mysore and a number of sailors had been arrested. Our task was to interrogate them and find the ringleaders and the cause of mutiny. We were briefed on the art of interrogation and proceeded to carry out our assignment for the next few weeks.
On completion, it was back to Vizag and the Eastern Fleet. Meanwhile, Cmde Grewal, Chief of Staff Eastern Naval Command, had been promoted to Rear Admiral and posted to NHQ as the Assistant Chief of Personnel. Shortly afterwards we received a signal that I had been selected for the 1974 Staff College course!
My morale was at a new high! I had got what I considered my just desserts and I was serving under a fine Admiral. With an uplifted mood, the sailings became fun and exciting. In harbour, there was golf on weekends with the Admiral driving the staff car himself (he refused to disturb his driver's weekends) and insisting on picking me up from my flat in Naval Park. Mrs Pereira was quite fond of Akhila and asked her to enter the upcoming Wills Made For Each Other contest with me. Akhila politely declined as neither of us was keen to draw any undue attention.
To top it all, we were delighted to learn that Akhila was carrying a baby due for March 1974. In short, as the song in the popular musical Oklahoma went, “Everything‘s goin’ my way”.
Movies were always welcome and we saw quite a few with Roy Chow and his wife Shiela. I particularly recall 'Bobby' during which Chow and I loudly joined in singing "Chabhi kho jaye" much to the embarrassment of the wives trying to shush us up!
There were other light moments like the debrief of an exercise where the Western Fleet ships sneaked in to attack Vizag harbour with the Eastern Fleet still out searching for them on the high seas. That brought forth Capt KK Nayyar's quote he attributed to Lord Fisher, First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy in early 1900s, "Far..ng around the ocean is neither good strategy nor good tactics". Admiralty's records have been searched but the quote is yet to be found!
Then there was the time when the FNO made the error of leading the Fleet to approaches of Bheemunipatnam instead of Vishakhapatnam. The Admiral took it sportingly; after all, the error had been made earlier, the most talked about being when Cdr Dawson, later CNS, made the same error as an FNO!
Too soon we were at the end of the year and it was time to pack up and move to Wellington. In my final meeting with Admiral Pereira, he tossed my confidential report (ACR) across the table to me saying, “Hope this gets you your brass hat!”
Thank you, Ronnie P.
P.S. Some may not be aware of the significance of ‘brass hat’. In the Navy, promotions up to the rank of Lt Cdr are by time. Commander is the first rank which is by selection where about half the officers are superseded. Those who are promoted are distinguished by an arc of brass leaves on the peaks of their caps. Hence the coveted ‘brass hat’.
A great man was Ronnie P. I served very close to him as his NA when he was navy Chief. On being reputed to the US for a year, I was at a loss on what to do about my rickety old Fiat car. Seeing me worried, the CNS said he could look after it. This he did and for the next year was frequently seen driving around in it including to social engagements. When I returned, he handed over the keys to me saying that the car was in better condition than the one I had left it in, which was true!!
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