Admiral Sir Peter Herbert
Submariner who played a key role in the Falklands conflict and kept the Soviets at bay in the Cold War
ADMIRAL SIR PETER HERBERT, who has died aged 90, was a distinguished submariner of the Cold War era. In 1982, Herbert was Flag Officer Submarines in the Royal Navy, and COMSUBEASTLANT – or Commander, Submarines, Eastern Atlantic Area – in the Nato command structure, commanding a force of British and American nuclear submarines, some of them on special operations in Arctic waters.
When the Falklands War broke out, two nuclear-powered submarines (SSNS), Spartan and Splendid, were quickly sent to the South Atlantic while Herbert ensured that this did not distract from his main effort, which was intelligence-gathering in the North and protection of the strategic deterrent. The SSNS Conqueror, Courageous and Valiant, as well as the diesel-powered boat Onyx, also prepared to sail while Herbert urgently drafted rules of engagement for his boats.
The command structure, which had been in place for 10 years, was challenged by the task force commander, Rear-admiral “Sandy” Woodward (also a submariner), who wanted the boats off the Falklands to be under his direct operational control. Herbert insisted that wartime was not the time to experiment with a new command structure.
When Woodward gave a direct order to Conqueror to sink the Argentine cruiser Belgrano, an angry Herbert intercepted the signal, recognising that such a decision must go to the prime minister, and when the order “Sink it” was given from the War Cabinet, Herbert accepted it verbally. Asked whether he wanted that in writing, he said: “No, there won’t be time – they’ll have sunk it by the time it arrives.”
Herbert was unfazed when at the end of May the Soviets attempted a break-out into the Atlantic to hunt for a British missile-carrying deterrent submarine, and he skilfully deployed his remaining forces to prevent this.
Herbert was very proud that his RN submarines “were able to get cracking very, very quickly with little real fuss – they were a super bunch of commanding officers”. But as soon as the Falklands were regained it was back to business as usual against the Soviet adversary in northern waters.
Peter Geoffrey Marshall Herbert was born into a naval family on February 29 1929. His father was a naval cadet in 1915 who left the Navy under the “Geddes Axe” government cuts and went on to become a managing director of Lodge Plugs and
sales director of Rover Cars. His maternal grandfather was a merchant naval officer who became commodore of the Union Castle Line, and who would make one piece of ornately carved furniture on each voyage.
Peter was educated at Dunchurch Hall prep and the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. Commissioned in 1949, he found that he was seasick in surface ships, so he volunteered for submarine service and learned this trade under the wartime submarine commanders, Tony Troup and Rud Cairns.
He served in the submarines Artemis and Alderney in 1950-51, though his overriding memory of these years was the search for Affray, which had been lost in the Channel with a training class embarked.
In 1956-60 he commanded the submarines Scythian, Porpoise and Excalibur. The latter was an experimental high-speed boat powered by high-test peroxide: the fuel was so unstable that she and her sister ship were known as the “exploder” and “excruciator”. Until he learned to control it with the planes and rudders, Herbert also found that Excalibur was capable of sudden 50-degree “flip rolls” when running fast underwater.
Herbert was one of the first seaman officers to take the year-long nuclear engineers’ course at Greenwich, and in 1963 he started a five-year command of the nuclear-powered “hunterkiller” submarine Valiant, which was building at Vickers-armstrong in Barrow-in-furness.
When a design fault required re-engineering of the primary circuit of the nuclear reactor, Herbert retained his command while driving the frigate Venus in the training squadron.
Herbert presided over a talented wardroom of officers, led by other future admirals including Sandy Woodward as first lieutenant and Jeremy Larken as navigator. After seemingly endless first-of-class trials, Valiant was tasked to undertake a high-speed submerged passage to Singapore, via Mauritius, in demonstration of Britain’s ability to reinforce its East of Suez commitments.
When the prototype ship’s inertial navigation system proved ineffective, instead Valiant was navigated over 12,000 miles at high speed using sunsights taken through the periscope and chart soundings, some of which might have been made by Captain Cook. Herbert knew he had rounded the Cape of Good Hope when he watched on the echo sounder as the Agulhas Bank rose from the abyss to a depth of 100 fathoms. The return voyage was made non-stop at an average speed of 24 knots.
In 1968 Herbert took Valiant on a sensitive intelligence-gathering mission in northern waters with a message ringing in his ears from the Secretary of State for Defence, Denis Healey: “Don’t you bloody well get detected.” In fact Herbert found that Valiant, because of her speed and quietness, and the poor quality of Soviet sonars, could wander and watch events at will. Thus he opened a period of independent operations unparalleled since earlier centuries, which gave nuclear-powered submarines a central role in the Royal Navy of the Cold War.
Valiant, because she was fitted with so many novel systems which often malfunctioned when they were set to work, came to be known affectionately as the “Black Pig”. Herbert was awarded the OBE in 1969.
After submarine-related staff and shore commands, Herbert’s broader potential was recognised and in 1974-75 he was given command of the helicopter-cruiser Blake, which led to a major group deployment to the Far East and South America. Despite her wartime construction and being the oldest ship in the group, Blake under Herbert was the only ship fully to meet her programme.
His sea-command was curtailed because the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Edward Ashmore, wanted Herbert, with his special qualities, to become Deputy Chief, Polaris Executive (1976-78), just as the costly and highly secret Chevaline programme to improve the Polaris warhead was getting underway and into trouble.
Herbert was promoted rear-admiral and became Flag Officer Carriers and Amphibious Ships (1978-79), responsible for the Navy’s major surface ships. Next he became Director General Naval Manpower and Training (1980–81), at a time when the Navy was being forced to reduce manpower.
He was made KBE in 1983 and returned to the Ministry of Defence as Vice-chief of Defence Staff (Personnel and Logistics) (1983–85), when he rowed with the Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Heseltine. Herbert did not enjoy these years: while he learned a great deal about the Army and RAF and visited Germany and Northern Ireland and Falklands only a few months after the war was over, Heseltine, he said, “would not listen to concerns about retention”.
In retirement he was chairman for nine years of the Armed Forces charity, SSAFA, helped to manage other charities, held some nonexecutive positions and was governor of Cheltenham Ladies College and of Cheam School.
Herbert was clearly competent and, though competitive, always pleasant, and much loved, whether by his crews or the congregation among whom he worshipped. In retirement his main interests were gardening, and – using his grandfather’s tools – woodwork.
He held a deep Christian belief, and when the climb to St Lawrence at Bourton-on-the-hill became too much for him he would drive there along the A44 on his ride-on mower. He wrote beautiful prayers, and on the last Sunday before he died he led the intercessions.
Herbert married his childhood love, Ann Maureen Mckeown, and though it took many years to convince her, they married in 1953. She died in 2012 and he is survived by their son and daughter.