The Cambrian’s work-up, undertaken in harsh winter conditions, more than put the ship and its crew through its full paces, comprehensively testing the stamina, competence and teamwork of the ship’s company. There were numerous gunnery ‘shoots’ at various targets which did little to improve Conley’s confidence in the ship’s ability to contend with attacking aircraft, and many anti-submarine exercises. Considerable time was spent in dealing with the fast patrol-boat threat, in boarding suspicious vessels and in protecting Cambrian herself from saboteurs when at anchor or in harbour.
Replenishment at sea was frequently exercised with a Royal Fleet Auxiliary, combining re-storing with refuelling, while other ‘evolutions’ included rendering assistance to a stricken ship and taking a casualty in tow. Matters were even taken to an extreme, with a full nuclear fallout exercise when the Cambrian was shut down with ‘pre-wetting’ pipework used to cover her with a fine spray of seawater as, with her crew hunkered down in their citadel, she passed through a notional ‘hot zone’. This evolution conveniently ignored the fact that it was impossible to shut down the boiler rooms and after a real nuclear attack, these would have become heavily contaminated, as would the open gun mountings.
Although risk of a nuclear encounter was minimal, in such an operationally variable theatre as the Far East it was necessary to consider all possibilities. Mindful of her last active engagement off Dar es Salaam and in common with all foreign deployments, Cambrian’s crew trained to ‘aid the civil power’. In a war such as the Confrontation was, landing shore parties for a variety of purposes was highly likely. To these ends Cambrian’s ship’s company were taught to assist in the suppression of riots and how to provide disaster relief. It was not all serious stuff; one evening, when alongside and at short notice, the crew were required to put on VIP entertainment, including a short son et lumière production which, using searchlights and piped Gilbert and Sullivan music, passed off surprisingly well, one positive result of training in the art of making-do. On another occasion, Cambrian entered harbour entrance in full ceremonial order, her ship’s company manning the side in their Number One uniforms to carry out a ‘Cheer ship’ to a fictional state president. All in all it was a thoroughly testing few weeks during which Cambrian, despite her age and obsolescent equipment, did well, earning a commendation and passing her final inspection with flying colours. Not with-standing the limitations of their ship, her company emerged as a strong, bonded team. This was, of course, the essential point of her work-up for, whatever the poverty of its pocket and the shortcomings of its weaponry, when it came to push of pike the Royal Navy retained the great asset of its tradition and the effect it could produce from its people.
For the minions aboard it had been a period of stimulation. It was fortunate for Conley that his commanding officer had been keen to delegate and he had been allowed to keep bridge watch on his own during daylight hours when things were reasonably quiet. The sense of satisfaction and responsibility that Conley experienced when Jenkin handed the ship over to him for the first time and disappeared down the bridge access ladder was memorable. To an eighteen-year-old, manoeuvring a powerful warship in close proximity to other vessels was exhilarating in the extreme, although mistakes risked the strong invective of the captain.
Their work-up completed, Cambrian returned to Portsmouth for a few weeks storing and maintenance, during which members of the crew were granted leave. Finally, however, their sailing orders arrived. It was now late March 1965. On the Friday before departure many of the ship’s company brought their wives and families aboard and that evening a dance was held in a local sailors’ club. This was one of the few opportunities the officers had to meet the wives and girlfriends of many of the crew. On the Monday the ship’s company would be saying goodbye to their families for at least six months, able only to communicate by letter, but to a man they were looking forward to the deployment.
The morning of Monday, 26 March was overcast, dull and drizzling when Cambrian slipped from her berth, passed Fort Blockhouse and proceeded to sea. She was bound first to Aden by way of Gibraltar. The brief stay in Gibraltar proved enjoyable for the ship’s company, but was marred by cases of drunkenness among the crew. There were several arrests, two junior ratings ending up in a Spanish jail in the border town of La Linea, charged with breach of the peace after a fight in the streets. Another was in hospital after being beaten up by a taxi driver. Excessive boozing, leading to trouble ashore and sometimes onboard, was an enduring feature of naval life, cheap alcohol and high-spirited young men being a fatal mixture, especially in foreign ports.
A few days after Cambrian’s departure from Gibraltar she arrived off Port Said. Entering the Suez Canal she led a southbound convoy of about thirty merchant ships of several nationalities. Passing a military airfield between the Great and Lesser Bitter Lakes, her officers noted some forty MiG-17 strike fighters, together with a score of obsolescent MiG-15s of the type which had so startled the Americans over Korea fifteen years earlier. To the observing British naval officers, the latter appeared in reserve but the increasing tension between Israel and her neighbours — which would culminate in the Six Day War of June 1967 — made the sight more interesting.
Clear of the canal Cambrian headed south down the Red Sea with temperatures onboard steadily increasing. Passing through the Strait of Babel-Mandeb, course was altered along the coast of Yemen until Aden was reached in early April.
At the time the Aden Protectorate was being rocked by civil unrest stirred up by armed and active groups backed by Yemen and Egypt, whose aim was to foment trouble compelling a British withdrawal. A number of deaths had been caused, large areas of Aden City were out of bounds to servicemen and their families and after midnight there was a curfew in place. This unrest was to touch Cambrian herself when, on the evening of their arrival, her captain, first lieutenant and two other officers were attending a formal dinner ashore. Despite being in a heavily guarded building, a grenade was thrown into the room. Fortunately, it failed to detonate properly and there were no serious injuries.
The Cambrian was further involved when the following day she was unexpectedly directed to proceed to sea to search for and intercept an Iraqi cargo vessel suspected of running arms to the rebels. For two days the ship slowly searched eastwards along the coastline, hoping to detect her quarry when she was within territorial waters but locating only a few dhows. In the prevailing light airs and high temperatures, life in the non-air-conditioned compartments became very difficult. For the ratings, toiling in the boiler and engine rooms in temperatures in excess of 40 °C, frequent drinks and salt tablets were essential if they were to avoid heatstroke.
Returning to Aden for a few days’ self-maintenance allowed an excursion or two. Conley joined a party of the ship’s company on a trip to the Royal Engineers’ camp in the Radfan Mountains. Bumping some fifty miles up the rough, unmetalled Dhala road in a convoy of army trucks led by a Scimitar light tank, they passed up into the arid highlands, an area which had been a hotbed of insurgent activity. Each member of the party was issued with an ancient .303 rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition, triggering a debate as to whether, if they got into a real firefight, twenty rounds would prove sufficient. Told to sit well forward, clear of the truck’s rear axle, to minimise injuries if they detonated a landmine, they complied assiduously after passing the remains of several vehicles wrecked by mines. They were, however, blissfully unaware that there had been ferocious fighting on the Dhala road only a year earlier between British forces and insurgents.