No Uncertain Sound. The Life and Times of Admiral Sir Jock Slater. By Peter Hore. Porto Press. ISBN: 9781849956130.
Reviewed by Desmond Woods OAM
This biography of former First Sea Lord Sir Jock Slater is a most enjoyable account of a fulfilling Royal Navy career which culminated in being First Sea Lord from 1995-98. It is also an enlightening history of UK defence and maritime planning and operations. These events are seen through the lens of Jock’s postings, at sea and ashore, during the tumultuous final four decades of the twentieth century.
The author, retired RN Captain Peter Hore, brings to this writing a wealth of knowledge of that Navy and the personalities of the officers who appear in the narrative. He supplements his detailed personal knowledge of people and events he describes with historical research for his earlier books and his many years as the writer of widely read naval obituaries for the Daily Telegraph.
There is no other naval historian who could have written this biography with such a breadth and depth of understanding of the Navy in which his subject served. It is a masterly description of a generation of senior officers and their interactions and foibles in the competitive world where reputation, merit, timing and luck were intermingled and determined promotions in the hierarchy.
No Uncertain Sound has been written with the access by the author to the diaries and private papers of Sir Jock, now aged 87. But it is not an ‘authorised biography’ far less a hagiography. Rather it is a fair and impartial account of a career of service with all the light and some shade to be expected from a long career at sea and ashore.
Sir Jock started in the Navy with no great advantages in life other than being the nephew of the Admiral Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham who fought and won the war at sea in the Mediterranean. Listening to his uncle, ABC, was inspirational to the young Jock but his passage from junior officer of the watch in a ton class minesweeper through to being the professional head of the Royal Navy was achieved on merit and diligent application to professional mastery of every appointment and command as he climbed the promotional ladder.
Along the way he met, charmed and became friends with an extraordinary number of the “good and the great.” He was a Royal Yachtsman in Britannia and as a result of his popularity and efficiency became the Queen’s equerry. He was a regular guest at Balmoral where he stalked deer with the Royal Family. He became a confidant to Prince Charles and a career adviser to his brother Andrew who was serving in the Navy and said he planned to make it his career.
Jock proved from his earliest years at Dartmouth that he was a brilliant ship handler. He went on to demonstrate this elan as the captain of the frigate HMS Jupiter, the County Class destroyer HMS Kent and later in command of the new carrier HMS Illustrious. He was appointed to command this second of the three light carriers, just before the Falklands war started in April 1982. The ship was still in the hands of the builders and was not due to commission until later in the year. Jock used his leadership and people handling skills to get the ship “in all respects ready for sea” and commissioned months ahead of schedule and took Illustrious south at speed to take over the watch from her sister ship Invincible off the Falklands in the middle of winter of 1982 in the South Atlantic. It was a remarkable feat of leadership and logistical achievement which marked him out as a Captain for early promotion to Rear Admiral.
Once in Whitehall he worked during the Reagan years with great success to strengthen the trans-Atlantic nuclear alliance which guaranteed that the UK retained its US supported Trident ICBM deterrent in the new Vanguard Class SSBNs.
The book expands on the familiar path of an RN senior officer’s career to provide a delightful portrait of Jock, his wife Annie and their sons trying to do all that was expected of Jock socially at a frenetic pace, as the Flag Officer Scotland and Northern Ireland (FOSNI) and enjoy a normal family life. As a flautist himself he loved having a Royal Marine Band which he could deploy in support of Navy public relations and on one occasion conducted them in playing Annie’s Song as a tribute to his wife.
Sir Jock was Commander-in-Chief Fleet before and during the First Gulf War, otherwise codenamed Operation Granby by the UK and Desert Storm by the US. Jock Slater visited his ships and people in the theatre of operations but once again, as in 1982, he was not in the right place at the right time to have been an operational commander during combat. He regretted never having flown his Admiral’s flag as a flotilla commander at sea which had been his long-held ambition. His career took a different turning and one which led upwards to being First Sea Lord.
Once back in Whitehall, now as the Vice Chief of Defence Staff, he proved to be adept at overcoming the normal service rivalries with a necessary concentration on joint operations and training and rationalisation of dwindling resources. He was also dealing with the social changes which meant that the WRNS needed to be disbanded and women posted to sea and their career paths cleared for promotion. He supported that change and overcame opposition to it from the many doubters that this change to centuries of tradition was wise or feasible. He was slower to accept that homosexual orientation was compatible with a naval career and accept that it was a not a threat to good order and naval discipline. The Australian Defence Force’s no touching rule was the obvious way forward once acceptance of gay men and women as recruits was mandated for the services by the UK Government.
As a former RN Instructor Officer I was interested to read of the decision to disband the Schoolie branch and fold its functions and some of its remaining officers into the Engineering Branch. Not a happy fit.
Once the Cold War was over the UK political class were determined to achieve a “peace dividend” for the taxpayer by implementing swinging cuts to budgets and the UK’s global defence footprint. This was called by the bland sounding, but mendacious, title “Options for Change.” Jock found himself as VCDS being on the front line as a Whitehall Warrior resisting wherever possible the more obviously ill-informed and dangerous plans of the Treasury to neuter all three services capacity to deploy force swiftly into an increasingly unstable global scene. Amphibious forces were once again, as in 1981, seen as being surplus to operational requirements. He was instrumental in re organising the Royal Marines administratively into the RN, so that they were no longer vulnerable to being disbanded as had been planned by those who did not choose to understand their unique contribution to operations.
Sir Jock moved from VCDS to First Sea Lord where he continued to reform the Navy and make the best use of the reduced budget it was now operating on. When the position of Chief of Defence Staff needed filling it was very obvious that he was the best choice to take on the top job. His NATO credentials and success in bridging the Pentagon Whitehall “sea air gap” made him the clear favourite. But he was not selected by the then Secretary of State for Defence Michael Portillo because, with the British Army heavily committed in Bosnia it was felt that a soldier should be CDS. Max Hastings told the author, “Jock was an outstanding First Sea Lord, by far the best holder of the post in the last 25 years and should have been Chief of Defence Staff.”
One of Sir Jock’s last achievements as First Sea Lord was to work with his Chief of Air Staff counterpart to build the joint RN and RAF Harrier force to operate off the Invincible Class Carriers. That combined services team, flying fixed wing aircraft, from Navy decks is a great legacy to leave to succeeding generations of sailors and aviators. Britain has in commission two Queen Elizabeth Class carriers which operate seamlessly both RAF and RN Fleet Air Arm F35 Joint Strike Fighters. From retirement that fact must be a source of satisfaction to Sir Jock. With his RAF counterpart he was one of the godfathers of such practical and cost-effective force arrangements.
This book is a delight to read and to learn from. The early chapters describing Jock’s years as a hard-working junior officer are a nostalgic visit to the years when the Royal Navy was still a global force with scores of destroyers, frigates, survey ships and myriad of other vessels including a fully supportive fleet of Royal Fleet Auxiliaries. The later chapters reminded me of the folly of believing, as so many did for nearly three decades, that peer on peer conflict between nations was over after the Soviet Union fell apart in 1990. That contributed to the belief that the UK defence budget could be allowed to shrivel without consequence.
I enjoyed No Uncertain Sound and unreservedly recommend it, not only to retired and serving members of the Navy that Peter Hore describes so vividly, but also to anyone who has an interest in learning about this highly successful and long life of outstanding service given by Sir Jock Slater to the United Kingdom, the Western Alliance and the Royal Navy.
Author: Peter Hore
Publisher: Porto Press
ISBN: 9781849956130
https: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1849956138
