Just before 3.30pm on October 11, 1978, at the height of the Cold War, Commander Richard Farnfield informed British naval headquarters that he had established contact with a Soviet ballistic missile submarine in the eastern Atlantic and was on its trail.
As captain of the hunter-killer submarine HMS Sovereign, Farnfield’s mission — codenamed Operation Agile Eagle — was to follow the Soviet boat for as long as possible, using a new piece of equipment known as a towed array sonar. The array was a hose about 600m long that
contained hydrophones and non-acoustic sensors, which was towed behind the submarine and could detect and identify ships and submarines at great distances.
Farnfield and his command team had little experience of the new array and, according to Peter Hennessy and James Jinks, authors of The Silent Deep: The Royal Navy Submarine Service since 1945, were given only 48 hours to practise trailing techniques.
At first, Sovereign’s performance was “disappointing”. The boat succeeded in tracking its target for only six hours during the training exercise, which ended on September 28. After reaching its operational patrol area 200 miles southwest of Rockall a day later, the British submarine searched in vain for Soviet boats, and failed to intercept one identified by other intelligence sources.
Then, on October 6, Sovereign’s crew heard “the unique machinery noises of a Soviet Delta-class SSBN” — a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine — 190 miles away. Farnfield spent three days closing the distance between them. He lost the signal after the computer system interpreting data crashed, but re-established contact on October 11.
A modest man who loved the navy and was admired by fellow submariners, Farnfield now had the task of collecting electronic and acoustic data on the Soviet SSBN and observing how it was handled.
The longer he could follow the submarine, the more he would learn about its operational capabilities and its commander’s tactics.
Hennessy and Jinks wrote: “Sovereign settled in to the trail of the Delta some 650 miles off Cape Finisterre. It continued southwards until October 16 when it altered course to the southwest. On the morning of October 20, Farnfield broke off the trail temporarily and ordered Sovereign to periscope depth in order to transmit and receive signals.
“At 10.43, after Sovereign had dived back down to continue the trail, the Delta unexpectedly began to clear its stern arcs by conducting a routine manoeuvre practised by all nuclear-submarine commanders in order to ensure that they were not being followed by another submarine.”
The Soviet method — the so-called Crazy Ivan — involved reversing course, swinging around 180 degrees and sailing back down their original path at full speed while searching for adversaries using sonar. “This was exciting and testing for the trailing submarine,” Hennessy and Jinks wrote. “Command teams had to take swift action in order to avoid a close-quarters scenario, counter-detection or, even worse, a collision.
“As the Soviet Delta cleared stern arcs and proceeded to head back down its previous course, it passed approximately 800 yards down Sovereign’s starboard side. Despite the extremely close range, Sovereign remained undetected.”
In a scenario not unlike scenes from the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October, Sovereign followed as the Delta resumed its course. By October 25, she was trailing the Soviet submarine 350 miles off
west Africa and generating growing interest among naval chiefs in Britain and America, who were fascinated by the Delta’s unusual movements.
Farnfield’s patrol was extended — in time and in space. His area of operation was expanded to include the entire Atlantic south of 10 degrees north, and his patrol, which had been scheduled to end on November 3, was prolonged by 42 days. Food rationing was introduced, with only one sausage or one rasher of bacon for breakfast, and soup for lunch, which on one occasion featured a mysterious blue liquid that no one ever identified. The ship’s canteen ran out of supplies, including toothpaste, and one member of the crew missed his own wedding.
A day later, there was a significant setback that turned into an opportunity. Farnfield was forced to break off the trail and surface to repair a defective communications mast, which took 75 minutes.
“Sovereign dived and sprinted to restore contact with the Delta, which had once again altered course,” wrote Hennessy and Jinks. “When contact was made again, the Delta was conducting what Sovereign’s
crew assumed was a bottom contour survey of the sea bed over an area within a radius of ten miles. This was valuable intelligence.”
The Delta was establishing a reference point at the southernmost point of its patrol for navigation by other Soviet submarines.
When acoustic conditions deteriorated during a storm on November 20, Sovereign lost the Soviet boat. After searching for three days, and reviewing the available intelligence, Farnfield directed his submarine to a point southeast of Iceland, and waited. The gamble paid off. Sovereign regained contact on November 24 and followed the Delta into the Arctic Circle and then towards the Barents Sea, where the British submarine broke off the trail on December 1.
Farnfield had crossed 10,724 miles of ocean and remained in contact with the SSBN for 49 days in what is believed to have been the longest trail of a Soviet submarine during the Cold War. As Sovereign approached Devonport on December 6, the crew were rewarded with a “celebratory dish of Spam”.
The Sovereign’s captain described Agile Eagle as “a most challenging, testing, wearying and successful operation”. He later wrote: “It was hard work for all the watchkeepers over 70 days, and it was physically and mentally tiring, particularly for the officers and ratings most closely involved in the trail.”
His crew presented him with a small brass plate mounted on a wooden base. The plate had a fishing hook attached to it with the words: “The one that didn’t get away!”
For the Royal Navy, the operation provided a treasure trove of intelligence about Soviet submarine operations and was a triumphant illustration of its capabilities.
Farnfield had joined the service as a cadet. After serving on a destroyer and a minelayer, he spent most of his career in submarines. In 1968, he passed the challenging submarine command course known as the perisher, because the careers of so many officers perished. His “teacher” was Commander Sandy Woodward, a submariner who, as an admiral, commanded the British task force during the Falklands conflict in 1982.
At the same time as the task force was sailing, Farnfield was serving with naval intelligence at the Ministry of Defence and promoted captain. He later commanded the 10th Submarine Squadron, which operated the Polaris nuclear deterrent. His commanding officer, Rear-Admiral Frank Grenier, Flag Officer Submarines, described Farnfield as “an invaluable source of support and advice” and “one of my best captains”.
Richard Hugh Farnfield was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, in 1937, the only child of Captain Gilbert Farnfield, who was also a naval officer, and his Australian wife, Lucy.
His father was a highly decorated destroyer commander. He had been first lieutenant of HMS Hereward when it took Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands to Britain after the German invasion in 1940, and won the Distinguished Service Order as captain of HMS Defender during the evacuation of Crete a year later.
Richard was educated at Emscote Lawn School in Warwick and at Malvern College, where he excelled at gymnastics and cross-country running. He followed his father into the Royal Navy in 1956.
In March 1961, Farnfield was serving in HMS Trenchant based at Gosport in Hampshire when he was scheduled to drive to Warwick to meet his future wife, Deborah Wigram, and discuss their wedding with the vicar. He had known “Deb” since childhood and they had become close friends in their teens.
Shortly after setting out on his journey, he was waved down by a boy who said that his friend had fallen down the sea wall and into the water, where there was “a bit of a swell and an undertow”. Farnfield took off his jacket, slipped down the sea wall and rescued the boy, who was treated
for cold and shock.
Soaking wet, he returned to his base, had a hot shower, changed clothes — and got to Warwick just in time. The couple were married two weeks later and had four children: Anthony, who is a civil servant;
Helen, known as Bella, a voiceover artist who lived in the United States for 20 years; Andrew, who works in the hospitality industry in Australia; and Timothy, who is chief operating officer for a firm of solicitors. His wife and children survive him.
After leaving the navy in 1989, Farnfield became general manager of the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead in West Sussex and later development director of the Abbeyfield care home in nearby Horsted Keynes.
He and his wife enjoyed buying and selling houses and moved their main residence 24 times, including homes in Tenerife and South Africa. They cultivated a series of photogenic gardens and were always passionate about their vegetable patches. He played golf off a handicap of ten, enjoyed sailing and supported Newcastle United, which his father had taken him to watch as a boy.
Described as “an absolute gentleman who was always positive and cheery”, Farnfield was partial to brandy and ginger ale, a drink known in the navy as horse’s neck, as well as dark chocolate.
When he was taken to hospital in January, his daughter, Bella, put a photograph of him on the wall above his bed. The picture showed Farnfield, a captain (four stripes), in 1986 with the then Prince of Wales, a commander (three stripes), boarding HMS Resolution after it had returned from patrol. Farnfield is smiling broadly. Bella added a caption to the photograph, which read: “This is Captain Richard Farnfield — please treat him well, he has friends in high places!”
Captain Richard Farnfield, submarine commander, was born on December 4, 1937. He died on January 16, 2025, aged 87
