by Harry Benson
High above their heads, two Sea Harriers spotted them. Diving in for the attack, Flight Lieutenant Dave Morgan and Lieutenant Dave Smith destroyed three of the Skyhawks, including both attackers. Two were shot down by Morgan’s Sidewinders. The third eventually crashed into a sand dune, after attracting cannon fire from Morgan and a Sidewinder from Smith. The fourth Skyhawk escaped without help from the four accompanying Mirage escorts that failed to provide their top cover.
Forty-five minutes later, a further attempt by a flight of three more Skyhawks was also driven off by small-arms fire in the Fitzroy and Mount Kent areas. All three aircraft were damaged and fortunate to return safely to the mainland.
Amidst the drama of the situation, pilots still needed to make a stream of complex practical judgments and decisions about how to manage their mission. Aviators call this ‘captaincy’. Captaincy includes managing aircraft capabilities, mission priorities, route planning, fuel and payload. Hughes, Boughton, Miller, Sheldon, Clark and the other aircraft captains involved with the Galahad rescue showed exceptional captaincy on this day.
In the extreme situation of war, there is often a fine line between great captaincy and cock-up. For example, most junglie pilots bent the rules by squeezing one or more wheels of a large helicopter onto a small flight deck for which they were not officially cleared. You looked great if you got away with it. You looked a prat if you left your rotor tips behind, or worse. Managing fuel was where pilots most frequently came close to the fine line. McIntosh was already concerned about fuel before he set off from San Carlos for his second run. He reckoned he should have just about enough for the return journey. After starting his rotors again at Fitzroy with more terribly wounded soldiers in the cabin, he asked other helos if there was a ‘bollock’ – a massive fuel container – anywhere, as there was at Teal. No luck. The journey back was going to be very tight indeed.
McIntosh knew the Wessex manual said the aircraft uses less fuel with one engine shut down. Bill Pollock had already applied the theory years before in a Wessex and now in a Sea King on the way back from the Argentine fishing trawler Narwhal. On both occasions, it had kept him airborne long enough to avoid ditching into the sea.
Unsure whether he would make it back to San Carlos, McIntosh bravely tested the theory for himself on the Wessex. But, as a single pilot, there was nobody to double-check his move. He would have to do it on his own. He very carefully pulled back the speed select lever for the port engine and closed the fuel cock. As the port engine stopped, the starboard engine took the strain. His fuel flow gauges confirmed that he was using less fuel. It might give him the valuable few more minutes in the air that he needed. He flew low over the ridge of the Sussex Mountains and down towards the heavily armed warships below in San Carlos Water. These were nervous moments at the best of times, wondering whether he would be shot down or caught in crossfire. Seeing that Fearless was a mile nearer than the facilities at Ajax Bay, he requested an urgent refuel. That extra mile could be one too many.
Sod’s law intervened at exactly the wrong moment with the final ‘Air raid warning red’ of the day. As McIntosh approached the big assault ship, the flight-deck officer waved him off, refusing permission to land. No way! He gingerly brought X-Ray Tango into a hover alongside the flyco control room and insisted on landing ‘Now’. Meanwhile, Moreby frantically pointed out the bandages and wounded soldiers inside the cabin. The flight-deck officer immediately waved the aircraft across, ignoring the apoplectic senior officer in flyco. Safely on deck and very relieved to be taking on fuel, flyco asked for the pilot’s name. McIntosh replied that he would get back to them later.
The rescue and casualty evacuation from Sir Galahad continued on after dark with other aircraft. Both Sea King squadron commanding officers were involved, each flying back to San Carlos from Fitzroy at low level at dusk.
Eight-four-six Squadron boss Simon Thornewill’s day had started with a surreal early morning assault operation to land troops near a suspected Argentine stronghold at Cape Dolphin, the remote tip of East Falkland fifteen miles to the north of Fanning Head. Intelligence had warned that it was a possible site for land-based Exocet missile launchers, a deadly threat to the ships entering Falkland Sound. As his formation of three Sea Kings drew closer to the obvious activity ahead of them on the beach, the situation turned to one of hilarity. The activity was neither Argentines nor Exocets, but penguins.
Now loaded with badly burned men in Victor Alpha, Thornewill looked up from the valley and thought to himself: ‘I’m glad we’re down here and not up on that high ground.’ He had no idea that he was looking at exactly the area where the Gazelle had been shot down two days earlier.
It was where his opposite number, 825 Squadron boss Hugh Clark was now heading in Sea King 507. Tim Stanning reminded him to stop and pick up Mike Cudmore, the engineer abandoned there earlier in the day. Clambering into the back of the Sea King, Cudmore was taken aback by the gruesome scene that confronted him; it was like something out of M*A*S*H. There was blood everywhere and crewmen holding drips to wounded men. Stanning wrote a quick note and held it up: ‘GALAHAD hit, on fire. Other LSL being abandoned.’
Imagine being an air engineering officer dropped off on a remote hillside to investigate the scene of a crash. When your helicopter returns to pick you up later in the day, the scene that confronts you inside the cabin is straight out of M*A*S*H, full of horribly burnt and wounded men. This is the note Tim Stanning wrote to try to explain what was going on.
Altogether it had been a disastrous day for both sides. Fifty-one British lives were lost at Port Pleasant and a further six at Choiseul Sound. Forty-six wounded soldiers and crew had been evacuated to Ajax Bay. The British had also lost two landing ships, one landing craft and suffered damage to HMS Plymouth. The great leap forward by 5 Brigade had turned into a nightmare.
Had the Argentines left it at that, it would have been their day. Instead they lost three pilots and aircraft in ill-advised follow-up missions to Port Pleasant, with several more aircraft badly damaged. It turned out to be the last attack on British shipping by Argentine jets from the mainland.
Images of the dramatic Sir Galahad rescue reached British TV news screens several days later. To the public, the helicopter crews were heroic. Medals were later awarded to some pilots and crewmen, yet not to others doing an identical job. None were begrudged.
Chapter 14
Dash and panache: 9–11 June 1982
ALTHOUGH THE BOMBING of Galahad and Tristram on 8 June had appalling consequences in terms of human suffering, its strategic effect was only to delay the final build-up of troops by a day.
The arrival of RFA Engadine boosted the Wessex contingent to twenty-five helicopters, adding to the twenty Sea Kings and one Chinook. This modest helicopter force would have to support the thousands of troops preparing for the assault on the hills surrounding Port Stanley. Frontline helicopter operations now moved up to Fitzroy on the southern flank and Teal Inlet to the north, from where a daring attack on the Argentine high command was about to be launched.
At 3 a.m. local time, I was woken and told to get to the briefing room with my kit. All the aircrew were gathering there. The boss, Mike Booth, briefed us that the last few hours’ delay meant we would not arrive in San Carlos until well after dawn. So Engadine had now turned around rather than risk being exposed as we entered San Carlos past Fanning Head. Intelligence had predicted a major Argentine air strike. But the need for pilots and aircrew on the islands remained urgent. Some of our own aircraft were sitting idle on board Atlantic Causeway. Ray Colborne, Chris Eke and I were told to get airborne and winch all aircrew onto our escort ship HMS Penelope, which was now steaming in as we were steaming out.
The prospect of a night winch to a frigate was exciting, even if I was going to miss out on a day’s action. But the plan was abandoned almost immediately. It quickly became obvious that the sheer logistics of transferring twenty aircrew over an ever-increasing distance between the ships wa
s impossible. Penelope wasn’t stopping for anyone. Several of the aircrew went up on deck to watch the eerie glow of naval gunfire exploding in the Port Stanley area forty miles away.
Turning back was the right decision. We would have been an easy target, sailing through Falkland Sound at about the same time Plymouth was attacked. We spent the following day frustrated but comfortable, checking our kit and thinking about what was to come, while the Welsh Guards were dealing with their hell of Port Pleasant. Engadine never even made it as far as the battle group. Late afternoon, we simply turned around and headed back in towards San Carlos.
The following morning, Wednesday 9 June, we were all up well before dawn. I took good advantage of the last home comforts I expected to see for a while: breakfast, warm shower, comfortable loo. As the sun rose, Engadine finally slid quietly into San Carlos Water and the relative protection of other warships. I went up on deck to have my first view of the grassy Falkland hills rolling past in the early morning sunshine. Deep rumbling noises from the flight deck announced that the first aircraft were off, disembarking the squadron around the headland to our forward operating base at Port San Carlos. As I was due to fly on the second wave, I hung around with my bergen packed and my gas mask around my belt.
Within a few hours, Lieutenant ‘Spiny’ Norman Lees and I were standing inside the hangar watching X-Ray Juliett land for our planned crew change. It’s always a slightly unnerving experience approaching seven tons of noisy machinery: the whirling blades above one’s head, the low growl of the gearboxes, the high-pitch whine of the engines, the hot blast of the exhausts. There is a real knack to climbing up a Wessex, dodging the explosive flotation can on the wheel, getting your feet into the right footholds, ducking under the exhaust without getting burnt, swinging your leg into the cockpit without knocking the flying controls.
I strapped in for my first flight. As aircraft captain, Lees took the controls and lifted the Wessex clear of the deck. The Falklands were mostly what I had expected: a cross between the barrenness of Dartmoor and the beauty of northern Scotland. My excitement quickly dissipated as we concentrated on the job. After a straightforward few loads lifted from ship to shore, I decided to jump out back on Engadine in order to reduce the payload and wait my turn to replace Lees as solo pilot.
Almost as soon as I reached the hangar, I was already regretting not waiting on land at Port San Carlos. The welcome sound of helicopters buzzing low around all the ships in the bay was interrupted by the repeated blasts of sirens and the dreaded words ‘Hands to action stations’. I was now stuck on deck without my anti-flash gear for some reason worrying that I was the only person not carrying a gas mask. Once again I felt horribly exposed, sitting in a tin can, waiting to be attacked. But with Ray Colborne’s stern warning ringing in my ears, I kept my cool. As the all-clear sounded, I put on my helmet, lifejacket and bergen and ran out to the next Wessex that landed.
It was a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. I sat in the back with some of our maintainers and loads of squadron kit as we lifted off and headed round the coast. The next thing I knew was that we were rolling into a tight turn and darting into a valley on the headland. Leading Aircrewman Smudge Smyth mouthed the words ‘Air raid warning red’ to me. As we landed, all of us jumped out and ran. This was good stuff. I ran up a hill just above the Wessex and lay down with my pistol cocked and ready to fire. I shouted at some of the lads nearby: ‘If a jet comes over, fire well in front of it.’
After lying in the wet grass for a few seconds, I looked down at my Browning. I was horrified to see that there was no magazine. The release catch must have caught on something as I jumped out of the helicopter. Back in Northern Ireland we’d been warned that losing a single bullet would result in an £80 fine. Here in the Falklands I’d just lost an entire magazine and thirteen bullets. ‘Bloody hell,’ I thought. I immediately reloaded my second magazine and wondered what on earth to do. Smyth waved at us to go. I ran back and shouted that I needed to find my magazine. The Wessex rose into the air leaving me alone on my own little piece of the Falklands. I searched fruitlessly for fifteen minutes until X-Ray Juliett returned. Smyth calmly got out, bent down and picked up the lost magazine from the grass. My relief was huge and I patted him gratefully on the shoulder.
Lees dropped us all off at Port San Carlos near a pile of bergens and other equipment. I tried in vain to find my own bergen that had been dumped there while I was still wandering around the opposite hillside. No luck. Almost immediately, X-Ray Juliett was back again and Lees waved me in for a crew change.
For the next two hours, I was on my own, King of San Carlos, darting at low level, flying between Engadine and the FOB with people, equipment and loads. The flying was straightforward enough. Even deck landings were easy with the flight decks not moving around. It felt brilliant, an extraordinary responsibility given to a twenty-one-year-old fresh out of training. The temptation to sing out loud Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries was too much to resist. Smyth had to put up with it.
Job done, we were told to shut down in a valley just behind the farm buildings and come in for a brief. Port San Carlos is a remote settlement of a few farmhouses and trees amidst the bleak grasslands and hills of East Falkland. Not far away from the settlement was a temporary short runway made of steel mesh for use by the Sea Harriers. Bobbing in the sea a few yards down the hillside was a long black tube containing aviation fuel.
Smyth and I wandered back through the settlement, glad to be wearing wellies in the oozing mud. The ops tent was hidden amongst some trees and gorse in the garden of one of the farms. Jack Lomas had just begun to give us all a warm welcome when the makeshift alarm system announced yet another air raid warning. I ran for the nearest trench and leapt into the muddy pit under a piece of corrugated iron. Thankfully, it was another false alarm. As I returned to the briefing tent a few minutes later, I spotted a loose bergen in a hedge. It was mine.
Somehow, Jack Lomas managed to find floor space around the settlement for all the 847 Squadron new arrivals. Nine of us were crammed onto an upstairs attic floor. It was far better than I had expected. Frankly, anywhere dry would have been brilliant. Just before heading upstairs, Mike Booth called me over and told me to get a shave. My feeble contribution to the squadron beard-growing competition thus came to an undistinguished end.
Each of us kept our bergens fully packed for a quick getaway. The only items taken out were sleeping bags and rollmats. Jerry Spence managed to find a pile of blankets that meant he wouldn’t need to take anything out at all. It was a decision that would come back to haunt him later when he acquired a nasty dose of the lice. Norman Lees had brought an inflatable mattress with him and inevitably found himself on the receiving end of a torrent of abuse. The first night ashore would have been peaceful but for Ray Colborne’s periodic snoring interspersed with pleas of ‘Shut him up somebody, will you?’ It made sleep all but impossible.
I was well primed for the early morning call to breakfast, two mess-tins worth. We then walked over to the ops tent in the freezing darkness, two hours before dawn, for our briefing.
With Mike Tidd’s flight, who joined the fray later that morning after sailing in overnight on the supply ship Fort Grange, there were now thirty-two Wessex pilots and twenty-three Wessex aircrew to fly the twenty-five Wessex helicopters.
Briefing was a complete melee with about forty of us crammed into the small ops tent. It was great to catch up with old friends, such as Sparky Harden and Jerry Thomas. I couldn’t see my closest friend Hector Heathcote, who I learnt was at FOB Teal. As one of three baby pilots fresh out of training – along with George Wallace and Dave Kelly – there were several faces I didn’t recognise. But there was a tremendous feeling of comradeship, of being in it together. This was what we’d trained for. It was both warm and intimidating at the same time.
Jack Lomas once again welcomed us newcomers and then ran through the flying programme, including a brief on threats. In particular he warned us to watch
out for a possible SAM (surface-to-air-missile) site on the south side of Mount Kent. A Gazelle had been shot down. He suspected it was most likely a ‘blue on blue’ – friendly fire – but to watch out anyway. He also mentioned the dreaded Pucaras.
Everybody worried about Pucaras. All of us had trained to evade fighters. We reckoned we could handle an attack from a high-speed fighter jet. We had practised evasion techniques back in the UK. But that was with fast jets. Helicopters would never be more than an opportunity target. The slow-speed Argentine Pucaras, with their cannon and rocket pods, were something else. A Pucara would not overshoot. It would simply sit on our tail and ripple off a salvo. Pucara was a common topic of conversation amongst all helicopter pilots.
Mark Evans had already had a head-to-head. Oily Knight thought he’d seen a pair of Pucaras a few miles away. The solution was not to get spotted. If you did, land, jump out and run. Or head for the clouds.
I was down to fly with Evans, my future flight commander when I returned later to the UK. ‘Jayfer’ was wonderful to fly with. He inspired confidence because of his laid-back manner that concealed a consummate professionalism. He seemed to think I’d enjoy today’s aircraft, Yankee Tango. I was about to find out why. We both signed for the aircraft because after a quick introductory flight he was going to get out and let me get on with it on my own.
Yankee Tango was at the far end of a whole hillside full of Wessex helicopters. We walked out with our aircrewman Chris Eke and one of the maintainers. It was still dark as we finally found the right helicopter 200 yards from the maintenance tent. Evans and I had a good look around the aircraft. Great, I thought. The front left windscreen was cracked and covered in fablon from Oily Knight’s bullet hole. We couldn’t open the top platform to check the gearbox oil because it had been wire-locked shut. The engineer with us said he thought it had been filled. Evans and I looked at each other.