“What and how much food would be needed? I managed to get a copy of the shopping list. A special Thanksgiving menu was planned because we would be in Southampton, England, on that day with our returning soldiers on board. These 4,710 troops were loaded on and assigned to quarters in forty-eight hours. The 500 tons of food loaded on in Boston consisted of 14,000 dozen eggs, thirty tons of cold storage beef, five tons of fresh pork, six tons of butter, three tons of turkey, four tons of ice cream mix, thirty-six tons of potatoes, three tons of tomatoes, four tons of cabbage, fifteen tons of fresh fruit, ten tons of coffee, twenty-five tons of sugar, and fifty tons of flour. We distilled 75,000 gallons of water each day, with 15,000 going into the boilers.
“We arrived in New York on 1 December after a reasonable crossing. Our passengers were quickly unloaded and new supplies were loaded to fill our empty pantry in preparation for our next crossing, scheduled for 8 December. The trip over was uneventful and, again, nearly 5,000 solders were loaded aboard. The plan was to be home a few days before Christmas.
“The Atlantic had other plans for us. We ran into a storm, supposedly the worst in sixty years. Waves crashed over the length of the flight deck, 830 feet long and sixty feet above the water. Life rafts were torn loose, an anchor was ripped off, and water sprayed in on the now seasick soldiers, and a few sailors too. We were actually blown back towards England, and some of Enterprise’s old war scars were reopened.
“We did make it home for Christmas. We sailed past Staten Island at 5:30 on Christmas Eve 1945.”
—John Dunbar, formerly assigned to the USS Enterprise
The Royal Navy carrier HMS Illustrious is joined at sea by a replenishment vessel.
In the pathway of the sun, in the footsteps of the breeze, where the world and sky are one, he shall ride the silver seas, he shall cut the glittering wave. I shall sit at home, and rock; rise, to heed a neighbour’s knock; brew my tea, and snip my thread; bleach the linen for my bed. They will call him brave.
—Penelope by Dorothy Parker
SHARKEY
ON 2 APRIL 1982, WHEN THE BRITISH government directed that a Royal Navy task force be sent to the South Atlantic to recapture the Falkland Islands from the Argentinian occupation forces of General Leopoldo Galtieri, world opinion was generally opposed. In Britain the more interesting debate for many was military rather than political. How could a relative handful of Sea Harriers, a weapons system not without its detractors at the time, stand up to a force of nearly 200 Argentianian Mirages, Skyhawks, Etendards, and more, in a part of the world where operating conditions, never mind the odds, were truly terrible?
Twenty years before the Falklands campaign, Canadian-born Nigel David “Sharkey” Ward was an Officer Cadet at the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, England. In his naval career he went on to become a qualified Air Warfare instructor. Ward trained on and flew Hunters, Sea Vixens, and F-4K Phantoms. In 1981 he became commander of 801 Naval Air Squadron in HMS Invincible. In July of that year he was given the opportunity, and the challenge, of proving the capability of the Sea Harrier and its radar and weapons system under operational conditions. He and his squadron had to find out just how good the airplane was and how suitable it was for its job. Ward’s years of experience with the Sea Harrier, his determined efforts to get the airplane operational, and his part in the fight to keep the fast jet Fleet Air Arm alive and airborne, earned him the title “Mr. Sea Harrier.” In extracts from his book, Sea Harrier Over the Falklands, Commander Ward offers a fascinating look at the air campaign of the 1982 conflict.
“The 801 Squadron recommendations for high-level bombing against Port Stanley airfield had been accepted somewhat reluctantly by the Flag. This reluctance was not really surprising, bearing in mind that the attack relied completely on the capabilities of the [Blue Fox] radar and Navhars [Sea Harrier Navigation Heading Attitude Reference System] for its success—bearing in mind, too, what the Flag thought of such things.
“In reply to our recommendations and after due deliberation, SAVO [Staff Aviation Officer: a member of an Admiral’s staff specially appointed to advise the Admiral on all operational and training aviation matters] put forward several fully anticipated questions: how were the pilots going to ensure that they missed the town with their bombs? Would the line of attack take them over the town? And so on. Finally, realizing that my team had no intention whatsoever of risking the lives of the Falkland Island community, and after having been briefed in detail about the profile to be flown by attacking aircraft, the Staff agreed to the proposal. But 801, having generated and recommended the new delivery, were not the first to be tasked with trying it out. That didn’t matter very much to me. The main thing was that now we could do our bit to keep the enemy awake and on the alert; the less rest the Argentines ashore got before our amphibious troops landed, the better.
“To that end—denying the enemy some sleep—we decided in Invincible to set up a mission that would give the opposition more than a little to think about in the middle of the night. There were two major detachments and airstrips away from Stanley. On East Falkland there was Goose Green, close to the settlement of Darwin. On West Falkland there was Fox Bay. With the Task Group well to the east, the distance to Fox Bay was about 225 nautical miles as the crow flies. The plan was very simple. I was to get airborne on my own in the small hours of the night and deliver a Lepus flare [a six-million-candlepower flare, dropped or tossed from fast jets to illuminate targets for reconnaissance or night-attack purposes] attack against each defended airstrip. It was hoped that this would give the troops on the ground the false impression that a task force landing was under way—the flares apparently providing illumination prior to an assault.
“The mission was very straightforward. All I needed to do was enter the attack coordinates for each target into my navigation computer, follow the resultant HUD [Head-up Display] directions to the target areas, check the accuracy of the navigation using my radar, and drop the flares. Outbound to the targets I would fly direct to Goose Green from the climb-out point which would take me close to Stanley. On the return leg I would approach the Carrier Group from 240°, that is, well clear of the islands, let down to low level and then run in to Invincible for recovery on board.
“JJ, Captain J.J. Black, skipper of Invincible, was pleased with the idea of the planned mission: ‘Anything we have missed, Sharkey? You know that the weather isn’t too brilliant out there?’ The weather round the Task Group was certainly not very sharp, with high winds, towering cumulonimbus and snow showers. But over the islands the forecast was for much fairer conditions. The mission would therefore present no problems and it hurt my pride even to think that I might have a problem getting back on board. I shut my mind to snow showers and thought only of dropping the flares.
Nigel “Sharkey” Ward made the last Sea Harrier kill of the Falklands War.
The Falklands War lasted ten weeks in 1982. It stemmed from an invasion of the Falkland Islands, known by the Argentines as the Malvinas, in which the Argentines attempted to establish the sovereignty that they had long claimed over the islands. British naval, air, and ground forces took part and the conflict ended on 14 June with surrender by the Argentines. Royal Navy Sea Harriers from the carriers Invincible and Hermes played a major role in the action.
“ ‘No thanks, sir. I’m very happy with all that. Can we just make sure that the Flag lets all our surface units know exactly what’s going on? One lone aircraft approaching the force at night from the southwest is just asking for a ‘blue on blue’ [one’s own forces shooting down own aircraft].
“ ‘Don’t worry, we’ll ensure that they let all units know.’
“There was practically no self-briefing required for the mission. It was a question of kicking the tyres, lighting the fires, and getting airborne.
“I arrested my rate of climb after launch at 500 feet, settled the aircraft down to a height of 200 feet above the waves, set 420 knots and departed the ship on a north-westerly heading
for seventy miles. As my eyes became fully attuned to the darkness the sea surface became visible, with the healthy wind kicking up a lot of spray and phosphorescence and clouds towering around and ahead of me like huge cliffs. Inside the cockpit I had dimmed the lighting almost to extinction, including the geometrical patterns on the HUD. Arming missiles and guns, just in case. I reached the climb-out point and headed for the stars, turning to port as I did so to get on track for the first destination.
“The aircraft climbed at a cool 30° nose up for the first 15,000 feet and very quickly I was throttling back at Mach 0.85 and 35,000 feet, enjoying the view. Under the black, star-speckled sky and towards East Falkland, the cloud thinned and dissipated. Although it was the middle of the night, Stanley was well-lit and could easily be seen from the top of the climb.
“Dick Goodenough, the 801 Squadron Air Engineer Officer, had given me the jet with the most sought-after radar and Navhars—004. The engineers kept full records of the performance accuracy and reliability of each radar and Navhars system. This attention to detail, which included comprehensive post-flight briefs, paid excellent dividends. But although all the aircraft performed well, 004 seemed to be the pick of the bunch. The avionics were functioning perfectly. Before passing just to the south of Stanley, I checked the navigation system accuracy with my radar and, until commencing descent for Goose Green, used the radar in its air-to-air mode to check the skies to the west for enemy fighters. There were none, nor did I expect any. I was enjoying being alone and thought of my lads back at home—they would have given anything to have been on this flight.
“I chose to run into Goose Green up Choiseul Sound and had an excellent surface radar picture to confirm the accuracy of my desired flare-drop position. Having checked the Lepus selector switches and pylon, I monitored the Navhars readout, which was telling me time-to-go to release, and the HUD, which was guiding me unerringly to the target. Pickling the bomb button, I felt the flare body leave the aircraft, applied power and commenced the second climb of the night to high level.
“After about twenty seconds I rolled the Sea jet inverted in order to see the flare ignite. Goose Green lies on a narrow isthmus of land which separates Choiseul Sound from Grantham Sound. When the flare went off it seemed to be in the right place—right on target. Now for Fox Bay.
“The second target was well-covered in thick cloud, but that made no difference to the attack profile. My radar confirmed what the Navhars and I had no doubt at all when I pickled the bomb-release button that the Lepus was again bang on target. It was as easy as riding a bike. Having seen the glow from the flare through the cloud, I turned to the east in the climb and set off on the long dog-leg home.
“At 140 miles to go to the deck, I was suddenly illuminated with fire-control radar from a ship below. The relative silence of the cockpit was shattered by the radar warning receiver alarm. I had detected a vessel on radar earlier and had presumed it was on detachment from the Task Group.
“Thoughts of the Argentine Navy firing Sea Dart at me flashed through my mind. I broke hard to starboard and descended to the southeast, away from the contact which was only twenty miles to the north. But I was still locked-up by the fire-control radar, and having taken initial avoiding action I started to analyze the threat. It certainly wasn’t Sea Dart—the noise in my earphones didn’t have the right characteristics—and so I was pretty safe now, thirty miles south. I turned port onto east, arresting my descent as I did so, and climbed back up to 30,000 feet. I would circumnavigate the ship that had shown such an unhealthy interest in me. At the same time I would interrogate it on radio.
“I found the culprit on the pre-briefed Task Group surface / air frequency. ‘Warship illuminating lone Sea Harrier, come in.’
“The warship had obviously not been briefed on the SHAR [Sea Harrier] mission and was unwilling to believe I was who I said I was. Being now a little short of fuel after three and a half climbs to high level, I left my personal signature encoded in terms of four-letter words and bid them goodnight. If I had been on a slightly different track and hadn’t had my radar information to tell me where to evade to, I could have been engaged by my own forces. So much for the promise to pass information to all ships.
“By the time I began my final descent towards the Carrier Group I was back amongst the clouds. They were massive and very turbulent. After I had descended to low level and was running in to the expected position of the ship via the safety lane, I callled, ‘004 on the way in. Estimating 280°, twenty-five miles. Over.’ Tony, the Direction Officer of Invincible, was immediately on the air. ‘Roger, 004. Read you loud and clear. I have no contact on you, repeat no contact. Clutter from snow clouds too intense.’ He was concerned. Good old Tony; there’s a man you can really trust. He’d do anything to get his pilots down safely.
“ ‘Roger, I’ll conduct my own approach and call out my ranges to go.’ I was feeling confident thanks to two important facts. Firstly, when Invincible gave a ship’s estimated position for the recovery aircraft, you could bet your pension on her being in that position when you returned from your flight; especially in bad weather. So I was very sure in my mind that I could find the deck using my Navhars information. The second fact was that I had practiced self-homing to the deck on many occasions, and we had also carried out the trials on the software for self-homing when ashore in the Trials Unit. It was no higher work load for the pilot than following instructions from the ship’s precision approach controller.
A Royal Navy Sea Harrier departs from the ski ramp of HMS Illustrious.
Two of the Royal Navy’s Invincible class aircraft carriers at sea with their embarked BAE Sea Harrier jets.
“On my radar screen, the Invincible ‘position destination marker’ that I had selected on my nav computer sat less than two miles from one of the ship contacts in view. I had already programmed the ‘marker’ with the ship’s pre-briefed recovery course and speed and was happy to see it was holding good formation on the contact nearest to it. That had got to be Invincible—I hadn’t enough fuel left to make mistakes. There was enough for one approach only.
“It was a simple matter to update the radar ‘marker’s’ position by fixing the radar onto the contact. The Self-Controlled Approach programme in the Navhars computer software was provided so that pilots could safely carry out their own precision approach to a chosen destination. My chosen destination was the ship, and as I lined up five miles astern of what I thought was Invincible, I selected the precision approach mode on the HUD. I also locked the radar onto the ship to keep the ‘destination’ information as accurate as possible. Now I was all prepared for recovery to the ship.
A Westland Sea King / Sikorsky helicopter operating from HMS Illustrious in 2000;
“ ‘Five miles on the approach,’ I called.
“ ‘Roger, still no contact.’ Tony must be sweating buckets down there.
“I was at 800 feet and the world outside was black. Approaching three miles I prepared to commence descent. The radar was firmly locked on to the contact ahead.
“ ‘Three miles.’
“ ‘Still no contact.’
“Was I on the right ship? I began to wonder as I started down the slope. My jet was being tossed around a bit by turbulence from heavy clouds, which would certainly account for the clutter Tony had mentioned. There was no other course but to wait and see. I cleared the doubts from my mind.
“ ‘Have you now at one and a half miles. On the glide slope.’ Tony sounded relieved. I was relieved. Tony continued with his calls all the way to half a mile. He had passed the wind over the deck as forty knots gusting fifty. It felt like it in the cockpit too. The buffeting increased as I got lower.
“ ‘Half a mile.’ My head-up information said the same. I delayed selecting ‘hover-stop’ for a few seconds because of the strong head-wind, then, nozzles down, power going on. At a quarter of a mile I called ‘Lights,’ and there, behind the radar cross in the HUD, appeared the ship’s island. As usual th
e cross was just about on Flyco. Radar off and concentrate on controlling the jet. As I was moving sideways over the deck from alongside, the wind backed through 30°. I ruddered the nose into it before setting onto the deck with an uncharacteristic thud.
“That’s my excitement over for the night’, I thought. It was 0400 hours, and a long day lay ahead.
Harrier jets during the Falklands War.
“By the time June arrived we had grown well-used to operating in the unpredictable South Atlantic weather, and to our routine air transits from the islands for combat air patrol. Combat opportunities against the Argentine Air Force and Navy pilots were becoming less and less frequent. But there was never a moment to relax vigilance on CAP because the enemy had not given up. On the contrary, they still held all the strategic points on the islands, and although Land Forces Deputy Jeremy Moore’s men had landed, they were not yet in a position to displace the occupation forces.
“Intelligence gleaned from various sources indicated that Port Stanley was still being supplied by air on a nightly basis by AAF Hercules aircraft, and the same aircraft were making regular use of the landing strip at Fox Bay to support their logistic resupply efforts. Without a radar look-down-over-land capability, there was little that we could do to intercept these night resupply flights, especially with the Task Group positioned between 200 and 230 nautical miles to the east of San Carlos Water. The majority of the Sea Harrier effort by day continued to be spent on maintaining CAP stations around the beachhead and, at that range from the carriers, our on-task time had come down to about twenty-five minutes over the Sound, and that was pushing it. It was, nevertheless, effort well spent, and the SHAR’s continuous presence to the west of the amphibious operating area continued to deter and disrupt enemy air attacks.
The Bird Farm Page 20