‘How long will that take and will you need any more?’
‘We’ll need a similar tanker seven days after the first, and then another in seven more days, and so on.’
‘You can’t use that much fuel!’ the Admiral said, finally questioning the Briton’s requests.
‘I can assure you we’re going to try.’
Gerald Cheek had already been back to Stanley airfield once. Soon after the invasion he’d travelled back up there with the Argentine air traffic controllers. He’d half-heartedly resisted their invitation. ‘You’re in charge now,’ he told them, but secretly he was itching to get up there and curiosity got the better of him. As they drove past soldiers lining the roads, Cheek turned to the Argentinian.
‘Enrique, you want to get these troops home as that’ll be the next target for Britain – Buenos Aires!’
The sign for Stanley airport had already been smashed and changed to ‘Malvinas’.
For the time being, it seemed that the hopes of the architect of the invasion plan, Admiral Lombardo, that the impact of the military could be kept to a minimum, lived on in spirit. It wouldn’t last long. Troop numbers in the Falklands were now growing. In response to UN Security Council Resolution 502, Galtieri had said Argentina would fight for the islands. Rather than withdrawing its forces, the junta was reinforcing the garrison. On 6 April, the Army’s 8th Regiment was airlifted the 500 miles from its barracks at Comodoro Rivadavia to the islands. The seas around the Falklands were no longer believed to be safe for Argentina’s transport ships. In Buenos Aires, newspapers had reported that a British nuclear submarine had been detected off the Argentine coast.
In New York, the British Air Attaché knew that neither Spartan nor Splendid was yet on station. As he talked to the French representative after a long and very boring meeting of the United Nations Staff Committee, a Soviet Admiral brushed past him.
‘Are our submarines being of any help?’ the old sailor asked, not stopping for an answer.
Two days after the Argentine 8th Regiment arrived, a detachment of the Marines with field and anti-aircraft artillery was flown in. Armed with 30mm Hispano-Suiza cannons and Tiger Cat optically guided surface-to-air missiles, the unit marked the beginning of the building up of Stanley’s defences against air attack.
Chapter 9
9 April 1982
Spartan reached her destination first. A day and a half later, on 9 April, Good Friday, she was joined by her sister-ship, Splendid. As the two attack boats had raced south, their captains, communicating directly via satellite, had agreed how to divide the water between them. Spartan would patrol to the east of the islands, Splendid to the west. Less than a week after the invasion, on the other side of the world nearly 7,000 miles from home, the British had their first forces in theatre.
On the same day that Splendid arrived to enforce the soon to be declared Maritime Exclusion Zone, or MEZ, around the Falklands, John Laycock received a signal from HQ 1 Group at Bawtry. Waddington, it read, was to generate ten Vulcans for a conventional bombing role and reactivate the air-to-air refuelling system. The order wasn’t unexpected but its effect was dramatic. Laycock had already warned his engineers about the formidable challenge that might lie ahead. Now it was a reality.
The first task was to select the ten bombers. Each of the four squadrons at Waddington had eight Vulcans on its strength. Although built in the 1960s using what was then cutting-edge technology, they were, in many respects, hand-built. There was little of the precision and uniformity that robots and computer-aided design would later bring to aircraft manufacture. Every aircraft displayed its own unique, individual set of characteristics. Some were happy flying slowly. Others became difficult below 155 knots. One turned well to the right, but needed full outboard aileron to control the bank in a left turn. Another had stiff throttles, but handled well. XM594 was reckoned, simply, to be ‘’orrible’.
It wasn’t just the airframes that needed to be considered either. The Navigation and Bombing System was also temperamental. Linked to the radar set, the analogue bombing computer had been a leap forward when it had been introduced. But then, it could hardly fail to have been, given the woeful inaccuracy of much of the Second World War technology it replaced. In the earliest days of that long war only three bombs in every hundred were believed to land within five miles of their target. The NBS, fed with figures for height, speed of the aircraft, wind and the ballistic properties of the bomb itself, would calculate the forward throw of the bomb and, consequently, the point of release needed for the bombs to hit the target. It had always been good enough. For despite the pride men like Mick Cooper and Bob Wright took in trying to achieve pinpoint accuracy, it didn’t actually matter if a nuclear bomb was a couple of hundred yards off the bull’s-eye. Even so, by 1982, the collection of gears, bicycle chains, valves, 35mm film and lights that whirred out of sight behind the navigator’s dials really was every bit as antiquated as it seemed. There was a rumour that it had been designed during the Second World War by the astronomer Patrick Moore.
Over the years, this gash old kit had been tweaked and honed on the ranges and in inter-squadron competitions and the results recorded. The engineering team tried to put it all together and choose the best of them: the good bombers – the ones that flew well and dropped bombs where they were supposed to.
Then their carefully considered plans unravelled. Because one thing was certain: the bombers would be hauling a full load of over ten tons of high-explosive iron bombs. With a full fuel load, they’d be operating close to, even above, their maximum take-off weight. To take off they’d need every pound of thrust that could possibly be coaxed out of their Rolls-Royce Olympus engines. And that meant choosing the jets with the 301 series engines.
Britain had planned to maintain its nuclear deterrent throughout the late 1960s and 1970s with the American Douglas Skybolt missile. This huge ballistic nuclear missile with its 1,000-mile range would have been launched from beneath the wings of American B-52s and British Vulcans. In the expectation that Vulcans would be carrying Skybolts, more powerful Olympus 301s replaced the 201s halfway through the B2 production run. Then Skybolt was cancelled by John F. Kennedy. Instead, Britain bought the submarine-launched Polaris missile but forty Vulcan B2s still entered RAF service, each fitted with four 20,000lb Olympus 301 turbojets. Then they didn’t use them. In order to keep the handling characteristics consistent throughout the whole Vulcan fleet, the more powerful engines were de-rated to just 97.5 per cent of their maximum rpm. And it was in those last few per cent of revs that you found the real power.
As the Waddington engineers went through the Vulcan fleet, trying to marry the two requirements, they soon realized that only two or three of the accurate bombers had the 301s. It was frustrating, but that extra thrust was vital. When it came to the quality of the NBS, the aircrews would have to make do with whatever could be found within the small pool of 301-engined jets. The best of the rest had their engines unharnessed. This had the unlikely effect of increasing the available power to 103% of their stated maximum.
It was another two weeks before the decision to select the 301 series jets proved to have useful unintended consequences. For the time being, the biggest headache was reactivating the air-to-air refuelling system. The plumbing, Laycock was told by his engineers, had been inhibited.
‘What do you mean, “inhibited”?’ Laycock queried.
‘Well, basically, sir, we filled the refuelling valves,’ they told him.
The fix was a permanent one. Fuel from the tanker was supposed to flow into the refuelling probe above the Vulcan’s nose through 4-inch non-return valves into the jet’s fuel tanks. The material used to block the valves was resistant to the corrosive effects of aviation fuel and had been set like concrete for twenty years. The Vulcan’s refuelling system had effectively endured a vasectomy and now there was an order from Group to reverse it.
‘What do we do about it?’ Laycock asked.
‘We’ve got to hav
e replacement valves, sir.’
‘Do any exist?’
‘Don’t know, sir.’
They were fortunate. Waddington had just been wired into a new computerized supply system that quickly discovered that twenty 4-inch non-return valves were sitting on a shelf at RAF Stafford, a vast RAF maintenance unit near Utoxeter. They arrived at Waddington the next morning. Extraordinary, thought Laycock, thrilled that a potentially show-stopping problem appeared to have been solved so easily. The engineers, meanwhile, got on with chipping the hard-set old filler away from the pipework surrounding the valves. Easter wasn’t going to get much of a look-in this year, but at least something was being resurrected.
With the effort to prepare the aircraft up and running, Laycock turned his attention to the people who were going to fly them. He decided to talk to the charismatic Officer Commanding 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron.
There was something bohemian about Wing Commander Simon Baldwin, a pipe-smoking Navigator with a rich, baritone drawl that sounded like burnt caramel. Since assuming command in 1980, Baldwin had fostered a loose, confident and exuberant atmosphere in 44 Squadron. They were big on sport and big on drinking. But if they played hard, they also worked hard. Baldwin’s laid-back style couldn’t mask his competence.
After success in the 1973 Strike Command bombing competition, Baldwin was given responsibility for navigation in 1974’s GIANT VOICE bombing competition in America. Under Baldwin, the British Nav teams played to their strengths, devising techniques that might counter the great technical advantages of the USAF’s F-111s and B-52s. The RAF won the navigation trophy for the first time ever that year. He returned to the States in 1975 and in 1976 commanded the entire RAF detachment. In 1981, as OC 44 Squadron, he’d beaten the Americans again. Just as the AOC at 1 Group had asked him to.
John Laycock quickly saw that the bombing competitions pointed the way forward. He realized that the best way to prepare the crews for any mission south was to pull a small, dedicated cell of aircrew and engineers out of the squadrons and have them train intensively. There was never a moment’s doubt in his mind that the only man to run the training was Simon Baldwin.
Turning left into Waddington, you passed rows and rows of two-storey redbrick terraces laid out in squares with names culled from the RAF’s past. Laycock and Baldwin were next-door neighbours on Trenchard Square – or ‘Power Drive’ as the cul-de-sac that housed the base’s senior officers was known. Baldwin was at home enjoying a day’s leave when Laycock knocked on the door. As he was shown in, Laycock saw again the evidence of Baldwin and his wife Sheila’s enthusiasm for their squadron in every corner. The ‘Rhodesia’ epithet had been bestowed on 44 Squadron by George VI to reflect the large numbers of aircrew it attracted from the southern African colony. The elephant on the squadron’s crest acknowledged the connection, and images of the big beast on everything from tea-towels and mugs to pictures and ornaments around the Baldwins’ house celebrated it.
‘We’ve had a signal,’ Laycock told the squadron boss.
Baldwin hadn’t even thought the Vulcans would be involved. The Task Force seemed to be an exclusively naval effort, but Laycock explained the order from Group.
‘In-flight refuelling hadn’t crossed my mind, we’ve never done it,’ Baldwin responded equivocally, as he considered what was being planned, ‘but, yeah, perhaps it’ll work.’
The two men talked more. Laycock explained that he wanted to set up what amounted to a bombing competition training cell to train for CORPORATE. And that he wanted Baldwin to head it up. It was no time for false modesty. The CO of 44 knew he had the experience to do it and he knew he could work with Laycock. The big man had once been a flight commander on 44 himself and he knew how to delegate. They talked easily and had confidence in each other. Most importantly, Baldwin knew that Laycock could provide him with the top cover he’d need to get the job done. This was going to be something that everyone would want to be part of.
Even at that stage, Baldwin, the decorated Navigator, realized he was as shaky as anyone about the whereabouts of the Falklands, their location dimly recalled as the setting for First World War naval battles. And while he’d heard of Ascension, he couldn’t place it. Once Laycock had left, he pulled out an atlas to get a sense of what needed to be done. The navigational challenges that lay ahead became immediately apparent. Even assuming they could crack the air-to-air refuelling, the crews would have difficulty just knowing where they were. The Vulcans would have to fly south over 4,000 miles of open ocean. Between Ascension and any potential target, there wasn’t a single surface feature that the Nav Radars could use to fix a position with their H2S scanners.
Baldwin sucked on his pipe and mulled over how they were going to pull it off.
* * *
On Easter Sunday, Rear-Admiral Sandy Woodward arrived off Ascension Island on board the 6,000 ton ‘County’ Class guided-missile destroyer HMS Glamorgan. Flag Officer of the Royal Navy’s 1st Flotilla, Woodward had been diverted from fleet exercises off North Africa and ordered to sail south in the early hours of 2 April. Fed up with a job that seemed to be turning into an endless round of cocktail parties and small talk, he considered it his good fortune to have been the closest Flag Officer to the Falkland Islands when the Argentinians invaded. In a week’s time he would be steaming south aboard a new flagship, the 28,000-ton aircraft-carrier HMS Hermes, in command of the battle group tasked with retaking the Falklands.
Transferred to the island from Glamorgan by helicopter, Woodward was impressed at the extent to which this sleepy American communications and tracking station had already been transformed, in just a few days, into a forward fleet- and airbase. So too, it seemed, were the Soviets. Flying from bases in the Angolan capital Luanda and Konakry in Guinea, their giant long-range Tupolev Tu-95 Bear spy planes had kept a close eye on the British fleet’s progress.
Once ashore, Woodward was quickly introduced to Lieutenant Colonel Bill Bryden. The USAF base commander confided in Woodward that he’d been told to give the Brits every possible assistance. ‘But not’, he added, ‘under any circumstances to get caught doing so!’ Clearly the Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger, was making sure that his message was getting through loud and clear, whatever fence-sitting there might have been for diplomatic consumption from the rest of the Reagan administration.
Invited by Woodward aboard Glamorgan for dinner as she took on stores for the journey south, Bryden smiled as he walked through the destroyer’s narrow corridors and companionways past cases of Argentine corned beef stacked from floor to ceiling for the long deployment. Can’t give it away back home, he thought wryly.
Food was just one element in a vast logistical exercise that was being staged through Ascension. Unconfirmed reports that materiel had been flown in to Ascension had appeared in British newspapers a few days earlier, but they gave no hint of the scale of the operation. When the British Task Force had cast off from the docks at Portsmouth to cheers and waving flags, its departure had been driven by the imperative to set sail immediately. It had been an astonishing achievement, but the fleet was in no sense ready for war. Weapons, consumables, ammunition and equipment all had to be flown ahead to Ascension by the RAF’s round-the-clock transport operation out of bases at Brize Norton and Lyneham.
Ready or not, that the Navy was coming at all was what mattered to those living under the Argentine occupation in Stanley. Some felt instinctively that the Argentine presence was temporary – that the British were always going to ride to the rescue. Having felt for years that they’d been an unwanted burden to successive British governments, they knew now that Britain cared. As well as being a source of pride and comfort, this knowledge also fuelled small acts of defiance. In the telephone exchange, Hilda Perry had been persuaded to come back to work by the Argentinians, who were struggling to operate the old switchboard. On the same day as she was ordered out, she was asked to return.
‘No,’ she told them, ‘you told me to go.’
�
�You must go back and then you’ll be working for the Argentine government.’
‘No, I won’t. I’m not coming back to work for the Argentine government.’
The occupiers tried a different tack. ‘For the sake of your own people, will you go back and ask the other girls to go back?’
‘I’ll ask them.’
Perry talked to her colleagues and the four operators decided to return to the harbour-front exchange. Surrounded by armed soldiers, the women went back to work wearing demure smiles while handing out wrong numbers, misrouting calls and cutting off Argentine conversations mid-flow. Pictures of innocence.
Gerald Cheek, meanwhile, was playing chicken with Argentine armoured cars. The new administration had ordered that, from now on, all cars would drive on the right. While they believed that this might protect islanders from careless soldiers driving on the right through habit, Cheek didn’t see it quite like that. He simply refused to drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. If he met an Argentinian coming the other way he’d pull up and wait, staring out to the narrows on the other side of the harbour. And that was how he stayed, bumper to bumper, until the enemy got fed up, reversed and went round him. On one occasion, driving up to the airport he met a string of the heavy, rumbling APCs that had first brought the troops into Stanley. He saw an opportunity to drive them into the peat bog beside the road.
‘You’re mad!’ his two passengers told him nervously as the big troop carriers bore down on him.
‘Hell, I’m not getting out of the way of these idiots,’ said Cheek through gritted teeth, pissed off that while all three were forced to drive around him, none got stuck in the soft ground.
Peter Biggs’s defiance was tempered by concern. He still doubted the British would actually fight to liberate the islands. He’d followed similar incidents around the world and watched them descend into stalemate. Sabre-rattling, UN farce, peacekeepers, a line of control, the invading power keeping what it had seized. He was acutely aware of how the Argentine regime dealt with political dissidents. And on the Falkland Islands there were a couple of thousand of them. Two weeks earlier he’d had a new job to throw himself into and looked forward to the birth of his first child. Now he just felt helpless.
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