I watched from the safety of my bridge the preparations for the raid going on, almost in silence, far below. The Harriers were lined up along the starboard side of the Flight Deck, ready to move aft in turn and take off with the good run at the ‘ski jump’ needed for their heavy bomb loads. The Flight Deck parties moved swiftly around in the dark making their last-minute checks, while the white-gloved pilots climbed into their cockpits before they too went through the essential disciplines of their own last-minute checks.
It was still completely dark on the deck when one of the line of Harriers reported it was unserviceable, disrupting the ritual dance which forms the pattern for the full launch as the aircraft move aft and take off along the port side. I remember standing up there, watching the others swerve out to go round the broken-down Harrier as if partaking in some lunatic game of musical chairs.
The Commander of 800 Squadron, Lieutenant-Commander Andy Auld opened his throttle, driving the Sea Harrier forward, up and out into the night. I waited as always for that heart-stopping moment when the Harrier dips down towards the waves before recovering and climbing away ahead of the ship to the west. I counted them out, twelve of them in all, and they headed off to the west-south-west towards the Falkland Islands. Once more we could do little else but wait.
The sun was beginning to climb out of the Atlantic to our east and on East Falkland it was shortly before 0800 (1100Z for us), when the British attack force screamed in low over Macbride Head. They were twenty-one miles north of Port Stanley when they split up, with Lieutenant-Commander Tony Ogilvie leading four toss bombers to the south-west for the defence-suppression run. Andy Auld and his men took one quick orbit to give Tony Ogilvie some room, and then flew south straight for Port Stanley airfield.
Ogilvie’s group struck first, their half-ton toss bombs detonating in mid-air and pouring down millions of hot sharp metal splinters on the Argentinian anti-aircraft gun positions on Mary and Canopus hills, set diagonally to the north and south of the airfield. With the Args’ defence now temporarily preoccupied Andy Auld’s group of five lay-down bombers came in and bombed the airfield, dropping the dreaded six-hundred-pound cluster bombs on parked aircraft and stores, setting fire to buildings and destroying one aircraft. The last of them, Flight-Lieutenant Dave Morgan, flew low into the middle of the general uproar going on below with bombs, shells and missiles exploding everywhere, and was hit by a 20mm shell in his tail fin. It punched a hole the size a tea-cup through the metal and gave him a nasty jolt. As the aircraft began to shudder, Morgan dropped his bombs, ducked and dived out of the way of a radar-lock from a guided-missile system, and headed back to Hermes with his colleagues.
Meanwhile the other three Harriers had raced down Falkland Sound at wave-top height, passing below Fanning Head and Chancho Point which guard San Carlos Water. They then angled inshore, lifting over the Lafonia coastline and, taking a line on the airfield at Goose Green, they came in very low to launch their attack, taking the defences completely by surprise. They blew up an Argentinian Pucara as it was taxiing to take off, killing the pilot and several ground crew.
We saw them coming back in over the horizon in ones and twos, and I did not leave the bridge until I had seen all twelve of them thump down on the deck of Hermes. I well remember Brian Hanrahan, standing beside me, sensibly asking if he might report how many aircraft were used in the raid. I said that I’d prefer he didn’t mention any numbers but that he could say he’d seen as many come back as went out. ‘I counted them all out and I counted them all back’ was the result of that conversation and it showed how easy it could be for press and military management to get it right.
I was thinking, as they rushed Dave Morgan’s aircraft down below into the hangar for repairs, it had been a relatively good day. We had struck at the enemy several times, with some apparent success. And we still had all the Harriers. However, above us there were still six more of them from Invincible on duty, guarding the skies above us while we cleared up the general confusion that breaks out on a carrier deck when twelve aircraft arrive back on board at once. It highlighted for me once more the absolute necessity of a ‘second deck’, because without the combat air patrol which now flew above us we would be very vulnerable to attack. As it was we had a few minutes’ grace to refuel the aircraft, make running repairs and get ourselves into order, because I simply could not see the Argentinians staying passive for much longer.
While all of this was going on we had detached Glamorgan, Arrow and Alacrity to bombard Stanley airfield from the sea. As always, I was terribly aware of the acute danger we faced if the Args ever managed to repair that runway sufficiently to get fighter/attack aircraft off the ground, with the British Task Force patrolling only seventy to a hundred miles to the east. My own opinion was that frequent bombardment of that strip of tarmac from the sea would permanently discourage them from ever using it as a take-off or landing area for fast jets. I fully expected them to bodge it up with cement and rubble and packed earth sufficiently to run in the old Hercules freighters with supplies or even acting as ambulance planes to remove the wounded, but I did not care too much about that. I cared about fast jet fighter-bombers striking at the British carriers and my general policy was to make life a misery for anyone planning to operate them against us from Port Stanley. High-speed combat aircraft need a very smooth and long surface to get off the ground, or even to land, and we intended to make sure that was an impossibility.
Glamorgan’s little group was expected to arrive on station some three miles off the Falklands capital at 1600Z, and they were under instructions to keep up the bombardment long into the evening. This plan of attack did not meet with the approval of Northwood who were greatly exercised about the possible loss of a guided-missile destroyer. They did, however, object too late and with some reluctance accepted that the ships were well on their way and it would be absurd to bring them back.
Bearing in mind that we knew they had laid a minefield in the eastern approaches to Port Stanley, since one of our submarines had watched them do it, my old submariner’s instincts told me the underwater threat from the Args would be found clear to the north and/or south of the minefield. So I also sent Brilliant and Yarmouth to the area off the north-east corner of the islands above Berkeley Head to conduct an anti-submarine offensive, on the off-chance. They too could contribute to the completely false idea that we might be about to land in that vicinity. Brilliant and Yarmouth would be joined by Sea Kings from Hermes in a prolonged hunt intended to exhaust the batteries of the Argentinian submarine. This would force him to come up to recharge them, and in the process offer us a good chance of catching him.
Fifteen minutes after the ships had left, the main Task Force came under attack for the first time, from the air. Two French-built Dassault Mirage IIIs were homing in on us from a hundred and thirty miles out to the west. We had two Harriers at fifteen thousand feet over Port Stanley, but the incoming raiders were higher and they dived towards the two British naval pilots, firing one radar-homing Matra missile from four miles away, and another from two.
The Harrier pilots, at a serious disadvantage, took evasive action and the missiles passed close by. The two pilots were also treated to a first-hand view of just how swiftly the Argentinian Mirage pilots could make their getaway, flying at supersonic speed. This particular fracas had, in addition, a side issue which was somewhat tiresome, in that one of the pilots reported that the second Mirage was an Etendard, and that when it fired off a missile, which was immediately reported to be an Exocet, it caused some amazingly fast action by the British ships, swinging their sterns to the threat and firing off chaff in abundance. A simple enough error, but with expensive consequences.
Nonetheless that had been the very first ‘dog fight’ of the war, and although it had ended indecisively, the incident had apparently shown us the general tactic the Mirage pilots intended to use against the Harriers. It looked as though they planned to patrol at high altitude in order to conserve fuel, using their hei
ght and superior speed to choose their moment to attack and subsequently get away. They continued to fly all afternoon, always retaining their advantage of height, but apparently reluctant actually to attack.
Four hours went by before the air forces of Argentina finally made a move – and it was against Brilliant and Yarmouth as they worked away to the north-east on their anti-submarine sweep. Irritatingly, after all of our efforts, four propeller-driven Turbo-Mentor attack aircraft laden with bombs somehow got off the ground from Port Stanley and headed out towards the two frigates. Two Harrier pilots, Lieutenant-Commander Nigel Ward and Lieutenant Mike Watson, hurried over to drive them off and the sudden appearance of the Harriers caused the Args to jettison their bombs and scuttle back to Port Stanley. The afternoon was, however, not over for these two particular Harriers and they had to survive a high-speed pass from two further Mirages both of which fired their missiles, happily inaccurately.
Meanwhile Captain Mike Barrow in the destroyer Glamorgan, in company with Alacrity and Arrow, was now bombarding the Argentinian positions around Stanley from his three-ship gun-line some four thousand yards off-shore.
At around 1830Z, I was to learn much later, with the sun still fairly high over the horizon (1530 local time), the High Command of the Argentinian Air Force elected to launch a full-blooded attack on the British Battle Group, much as we had originally hoped they would. That, after all, was what the deception plan had been all about. They launched a fleet of some forty aircraft against us – a flight of Canberra bombers, with Daggers, Skyhawk fighter-bombers and Mirages in support. But very few of these aircraft were ever detected by the Battle Group: Hermes and Invincible were able to provide the combat air patrols to cover the inshore groups on a busy rotating basis all day from well offshore to the east of Port Stanley.
Two Harriers from 801 Squadron, piloted by Flight-Lieutenant Paul Barton and Lieutenant Steve Thomas under the control of Glamorgan, were directed on to two Mirages at around twelve thousand feet over the north coast of the islands. The first dual-missile dog fight of the war thus took place high above the clouds and, thankfully, the Argentinians missed again. Paul Barton’s American-built Sidewinder, however, blew one of the Mirages in half and he watched the two sections burst into flames. The pilot ejected to safety, but it represented our first air success. Lieutenant Thomas just missed with his Sidewinder, but it detonated so close to the other Mirage as to cause severe damage. Captain Garcia Cuerva nursed his aircraft back towards Port Stanley, only to be mistakenly shot down and killed by his own possibly over-excited troops. So the first ‘Blue on Blue’ went to the Argentinians; bad luck, really, but one less for us to deal with.
A few minutes later the main Argentinian assault from the air was upon us. Two, possibly three formations of the Israeli-built Daggers (a straight copy of the Mirage) were sighted and one of them, a tight group of three, swept round the headland at more than four hundred mph, right above the waves, and made straight for Glamorgan, Alacrity and Arrow. Mike Barrow’s Ops Room was swiftly into action and, in the precious few seconds they had, Glamorgan fired a Seacat missile, which missed its target only narrowly.
Arrow, in desperation, opened fire with its only 20mm gun off the port beam, and Alacrity had time to loose off a few rounds from a machine gun up on the Bridge. But the Daggers were in and ready first. One of them opened fire on Arrow where Able Seaman Ian Britnell was hit and wounded by splinters, thus becoming our first casualty. One of the Daggers also raked Glamorgan’s decks with 30mm cannon fire. And before streaking away over the horizon, at a speed of seven miles per minute, they had time to release two one-thousand-pound parachute-retarded bombs which exploded on either side of Glamorgan; and two more astern of Alacrity. But no significant damage was done.
Right behind them, at a far higher altitude, two further Daggers providing cover turned to face the Sea Harriers of Lieutenant Martin Hale and Flight-Lieutenant Tony Penfold, closing some fifteen thousand feet below them. The Argentinians committed themselves first, once more falling into their standard high-speed high-pass formation. Five miles out they fired their missiles. Martin Hale jinked away heading down for the clouds until the missile ran out of fuel. The Args, however, had not seen Penfold who suddenly pitched up two miles astern of the Daggers and fired his Sidewinder straight at the exhaust of one of them. Martin Hale, turning back to join the fight, saw the Dagger explode out over Pebble Island. The pilot never had a chance. He was Primer Teniente Jose Ardiles, a first cousin of the Tottenham Hotspur midfielder, who I trust was enjoying a somewhat less hazardous Saturday afternoon in London.
Some of the Harriers now began to return to base for refuelling, and the deck crews on both Hermes and Invincible were working at full stretch, the hours of drilling and training finally paying off. The pilots, some of them quite shaken by the ferocity of the combat, turned their aircraft over to the maintenance crews and hurried below for urgent debriefing, so that their newly learned lessons could be passed on to the pilots on the next combat air patrol.
Shortly after 2000 the Harriers were busy yet again. A close-knit formation of six Canberra bombers was heading east over the islands on a course which suggested they were looking for the British carriers. Invincible locked on to them some one hundred and ten miles out, flying at a low level, and Lieutenant-Commander Mike Broadwater, in company with Lieutenant Al Curtis, was guided in towards their target. Al Curtis fired his Sidewinder straight at the Canberra of the left-hand wingman, watching it explode in a fireball. He thought that a second Canberra might have been slightly damaged, and the third one turned away. The other three vanished from our screens.
So far, slightly to our surprise, everyone was still alive, and the Harriers were more or less intact. Even Dave Morgan’s tail fin was patched up and the aircraft was fully operational again. I hate counting my chickens, but at this moment I would have to say the war is unarguably under way, and we are clearly winning it. I was grateful for whatever bits of luck had gone our way, and hoped that we could continue to perform to the maximum of our ability. We had removed from the Args’ air inventory one Pucara (at Goose Green), one Mirage, one Dagger, and one Canberra, with another damaged Mirage shot down by the Args themselves.
The action in the late part of that afternoon had lasted for just a little over half an hour, and there is clearly a very long way to go before we can make a serious dent in their overpowering numerical superiority in the air. But I am not here to gripe and moan about the odds. I am here to ensure that we keep battering away at them until they give up. Battles of attrition are usually slow and painstaking, and this one was going to be no different.
Up on the north-east side of the island there had also been an action-packed day when the Brilliant group detected what they believed to be a submarine. The helicopters and the frigates blasted the local waters with depth-charges, and they did in fact sight what may have been an oil slick, ‘half a mile long’, though nothing was ever confirmed. In time, however, there would be a report that San Luis announced she had attacked a British ship with a torpedo on that day. Even now, I remain fairly sceptical about the ability of the Argentine submariners, and I would be mildly surprised to this day if it ever came to light that either of their submarines had ever been very close to a British warship above or below the surface. I am still surprised that they seem never to have made a positive sighting, or a definite classification, of any of our ships despite the many occasions that we passed along the coast. Perhaps my submariner’s instincts were completely wrong and San Luis was neither where I thought they should have placed her, nor where she said she was later. Certainly, if the San Luis’s account is true, then her commanding officer would not have passed a British Perisher.
Taking stock of the first day of the war, we had to draw the conclusion that it had been a busy and useful start to hostilities. The Sea Harriers seemed to be working well. We had shot down several aircraft, Argentinian pilots had been killed, we had damaged two airfields and killed ground crew
s. In turn they had fired upon two British warships, dropped bombs very close to a big destroyer and a frigate, launched several fighter sweeps towards us, fired missiles, and attempted a strike at our anti-submarine ships and indeed at the carriers, both of which we had forced away. And now, late in the evening, as I attempted to write my diary, the ships of the Royal Navy were still bombarding Argentinian positions off the dark coast of East Falkland.
I do not believe that, back home in the UK, people had any idea how viciously this war had begun. Nor indeed that there were major consequences, several of which were yet to be fully understood, from the day’s actions on both sides. Unknown to us at this stage, of course, the Argentinian fighter aircraft would never again, throughout the conflict, attempt to engage us in dog fights, or indeed any air-to-air combat. We had forced their air force to show its hand, as we had planned to do, and they had not much liked what they had seen, mainly that the British pilots were superior and that the American AIM-9L Sidewinder was a better air-to-air missile than anything they had.
It had been a day in which we had been feeling our way forward, not knowing how our enemy was going to behave, and basically starting off with no real concept of their attack plan. That was now largely changed. Their Fleet was deploying, though we were not yet entirely sure just how far or where they had gone. Their air force had tried its best – though we didn’t know it – and failed. I could not have asked for a better response to the deception plan. The trick was to make the most of it.
Plainly we still had a great deal to learn about Argentinian intentions, but in turn they were suffering from one serious piece of ignorance: they were not at all sure where we were. The pattern and looseness of their raids, especially as we pushed to the north-west during the late afternoon, revealed this lack of hard information on their part.
One Hundred Days Page 21