‘Three weeks,’ he replied.
‘No good.’
‘I’m sorry?’ he said with a slightly worried frown.
‘What about five days?’ I cheerfully asked.
He gave me a look of total incredulity, followed by a mumbled phrase which I took to mean ‘Jesus Christ!’ or ‘Doesn’t this – ****ing idiot know anything about Special Force ops?’ or something like that. The thing about the SAS is that they have an image which has nothing whatsoever to do with their reality. To the public they are perceived as a team of daredevils made up entirely of chaps who look and behave like a magnificent mixture of Errol Flynn, 007 and Batman. Everything about them contains a substantial amount of rumour and hidden threat, coupled with sudden, fast, decisive action – their attack on the Iranian embassy in London, their reputation as the scourge of the IRA in Belfast, their apparently simple removal of terrorists in Gibraltar. And it is true that they are Britain’s deadliest and most effective armed force. They do not, however, achieve anything by taking lunatic risks and acting in a way which might ever be described as swashbuckling. Their every success has been the result of the most meticulous planning, an almost fanatical attention to detail and the near-total elimination of surprises. When the SAS go in, they know the problems, every aspect of every problem. And, in the normal way, for them to destroy a squadron of aircraft on Pebble Island they would want to know the contours of the ground down to the last puddle; they would want to know every blade of grass, every cow pat – stopping short only at the Christian name of the cow that dropped it; they would want to know the position of each sentry, exactly how many men were on the base, the position of the moon, the anticipated brightness of the Big Dipper, the wind-strength, which gate might squeak, and much else. To achieve this preferred level of intelligence they like to insert perhaps four men in there for a week, and then another four for another week, and finally to make their move when the reports have been studied to the last detail, and conditions are perfect sometime in the following week after several days rehearsals. It is a method which has brought them almost superhuman success. No surprises.
Naturally, therefore, a look of utter incredulity flickered briefly across the face of my SAS adviser when I informed him that we would have to cut his recce time down from three weeks to three days, with two more for rehearsals and the actual operation.
‘I’m sorry, Admiral,’ he said. ‘That may not be possible. We shall need three weeks to get it right.’
‘I am afraid it’s got to be five days,’ I replied bluntly. ‘It’s the 15 May or never.’
What followed was another little ‘family discussion’. Both I and my staff had to agree we did not even know where the damned Argentinian airstrip was, far less how to get on to it quickly and wipe out this little section of the Arg air force without everyone getting killed. ‘Hey, Gringo! What you do here?’ was a demand none of us particularly wanted to imagine in the dead of night. Especially if it involved looking down the barrel of a machine gun. My job was to get rid of those aircraft, but it was also to convince the SAS commander that it was his as well. In five days.
By the end of our meeting he had agreed to give it his best shot. The first SAS recce party would go in tomorrow night, landing on the northernmost coast of West Falkland and making their way across the pitch-dark, usually rough stretch of water to Pebble Island by inflatable dinghy. The distance was about one and a half miles, but if they misjudged the current I had no doubt it would seem like five.
Looking back on the staff meeting I am forced to admit that I behaved in a very stony manner. I realized of course that the SAS officer was trying to do his best for his very expensively trained men, making sure they were not wasted. My problems were different. I knew that those aircraft were capable of wreaking terrible damage on the British landing force, perhaps killing hundreds of men, caught at their most vulnerable moment, during the actual landing. If I had been told in advance, ‘You can wipe out the Arg Air Force on Pebble Island, but it will cost the lives of ten SAS men’, I am afraid I would have said, without hesitation, ‘So be it.’ I am not proud of it, but that is how I have been trained to think. Presumably that was why I was there. And the SAS would understand it too, as they did then, really.
My second major task of the day – on top of the three problems plaguing me from last night – was no less worrisome. It concerned yet another unpleasant possibility. Mines. One of our submarines had already watched the Args laying mines to the east of Port Stanley harbour entrance (called Port William, incidentally), which was after all the most obvious place for us to land. So we knew well enough that they were perfectly capable of laying mines across the northern end of Falkland Sound as well. For that matter they might even go for the southern end too, depending on how many they had, how much time they had and whether they thought it necessary. And since it now seemed fairly certain that our General Directive would change in a way which would render Carlos Water our automatic choice for the landings, I wanted to do my best to ensure that we did not lose half a dozen ships and a couple of thousand men four miles short of the landing area. I don’t like mines any more than anything else that can sink a ship, but what was making me dislike them very much more than usual was that we had no mine-sweepers down here. Nor would any arrive in time. This left me with a considerable problem: how to find out if there were any mines laid in the Falkland Sound.
Perhaps I should just outline how simple moored mines and mine-sweepers work. For a start, a moored mine is a sizeable floating iron shell containing as much as one thousand pounds of TNT. That, by the way, is just short of a half-ton of high explosive, sufficient to break the back of most ships. If you hit such a mine, even with a glancing bump, it will certainly blast an enormous hole in the ship, killing anyone nearby. By and large, big mines, professionally laid, sink ships quickly and noisily. They float below the surface of the water, perhaps ten to fifteen feet down, just enough to make sure they can never be seen, but close enough that even shallow-draft ships will hit them. They are anchored by a mooring wire to a heavy weight (called the ‘sinker’) on the sea floor and are usually laid in ‘fields’ over a carefully selected area of water. In its simplest form, the highly specialized vessel the mine-sweeper trails a cable which is pulled out to one side by an underwater kite. The cable has wire cutters along its length and when it snags a mooring wire, it scrapes down the cable until it stops at a cutter, which then chops it. The mine, no longer moored to the bottom, floats up to the surface, where hopefully it can be seen and dealt with before anyone’s ship hits it. There are various methods of getting rid of a free-floating mine – the traditional and most spectacular of which is to detonate it with rifle fire.
If I had been an Argentinian and had suspected even for one moment that the British were coming in to land in Carlos Bay, I would have laid as many mines in the north and south entrances to Falkland Sound as I could. That would have eliminated all worry about the Brits landing anywhere along either side of the Sound. It would have been a considerable weight off my mind. We did not, of course, know whether they had done just that…or something very like it.
For my part, however, mine-sweepers and their special equipment I did not have, which meant that I would have to use something else – and the hull of a ship was the only suitable hardware available. The only steel which would go deep enough. Now, plainly I could not use the two indispensable Type 22 frigates Broadsword or Brilliant with their close-range Sea Wolf systems. I also clearly could not send in my remaining Type 42s Coventry and Glasgow with their invaluable long-range Sea Dart systems. And equally surely, it really wasn’t on to send a merchant ship or RFA. It had to be a ship though – and it would have to be a Royal Navy warship. But it would also have to be something cheap and cheerful which I could replace, like a 3000-ton Type 21 frigate. Like Alacrity. Like expendable Alacrity.
Now, I did not particularly relish the prospect of ringing up Commander Christopher Craig and saying, ‘Tonight I woul
d like you to go and see if you can get yourself sunk by a mine in the Falkland Sound. By the way, I will put Arrow up at the northern end to observe events and in case she’s needed to pick up survivors.’ Nor, when it came to sending the amphibians in, could I possibly follow the instincts of the fabled American Civil War admiral, David Farragut, who roared at the entrance to Mobile Bay in 1869, ‘Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!’
I did neither. Instead I phoned Commander Craig on the voice-encrypted network and said, ‘Er…Christopher, I would like you to do a circumnavigation of East Falkland tonight. All the way around to the south, then north up Falkland Sound and out past Fanning Head to rendezvous with Arrow.’ I also told him to come up the Sound very noisily, exploding a few star-shells and generally frightening the life out of the Args. I added, ‘If you see anything move, sink it, but be out of there and home by dawn, so you’re clear of the land before they can fly.’
He was silent for a few moments and then he said, ‘Umm, I expect you would like me to go in and out of the north entrance a few times, Admiral. Do a bit of zig-zagging.’
‘Oh,’ I said, feigning surprise and feeling about two inches high. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘I expect you would like me to find out whether there are any mines there,’ he said quietly.
I cannot remember what I said. But I remember how I felt. I think I just mentioned that I thought that would be quite useful.
He replied, with immense dignity, ‘Very well, sir.’ Then he went off to prepare for the possible loss of his ship and people the best way he could. I shall remember him as one of the bravest men I ever met. This was Victoria Cross material but, strangely, only if it went wrong.
I personally felt awful not to have had the guts to be honest with him and wondered what the devil he was going to tell his ship’s company about their task tonight and about my pitiful performance, which, for a sea-going admiral to one of his commanders, beggared description.
11
Glasgow’s Bomb
You will have little trouble believing that I was unable to sleep that night, my thoughts far away from my little cabin in Hermes…somewhere on the bridge of Alacrity, as she turned north into the mist shortly after midnight to begin her dark, dangerous journey up the Sound. And that I kept trying not to think of the people I knew in Alacrity’s company, trying not to imagine the ship-killing explosion of a mine against the frail hull and the awful consequences for those on board, and all the while knowing that whatever befell the gallant Commander Craig and his ship, and all those who sailed in her, would be, inevitably, my fault. And that I tried, unsuccessfully, to console myself with the thought that the job did have to be done, since to wait for the arrival of the entire British amphibious force in order to find out if they were sailing through a mine-field, would have been less than clever.
How easy it is to picture myself that night, trying to cast the worry from my mind, lying there unable to sleep, pondering Commander Craig on his sinister journey – essentially, as we all are at times like this, on his own. Did I, at least in my heart, go with him?
I’m afraid not. In fact none of the above is true. I know that it ought to be, that those would have been the reasonable human thoughts of anyone who found themselves in my position. Indeed, in the ensuing years, I have probably described it in precisely this way to others. But when I am coldly honest with myself and relive such moments in the small hours of nights as dark as 11 May 1982, I know it was not so. It could not have been so. Yes, all these thoughts would have occurred to me, but only prior to the decision itself. I took the journey in my own mind before I spoke to him – not after. The decision taken and Alacrity committed, I crossed them off my list of problems and settled down to await results, good or bad. Such apparent callousness is not fashionable but that was my job, management of the mind, a fundamental element of military training, to be rested and ready to cope with whatever else may befall this night.
I certainly did not know, as the clock crept around past one in the morning, that life for Commander Craig had already ceased to be furtive. In fact the situation in Alacrity’s section of the Falkland Sound more resembled Guy Fawkes Night. Following our policy of trying to keep the dreary opposition awake at all hours, Alacrity had fired star-shell over Fox Bay settlement, illuminating the Argentinian positions in an unearthly, soul-chilling light. Beneath the hanging yellow moon of a star-shell burst I’m sure they must have wondered if this was a prelude to the end of the world – or at least to the arrival of the nearest SAS patrol, which often amounts to the same thing. A few miles further on, Alacrity got a radar contact which turned out to be the Argentinian naval transport Isla de los Estados. The British frigate’s star-shell over her would also have had the effect of putting dread in the hearts of the wretched crew, but for them the end of the world would more likely arrive in the form of high explosive. Which is precisely what happened.
Alacrity hit Estados with three 4.5-inch shells, starting a fire which only ended when the 325,000 litres of aviation fuel in the hold of the Isla de los Estados exploded in a fireball which should have been seen for miles, but which was actually little more than a dull glow in the thick mist from the bridge of Alacrity. Thus occurred the only surface action between British and Argentinian ships of the entire 1982 War.
That formality dispensed with, Alacrity continued north into the doubtful waters of the entrance off Fanning Head. Darkly now, she made her way forward, checking for mines the hard way. When they finally could see the great jutting promontory of Fanning Head off their starboard quarter, Commander Craig reversed course, heading back to widen the ‘cleared channel’. With a last pass to the north again, they finally rendezvoused with Arrow just to the east of Cape Dolphin. Thus ended quietly, and no doubt gratefully so, an extraordinary story of courage, which will go, I’m afraid, largely unnoticed in the annals of maritime history. COMAW certainly was completely unimpressed by Alacrity’s efforts. But had it ended in tragedy it would have joined the sagas of Jervis Bay or Glowworm being presented to young naval officers of the future as a supreme example of selflessness and devotion to duty. If they had hit a mine, Commander Craig would have been most strongly recommended for the award of a vc – but, thank goodness, he didn’t.
So much for Alacrity. The news from our other front, the gun line off Port Stanley, was mixed. Paul Hoddinott’s Glasgow, with John Coward’s Brilliant in company, had been bombarding Moody Brook where we believed there might be a sizeable Argentinian position. However, in the process of setting up that bombardment, we found ourselves in a bit of a muddle on this typically busy night. Coventry and Broadsword had been ordered to head west from the Battle Group to relieve Glasgow and Brilliant. This seemed simple enough, but we had changed our minds, once, about the task of Broadsword, at first considering she should go in and meet Alacrity. Somehow or other she had received the signals in the wrong order and when they first set off it seemed that Coventry and Broadsword had all too good a chance of meeting Arrow and Alacrity unexpectedly, in fog, at three o’clock in the morning, bang in the middle of the likely Argentinian submarine patrol area. As mix-ups go, that one could have been special. Anyway we sorted it out, and had everyone back on bearing before any harm was done.
The intermittent fog and mist had kept the Argentinian Air Forces out of the sky for the last few days, which was just as well because, even without being attacked, we were absorbing a lot of punishment to the ships and aircraft. Sheer wear and tear was the problem: defects and difficulties came and went in endless succession as time and weather took their toll. Glasgow was having trouble with her generators, with one running on a drive shaft they had actually made on board, while another was under repair. As the morning wore on, all of the Harriers on board Hermes were grounded for maintenance and by lunchtime we were getting reports that Coventry’s 4.5 Mark 8 gun was defective and that Broadsword’s precious forward Sea Wolf system was down for a while. My general relief at the safe return of Alacrity was such th
at I remained optimistic that we could cope with all of this, and the only aspect of the day now proving to be a real bore was the weather forecast which had a serious low-pressure area heading right for us, with gale-force westerly winds, rough seas, broken cloud and improving visibility. All of which was bad news, together with the fact that tonight’s insertion of the advance party of SAS going into Pebble Island was probably going to prove something of a trial for everyone.
In the middle of everything Invincible complained (my diary used the word ‘bleated’) that they had been put on the up-threat side of the force without a Type 22 frigate (Broadsword) as a ‘goalkeeper’. Unfortunately, it was on a circuit that the Captains of all the other warships in the Group could read. I was obliged to remind him that Hermes had been in this position on and off for about three days now; that, unlike them, we did not possess the advantage of a Sea Dart system of our own; and that perhaps it was his turn now. He took the point perfectly well.
They may have been unnecessarily harsh words, but I could only do my best during this waiting period and try to cope with the stresses upon ships and aircraft and people – the last category becoming rather more vulnerable as the tense, indecisive days wore on. We were all nervous, some more, some less than others.
Quite a few individuals had by now cracked up. I am sorry to say we lost an aviator for whom the trauma of high-risk flying proved to be the last straw. This was a very telling case because it was clear the poor guy was under stress of an entirely different nature before he even arrived here. Perhaps we should have noticed, but I am afraid no one was looking. We also had a doctor fall apart, and an engineering officer, and there was possibly another on the brink. Symptoms vary greatly, and I made a mental note to examine my own – particularly the one which I had been warned about by the PMO in April when the first stress cases had appeared, the tendency of such cases to want to nod off the whole time. As a matter of fact I had found myself spending more time lying on my back than usual, but I was not cracking up, just finding it a bit more difficult to sleep when I was supposed to and a little easier to sleep when I was not supposed to.
One Hundred Days Page 29