Most of the ship’s senior command was either killed or wounded, and the evacuation was being handled by young sailors. ‘I sat and watched them in complete amazement,’ said the captain. ‘They just went about their tasks sensibly and steadily. Some of them must have been scared out of their wits. And until the day I die those young men will always be my heroes.’
Finally with everyone taken off, Captain Hart-Dyke walked down the side of the ship and jumped into the sea swimming with his terribly burnt hands through the icy salt water. As he reached the life raft he felt big hands reach down and, mercifully, grab his wrists. And he found himself looking into the eyes of the keeper of St Joseph’s prayer. ‘There you are, sir,’ said Petty Officer Burke with an Irish smile. ‘It worked. I told you we’d be all right.’
On board Broadsword Captain Hart-Dyke reported to Captain Canning. Neither of them had had much luck in this engagement and the frigate captain spoke first. ‘I’m sorry, David,’ he said. ‘I really am most terribly sorry.’
Neither of them had any wish to apportion blame. Coventry’s swing to her right had not, in hindsight, been very clever, but equally Broadsword was supposed to have been in charge. However, she had just been bombed, which ranks as a pretty serious distraction, and we have to put the loss of Coventry down to ‘the fortunes of war’. She went down in three hundred feet of water within twenty minutes of the first hit, having capsized. Among many treasured possessions she took with her was Captain Eric Hart-Dyke’s telescope which had survived Hitler’s U-Boats. But over two hundred and sixty men were taken off and they left for England that night in Fort Austin. Twenty wounded men were treated in the hospital ship Uganda and in the field hospital at Ajax Bay.
I re-considered my earlier opinion that the 22/42 combination actually worked and decided that, upon reflection, it probably didn’t. Not close to the shore anyway, and the tactic had now cost us both Glasgow and Coventry. And possibly Broadsword. But again, I could not allow myself to be affected by this dreadful loss of the last of the three Type 42s that had originally come south with me in April. After all, I thought, the Args just might decide that this was a pretty good time to have another shot at us and it was just as well that I reached this executive decision. Because they were not yet finished for the day, not by a long way. Even as I sat alone, reflecting upon the loss of Coventry, they were well on the way to hitting us again with the weapon which had destroyed Sheffield – Exocet.
16
The Marines Will Have To Walk
The loss of HMS Coventry, the last of my original picket ships, weighed heavily upon me. I had lost an old and familiar friend. I stood once more alone in the glass-fronted Admiral’s Bridge on that desolate afternoon staring out over the cold Atlantic, watching the always-busy deck of Hermes and cursing the world in general. Cursing specifically Argentina and her bloody National Day. It was still 25 May, as it had been, it seemed to me, for about the last thousand hours. I glanced at my watch. It was a little after 1900Z, still another couple of hours of daylight left, and then several hours of uncertain darkness before it became, with any luck, 26 May.
I gazed at the sea, and pondered the many times I had stood here before; times when I had searched my own soul, wondering whether I should send the quietly spoken David Hart-Dyke into the most lethal spot on this most lethal southern ocean. Well, I suppose I had done it once too often and now the gallant Coventry was gone – small comfort for her captain to know that she had gone down fighting, in a manner which had conferred the greatest credit upon his crew and indeed had done his illustrious family proud. Doubtless as I stood there, he was resting in Broadsword, alone as he will always be, with the terrible visions of the last moments of his ship, of the fires, of the screams of the burning men, of lost friends, of the darkness and the helplessness. I doubt if it will ever be entirely erased from his sub-conscious, though in moments of sadness, he may perhaps find solace in the heroism and the selflessness demonstrated by the young men who fought with him, to the end. There is an aura of lasting, private glory about such disasters, understood, inevitably, only by those who were actually there.
In the last chapter I tried to concentrate the events of the day from the point of view of the ships which fought the action. But there is no doubt that from first light I had had a very distinct premonition that this was going to be an especially depressing few hours. I began my diary right after breakfast with an irritable diatribe about the weather, bemoaning our luck that since the landings, four days previously, we had been sitting out here under almost clear skies. Today we were in a slowly clearing fog, but it was bright over the mainland – the worst possible combination for us.
The bad visibility around us should clear at about midday. The Args seldom arrive before 1300, so all may yet be well. Again though, the question arises of whether to take the carriers west into non-AAR range [Navy shorthand for an area where the Args fighter-bombers can reach us without having to refuel in the air]. My answer, reinforced by our lack of escorts, is [again] no.
I have with us only two Type 21s, one Type 42, and one DLG [Glamorgan] (useless really), and Brilliant (not very fit). Coventry is up front in the missile trap with Broadsword. Glasgow is de-storing to the rear. Bristol won’t be here till midnight and Cardiff is even further behind. COMAW is still unprepared to rely on Rapier and I can’t say I blame him. Missile trap needed for better CAP direction meanwhile.
1200. This has all the signs of a disastrous day. COMAW has packed the stage with ships he can’t possibly unload today, the ‘missile trap’ is in clear sky, and the carriers are in thick fog. Combat air patrol cannot be provided. The only thing to be thankful for is that this did not happen on Day One. And the only hope is that the Args have had enough for the moment, and perhaps their minds are on other things.
1300. It cleared and the CAP is up. Thank Heavens.
1600. The reports from the Amphibious Operating Area and the missile trap are various, but it sounds as though the Args have been into Carlos Water with A4s [Skyhawks] and Pucaras and lost several.
At about 1900 yet another bloody disaster. Three A4s apparently trundled in towards AOA over Pebble Island swerved north and bombed Coventry and Broadsword. Coventry badly hit and sinking. Broadsword probably not too badly, picking up survivors. No missiles fired – which is quite extraordinary and saps any faith we may have had in our modern systems, even against these previous-generation [Arg] aircraft.
Looking back all of these years later I realize that it was a terrible moment for me. One of those times when a commander has no one to whom he can turn, for fear of betraying uncertainty or wavering will-power. But I remember thinking to myself, ‘Christ! Where are we? Are we actually losing this?’ It was, without any question, thus far my lowest ebb of the whole operation. I walked back into my cabin and sat for a while alone. I opened my notebook and jotted down a few notes in the following coldly pessimistic mood:
The 42/22 combination does not work.
Sea Dart virtually useless against low fliers.
Sea Wolf unreliable.
Surface ships have to have Airborne Early Warning and Combat Air Patrol up-threat for survival in open water.
We must do much more rigorous multi-target trials of Anti-Air War systems.
Stick to night operations and/or bad weather.
They really must try to come for the carriers now!
That did not take me long and I went once more back out to the bridge, hoping that the view of the sea and sky would somehow clear my mind and allow my perspective and sense of clarity to return. I stood there for several minutes pondering our formation, pondering the likelihood of another Arg strike before dark.
At this moment Hermes was about four miles north of Invincible. John Coward in the improving Brilliant was keeping ‘goal’ for us and, ranged in a north-south line facing west, the fleet auxiliaries formed what I hoped was some kind of a ‘chaff’ wall in case of incoming threat. In the most brutal terms, I could afford to lose a bi
g merchant ship, or even a tanker, a whole lot more than I could afford to lose a carrier – not that I thought very highly of either option. It was simply a matter of the lesser of two evils. Anyway, out in front I did have the newly arrived Exeter with her sharp Captain Hugh Balfour and her Sea Dart system with all the latest improvements.
The only area which I did find rather worrying was the position of the Atlantic Conveyor, stationed by me at the far north end of the line of the auxiliaries, on the ‘disengaged’ side from Rio Grande, home of the Etendards. This 18,000-ton Cunard roll-on-roll-off freighter was of incalculable value to us, for she still carried three of the big troop transport helicopters, the Chinooks (these priceless monsters can lift twelve tons) and five Wessex. She already had one Chinook and one Wessex in the air and had brought down the Atlantic from England fourteen Harriers wrapped in plastic bags and lashed down to her upper deck. They had been unwrapped, serviced and flown off as soon as Conveyor reached the Battle Group of course and were a critically important reinforcement for our dwindling Harrier force.
Atlantic Conveyor had two landing spots on her long ‘flight deck’. Since her arrival several days ago she had been used virtually as a third aircraft carrier by the chopper pilots. She was still loaded to the gunwales with stores and ammunition including six hundred cluster bombs for the Harriers and all of the equipment we needed to construct an airstrip for Harriers in the beach-head area in Carlos Water. Her refitting, loading and preparation in Devonport had been a masterpiece of organization and in her cargo holds were most of the spares and support equipment for the land force helicopters. Her captain was a real old sea dog named Ian North, a Yorkshireman who had been twice sunk during the Second World War. All the way south from Liverpool he had made himself increasingly popular with the young seamen in his ship from both branches of the Navy, regaling them with stories of the sea and occasionally, late at night, to the delight of everyone, playing his trombone. When they ‘crossed the line’, the short, chunky Ian North, with his snowy beard, played the part, inevitably, of King Neptune.
The senior Royal Naval officer on board, Captain Mike Layard adored the old boy, for his humour, his complete professionalism and for his wisdom. He also admired him for his philosophical outlook, remembering that Captain North was probably the only senior officer who actually knew what it was like to be hit, possibly the only man in the entire operation who had no illusions about what to expect in the event of a bomb, missile or torpedo strike. Between them Captain Layard and Captain North made a just-about-perfect team. Indeed on a quick visit to Hermes a few days previously Captain Layard could not resist telling me of an incident which took place as they flew the tenth Harrier off the deck, vertically, for the short flight over to the carriers.
The pilot mistakenly had the jet nozzles facing slightly aft as well as down and when he opened up the throttle to lift off, the aircraft charged across the deck straight towards the guard rails. The pilot, with well-honed instinct for survival, slammed the nozzles to the vertical and the Harrier leaped into the air, clearing the guard rails with inches to spare. Men were already rushing for cover, but Captain North turned to Captain Layard and said, deadpan, ‘Hmmmm. That’s rather a novel way of doing it.’
We had deliberately retained the Conveyor back in the holding area until the very last moment, until the timing was exactly right for them to make a fast run into Carlos Water, unload as much as possible overnight with all speed, then get the hell out of there and back to the relative safety of the Battle Group. Well, tonight was the night and it had seemed reasonable to me to bring them forward into the Battle Group two hours early, exposing them to some small risk of air attack for a few daylight hours, but granting them more hours to unload in the dark. My alternative was to leave them in complete safety until dark, east of the Battle Group, and then let them run late into the AOA with the prospect of either a dangerous return trip in broad daylight or of spending the whole of the next day inshore in ‘Bomb Alley’. Bearing in mind the fact that the Args had not launched a successful raid on the deepwater Battle Group out here since Sheffield was hit three weeks ago today, it seemed to me that the dark hours in Carlos Water were worth playing for…especially as the Conveyor would be in ten times more danger parked in the Sound tomorrow morning possibly in bright sunlight – the quintessential sitting duck.
And so, earlier that morning I had ordered Atlantic Conveyor into the Battle Group, taking the precaution of stationing her at the likely ‘safe’ end of the line of auxiliaries while she waited for the light to fade before beginning her dark journey inshore. Captain North and Captain Layard had already ordered their white superstructure to be painted a dark matt grey for the hundred-mile voyage. Understandably, tension in the big container ship was extremely high; everyone preparing to make the last lap of the highly dangerous task with which they had been charged.
However, unknown to any of us, as I had pondered the world and made my notes, two Argentinian Etendards were making a long sweep north up from Rio Grande before heading slightly south of east for their final approach towards the Battle Group. They had gone a very long way out of their direct route in order to surprise us by coming in from the north-west. They had been refuelled and now, just as I returned to my cabin for the second time, shortly after 1830, they ‘popped up’ to look for us. They were about forty miles out. Exeter promply detected their radars on her UAAI ESM, and issued a formal warning to the rest of the Battle Group. Within the minute, Ambuscade, the northern-most of our outer ring of escorts and pickets, picked them up on her own radar at twenty-four miles and Brilliant, further back, ‘saw’ them at twenty-eight miles. Roars of ‘CHAFF!’ echoed through the Ops Rooms. At 1838 the two Argentinians released their Exocets, both at the same ‘blip’, the first they came across – probably Commander Peter Mosse’s Type 21 frigate Ambuscade, from which the chaff rockets had already been launched. The two French-built missiles appeared to swerve past her, through the chaff cloud, still looking ahead for a target.
Which they immediately found. They each adjusted course automatically to skim the water for another four miles straight towards Atlantic Conveyor. On board the freighter they had no chaff. Mike Layard, upon receipt of the ‘Air Raid Warning Red’ signal, had given the order to broadcast instantly ‘Emergency stations! Emergency stations!’ The ship’s siren was blasting out its deafening ‘BAAHA…BAAHA…BAAHA’ and everyone with a gun was heading for the upper deck. Machinegun crews were at action stations on each wing of the bridge, complete with aimers, loaders and lookouts. All damage-control and first-aid parties took up their posts. Anyone without a specific task headed for the two dining rooms to act as man-power pools in case of serious damage. Everyone was pulling on life-jackets and anti-flash gear as they ran to their places of duty. Captain Layard took the steps to the bridge three at a time. Captain North had ordered a hard turn to port in an attempt to present Conveyor’s very strong stern to the incoming missiles. At 1841 Captain Layard demanded the threat direction, but even as he did so both Exocets crashed through Atlantic Conveyor’s port quarter – nine feet above the waterline – with an enormous explosion.
Sir Percivale and Christopher Craig’s Alacrity were quickly on their way to help, and Captain North’s fire-fighting crews were struggling with a rare desperation to contain the blaze. They activated the water sprinkler systems, tried to blanket the fires with carbon dioxide gas, shut down all the ventilation fans and pumped sea water through all the fire hoses they could find down into the cargo decks. But it was all hopeless. The ship rapidly filled with acrid black smoke, just as Sheffield had. The whole of the upper deck was becoming too hot to stand on and the fire was creeping forward towards thousands of gallons of kerosene and the huge consignment of cluster bombs. The Atlantic Conveyor was one massive explosion waiting to happen. Eleven men were already dead.
Captain Layard conferred with the Master of the merchant ship at 1920 and in Captain North’s opinion there was no alternative but to abandon h
er. Atlantic Conveyor was doomed and so was her precious cargo of helicopters, as were the proposed landing strip at the beach-head and all the spares. The land forces were going to have to walk across East Falkland.
Meanwhile Invincible picked up yet another pair of solid contacts only twenty miles out, heading for Hermes. She launched six Sea Dart missiles in short order, adding to the confusion on the radar screens of the entire force, before it all turned out to be spurious. The consensus in Hermes was that Invincible had been shooting at chaff blooms – certainly the sky had filled with ordnance of one kind or another, little of it being of Arg origin.
Back in Atlantic Conveyor there was no good news whatsoever. One team of thirteen fire-fighters were cut off and trapped, but we got them off with a Sea King from Hermes. The remainder of the one hundred and thirty-four men would have to climb down the ladders and ropes into the life rafts, a task which would become nightmarish because of the explosions inside the ship. Parts of the hull were now glowing red hot in the gathering dark. But somehow they managed, and finally Captain Layard set off, the second last man to leave. Behind him, close to exhaustion, climbed Captain Ian North, who, at sixty-ish, was perhaps least able to cope with this awful physical test.
Mike dropped the last ten feet into the icy water. Ian North splashed in beside him. But something was wrong. He was floating too low in the water. The Royal Navy officer grabbed him by the life jacket, holding him up, but the Conveyor, with her rounded stern, was riding up and down in the long swell. As she rose, she sucked the men in, under the overhang, before falling down on top of them, forcing them beneath the surface. ‘My God!’ muttered Captain Layard. ‘She’s going to take us to the bottom with her.’
One Hundred Days Page 41