The rest of the day is rather a blur really. I had not had a day off since early March, I had been at a full level of concentration day after day for all of those months, and I just found it extremely difficult to deal with all of this. I had hardly met anyone outside my immediate tight working circle for such a long time – I had not even seen a proper television programme since February. Now I was faced with this seemingly hostile group in the full glare of publicity. I did not like it one bit.
But I got through it, took a week’s leave and shuffled off in my little yacht with Char for a few days, pottering around the Solent. Then I returned to the office at Portsmouth trying to think of various ways to avoid all forms of public appearance, particularly when Hermes arrived home.
This took place on 20 July when she anchored at Spithead, outside Portsmouth harbour, for the night. The following morning, before they came in for their tumultuous welcome in that great naval dockyard, I went out privately to meet them, making the fifteen-minute journey in the barge of the Queen’s Harbourmaster. I climbed up the starboard after gangway, pipes and bugles going as naval ceremonial and age-old tradition required. But so familiar were these sounds to me that I hardly heard them as they echoed out over those historic waters upon which so many greater commanders than I had sailed. The Quarterdeck was quiet and secluded under the flight deck above, and there the entire team of ship’s officers I had known and worked with were fallen in, from captain to midshipman.
In that moment I felt pleased to my very heart to see every one of them. These were my companions in adversity – there was so much between us that could not be said, so much that would never be said. Yet we were bound to each other in mutual trust as only men who have faced danger together can ever be. I suppose it is always so after a battle has been fought, whether you win it or not – and quite often, I suspect, in this very place, in sight of England yet not quite home.
I believe that, somehow, I managed to say something intelligible to most of them, but even as I wrote this, eight years later, my throat tightened and the words got difficult. My original plans to deliver a few stirring words to them all as a group fell apart and I left with tears in my eyes, to hurry back to Portsmouth, leaving them to their triumphal, tearful return.
As my ‘barge’ took me away back to my offices in the dockyard, I could not help looking up at that great, grey, sea-stained warship, my home for the most comfortless three months of my life. And as I looked I could not help wondering whether it had all been worth while.
That is not a question to be answered by a simple ‘Yes’ or ’No’ and left at that, although the underlying need to show that we, as a nation, very strongly disapprove of military takeover bids is clear enough.
So much for the need to do something concrete. What about the cost? What are we prepared to pay? My cold-hearted assessments of relative attrition should not have blinded you to the human price of standing up for a principle. The death rate among British forces in the Falklands War was roughly the same as it was on the roads in Britain over the same period. Which is the more wasteful, the less worthwhile? On a slightly larger canvas, the official figures tell us that the casualties, on both sides together, exceeded the number of residents in the islands. How much sense does this make? For there can be no real comfort for those whose close relations never came home or, at least if there is, I certainly seem unable to give it, however much I may wish to. And the mentally and physically injured are most unlikely to feel any better for their experience, even those who have not suffered permanent disablement.
As to the cost in cash – we lost two destroyers, two frigates, a large container ship, an LSL, twenty-four assorted helicopters and ten Harriers. We expended considerable quantities of ammunition, missiles, torpedoes, depth charges, spares, fuel…the list is almost endless and all of it was required to be replaced afterwards. There is also an hard-cash cost, year by year, for the continued defence of the Falklands. Thus, while I may have my own personal views, the question of whether it is worth while spending X millions on the Falklands as opposed to Y millions on Gibraltar, or Z millions on the National Health Service, can only be for the Government on behalf of the electorate.
But anyway, the real question is, was it right? Not, was it was worth while? We must ask ourselves, was it right that we should have gone to the South Atlantic and fought for the Falklands almost as if we were defending the coast of Hampshire? It will always come down to a point of principle. Our response was a fundamental part of the British character. Those who die in battle always pay too high a price, but in the South Atlantic, as in so many other wars, they died for the ideas we stand for.
Expressed more formally, they died because we believe in the rule of law for the guidance of human behaviour. But they also died because we, as a nation, wherever we may be, take a perverse pride in that dogged streak of British truculence. And so, in a sense, they died for the very Britishness of us all.
Thus, for the final time, was it right to fight that grim battle down in the South Atlantic? I expect, before I am finished, I will be asked that question many times more. And each time the memories of lost friends stand before me. But the answer will always be, yes.
EPILOGUE
In the years since the cessation of hostilities in the South Atlantic I have often been offered the phrase, ‘Nasty little war, wasn’t it?’ How often one heard about how much worse it was in Ulster, Malaya, Korea, Kenya and so on, where casualty figures reached the eight hundred level rather than the two hundred and fifty British men who died in and around the Falkland Islands in 1982. The difference was that we lost those two hundred and fifty men in six weeks flat, not over a period of years. During that time I lost nearly half of the destroyers and frigates I started with. The killing was at a particularly high rate, more than ten times worse than anything our Services had had to take since the Second World War.
Comparisons with other British conflicts of the previous forty years rarely do justice to the bravery of the people who served in what was one of the bloodiest fights in a long while, with the Navy taking much the worst of it. More than half of all the dead were from either the Royal Navy (eighty-seven), the Royal Marines (twenty-six), the Merchant Navy (nine) or the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (seven). Nasty it most certainly was. Little? It did not seem so to those who faced the waves of Argentine bombers streaking in over Falkland Sound. Nor indeed to those who fought the fires, patched up the ships, rescued the wounded, buried the dead, and later waited in tense, silent acceptance of the next incoming attack. The only thing ‘little’ about our war was the total number of British servicemen directly involved, some twenty-five thousand, and of course, the time span of the fighting, only six weeks. But those weeks had days, and occasionally hours, which seemed like eternity itself to those who fought there.
I suppose it will always carry the inference of being a ‘push-over war’ – the mighty Brits crushing the ridiculous Args. But even those wars usually bear a close comparison to a heavily backed odds-on favourite running in a classic horse race: about half the time the favourite wins and everyone says, afterwards, ‘no trouble’, ignoring the ever-present spectre of defeat which will become reality should the four-legged hero produce anything less than his absolute best on the day. Politicians similarly are too much inclined to take it for granted that Her Majesty’s armed forces will do what they almost always have done in time of war, whether or not they are given the necessary equipment. The cuts in our surface fleet proposed in the Defence Review of 1981 would have rendered us impotent by late 1982. It was only the timely occurrence of the Falklands War that saved the Royal Navy from them and I have a strong suspicion the British public is grateful for that. When the battles around the waters of the Falklands were at their height, we kept receiving sackloads of mail from ordinary people wishing the Navy well, and when the ships returned to Portsmouth the welcomes were overwhelming.
There were other worthwhile aspects to emerge from the war, not least that it demonstrated
to the Eastern Bloc that the West, if seriously challenged, was not in any way as decadent as they thought. The South Atlantic showed that we would fight fiercely under bloody conditions, take losses of men and equipment, and come back fighting. The Americans were also full of admiration and proud of their critical ‘special relationship’ assistance to us. Caspar Weinberger, the former US Defence Secretary, winds up the chapter on the Falklands in his farseeing book Fighting For Peace with these observations: ‘Our allies, who were also Britain’s allies, were uniformly admiring and re-assured that America was a far more reliable and helpful friend than they had thought…Most important of all, the British success in the Falkland Islands told the world that aggression would not be allowed to succeed; that freedom and the rule of law had strong and effective defenders.’ Remember this all took place when President Reagan and Mr Weinberger were in the process of a massive military build-up which saw them increase spending after the Carter years by 13.3, 11.5 and 7.9 per cent between 1981 and 1983. One year later President Reagan was re-elected by one of the biggest political landslides in American history – which I believe is a pretty sharp lesson to any government trying to find large savings by cutting defence.
There were of course other, less obvious advantages for both the Navy and the Army. The experience naturally toughened and battle-hardened men who had essentially been at peace for all of their careers. It sharpened all Service attitudes to education and preparation. Indeed Commander Craig of the Alacrity emerged as a Commodore, the front-line commander of the British Naval Task Group in the Gulf War. Perhaps also it ought to be remembered that when the Iraqis finally tried to launch a couple of Exocets at the allied Fleet it was the traditionally ultra-sharp Ops Room of a British warship which spotted the incoming aircraft and arranged their destruction. An Iraqi Silkworm missile, aimed at a big US warship, was also taken out with a British Sea Dart.
I will not attempt to go through the subsequent careers of my captains, save to mention a few, whom, like Chris Craig, you came slightly to ‘know’ through the pages of this book. At the time of writing in 1990, Paul Hoddinott, Sam Salt, John Coward, Mike Harris, Kit Layman, Hugh Balfour, Jeremy Black, Lin Middleton, Jeremy Larken, Peter Dingemans, Hugo White and Mike Layard had all become admirals. There were more to come as the years went by. To my regret, Mike Clapp, Bill Canning and David Hart-Dyke left the Navy virtually unrewarded. This was no doubt as a result of the edict from the MOD which stated – after it was all over – that promotion boards should take no account of reports of officers’ service in the Falklands. The belief at headquarters was that it would otherwise be unfair on those who had been unable to attend the action for whatever reason and had therefore missed their opportunity to shine. My personal thought on learning about this was that it was a complete disgrace and as well they hadn’t told us on the way south or the outcome could well have been different. But this was not before Navy divers searching for highly-classified documents in the wreck of Coventry, recovered David’s father’s telescope from the captain’s cabin. They also found the historic Cross of Nails which David and former colleagues formally presented to Coventry Cathedral. Others too were promoted and rewarded, but I shall not pursue the careers of those you hardly met. Neither will I open the Pandora’s Box of honours and awards. This is a subject which invariably causes dissension, often acrimonious. I’ve had enough of that!
However, I would like to tell you about one of the first official letters I received on arriving back at my office. It was from the Director of Naval Pay and Pensions and had been mailed to me five days before my return from the south. It pointed out that the department had been conducting its quarterly review of my expenditure on entertainment and noted that in the last quarter – during which time I had been a bit busy – I had spent a total of £5.85. In the light of this,
…we have accordingly revised your entertainment allowance down by £1.78 per day. Furthermore we have backdated this revision to that of your promotion in July of 1981 last year. As a consequence you have been overpaid £649.70.
We should be glad to receive payment of this, in full, at your earliest convenience.
For a brief second, I actually thought it was a joke. But I quickly realized that it was no such thing and, being a bit pressed for cash, I wrote back and asked if I could have time to pay. I suggested £100 a month and, considerately, they agreed. I suppose I should have thrown a lavish Victory Party in Hermes, then it would not have happened. Serves me right for not entering into the spirit of things.
But at least that letter brought me down to earth with a considerable thump. This country really does have its own wonderful way of ensuring that no one gets too big for his boots. Perhaps that has preserved us from a home-grown Hitler, or a Mussolini, or a Stalin, or even a Galtieri or a Saddam Hussein.
But, anyway, who am I go on about such philosophical matters? As the Director of Naval Pay and Pensions was so swift to remind me, I was just another naval officer, the prisoner of my own experiences after a working life-time in dark blue…a mere product of what the Navy blandly refers to as the System.
The Romans always employed a half-naked slave to stand behind conquering generals upon their triumphant return. At the ‘Grand March Past’ he would quietly remind the Caesar of the moment: ‘Hominem te memento’ – remember you are only a man. We, of course, do not require a half-naked slave for the job. We have civil servants instead, better dressed but just as necessary. Even for my small part, two thousand years later, the message was unchanged. Hominem te memento.
A DIARY OF THE FALKLANDS CAMPAIGN
By Admiral Sandy Woodward
FOREWORD
My personal diary was not properly started until 8th April 1982, after which date it was kept until 2nd July, albeit spasmodically, particularly towards the end. It is unexpurgated, except where national security or the laws of libel or slander require deletions to be made. It therefore contains all the many faults and dangers of diaries written under the stress of major events and, in this case, from a position of local knowledge but more general ignorance. The reader must remember also that diaries of this kind, whatever they may set out to be, are much more an essential opportunity to relieve tensions, air worries privately, ameliorate frustrations, allay fears and the like, than objective attempts to record contemporary history.
Accordingly, the many opinions expressed, particularly on personalities, are indications of the diarist’s state of mind at the time of writing, not valid comment on the persons or events concerned. Almost without exception, the views were honestly held at the time of writing, but altered back to normality and balance as time elapsed and reason returned. Thus apologies have to be taken as read while the statements are still put forward as originally written.
Italics have been used throughout to record the words of the diary and relevant parts of my letters as written at the time. All other lettering has been added at some later date, mostly by about 1985.
To make reading easier, the professional shorthand of the diary has largely been edited out, but with care to retain the original thoughts and opinions intact, whether convenient in hindsight or not. However some abbreviations and jargon have still had to be amplified for clarity in the text – a glossary of terms is given at the end, and each is introduced in the text itself in brackets.
COMMENTARY ON THE ORIGINAL DIARY
While the main diary was started on the 2nd April, much went on unremarked until the 20th April. The official ‘narrative’, as it bore on Falklands affairs, stretched back to the 26th March when the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) FORT AUSTIN was ordered to prepare for deployment to the South Atlantic. I was not privy to her detailed orders at this stage, if indeed there were any beyond a general directive to head south pending further instructions. Certainly no thoughts or suggestions of a major deployment southwards had reached my level of command; indeed, I was more concerned with the departure of the nuclear submarine SPARTAN northwards than of FORT AUSTIN southwards. SPARTAN was
the more significant deletion from my allocated forces in the Gibraltar area for Exercise Springtrain (the Fleet’s Spring Training Exercise). SPARTAN sailed on the 28th, FORT AUSTIN (who had a major defect to repair) with the rest of the Springtrain forces on the morning of the 29th. Until sailing, easily the most memorable occasions had been the traditional running race to the top of the Rock and the equally traditional sights, sounds and ceremonies of the Royal Marines band concert in the Upper Caves the night before sailing – a heart-stirring event at any time and the more so in retrospect. Those few days in Gibraltar seemed to stand for all the good things of naval life in peacetime. They were in particularly poignant contrast (as recorded by one of my frigate Commanding Officers) to the ceremony at Goose Green memorial with its chill winds and mourning pipes in the slanting rain of uncomfortable reality some months later.
As it was, the Springtrain force sailed on the morning of 29th March, in a wet and windy ‘Levanter’ (strong easterly wind), to their various pursuits in the many nearby exercise areas, east and west of the Rock. I still remember receiving a sharp signal from my CinC (Commander-in-Chief: Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse) for permitting dangerous manoeuvres in the Straits – it seemed to matter at the time. By that evening, the picture was changing, and I flew by helicopter over to my CinC’s flagship GLAMORGAN from my own, ANTRIM. This was to discuss the many and as yet vague southern options, how to cover any immediate actions in preparation and even the possibility of my being relieved by a Vice Admiral. I remember saying that he would have my loyal support – I still wonder! In a letter to my wife in mid-April, by which time the subject had been reviewed at home, I recorded: ‘John Fieldhouse says he was greatly pressed by various people to relieve me. Derek Reffell was an obvious choice because he knew the flagship HERMES (she was ‘his’, as Flag Officer, Third Flotilla, anyway), he had previously served as COMAW (Commodore Amphibious Warfare), he was a Vice Admiral, hence senior, better and all round more suitable. I agreed with all of that. Mr Nott wanted someone other than me because, as John inimitably put it: ‘When, not if, it all goes sour, he wants somebody important enough to sack.’ Not the most comforting words to hear from your immediate superior at any time.
One Hundred Days Page 48