a. Flying singleton.
b. Straight and level albeit 10,000 feet.
c. Over Arg SAM!
Sadly we detect that BAHIA PARAISO is cheating after all. COMAW let him go east-about to Port Stanley via Red Cross Box area as ordered by me. And BP has been landing stuff since arriving there. This sort of thing really makes me angry, people not doing as told, opposition cheating – I just hope I misjudge them. Meanwhile all the intelligence people are in a decline and forecasting last desperate efforts by Argentinians. Has to be a good bet I suppose but I’m hoping to have the naval scene a nose in front and generally further away by then. Am very impatient for the FOB to come on to service for two GR3s and two SHARs, then I should be able to unhook myself from this too well trodden patch of water.
And, as the day wears on, the visibility drops off, flying fixed wing reverts to deck alert, and the people ashore have to be left to their own devices, which isn’t very pleasant for them. At least the Argentinians are unlikely to fly either in these conditions.
For myself, these days are not so easy. Some of the pressure – in terms of innovation and involvement board – is off. We are faced with the need to act in an almost entirely defensive/supportive role with little control of events. It is becoming more difficult to hold the act together as a result. While in no way wishing for a major upsurge in activity particularly, we are not well adjusted to this phoney phase and probably need to be replaced soon by a new team who can start afresh with new ideas. Negotiations with Fleet and FOF3 are under way and roulement is getting thought about, though we have still to release a single undamaged ship.
3 June
We understand that there is a land Exocet battery set up in the Stanley area now and I am reluctant to find out the hard way. So NGS ships were pulled off early last night/this morning. No doubt CLFFI [Commander Land Forces Falkland Islands] will be unhappy but so would I at the loss of another FF/DD. Emphasis now comes on PR and the weather is unhelpful with thick fog again!
We get the odd ‘clippings’ file albeit a fortnight late, so the latest (18/5) is from just before the landing. It shows or seems to – a terrific breadth of support for military action which is resisted only by the left wing leaders. Even the Unions seem fairly solid behind action which tells us quite a lot about our people and Mrs Thatcher’s perception of them. A few victories or a few failures would make little difference except possibly that if it is made to look too easy, the ‘audience’ will start to see us out here as ‘bullies’. It’s an extraordinary world. I am left more than ever convinced that this has been nip and tuck all the way, mostly on account of the Exocet threat and the poor showing of our missile systems and the extremely determined attacks of the Arg Air Force.
By 1600 the weather is too bad for flying – low cloud and/or fog. Not a whisper from the Argentinians, which is very odd indeed. I would have expected some activity even between their airfields but nothing AT ALL. It turned out that there was a lot inshore, going from airfield to airfield but no real trend emerges though the ‘system’ might not reveal a trend anyway. This will give the Jeremiahs a field day, and I must say I’m tempted to join them.
At 1800 I hear the ONYX [SSK] is not to do the operation which I had always been against anyway! Meanwhile another week and twenty SBS have been wasted.
4 June
‘Lessons Learnt’:
While you must provide counters to the threat as you know it, you must not let yourself forget the threat as it was before, particularly in the far flung corners of the world.
We had provided ourselves with weapons for the next World War (and they wouldn’t be adequate for that), and found ourselves fighting World War II (XMT Exocet).
Equally, however, we must beware of culling lessons from the Falklands War which apply solely to the peculiar conditions pertaining there board – in just the same way as (barring the Exocet problem) we had to regear our thinking on arrival from North to South Atlantic.
With this as background we have lessons in the following areas:
a. NBCD [damage control] measures vs missile propellant damage.
b. More realistic and rigorous trials of equipment, particularly weapon systems.
c. Comparative studies as between hard and soft kill anti-missile systems and, in the hard kill area alone, comparisons between barrage and single shot effectiveness. Soft kill effectiveness should examine the use of the environment (since, of course, soft kill is all about making the target indiscernible from its environment).
d. On strategy, escalation etc. It seems that the effects of modern media are to politicise what used to be much more a purely military process. Strangely perhaps it is therefore much more difficult to start. But once having done so, it is also much more difficult to stop since whole nations, rather than individual military commanders. are committed and ‘national honour’ is more immediately engaged/opinion mobilised. This must serve to reinforce the credibility of nuclear deterrence.
e. Soft kill again board – beware the cannon-off-cush effect.
And CLFFI is proposing a mini D-Day all over again at Bluff Cove on the 6th. Perhaps they still do not understand how fortunate we were on D-Day when the Args went for the wrong target. And perhaps they have forgotten that when the Args finally corrected their mistake on D+3 and 4, the Rapier batteries were in action. Above all, they appear to have forgotten that Bluff Cove is in open country and not a bit like Carlos Water. I sometimes doubt COMAW’s competence. It seems daft to take this size of risk for the sake of a two day march – i.e. send WMR [War Maintenance Reserve] etc. by LSL; probably get away with that if weather is bad but don’t put two battalions back into such hazard just because the opposition seems to have taken a day off. All very difficult – don’t want to cramp CLFFI’s style, nor do I want to show him up, nor yet do I wish to be seen to tell him his business. BUT! The essence of the problem is that such a move could blow the entire operation. Unless it is essential to success, it should not be undertaken.
1600: it emerges that Fleet also don’t much like the idea, albeit for different reasons, so it probably won’t happen. The rest of the day grinds by in thick fog and no incident. Decided to try INVINCIBLE up front overnight to fly night CAP in W TEZ – mainly for deterrence but just might catch something. And to try to sus out the Exocet battery with an I Band reflector-fitted Lynx making like an approaching ship; never work but there’s not much else to do in this weather.
1910: we observe, helplessly, the top cover for a supply run into Port Stanley. Still clagged both here and at San Carlos. Not quite sure how they can get into Stanley. But thoroughly frustrated. If I put a DDG inshore in daylight the weather clears and it gets thumped by a/c, if it’s night or bad visibility it will probably get done by the Exocet. One way and another, it’s all getting very difficult and unsatisfactory, and I feel I’m letting the land force down badly. Can’t shoot, can’t bomb. Useless!
2000. It seems extraordinary but I hear that 200+ people have been killed in a flood in Indonesia. We have still not lost that many here. Odd.
‘Cannon-off-cush’ effect is shorthand to describe the possible dangers of decoys pulling missiles off one ship in the screen and on to another, possibly more valuable ship in the main body of the BG; arguably it is what happened when ATLANTIC CONVEYOR was hit.
When it comes to doubting ‘COMAW’s competence’, it is, of course, the Commander’s job to doubt everybody’s competence, above all his own. As far as Bluff Cove events are concerned, the balance to be struck was between scale, safety and celerity. There is no shortage of comment in this log to emphasise the need for hurry at some cost to safety but at this stage the proposal was for quite a large landing. The events of 8 June showed what scale of disaster it could have been, it was bad enough as it was. As for blame, I believe a lot of small errors compounded to make a bigger one but the unpredictability of the weather played the biggest single part.
5 June
Poor CLFFI has got CinC on his back in a
big way! There’s more backseat driving going on – I should think the front wheels are just about off the ground. My own resolve is to do utmost to support CLFFI as long as I’m sure he is aware of dangers. If we are to have no faith in him, we shouldn’t have sent him in the first cage. Consider FOSM also has this tendency to distrust local management first and act later – which makes it easier for me to understand CLFFI’s problem. In fact, Fleet have been very good at leaving me to get on as best I can over the weeks – the exceptions have generally been over political matters (on which my brief is invariably out of date by definition) or when a junior watchkeeping Staff officer has taken decisions in the light of an incomplete picture – always the problem anyway. Meanwhile we are still in thick fog, albeit everywhere else seems to be in good flying weather. We managed to fly off two GR3s and two SHARs to Carlos at about 1130. Now at 1600 they’re still there, unable to get back! No doubt the next thing is that they will go u/s and we’ll never see them again. Very frustrating, but must remember not to let mere frustration cloud the judgement. Beware ‘sucker holes’ [small, temporary gaps in the fog] and edging too far forward into Etendard country for the sake of two aircraft or a couple of sorties.
I sometimes regret that I encourage people to speak their minds. As the weeks grumble by, tempers get shorter and opinions get harder; eventually they start being positively disobedient. That’s bad.
1830 and there are sufficient clues to justify an Etendard warning.
1945 and it’s time to cancel it happily. We have had a/c in and out of the Carlos FOB all day (the four originals) and fortunately found clear air to fly in at about 1700 so that we could do a bit more and get all our chickens back at roosting time. I’m hoping EXETER inshore tonight will ‘catch the greasy Canberras’ if they come again.
I have to take HERMES out of the front line to do her boiler cleaning in order to have that out of the way before INVINCIBLE departs for her SMP/AMP [Self Maintenance Period/Afloat Maintenance Period]. All this is necessary in case she never comes back! However, rather than retire 100 miles or so to go right down for maintenance, we need to keep flying to back up INVINCIBLE aircrew and provide GR3s. So it’s OUT OF THE FRONT LINE, BUT ONLY JUST. The aim is quite simply to reduce the threat level while we have a whole boiler room OOA [out of action].
Having awful trouble getting ALACRITY to go home and get mended. There’s no shortage of people keen to do their utmost long past the point of no return. What’s more few of them have yet tried to think the roulement problem through. I am suffering from an excess of insufficiently informed advice – as bloody usual! ALACRITY must go now, get properly stitched up, and come out again – she’s an Exocet ship and they are going to be needed in the long haul.
6 June
0100: just been standing on the wing of my bridge in full moonlight. Deserted flight deck XMT twelve SHARs silently waiting. Occasional sound of a wave breaking. Fitful cold gusts whistling around the island. Nothing else. What an odd kind of war after all we’ve been trained for: no SM threat yet; no night air threat: little enough day air threat now we have FOB: no surface threat. Hard to believe really and calm weather with it. At 0430-ish CARDIFF splashed a ‘slow’ air contact – half way between Goose Green and Bluff Cove. Horrid feeling it was a blue-on-blue [‘own goal’] but no clues yet. ‘Deconfliction’ is a major problem, particularly yesterday with everyone replanning CLFFI’s day for him! CARDIFF nearly engaged INTREPID’s LCU [Landing Craft Utility]. INTREPID in fearful and totally misguided twitch about threat to LCUs from Arg air at night. And so it goes on. I am also beginning to find that the ‘ageing Lieutenant Commander’ syndrome is beginning to make itself felt. People are beginning to find they have some time to spare and are busy organising themselves to a complete standstill. At a certain stage, it remains my belief that the degree of organisation and preplanning has to be carefully balanced. Too little and there is chaos: too much and there is inflexibility. The principle of command by negation, provided the various outstations know the broad doctrine and are kept informed of the situation as it changes, should cope. It will occasionally crumble but these crumbles should not usually outbalance the very real advantages of flexibility, quick reaction, initiative and surprise that we gain. As I say though, the essentially bureaucratic/peacetime mind will, for the sake of avoiding a single blue-on-blue, cause blue-on-red to cease!
1900: basically a non-flying day again. FOB has been useless due to weather. Out in the TEZ we are cleaning boilers, vertrepping and all the usual. FEARLESS DSSS is up again so talked to COMAW who lives with CLFFI so lines of sensible communication are up again. Very important this: I find that staffs have an infinite propensity for separating bosses!
Racking my brains for additional ways to help ashore but other than NGS, Air Defence, GR3s, MCM [Mine Counter-Measures], PR, convoys there doesn’t seem to be much else I can do.
[Now I discover (stupid little thing) that my steward has failed to keep hold of half my gear – so that’s sculling around somewhere between here and Gibraltar via S Georgia. Just bloody careless and absolutely infuriatingly unnecessary].
West Falklands patrol (to reduce resupply) might help but I don’t actually think they’re getting stuff through from West Falklands. I’d like to put a complete stranglehold on Port Stanley but the race course can’t be got at (too close to town) and they only fly stuff in at times that I can’t fly at all.
7 June
With excellent forecast, we ought to get some useful flying in and the Army should get its NAAFI gear up into the front line ready for the ‘big push’.
As it turned out, quite a bit of flying was achieved but to little point. EXETER shot down what was thought to be a Canberra; and the Rapiers at Teal Inlet dropped a couple of A4s; otherwise we achieved zilch. The GR3s went to Carlos, were tasked to hit 155mm guns but couldn’t see them at the map reference – so blew hell out of the map reference! Two SHARs sent to do Pebble Island, missed their brief on board and so were sent to Carlos together with a Flash signal giving their brief/targets. It never got to them, so the arch-irresponsible twit sends them off to some totally different place on a complete waste of time (to look for a friendly helo thought to be on Sea Lion Island). Quite extraordinary!
In the same time frame I discover that despite my very clear and cogent briefing of the SK5 Senior Obs [Observer] yesterday, SAVO [Staff Aviation Officer] managed to cancel the whole thing on me on his own initiative and without telling me.
Apart from this sort of thing, the usual HDS continued throughout a glorious sunny winter’s day. Two more tyres [Harrier wheels] were carved up at Carlos, the roulement of warships and RFAs looks a mess from here (and aircraft worse) and there’s a strong feeling of non-achievement. I’m just not used to having my orders ignored/screwed up/reversed – and certainly not without some feedback. It has to be too long on the job.
After a very long wait for AVENGER’s records, we now think we have a good analysis of the last Exocet attack. Cutting a long story short, it looks as though two Etendards each led a pair of A4s. They came in to south of the force, Exocets were fired at the first ship they saw (visual or radar) which was AVENGER. Etendards immediately turned away, four A4s continued on in. EXETER splashed two with Sea Dart (three missiles), remaining two A4s dropped their bombs on AVENGER and fled.
What is new? A4s brought in by Etendards for bomb attack.
What is standard? Exocet fired at first target they obtain.
Any deductions? Fairly strong feeling that max Etendard and Exocet range is 500nm. (420 = AVENGER’s range from Rio Grande. a/c ran in another 20nm to North. Missile can travel 40nm). Another approach in very good visibility.
SAVO did tend to get a lot of stick at about this time. To be fairer than the log, it was a difficult time for anyone trying to co-ordinate the detail of our flying operations, and this was one of the few times he got it wrong – it was in any case unimportant in the out-turn and it was as likely that it was I that was tired/stale by now.
8 June
Carrier roulement is exercising me greatly today. Long signal from Fleet based, so it says, on an assumption of two RRs on station indefinitely. It is called a ‘worst case’ assumption. In my view it is indeed a worst case – so much so that it is unacceptable in that it effectively assumes there is no airfield even for STOVL [Short Take-Off/Vertical Landing aircraft] at Port Stanley. I contend that lack of Port Stanley kills the operation and we can’t keep Stanley out of action unless we own it – nor can the Args. Therefore if they own it, we lose; if we own it, they lose. If we own it, then it must at least provide the deck of a carrier at first; becoming also the hangar in a short period and finally substituting for a CVA in the longer term. (Something we have needed throughout but managed to get away without so far.) Finally it ignores the ‘borrowed time’ feeling that being in a carrier out here generates. CVS are not survivable against a large mainland air force indefinitely – the odds are bound to catch up on us eventually and the airfield will be sunk.
But these are the broad issues. On the personnel and engineering sides, the ‘plan’ is a near total disaster. FOF3 (Staff) reckon it’s a Fleet concoction. I have booked my call!
Meanwhile two GR3s arrive from ASCENSION safely, ANDROMEDA has picked up all but one of her air-dropped parcels from yesterday. CLFFI is delaying his grand attack until he receives some non-existent photos (a foul up by COMAW last night when he turned back all sorts of goodies in ENGADINE because he was afraid they’d arrive after dawn – as it was, they spent all day in no-man’s-land between us and Port Stanley!)
One Hundred Days Page 55