One Hundred Days

by Sandy Woodward

  All of which further encourages me to get away from Port Stanley as soon as we can – the ‘Borrowed Time’ syndrome still presses.

  13 June

  And a ‘perfect Sunday’ for most except the front line around Stanley. The Args sent no a/c bar a Hercules or two before dawn, we think to take a few rather special people/things out, documents, thumbscrews etc., and four Mirages/A4s later afternoon who came as far as Fox Bay, found Harriers waiting and hurried home again without coming closer. Which is as well for them as we had six more SHARs just about to arrive to greet them! The sunset was unbelievably lovely, 5/8 cloud and you could see all the way to clouds on the horizon at over 100 miles I reckon: sea 2 ft, no swell, 6kts of wind, brilliant purples, oranges, blues and greys with the ships starkly silhouetted like bits of black cardboard on the skyline.

  826 (SK5) Squadron seems to have driven itself to a standstill so I thought it should stand down pending taking the full weight in two or three days’ time. Not popular but ANY decision on aviation is unpopular. Mended fences with Captain – always mending bloody fences. PM: DSSS call to new COS [Chief of Staff] Fleet – poor chap gets a Sunday earful on roulement and Task Force condition. Fact is that Fleet are taking no account of my suggestions on roulement – but not even producing any of their own that bears any relation to reality. They seem to think that ‘in the worst case’ we can manage with one CVS in area and no Port Stanley available. Told him fairly forcefully that, if this did prove to be the case, Mrs Thatcher would have to be told that her, our, my operation was at an end. Chiefs of Staff won’t like it much I fear, nor Mrs T. I suspect, but ‘realism’ has seldom been a feature of the Bulldog spirit.

  The sequel to all this was a short signal to CLFFI relating the Task Force tale of woe – like we are now at the cliff edge of our capability with only three ships lacking a major OPDEF [Operational Defect] (HERMES, YARMOUTH and EXETER); of the DD/FF, forty-five per cent are reduced to near zero capability; of the goalkeepers, ANDROMEDA’s Sea Wolf is u/s, BRILLIANT’s entire systems are hanging by a variety of Coward-type threads and BROADSWORD has one and a half systems but one shaft fairly permanently locked. None of the T21s are fit, AVENGER a screw off, ARROW cracked and an OLY [Olympus Gas Turbine] down; you name it, they’re all falling apart. This afternoon, I was left on this most beautiful day for Etendards with one channel of Sea Dart fire out of seven left. The convoys I run in/out nightly are ‘escorted’ by one half-crippled frigate (doesn’t need to go faster than his charges, does he!) The gun line started with 4 ships and reduced to 2 from defects. The TRALA [Training, Replenishment and Loitering Area] is ‘protected’ by poor old crippled GLAMORGAN and South Georgia is valiantly defended by poor old crippled ANTRIM and the redoubtable battleship ENDURANCE.

  Frankly, if the Args could only breathe on us, we’d fall over!

  Perhaps they’re the same way: can only trust so, otherwise we’re in for a carve up.

  14 June

  The night’s attack went better than expected and by 1400 it seems that CLFFI is following up his success. There has to be a chance it is nearly over in Port Stanley: next few hours critical. Chicken counting again no doubt but what next? I think we are fairly clear what to do if war continues albeit Fleet still not settled on roulement and many other things. But if local surrender occurs which includes West Falkland, it will be important to get in there fast. Perhaps a show of strength would help?

  Unfortunately, the weather is closing in and I fear the FAB [Forward Air Base] will be out soon. So there isn’t too much I can do to help things along.

  1640: GR3s with LGB brought their bombs home – their targets, two 155mm guns on Sapper Hill, had surrendered. This has to be the end for the Args in Port Stanley – Sapper Hill overlooks the town. Rang COMAW to remind that negotiations should aim for unconditional surrender of all Arg forces in all the Islands.

  We shall need to move very fast but keeping our guard up, for there is no way of controlling mainland forces.

  1730: cease fire seems to have occurred in the Stanley Area and a white flag is reported as flying ‘over the town’. Time will tell, meanwhile plans for NGS etc. all continue.

  2100: still no further news and so much to do. Main problems/priorities are:

  a. Disarm and isolate Arg land forces.

  b. Establish AD PSA and port area.

  c. Get C130 route activated – fuel in.

  d. Separate the POWs and repatriate the soft ones.

  e. Send hard POWs to ASI [Ascension Island].

  f. Get the airfields up.

  2200: the weather is turning into a blizzard – full gale and cold. I’m afraid there’ll be much hypothermia tonight. I’d much rather be in a tin coffin out here than in a dank grave in there!

  2300: we find we have some 13,000 POWs to contend with in E and W Falkland. The W Falkland mob have virtually no rations; the Port Stanley lot (11,000 odd) have three days’ worth. CANBERRA has 6500 man days’ worth on board! NORLAND is on her way back for Montevideo and I have to supply all our own people too. This looks more like a ‘disaster relief’ exercise than an orderly takeover of the FI. Just how to do it without promise from the mainland of no hostilities is a thorny question. They have even lost their tents – blown away in the battle! Meanwhile the wind chill factor must be disastrous – its blowing F10 out here and really nothing we can do – can’t fly, can’t RAS – just lying hove to, hoping none of my fairly bashed up charges get into trouble. I would have sent the ‘little ones’ inshore to shelter in Carlos but the creek is already jam-packed with not another anchor berth to spare.

  Desperately encouraging Fleet to grab the BBC by the throat and get the problem aired in international articles so that we don’t get blamed for the inevitable casualties. Mumbling and muttering the other end. Fear new COS may be not too good at fronting up.

  Meanwhile I’m being pressed to mount an operation against South Thule – absolute military nonsense: conceivably useful politically but a really wrong moment in practical terms. Expressed all thoughts to Fleet. While saying ‘am doing your bidding’. But I’m afraid that this ‘can do’ syndrome is going to produce a disaster soon enough.

  15 June

  Three months only now since sailing from UK, but it is a lifetime away of course as so many things have changed, most irreversibly, particularly for the dead. Apart from Nick Barker [CO of ENDURANCE] wanting to do another D-Day on South Thule and the continuing F10 gale/blizzard, there’s little I can do yet except plan and hope the mainland Args wrap hand in. I see no way the POW situation can be handled without either a ceasefire/guarantee of safety or major loss of life amongst the prisoners. Press and Fleet briefed to push hard for Arg help on this aspect. At same time, I’m deep in the throes of negotiating turnover and roulement with Fleet/FOF3, who, it turns out, was of course at the bottom of it all!

  Rang up Northwood at 2300 to see how the roulement scene was getting on – to find they were thinking of having a meeting with Plans, DNOT, DOPs, you name it [all MOD departments of Naval Staff], in order to see what was best to be done! Fantastic – after eighteen days, no further on.

  Carelessly allocated just two Blowpipes from ship in TRALA to ENDURANCE to do the South Thule bit and that mindless pettifogger Col Preston [now ashore with CLFFI] puts a crippler on it saying I had no right to take his assets. Such negativity – they’re bloody lucky that wasn’t my attitude when they were going ashore or they’d be bloody swimming.

  I couldn’t be more angry – at such a tiny thing too. Time I went home I guess.

  Still blowing a non-flying hooligan with snow flurries.

  Diary dangers again – Richard Preston had been my trusted and professional land force adviser on the way south and until his high qualities were more needed ashore. ‘Mindless pettifogger’ does have a certain ring about it, but absolutely no accuracy. This storm in a teacup was quickly settled – I now forget which way. ‘Time I went home’ I guess is the accurate judgement here.

  16 J
une

  POW situation not quite as bad. People not getting on with it, Fleet Staff officer (last night’s Duty Staff crippled Canberra movements without notice – ‘Command by stagnation’ will settle in all too easily!) Spent the day pushing and shoving to get things moving. Have probably created total havoc in Port Stanley tonight by firing all sorts of ships in, intending to provide shelter/help for POWs but also taking opportunity given by Arg indecision and inactivity to get on with landing vital stores. Trouble is that:

  a. There aren’t that many anchor berths.

  b. The dreaded BAHIA PARAISO will probably sneak up on me, as he is going in there too tonight.

  So I will put a guard on her W/T [radio] office, as we know they have been cheating and using coded traffic. And I will try to delay her departure as well. Two can play dirty tricks!

  Decided to fly inshore tomorrow to see CLFFI, and Port Stanley and West Falkland and South. Am a bit worried by CinC’s rather elliptical statements on when I am to be relieved – it is unlike him to be evasive but his odd mutterings about my relief being ‘a card he will play when it suits him’ smack of wheels within wheels – and if I know the Whitehall scene there’s a fair amount of fast footwork on who is to fill the post of Military Supremo. Maj Gen Moore was due to retire a month or two ago so he probably won’t do. That opens the market and once again I am the man on the spot. I can just bloody see it – two years stopped draft on Port Stanley bloody pierhead in order to grab a 2* [Major General/Rear Admiral equivalent rank] post no one (except the Admiralty Board) wants except that any service will snatch at the chance of another 2* job – it’s good for encouraging the juniors. It cannot be true – can it?

  17 June

  How time flies. Spent this day ashore, landed on FEARLESS at Port William 1100 (Dawn): helo to Government House (football pitch to E) met J. Moore, truck to PSA, (covered in roaming POWs – disarmed – and bent a/c) back for lunch to FEARLESS then SK4 to Teal, Carlos, Pebble, Port Howard, Goose Green, Darwin, Fitzroy and FEARLESS. Back on board HERMES 2000. What an extraordinary day. Very N Scotland, dark, cold, windy but patches in the weather, woodsmoke and clear air, crystal visibility and mist. Many sheep and few cattle. Fewer people – square miles of rough turf, granite rock fields, tussock grass – nearly all soaking. Twenty degrees warmer and it would be the yachting centre of the world. As it is, b-y awful! I reckon it’s definitely not a gem in the Queen’s crown. The day was finished with discovering, half way back, that the three extra passengers in the SK5 we came back in could not be accounted for. So an armed guard to meet them – they proved to be SAS who should have known better.

  Meanwhile the political situation remains ill-defined and we cannot risk lowering our guard completely. The next few days should settle it one way or another (but may not) and I can’t delay deciding about INVINCIBLE much longer.

  18 June

  News from Fleet that FOF3 c/o [change over] can take place, in accordance with the plan proposed. Good. News from Argentina still confused: no instructions for the POWs. No action from the mainland on a perfect Etendard day. Still fear too many ships inshore but – hanged for a sheep as a lamb, formed single line ahead, flew four Harriers and took photographs. This was the last chance before INVINCIBLE left for maintenance. Still no action from the mainland though it is beginning to move there one way or another as Galtieri goes.

  As the evidence emerges it becomes increasingly difficult to understand the Argentinian concept of ‘honour’. Firing from behind white flags, red crosses painted on CARCARANIA, numerous houses full of ammunition, the destroyers’ desertion of BELGRANO (cf. our orders not to sink them), cowardice under fire, the gross lies about losses/damage inflicted, the POW numbers’ game in order to blame us for the discrepancy in numbers and brand us as having killed them by ill-treatment, the way they moved their own aircrew about so that they couldn’t know that their friends were dead, misquotation of UN resolution.

  19 June

  Relations with land forces not helped by the wretched Brigadier Thompson complaining about the quality of the guest houses we are providing for his heroes. There seems to be some idea in their heads that the world (including my people) owe them a living now that they won the war. Ignorant, insensitive louts. Anyway, I sent my MA [Military Adviser – now Colonel John Fisher Royal Marines] inshore to try to mend fences a bit and clarify priorities amongst his oppos on CLFFI’s staff – at the same time to look into the airfield preparational priorities which I fear have got lost somewhere. Later, he reported that things had indeed gone astray and that they should go better now: I wonder whether they will. Time is vital, or may be. Otherwise dull day.

  20 June

  Another dull but busy day. Records, ROP [Report of Proceedings], J. Coward, D. Pentreath, honours and awards, plans for the long term. Ample to fill an office day but hardly enough for a TEZ day. The ROP presents peculiar problems. If it is to have any value I suspect it should seek to make only one, possibly two points. There are many military and professional points to make – maybe then these are best suited to other places, and it should only seek to set the scene, tell the story simply as I saw it and draw a single conclusion. Not easy, but if it is to go before politicians, it must avoid too much detail, or professional jargon.

  21 June

  On reflection, if this war is to have any effect of lasting importance it may be to underwrite the UK’s continued will to have some influence for good in world affairs outside Europe. I do now believe it to be important but don’t know that the country would go on footing the bill. But somebody has to do these things if anarchy is not to spread (UN is useless) and if the sort of repressive government exercised by Argentina is to be kept in its place. They are, potentially, extremely dangerous simply because they are so far from our own concepts of right and wrong. Their religion is almost mediaeval if it can support the activities of the junta wholeheartedly; and I am, for the first time now, aware of the real dangers of such behaviour.

  My staff, as usual, are pressing me to visit ships and speak to ships’ companies. My views are largely unchanged: my job is above all to know my Captains well since they are my next level of management. The large tour and ship’s company address or mess drinkies scene does little for me other than check the state of the ship. Fine in peace, little need in war. Above all, my most important duty is to think and plan; this must not ever take second place to the social or charismatic leader scene. I recognise that to a great many, this is important, but it is not my way, in battle or not, since the battle continues just as much in the planning as in the act itself. If it is not thought good enough, then I can stop. Not a bad time anyway; they do say ‘Leave the party while you’re still enjoying it’.

  22 June

  Activities are getting better organised and, although we observe things going astray one minute, a bit of patience usually ensures that it is sorted out without some blast from on high. The airfield is obviously getting ahead well. San Carlos may be going astray but it’s not too late yet. I’m a bit upset to hear that the main bar topic in FEARLESS is criticism of my keeping the carriers back during the first days of the landing. I understand that the view is prevalent amongst those inshore that there should have been:

  a. More Harriers flying CAP.

  b. Harriers mixing it in the AOA.

  c. In order to achieve this, the carriers should have been up threat.

  I can understand that if you seem to be fighting a desperate anti-aircraft battle with ships being sunk and bombed around you, it is likely to encourage a sense of persecution coupled with a wish for everyone else to join you in your predicament. It is extremely depressing to hear of such opinions being bandied about unless (or perhaps even if) there were good cause. The facts are that:

  a. BRILLIANT and INVINCIBLE recommended going closer.

  b. Going closer would have increased the stay time of CAP – direction would have remained a problem.

  c. Harriers flying in the AOA would have increased our lo
sses of both ships and aircraft as like as not, i.e. it is arguable that it would have improved matters.

  d. I discarded the argument for forward deployment on the grounds of vulnerability of the carriers to air attack (proved by the inshore frigates’ experience and the COVENTRY incident) and the consequent halving of air cover by losing one RR, making the loss of the other (and of the whole operation) markedly more likely.

  On balance the whole thing is fairly silly and must be ignored, not dignified with argument. But it leaves a sour taste and is, I suppose, just another indication of the way things are likely to go I fear.

  Meanwhile I think we have to start some kind of exercise programme. There are some ships which are not in SAG practice at all and helos need to do SKUTACS [Sea Skua missile attack exercises] etc. SEA KINGS will get a bit of ASW with ONYX, and ONYX may get some TFX [Torpedo Firing Exercise] vs GALAHAD. But I must get the act together in case the opposition returns and indeed whether it doesn’t. FIXP [Falkland Islands Exercise Programme] here we come!

  Obviously the inquiry into the loss of SHEFFIELD is very much under way. I hope they are not going to embark on a witch hunt because I fear they will find several bits of bad news which in peacetime add up to a court martial job. I’m not sure and deliberately as a matter of policy did not dig too deep at the time. The aim then was to learn the essentials in order to avoid the same pitfalls next time. I don’t actually think there will be a witch hunt but I suppose there could be if the small print men fancy having a field day. As ever, it is always possible to find mistakes, and the people back home are still on peacetime rules.

  There are, of course, so many other things to examine in a similar way. Was there more that should have been done to attract the Arg Air Force before D-Day? Was the T42/T22 combination nibbling at the problem – after all, my original idea, rather pooh-poohed by the staff though that wouldn’t necessarily stop me, was to use two T42s and two T22s and go out to the west. Should we have nipped around Burdwood Bank and bashed Rio Grande? Should I have used a carrier as bait? Should all the DD/FF have been inside Carlos Water from D-Day? Should the Harriers have worked inside the AOA? Should COVENTRY and BROADSWORD have been sent outside that day?