Scram!

by Harry Benson

  On the ground in the relative safety of a small gully, Mike Crabtree and Hector Heathcote had a bird’s-eye view of the first major air raid of the war. They watched as an impressive line of cannon shells from the first group of Daggers raked the side of Antrim. Minutes later the crew watched two huge plumes of water erupt either side of HMS Plymouth several miles off in the distance as a Mirage flashed past before heading home across Falkland Sound. The thin white line of a Seawolf missile fired from the Type-22 frigate HMS Broadsword intercepted the Mirage. It disintegrated in a ball of fire.

  Down below, in San Carlos Water, Simon Thornewill was flying Victor Alpha, another of the seven day-flying Sea Kings whose job was to get as much ammunition, men and stores from ship to shore as quickly as possible. His instinct when he saw the first jets screaming through the valley was to keep going. But bombs were exploding everywhere and it quickly became obvious that he would also have to find his own gully, if only to avoid the deluge of fire from his own ships. As if to confirm this, a 1,000-pound bomb exploded just yards ahead of them on the beach. The huge blast of water and dirt was sufficiently close to blow out the flimsy bubble windows in the back of his aircraft. ‘Too bloody close,’ he thought, and headed for land.

  Most of the other Sea King crews had already gone to ground. It was not so much that they were vulnerable to the Argentine attacks. Flying amongst the ships, even the biggest helicopters were unlikely to be much of a priority target to a highly strung fighter pilot focused on picking a target for his bombs within a few short seconds. It was the risk of getting in the way of the streams of machine-gun fire, rockets and missiles, pouring from the ships. Pilots tended to play it safe at first when an air raid warning was announced, going to ground early and lifting off late. But they soon began to feel their way for how to play this. More time spent on the ground meant less time available to unload ships.

  On board Antrim, Ian Stanley’s Wessex had been folded and moved off the flight deck in order that the maintainers could investigate a control fault. After finishing their night-time role to help insert the SBS team onto Fanning Head, the anti-submarine Wessex had reverted to normal pinging mode around the entrance to San Carlos Water. The task force commanders were still very nervous about the possibility of Argentine submarines. Other anti-submarine Sea Kings were out in Falkland Sound doing most of the search. The Antrim flight crew flattened themselves on the deck as the Daggers attacked. Ian Stanley was hit by small pieces of shrapnel in the finger and shoulder. One of his chiefs fared much worse, with wounds to the face. The aircraft was also spattered with cannon fire and associated debris.

  Then came an enormous explosion from the rear of the flight deck as Antrim fired her rear-facing Seaslug missile in gash mode (‘gash’ is naval slang for rubbish). Designed to knock out high-level Soviet intruders, the missile was of little use against low-level attacks. Nevertheless, it was assumed that the dramatic whoosh of smoke from a missile launch would deter an incoming attacker.

  Seemingly undeterred, one of the Daggers successfully dropped its 1,000-pound bomb straight through Antrim’s stern. The bomb bounced around inside the ship, coming to rest directly beneath the flight deck. Had it exploded anywhere near the Seaslug launch system that ran like a giant train set through the ship, Antrim would have peeled wide open. Instead the unexploded bomb set off small fires and left a huge bump in the flight deck.

  This was the first of many Argentine bombs that failed to explode. A fuse prevents a bomb from exploding until it is well clear of the aircraft. The fuse is simply a small vane in the rear of each bomb that spins round in the wind and unthreads a screw. In attacking the ships so low, the bombs didn’t have sufficient time to arm. This tiny detail overlooked by the Argentine air force undoubtedly saved many British ships and a great many more British lives.

  Meanwhile down to the south of the San Carlos area, the SAS had been conducting a diversionary attack on the Argentine forces at Darwin, assisted by naval gunfire support from the Type-21 frigate HMS Ardent in Falkland Sound. From the six airworthy Argentine Pucaras on the nearby airstrip at Goose Green, two pairs of aircraft were briefed to search for British helicopters involved with the landings at San Carlos. Only one of the first pair actually launched, the other prevented by the naval shelling. This first airborne Pucara was shot down by a Stinger missile fired by an SAS trooper. Subsequent launches by Stinger against other aircraft were unsuccessful. The second pair of Pucaras was bounced by a trio of Sea Harriers from 801 Squadron led by Lieutenant Commander Nigel ‘Sharkey’ Ward. The pilot of one Pucara ejected at low level after being strafed by Ward. The other Pucara escaped in low cloud back to Stanley. Later in the day the remaining two Pucaras from Goose Green also returned to Port Stanley. Two of these three remaining airworthy Pucaras were destroyed by air attacks and naval gunfire within the next few days.

  By now, Mike Crabtree and the crew of Yankee Charlie had realised that spending too much time on the deck of Canberra waiting to be hit by an incoming air raid was a bad idea. So as the day progressed, they kept to the hills as much as possible and accepted most of their instructions over the radio. One such instruction was to return to the scene of their night insertion on Fanning Head in order to relieve the SBS troops of their Argentine prisoners and transfer them to Canberra. Having just had to recover the bodies of the Gazelle crew killed by the Argentine troops, there were very mixed emotions indeed about allowing Argentine soldiers from the same unit into the same cabin space.

  Mike Crabtree landed the aircraft near the group of SBS and prisoners on top of the headland. He noticed that Mike Rose, SAS commanding officer, was standing with the SBS men. After loading four weary-looking prisoners into the cabin, Rose signalled for Kev Gleeson to come out from the aircraft.

  In the cockpit of the Wessex, a terrible realisation suddenly dawned. The two pilots turned to look at each other and pointed down below. The four Argentines had been left completely alone in the back of the Wessex with a fully loaded cabin-mounted machine gun at their disposal. In their sights was the head of the SAS, their own aircrewman and several SBS troops. Not wishing to alert the Argentines to the opportunity, a frantic Mike Crabtree and Hector Heathcote waved fruitlessly at their aircrewman, who was by now poring over a map with Rose. Eventually, Kev Gleeson looked up and noticed the waving arms. He returned immediately to find the prisoners still slumped in the back. It was a surreal moment in a day that was full of them.

  It was now late afternoon on 21 May and the Wessex was heading for a gulley as another air raid flashed through. By now the crew had worked out something of a routine whereby they would deliberately land with the right wheel slightly higher up the slope. With the rotor blades tilted upwards on the right-hand side of the aircraft, Gleeson had a clearer view of the action with his cabin-mounted machine gun. One particular gulley on Fanning Head allowed them a view both of the amphibious and auxiliary ships in San Carlos Water to the south-east and the warships out in Falkland Sound to the south-west.

  As the Wessex waited on the ground, Gleeson pointed out to the right as several Mirage jets swooped in for a further attack. As Gleeson prepared to open fire on the leading jet with the gimpy, Rick Jolly could see the trailing aircraft detach itself from the group and head directly towards the Wessex. Brief flashes from the Mirage told him all he needed to know. The Wessex was about to be hit by cannon fire. With no time for warning, and not being plugged into the intercom at the time, his only thought was for self-preservation. He leapt from the cabin and made a run for it. As Jolly buried himself into a ditch, the Mirage launched its cannon attack on the Wessex and then banked away hard to continue with an attack on the British shipping further down the coast.

  It soon became clear to the crew that they were missing something. Gleeson announced sardonically to his pilots: ‘Oh, the doc seems to have jumped out of the aircraft.’ There had been no warning or explanation. Jolly had simply jumped out and run off before inexplicably diving headlong into a grassy ditch. Jus
t as Gleeson added the afterthought ‘No idea why …’ the ground all around the Wessex erupted into the air. Clods of earth and grass exploded violently up through the rotor blades, onto the windscreen and all around the aircraft. As the mud and debris settled, straggly bits of what looked like metal fibre floated slowly down. It looked suspiciously like chaff, the aluminium strips used for deflecting radar. ‘We’ve been shot at by our own bloody ships,’ exclaimed Crabtree.

  After a few seconds in the ditch, Jolly looked up astonished to see the Wessex still there and not obliterated. He scrambled to his feet and back into the aircraft, feeling both shocked and sheepish. He assumed the crew had known exactly what had happened. It was best to say nothing and hope that they would forgive his rapid exit.

  ‘Oh, you back with us then, doc?’ asked Crabtree coolly. Jolly assumed this was junglie nonchalance in the face of extreme danger. In fact neither pilot had any idea what had happened. It was a full year later before Jolly revealed the truth to a horrified Heathcote.

  For the Mirage, the Wessex had been an opportunity target en route to bigger and better things. Unbelievably, the cannon fire from the jet appeared to have straddled the Wessex on either side. Had the attacking Mirage pilot been any less accurate, whether his attack had been angled or lined up a few feet off centre, it would have been curtains for the Wessex and her crew. To say they had a lucky escape is something of an understatement.

  The courageous Type-21 frigate HMS Ardent and her crew had spent the day providing naval gunfire support against the Argentine forces in Darwin and Goose Green, successfully restricting the launch of Pucara ground-attack aircraft from the airstrip. The downside was that she was horribly exposed in the open water of Falkland Sound. As the day wore on, Ardent became the obvious target for a series of attacks by the Argentine jets. A lone Argentine air force Skyhawk splashed a bomb harmlessly into the sea beside the ship at around midday. A second flight of four Skyhawks en route to the frigate minutes later was intercepted over West Falkland by two 800 Squadron Sea Harriers, with the loss of two Skyhawks.

  The third attempt by the Argentines to sink Ardent an hour and a half later faltered briefly as four Daggers were again intercepted, with the loss of one further aircraft. However, the remaining three evaded the cannon fire of the pursuing Sea Harriers for a clear run in low over Falkland Sound. The three Daggers swept in towards the ship and deposited a series of bombs. The first bounced short of the ship and up into the stern. The second bomb exploded on impact with the flight deck, destroying the Lynx helicopter and hangar and killing the flight crew. Heroic Flight Commander John Sephton and his team were last seen blazing away with rail-mounted machine guns. Sephton was awarded a posthumous Distinguished Flying Cross. The third bomb missed altogether.

  Two more flights of three Daggers followed this attack almost immediately. Mercifully for Ardent, the first flight headed for the warships guarding the entrance to San Carlos Water, causing only shrapnel damage. The second flight headed directly for Ardent. All three were intercepted and splashed by 801 Squadron Sea Harriers. But there were simply not enough Harriers to go round. As Ardent’s damage control teams struggled to deal with the catastrophic scenes, two further flights of three Argentine navy Skyhawks headed towards the ship. Two bombs from the first flight hit the already damaged stern. It was little consolation that all three Skyhawks were subsequently destroyed, two by Sea Harriers and one by a combination of small-arms fire from Ardent and cannon fire from one of the Sea Harriers. Bombs from the second wave of Skyhawks missed altogether, too late to save the mortally damaged ship. Twenty-two sailors and airmen died that day, killed in action or lost to the sea.

  The last thing Chief Petty Officer Ken Enticknap remembered before the final strike by the A-4s were the words ‘take cover’ shouted over the ship’s tannoy. He had already been trying to deal with the damage from the previous attack. He regained consciousness to find the air black with thick acrid smoke. His left hand was badly damaged and he was trapped under a girder. Able Seaman John Dillon had been similarly knocked unconscious and trapped under falling debris. Coming around to the sound of screaming and the sight of thick black smoke, Dillon dragged himself out, realising that he had also been wounded by shrapnel in the back.

  Responding to Enticknap’s appeal for help, Dillon slowly managed to lift the girder enough for the other man to crawl free. They stumbled forward together through the smoke towards what looked like a raging fire. All of a sudden a huge expanse of sea and sky appeared through the smoke in the side of the ship where the bulkhead had been blown off. They gasped deep breaths before Enticknap fell into a hole in the decking. With his strength fading, Dillon lifted Enticknap out of the hole. As they stood overlooking the sea, they put on their lifejackets. With his jacket inflated, the badly injured Enticknap jumped the twenty feet into the sea. Dillon couldn’t inflate his jacket but realised that he had no choice but to protect his injured colleague. He followed into the water. Adrenalin prevented either of them noticing the icy temperature of the water. As Dillon grabbed Enticknap to swim away from the side, Dillon couldn’t believe his eyes. The stern of his former ship was a chaos of mangled metal, fire and smoke. In contrast, the front of the ship seemed remarkably undamaged. Men in orange survival suits stood against the railings pointing and waving madly at the two men in the water.

  From their vantage point in the gulley on Fanning Head, Crabtree and Heathcote had seen the smoke begin to spew upwards from the stricken Type-21 out in the distance in Falkland Sound. Yet with air attacks still in progress, they felt apprehensive about rushing to aid the ship. Their dilemma was resolved as they saw Plymouth’s Wasp, flown by Lieutenant Commander John Dransfield, fearlessly crossing below them having collected wounded sailors from the now disabled frigate Argonaut. Without further thought, they headed off towards Fearless for an urgent refuel. While on deck, Rick Jolly rushed out and grabbed two winchable stretchers and threw them into the cabin. The Wessex lifted off immediately and headed south up over the Sussex Mountains and past the troops of 2 Para who were now digging themselves in. The normal maximum speed of a Wessex 5 is 120 knots. As Heathcote tipped the aircraft into a full power shallow dive, they reached 145 knots in their desperation to reach the scene as quickly as possible. Heathcote flared the aircraft into a hover just short of the tangled mess of metal, fire and smoke, having passed through an acrid pall of black smoke. The frigate Yarmouth was backing up her stern alongside Ardent, which was now tilting unnaturally over to one side.

  At the front of the ship, the men in orange suits were waving frantically in the direction of the sea just below the Wessex. Immediately both pilots spotted Dillon and Enticknap in the water. At this point Heathcote became very aware of his inexperience as he struggled to maintain a stable hover. Hovering over the glassy and fuel-slicked surface of the sea was extremely difficult with so few visual references on the water below him. Handing over to the more experienced Crabtree quickly brought things under control. Meanwhile Gleeson had lowered the orange rescue strop on the winch down to Dillon, now struggling in the freezing water without an inflated lifejacket.

  Crawling over to the doorway, it was immediately obvious to Rick Jolly that the man in the water was too weak to attach himself and was about to drown. With the perceived shame of running away from the Wessex still fresh in his mind, he knew this was his moment to make amends. Signalling his intent, he could see Gleeson talking to the crew as the strop was raised back into the aircraft. With a nod from Gleeson, Jolly attached himself and was lowered towards the drowning man. It was hard to know which was more unpleasant: the horrible jolt from the discharge of static electricity as his feet hit the water or the shock as his body submerged into the bitter South Atlantic water. The water temperature was just three degrees above zero and was fast numbing his body and draining his energy. Adrenalin kicked in as he grabbed the desperate man and locked his hands around his chest in a bear hug. As Crabtree gently lifted the helicopter, the two men rose, dripping
from the sea. Gleeson winched them upwards towards the cabin. With small delicate movements on the winch control and strong arms to haul his load on board, Jolly and Dillon collapsed on the floor of the Wessex. A quick compression of Dillon’s chest produced two vomited bursts of sea water. He was alive.

  Gleeson now looked at Jolly expectantly. With a thumbs-up, Jolly was lowered once more towards the sea. As the medic span around on the winch, it was like watching a crazy revolving film show. Burning Ardent. Yarmouth. Falkland landscape. Then back to the sickening sight of Ardent again. The spinning stopped with the second dose of static shock followed by icy numbness as he entered the water. This time there was no way he had sufficient strength to hold onto the second man. Kicking through the water, he fastened Enticknap’s lifejacket onto the winch hook above his own strop. Thankfully the lifejacket held without tearing as the two men were lifted once more to safety. With the wounded and freezing men safely on the floor of the Wessex, Gleeson closed the door and put the cabin heaters on full blast as the aircraft sped back north to Canberra in San Carlos Water. Behind them in Falkland Sound, the remaining survivors from the still burning HMS Ardent abandoned ship, clambering directly across onto HMS Yarmouth.

  Ardent sank the following day. Altogether twenty-two men had died in the attack. For their courage, Dillon was later awarded the George Medal and Enticknap the Queen’s Gallantry Medal.

  With darkness falling, there were no further air strikes on that dreadful day. Crabtree, Heathcote and Gleeson had flown more or less continuously for thirteen and a half hours since their glass of beer with Mike Rose the previous afternoon. An utterly exhausted Wessex crew shut down on deck and called it a day. A long night still lay ahead for Rick Jolly, however. He was told to get his men and medical equipment off the ship and onto land to set up the field hospital in the old refrigeration plant at Ajax Bay. The Wessex crew were already asleep when the Canberra sailed out of San Carlos towards the safety of the carrier group to the east of the Falklands.