Scram!

by Harry Benson

  The epic D-Day duel had cost the Argentine air force five Daggers, five Skyhawks and two Pucaras in exchange for the destruction of HMS Ardent, the loss of two Gazelle helicopters, serious bomb damage to HMS Argonaut and Antrim, and cannon damage to HMS Brilliant and Broadsword.

  But the British had successfully landed on East Falkland with the 4,000 men of 3 Commando Brigade.

  Chapter 8

  ‘Air raid warning red, SCRAM!’: 22–24 May 1982

  AFTER THE DRAMA of the first day landings, low cloud and light rain on the second day gave the British ships unloading in San Carlos Water respite from air attack.

  From Falkland Sound two fingers of water jut inland, surrounded on all sides by hills – Fanning Head to the north, the Sussex Mountains to the west and south, and further hills to the east behind Port San Carlos and San Carlos settlement. This bubble became a hive of activity, with landing craft shuttling men and stores from the larger warships and supply ships. Sea Kings continued to lift huge quantities of stores and ammunition from ship to shore, helping to establish the British foothold on Falklands soil. But the badly needed Wessex remained underused, and in some cases, unused, scattered in dribs and drabs among the task force ships.

  Pete Manley stood on the flight deck of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary supply ship Stromness sailing towards San Carlos Water. He had been ordered to get his Wessex gunship, Yankee Sierra, onto land as quickly as possible. The journey south on the giant container ship Atlantic Conveyor had taken just eleven days from leaving Ascension to joining up with the task force in range of the Falklands. His cocktail party on the tail ramp had never materialised. Conveyor and its huge quantity of supplies was now being held back for a few days because of the ferocity of the air raids in San Carlos. But a helicopter gunship might come in useful for the land forces.

  In gunship role, the Wessex could carry either twenty-eight 2-inch rockets, fired by the pilot from the right-hand seat, or a pair of wire-guided AS12 air-to-surface missiles fired by the missile aimer from the left-hand seat. In the cabin behind and below the cockpit were two gimpy machine guns, mounted on either side of the aircraft and fired by the aircrewman. Even fully armed, there was still space in the back for eight or more troops, depending on how much fuel the aircraft had on board. Accompanying Manley were co-pilot Sub-Lieutenant Ric Fox and aircrewman Colour Sergeant Dave Greet RM.

  As Stromness eased its way quietly into San Carlos Water, Manley realised that it would be a whole lot safer to be based on land than on a floating ammunition ship. Radio traffic between the ships was frantic with signals and orders. So it took some while for Manley to establish authorisation to clear the deck and support the troops of 45 Commando based at Ajax Bay red beach. Within minutes he and the crew were very relieved to flash up Yankee Sierra on the flight deck and head off towards the south-west of San Carlos Water. As they approached the big warehouse of the Ajax Bay refrigeration plant, lines of trenches dotted the hillside like dominoes as the British troops dug in. Manley lowered the gunship gently down onto the grass near the warehouse and pulled the throttles closed. Keeping one engine running, he brought the rotors to a halt. The crew climbed out to look around. A bemused Royal Marine sergeant wandered over and asked what they were doing. ‘We were wondering if we could help you chaps out,’ replied Manley cheerily.

  What followed was typical junglie pragmatism. The aircrew needed a base and food. The Royal Marines of 45 Commando needed help lifting their equipment, air-defence missiles and ammunition higher up the hillside. For several hours that day and the next, Manley and his crew operated as a rogue helicopter without any obvious input from the landing force commanders just across the bay on HMS Fearless. In any case, despite offering assistance to any and every ship in San Carlos Water, the loads of ammunition and stores sitting on most flight decks were made up for the bigger Sea Kings, too big for the Wessex to lift. Ships mostly made use of the rogue Wessex as a taxi service for ferrying senior officers around the bay. Getting people or messages to or from a ship often proved challenging because the flight decks were so clogged with netted pallet loads. A great deal of initiative was called for, plus a bending of the usual rules for ship-to-helicopter operations. Pilots saved time by hovering unconventionally above the bridge wing or the front of the ship and using their winch.

  Within a few hours of doing whatever jobs they could find, it was getting dark and they shut the helicopter down on the hillside behind Ajax Bay. Like the troops further up the hill, Manley and his crew simply grabbed their sleeping bags and roll mats from the back of the Wessex and bedded down outside in the open air, between clumps of gorse. It was bitterly cold.

  * * *

  Sunday 23 May was a classic Falklands day. The light rain had cleared, the air was cold and bright, the skies were blue and the inlet of San Carlos Water was glassy calm. The Ajax Bay warehouse was now being set up as the main field hospital, with huge red crosses painted over the roof and walls and acquiring the name ‘the red and green life machine’– red for Paras, green for Marines. Medics would always be a good source of food. Although a limited supply of bacon and eggs in the field kitchen soon ran out, replacements of porridge, corned beef concoctions, anything involving curry powder, and an endless supply of tea meant there was always something to fill the grateful scavenging aircrew.

  In the early morning light, Fox and Manley began their pre-flight walk round of Yankee Sierra, which included a check of the various oil and fluid levels. One of the hydraulic fluid levels was low, suggesting a possible leak. Either way it needed replenishing. For helicopters, hydraulic systems provide the power assistance that translates the pilot’s movement of the flying controls in the cockpit into the pitch control movement on the rotor head in order to alter the angle of the rotor blades. Since the main blades have to lift the helicopter off the ground, it would be physically impossible for any human to move the controls without a hydraulic boost. In the Wessex, as in all large helicopters, there are two hydraulic systems in case one fails. Failure of both systems would mean the blades doing their own thing, leaving the flying controls thrashing about in the cockpit and the helicopter totally out of control.

  With their engineering support 200 miles away out at sea on Atlantic Conveyor, the crew had to sort out the problem themselves. Manley figured that topping up the hydraulic system couldn’t be that hard. So having bartered a can of fluid from the Marines in exchange for a couple of Mars bars, the three of them set about replenishing the system. One topped up the fluid, one loosened the nut on the relevant drain, and the other pumped the fluid through. Crossing their fingers that it really was as easy as that, the rogue helicopter was able to resume its ad hoc role under the clear blue skies of San Carlos.

  Unfortunately the beautiful skies also meant a renewed opportunity for the Argentines to resume their attempts to thwart the British landings. Over the next two days, some thirty-two Argentine jets – Skyhawks and Daggers – found their way to San Carlos. Minutes before each approaching attack, one of the British ships would radio a warning ‘All stations, air raid warning red’, at which point helicopters buzzing around the bay headed ashore for the nearest gulley and shut down. The trick was to get behind a ridge so the helicopter was out of the line of direct fire from the ships. But neither did they want to stray too far inland, not knowing enemy positions surrounding the San Carlos bubble.

  Just as Crabtree had done two days earlier, Manley found himself a particular favourite gulley into which he could dump the Wessex and pull back the throttles. After bringing the rotors to a halt with the brake, one engine was left running in order to avoid relying on unpredictable batteries and damp cables for the next start-up. Meanwhile, the crew clambered out as fast as possible, grabbing bergens and machine guns and flattening themselves on the damp ground away from the aircraft.

  From their positions lying prone, the Wessex crew had a bird’s-eye view of the action in San Carlos Water. Aged twenty-three, Ric Fox had just completed his first tour as a Wessex
pilot, including five stints in Northern Ireland. Being at war felt surreal, weird, incredible; like watching a movie.

  It was just after midday when the first two pairs of Skyhawks sped across the open water of Falkland Sound, overflying a Lynx helicopter belonging to the Type-21 frigate HMS Antelope, and setting themselves up for their run-in over San Carlos Water. Ric Fox heard the roar of the jets long before he could pick out their camouflaged grey shapes. A web of orange tracer bullets from the ships gave the first clue where to look. Plumes of water from bombs made it easier to pick out the attacking aircraft. Skimming the top of the hills and flashing down between the British ships, the first pair dropped their bombs on Antelope before being rocked by exploding missiles launched from other warships. The roar became a horrible screech as the jets circled around at low level for an ineffective second pass and escape to the north. Blasting away at the enemy with machine guns had little effect, but it felt better than doing nothing.

  The second pair of Skyhawks attacked Antelope again. Fox and his colleagues watched mesmerised as a land-based Rapier missile tracked towards one of the jets, remorselessly catching up and enveloping the aircraft in an orangey-red explosion that quickly decayed into a trail of black smoke. There was no great celebration at the destruction of the Argentine aircraft. No whoops of joy. That was that. Minutes later, three more jets swept in from the west at low level and away across the bay.

  The initial outcome of these attacks was confused and unclear. As well as losing one Skyhawk in the first wave of attacks, it later turned out that another aircraft from the second wave had crashed on landing back in Argentina. But it didn’t take long for the success of their mission to become very apparent indeed. Even though the seven Skyhawks had dropped their bombs too close to their targets to allow the bomb fuses to unwind, two unexploded bombs were left behind buried deep within Antelope.

  After relative calm returned and the bustle of activity resumed in the bay, the crew looked at each other and decided to crack on. Starting up the Wessex, they heard the radio request to assist in the evacuation of Antelope. As they approached the ship, lifeboats and other landing craft were already moving people off. The flight deck was crammed. Along with other helicopters in the area, the Wessex played its part in winching survivors to safety and transferring them to other ships. Later on the crew dropped a bomb disposal team onto the now abandoned flight deck.

  British loss of life might have been far worse that day. It wasn’t merely down to the failure of the Skyhawk bombs to fuse before slamming into Antelope. A flight of Argentine Daggers was intercepted by Sea Harriers over West Falkland before they even reached the British amphibious group. One aircraft was despatched with a Sidewinder missile and the rest turned back. In the evening, a further Argentine attempt to launch an Exocet attack on the fleet out at sea was aborted when the attacking Super Etendards failed to find their expected target.

  Antelope was now anchored overnight in the sheltered waters of San Carlos while two engineers bravely attempted to defuse the unexploded bombs. A small charge meant to disarm the fuse inadvertently set off one of the bombs, killing one engineer and seriously wounding the other. The appalling ‘crump’ echoed around the bay. The sleek frigate broke her back spectacularly and sank, leaving only her bows and stern jutting above the waterline the following morning in a V-shape, from which a tube of black smoke billowed upwards.

  Flying around San Carlos Bay, it was hard to ignore the morbid sight of the sunken Antelope. As the day wore on, the angle of the V became more acute. Eventually the ship disappeared beneath the surface altogether. Antelope was the third British warship to be sunk. She wouldn’t be the last.

  Sub-Lieutenant Dave Ockleton was one of those who had been watching the explosion from the nearby ferry MV Norland. He had been on deck as the first wave of Sea Kings got airborne from Norland and Canberra on the first morning of the landings. From the bridge wing he had watched the early Argentine air raids. The very first two Skyhawks had instantly earned his respect as they darted between the British ships. One red and white, one camouflaged, they were incredibly manoeuvrable. In the eerie silence after the raid, he looked up to see four lights in a square pattern immediately above him. They floated silently over the ship like a UFO before exploding violently.

  The lights were the rockets on a Seacat missile, fired from a neighbouring ship. The missile was just yards away when it detonated. It felt like his nose was being parted from the pressure of the blast. After another raid, his eardrums felt shattered as a Mirage swept past. It wasn’t the Mirage that made the big noise. Ockleton turned behind him to see one of the Norland chefs aiming a rifle at the jet. His face was less than six inches from the line of the bullets.

  Ockleton had finally been put to good use – looking after Mike Crabtree’s Argentine prisoners from Fanning Head who had been brought to Norland. He had escorted them down to cabins on the lorry drivers’ deck. A rating was posted with orders to shoot anybody who stuck their head out into the corridor.

  Norland then sailed out of San Carlos overnight only to return a day later to unload more troops and equipment. Having been left alone on the first day, the ship now became a more obvious target on her second visit. Two Skyhawks came at the ship head on. These were the same jets that had attacked and mortally wounded Antelope. From the bridge wing, Ockleton watched the first Skyhawk let loose with a cannon attack on Norland. The second dropped two light green bombs; both missed the ship but created huge explosions in the water. There was a flash as one of the Skyhawks was hit by a Rapier. The metallic tinkling of the debris sounded like rain on the side of the ship. An engineer on the flight deck received minor wounds from the falling metal.

  Dave Ockleton had made it to the Falklands. He had been in the thick of the action. But it had been an incredibly frustrating few days for him and his handful of colleagues. They were the spare Wessex pilots and aircrewman from 848 Squadron. Their frustration was that they had no helicopters to fly.

  Early on the morning of Tuesday 24 May, RFA Resource eased quietly into San Carlos Bay and dropped anchor. From the darkness of the bridge, Jack Lomas wondered whether the burning glow to the south of them was fighting ashore. It wasn’t until dawn broke on another beautiful Falklands day that it became very obvious this was a ship on fire, Lomas’s second after HMS Sheffield. He had not been briefed to disembark with his two Wessex that day. The plan was to unload some of Resource’s ammunition by boat, some by Sea King from the flight deck, and then withdraw to the relative safety of the battle group out sea. However, the prospect of sitting on a floating bomb all day appealed as much to Lomas as it had to Manley two days earlier on Stromness. Lomas briefed his team to prepare both aircraft for launch. He would sort something out with the operations team on Fearless.

  The sun came up on another stunning clear day. Lomas knew it wouldn’t be long before Argentine jets continued their attempt to disrupt the British landings. High up on Resource’s flight deck, he watched as his team went about their work. All of his engineers had been equipped with rifles or machine guns in anticipation of enemy attack. The flight-deck telephone rang from the bridge warning of an incoming air raid. ‘Right!’ shouted Lomas at his team. ‘If they come past us, shoot six aircraft lengths ahead, get some lead into the sky, and don’t bloody shoot any of our own ships.’ The prospect of sailors with guns amused and horrified aircrew in equal measure.

  The first raid of the day was a determined effort by the Argentine air force to swamp the British defences, with two flights of four Daggers attacking simultaneously. One flight was virtually wiped out in a remarkable interception. Two Sea Harriers splashed three Daggers out of four with their Sidewinder missiles as they crossed West Falkland. The fourth Dagger fled. However, the second flight of Daggers swept low up through San Carlos Water.

  Pete Manley, Ric Fox and Dave Greet were already airborne and trundling past the smoking sinking wreck of the Antelope as the air raid came through. It may have appeared that their
Wessex was nonchalantly getting on with the job regardless. In fact, the crew of Yankee Sierra were desperately trying to get out of the way.

  On board the flight deck of Resource, nobody quite knew in which direction to look at first. Eventually somebody spotted the jets approaching from the south. ‘Heads up, they’re coming, weapons free, fire when they get close,’ shouted Lomas. There was a brief pause, almost as if everybody was thinking the same thought. Aeroplanes. Be careful. We don’t shoot at aeroplanes. It wasn’t until Lomas himself drew his 9mm pistol and started firing that the rest of the team followed suit. On board every ship in San Carlos Bay, soldiers, sailors and airmen were firing away in all directions as the enemy jets swept through at low level between Resource and the command ship Fearless and away to the north after another ineffectual attack. It sounded like Chinese New Year as every weapon across the bay lit up. Lomas realised immediately that the biggest danger to the Wessex crews was being shot by our own side. And in that moment, he also knew that it would be ridiculous to hang around on the ship for one moment longer than necessary.

  Some of the tents and equipment needed to set up a forward operating base were ready to be taken ashore from Resource. A flurry of calls to ships in the bay revealed further equipment that could be borrowed. The two Wessex began their disembarkation immediately, aiming to set up their forward operating base ‘Whale’, at Old Creek House, an even tinier settlement to the north of San Carlos and alongside some of the Sea Kings.

  An unexpected source of camping supplies turned out to be one of the other Type-21 frigates, HMS Arrow, sister ship of Antelope and Ardent. The flight decks of all these frigates were usually restricted to the smaller Lynx and Wasp helicopters. But with no movement of the deck in the calm sea, the much bigger Wessex could just about squeeze all three wheels on with a matter of feet to spare between blades and the ship’s aerials, if the pilot was careful. To protect the deck from overstressing, the pilot maintained power and kept a wheels-light hover: just touching the aircraft wheels onto the deck made loading and unloading people and stores into the cabin a lot safer and more stable than doing so in a low wobbly hover.