Scram!

by Harry Benson

  A whole host of security procedures needed to be implemented. Sands insisted on a general stand-to at dusk and dawn in anticipation of enemy attack. The exception was for senior engineer Chief Petty Officer Stewart Goodall, who was given leeway to continue aircraft maintenance during these times, provided his engineers kept their rifles at hand. He even interrupted a casual conversation between Jack Lomas and Mike Crabtree out in the open, giving them a stern warning that the two flight commanders needed to be separate from one another.

  A sentry roster was set up to man the machine-gun posts. Nerves ran high on watch at night. Arthur Balls and Steve MacNaughton had already spent an entire four-hour watch lying shoulder-to-shoulder, staring out into the darkness without speaking a single word. Early on their first morning in the camp, Crabtree and Heathcote wandered casually back into the main part of the camp from their two-man tent. They didn’t hear the sentry call out in the dark ‘Who goes there?’ They did, however, hear the sound of a machine gun being cocked. It encouraged them to be a lot clearer about identifying themselves.

  Nervous tension in the camp also produced its lighter moments. The communal fire used for the evening meal had somehow reignited itself during the night, providing a nice flickering target for any Argentine observers. The aircrew sleeping in the ten-man tent rushed outside, woken by the sentry ringing through on the field telephone. The fire was quickly extinguished with four streams of aircrew pee.

  However, junglie pragmatism on the ground was not shared by all. On the afternoon of 26 May, they were also joined by a large visitor in the shape of Bravo November, the huge double-rotor RAF Chinook helicopter. Having lost all their support equipment on Atlantic Conveyor, the Chinook crew had parked up for the night on the deck of Hermes, along with the surviving Wessex, Yankee Delta. There was no question of despatching the RAF Chinook crew home. The huge aircraft, capable of doing the work of five Sea Kings, was desperately needed onshore. They had flown all the way in to San Carlos from out at sea and would need a home.

  Jack Lomas was airborne as he heard Bravo November given instructions to join the Wessex at Old House Creek. He had a pretty good idea that his under-equipped team would end up looking after the RAF crew as well. ‘I know,’ he thought to himself sardonically. ‘Camp with Lomas. He’s got nothing either.’

  On hearing that the Chinook was inbound, Lomas got himself down to the tents to give them a warm welcome. The only sensible option for the night was to cram the Wessex crews into the existing tents and free up space for the Chinook crew, led by Squadron Leader Dick Langworthy.

  Lomas began to brief them about their allocated positions for stand-to and the arcs of fire into which they could shoot.

  ‘But we have RAF Regiment to do that.’

  ‘Do you have RAF Regiment here?’ asked Lomas.

  ‘No’.

  ‘Then you’re defending your aircraft and yourselves.’

  ‘That’s very irregular.’

  Although seeming put out at being asked to perform this unfamiliar role on the ground, they did as requested and mucked in as best they could with the few people they had. In the days that followed, the Chinook and its crew were to prove their worth one hundred times over. Lomas and the other Navy aircrew were unstinting in their praise for the RAF aircrew’s flying of giant loads at low level in the mountains, often in appalling weather conditions. Their senior engineer and maintenance team, who arrived later without spares, performed brilliantly in keeping the Chinook flying all hours of the day and night. In the air, they were ‘bloody fantastic’, said Lomas.

  Another of the great success stories of the Falklands war, Bravo November was the only Chinook to survive the sinking of the Atlantic Conveyor and the only RAF helicopter on the islands. The crews did their service proud. The Chinook could carry huge loads. For example, four ‘bollocks’ dangling underneath contained eight tons of aviation fuel, allowing our twenty-five Royal Navy Wessex to operate far more-efficiently on the front line.

  * * *

  As dawn broke on Thursday 27 May, 2 Para were already halfway from the Sussex Mountains to Goose Green, lying up for shelter in the abandoned house and sheds of Camilla Creek House. Back in San Carlos, the Royal Marines of 45 Commando were boarding the landing craft that would take them across the bay from Ajax Bay red beach to get to Port San Carlos green beach. They were then to set off on foot from Port San Carlos in parallel with 3 Para towards the settlement of Teal Inlet. It was the beginning of an epic twenty-five mile ‘yomp’ (for the Commandos) and ‘tab’ (for the Paras) across the boggy Falkland peat, carrying up to 120 pounds of unimaginably heavy bergens and weapons with them.

  For the Paras at Camilla Creek House a few miles south, the day started badly. The early morning BBC World Service news had announced that British paratroops stood poised to attack the Argentine positions at Darwin and Goose Green. It was an appallingly ill-judged leak, the source of which has never been established, and an utterly irresponsible broadcast by the BBC. Two Para’s Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel ‘H’ Jones, turned on the BBC reporter Robert Fox and threatened to sue the Secretary of State for Defence if a single life was lost as a result.

  In fact there had been several days of open speculation by the British media about such an attack. The Argentines were already reinforcing the garrison using their few remaining helicopters. They were right to do so. Three days earlier, under pressure from London, Brigadier Thompson had briefed Jones to conduct a raid on the Argentine forces at Darwin. D Squadron SAS were already being extracted from the area, where they had created the diversion for the San Carlos landings, and inserted by Nigel North and his Sea King night-flyers onto Mount Kent in preparation for the assault on Stanley. Two Para were reconnoitring the route to Darwin on foot when the news came through of the sinking of Atlantic Conveyor. Thompson cancelled the raid, to the fury of Jones. But renewed political pressure now gave the Paras the opportunity for a full-scale attack on Darwin and Goose Green.

  It’s improbable that the ill-advised BBC World Service broadcast caused the Argentines to change their plans for the defence of Goose Green; the capture of a senior Argentine reconnaissance officer, out on patrol in a Landrover, revealed that the Argentines were well aware the British were coming. However, it did change the plans of the Paras, who were immediately forced to leave the shelter of their buildings and dig in. The stage was set for the first set-piece battle by a British Army unit since the Korean War battle of the Imjin River in 1951, in which, in their last stand against overwhelming Chinese forces, 620 infantrymen of the 1st Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment, ‘The Glorious Glosters’, were killed.

  Late in the morning of Thursday 27 May, two RAF Harriers ran in low towards the airfield at Goose Green to soften up the Argentine defences. One of the Harriers was hit by cannon fire during a bombing run. They were the same Argentine air defence guns that had knocked out Nick Taylor’s Sea Harrier on the very first raid. The damaged jet flew on for several miles with the engine on fire before the pilot, Squadron Leader Bob Iveson, ejected. He was picked up by a British helicopter three days later.

  Until the Paras and Marines of 3 Brigade had begun their break-out from the San Carlos area, Wessex and Sea King helicopters were mostly operating within the bay and surrounding hills. Long-range sorties for the special forces by Bill Pollock’s Sea King night-flyers were the main exception to this.

  Aircrew referred to the list of jobs they were given to do as ‘tasking’. Tasking for each day tended to start with a radio call to Fearless, whose staff gathered requests and allocated the helicopters according to priority. Some of the aircraft bases had an attached Mobile Air Operations Team (MAOT), for whom allocating jobs to aircraft was their bread and butter.

  For the first few days at FOB Whale, Wessex tasking was received over the radio by one of the aircrew. Some aircraft were given a particular role for the day, such as HDS (Helicopter Delivery Service) around the San Carlos area or casevac between the field hospital and the h
ospital ship SS Uganda out in Falkland Sound. Other aircraft were given specific jobs. A typical start to the day might involve landing on the deck of Fearless and taking advantage of the opportunity to refuel. Somebody would then bring in a list of instructions to the aircrewman who would discuss it with his pilot. The aircrew would then work their way through the list until complete.

  A typical task would be ‘loads from Sir Galahad to green beach grid 123456’, or ‘Rapier resupply red beach grid 234567, destinations as advised’; or ‘40 Commando troop move blue beach two grid 345678 to Sussex Mountains’. During the day, Fearless might radio a helicopter to switch to another job. And if an aircraft had an empty return journey, the aircrew would always radio ahead to offer the space. In this way, an awful lot of useful additional work took place. When aircraft ran out of instructions, they would simply return to their forward base.

  But tasking was also a major source of frustration. Although all junglie aircrew were highly proficient at moving loads and stores, they were not being used to move troops forward. Junglies are trained for front-line operations. The Royal Marines yomping out of Port San Carlos knew this. Both troops and aircrew wondered why at least some of the helicopters weren’t giving them a lift. Jack Lomas went out of his way to find out why his boys were still spending all their time offloading ships. The response was very clear: building up beachhead supplies remained the priority. Wessex would not be released from ship control to land control until later on. The troops would have to walk.

  There were also minor frustrations of working with units not accustomed to helicopters. But these rarely lasted. The Rapier air defence teams had drawn a very short straw indeed, living in miserable muddy trenches high up on the hills above San Carlos, often in cloud and freezing drizzle. Resupplying each of these cells with fuel and food was a vital task. But sending aircraft back to the same site for the fourth time because somebody had forgotten something did not endear ground troops to aircrew. Lomas made sure his aircrew and the Rapier teams both understood that aircraft were to be used for the job and not the day. Rapier resupply for weeks thereafter became a vastly more efficient operation.

  Venturing too far inland was another issue for aircrew unwilling to risk an unnecessary encounter with enemy ground troops. During air raids, pilots were very aware of the tension between finding a sheltered gulley close to the beachhead but far enough away to avoid getting shot by their own side. The incident with Yankee Tango’s shattered windscreen convinced crews to push outward a little further. The real threat from the ships was definitely greater than a perceived threat from the enemy, who may or may not be just over the hills.

  For aircraft caught out on the Ajax Bay side of San Carlos Bay, taking shelter from air raids was much less of a problem. With both 2 Para and 45 Commando occupying the hills to the south and west, aircraft could hide as far into the hills as they liked. It was where Pete Manley and Ric Fox had holed out during the many air raids of the first few days.

  With so few pilots and aircraft in the San Carlos area, single pilot operations made sense. This freed up Jack Lomas and Oily Knight to take turns running operations on the ground. It kept a few fresh pilots in reserve. And it added some ten per cent to the available payload, whether in extra fuel or extra stores. The flying was straightforward enough, but still exciting. Operating alone showed the incredible responsibility and trust placed in the skill and capability of twenty-one-year-olds, including junior pilots Heathcote, Harden, Judd and Morton, who in some cases were just months out of training.

  Now late in the afternoon of Thursday 27 May, Hector Heathcote sat alone at the controls of Yankee Charlie. The Wessex was parked facing north, rotors running, on a concrete hardstanding next to the newly converted field hospital, the red and green life machine. Behind the hospital and up the side of the hill at Ajax Bay was the Brigade Maintenance Area, destination for much of the vast amount of equipment and ammunition offloaded from the ships in San Carlos Water. Surrounding the helicopter were eight-foot-high piles of 105mm gun ammunition. In the cabin of the Wessex, Heathcote’s Royal Marine aircrewman Kev Gleeson was poised to unload the pile of eighty empty fuel jerrycans they had just brought down from the Rapier sites on top of the hill. They were waiting for groundcrew to show them which full replacements they should be taking.

  Days of Argentine air raids had made them less fearful of the warnings. They were still very much alert but blasé. Hearing the transmission ‘Air raid warning red, SCRAM!’, they thought it best to stay where they were.

  Over his right shoulder, Heathcote saw the first pair of Skyhawks swoop low out of the Sussex Mountains and into the bay area. But instead of heading for the ships, this time their target was the headquarters area at San Carlos on the far side. He watched at least two explosions bloom amongst the settlement houses. ‘I think we’d better get out of here,’ he said to Gleeson, both of them suddenly and acutely aware that they were sitting amidst piles of live ammunition.

  Gleeson called ‘clear’ and they lifted off, dropping the aircraft nose steeply in order to accelerate away. Heathcote immediately rolled the Wessex round to the left, staying just twenty feet above the hillside and heading back down to the south. Pulling the nose of the Wessex back into a high flare to kill his speed, he brought the big helicopter gently down onto a flat area of grass. They were now 400 yards from the Brigade Maintenance Area facing downhill into the bay.

  As they landed, a second pair of Skyhawks sped past from right to left in front of them. Heathcote had a clear view of the bombs dropping below the jets and slamming into exactly the piece of hardstanding they had been on thirty seconds earlier. A massive explosion filled the air as one of the bombs set off a pile of the artillery shells. Two other bombs dropped into the field hospital, mercifully without exploding, where they were to remain for the duration of the war.

  For Heathcote and Gleeson, it was their third miraculous escape. Together with Mike Crabtree, they had survived the streams of tracer fire on the night of the landings and then the following day being strafed by a Mirage down both sides of the aircraft. Now, one week later, they were just seconds away from being bombed by Skyhawks. Had the Skyhawk pairs attacked in different order, Heathcote and Gleeson would have been killed.

  The Skyhawk attack on the ground forces at San Carlos blue beach and Ajax Bay red beach proved to be the only Argentine air strike of Thursday 27 May. One of the four Skyhawks was sufficiently crippled by gunfire from the assault ships Fearless and Intrepid that the pilot ejected soon after crossing Falkland Sound. Uninjured, he spent four days on the run in West Falkland before finding Argentine forces. Seven British soldiers were killed in the Skyhawk attack, one Royal Engineer on the San Carlos side of the bay and six Royal Marines at Ajax Bay. The explosions continued on through into the night as the pallets of shells destined for 2 Para burned.

  Pete Manley and his crew, who had been based at Ajax Bay for the previous few days, were fortunate not to have been caught up in the attack. Shortly before the strike, they had been despatched with their Wessex, Yankee Sierra, to insert a MAOT radio team into Camilla Creek House. On the return journey, they collected the captured Argentine reconnaissance prisoners and returned them to brigade headquarters back in San Carlos. Crossing over the Sussex Mountains and to within four miles of the Argentine positions meant flying ‘nap of the earth’, staying as close to the ground as they dared, making use of valleys, folds and gulleys, and slowing to sixty knots or less.

  In the end their mission was uneventful. But being sent up to the front line gave Manley hope that Yankee Sierra would at last be used in her role as a gunship. Armed with two-inch rockets, the Wessex could lay down a fearsome barrage of twenty-eight rockets. Even if the rockets were famously inaccurate, the high explosive would fill an area the size of a football field. At worst, it would keep heads down and frighten the living daylights out of any enemy troops in the firing line. At best, it would do serious damage.

  But even if the Paras had asked for a
gunship, the Wessex was soon taken out of the action altogether. As darkness fell, Yankee Sierra was shut down on the deck of Fearless as she sailed out of San Carlos. The Wessex had been earmarked to collect the incoming land forces commander, Major General Jeremy Moore RM, from HMS Antrim. It seemed odd to Manley that a key airborne weapon system, ideal for supporting the attack on Goose Green, was now no longer available. It was a curious use of resources and a potentially expensive oversight for the Paras.

  It was not the only misallocation of helicopters. Oily Knight, Noddy Morton and Arthur Balls spent a very uncomfortable evening on a ‘special mission’ flying up and down Falkland Sound in pitch darkness, with their Wessex fitted with a thermal-image camera in the cabin doorway. The plan was to try and identify Argentine observation posts that might have been reporting the position of the British ships to the incoming Argentine jets. Just as Crabtree and Heathcote had noted on the night of the landings, the imager failed to distinguish between the heat of a sheep and the heat of a man. Morton had only a rifle night sight that could resolve little more than occasional blobs. The crew listened nervously as the camera operator reported lots of sightings. It seemed a fruitless task.

  Having satisfied the operator, the crew still had to find their way back into San Carlos in complete darkness. With the aircraft lights switched off, they expected to be shot down at any minute. Morton could barely make out the outline of Fanning Head and the various ships with his rifle sight. It was just enough to pass instructions on to Knight, who could see nothing at all. As they slowed their approach towards HMS Fearless, it was touch and go whether they would have to use their bright landing lights, ruining the blackout that concealed the position of the ships in the bay from Argentine observers. Flying blind in the darkness, it was only in the final few yards that Knight could pick out the outline of the ship.