Scram!

by Harry Benson

  Yankee Hotel was by now heading due east at low level, along the coastline of Berkeley Sound and on towards Stanley through a gap in the hills. Visibility was still gloomy though improving a little. Balls lowered the M260 sight from the cockpit roof, like a periscope, and started to get it ready. The early morning mist had fogged up the lens. Because they were still well clear of any known troop movements, Manley put Yankee Hotel down on the ground so that Balls could climb halfway out of the cockpit and give the windscreen a wipe. It was hardly a high-tech solution and not especially good for the optics, but it sorted out the immediate problem.

  As they lifted off again, Manley called up the SAS observers hidden somewhere on the hillside of Beagle Ridge and Mount Low, five miles to the north of Stanley. ‘This is Yankee Hotel approaching IP [Initial Point], any movements your location?’

  ‘It looks quiet, although a Huey has been operating in the area,’ came the reply. ‘Do you have means to counter?’ asked Manley.

  ‘Yup.’

  The special forces man’s reply confirmed that he had a Stinger missile available just in case. It sounded good to Manley. Stinger had already knocked down a Pucara on the first day of the landings.

  ‘Keep an eye on us?’ asked Manley.

  ‘Yup. I can’t see you but I can hear you,’ came the reply.

  By now Manley and Balls were approaching what seemed a good range to fire at their target. Manley eased the big Wessex helicopter up into a high hover 200 feet above the grassland, using the ridgeline behind them as a camouflage and a backdrop. He could see the lights of Stanley twinkling in the gloom just beyond Wireless Ridge as they edged slowly forward.

  ‘Any good yet?’

  ‘No, no,’ replied Balls.

  ‘We’ll keep going.’

  Seconds later, Balls reported that he could now make out the target. ‘Is it good enough?’ asked Manley.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK, in your own time, select missile one and let’s go for it.’

  Immune to the sounds of the Wessex, it seemed to Manley that they were suspended in a bleak soupy bowl, quiet as a grave. Not for long. The AS12 missile made one hell of a racket as it flew off the port launcher, trailing sparks behind it like a firecracker. There was nothing for Manley to do but hold his hover and count off the seconds. With very small movements on the controller, Balls adjusted the flight path of the missile along the thin wire now dangling invisibly between launcher and AS12. At fifteen seconds, Balls switched to ten-times magnification on the sight slightly earlier than expected. Switching too soon risked losing sight of the orange dot altogether.

  ‘… 20, 21, 22, 23 …’ Manley called out.

  ‘Impact,’ said Balls calmly.

  ‘Christ, we’re too far in,’ said Manley.

  To stay out of range of the Oerlikons, he had planned that they fire at 7,000 yards, which would take thirty-two seconds. The early impact suggested they were nearer 4,000 yards. ‘OK, cut the wires, select second missile and go for the alternative target.’

  Balls found the second target, an Argentine Chinook, on a field in front of Government House.

  ‘Got it,’ he said. ‘Fire the missile.’

  There was another blazing racket as the starboard AS12 shot off its rail and out into the gloom.

  Suddenly Manley could see flashes of gunfire and tracer coming at them from quite a bit nearer than the lights of Stanley. At first it looked as if the Argentine gunners were firing from Wireless Ridge across the harbour. But he soon realised it was an illusion caused by the low visibility, the same illusion that had led them in closer than they had intended. Tracers were now shooting past the helicopter from the Oerlikons. The Argentines could hear them but not see them, although they might have spotted the initial sparks from each missile launch.

  ‘… 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 … I’ve lost control,’ said Balls. ‘It’s gone down and right.’

  ‘Cut the wires, let’s get the fuck out of here,’ said Manley as he kicked the helicopter around to the left, away from the wire, and pushed the nose down to gain speed. As the Wessex accelerated away to 120 knots, the first few artillery rounds from the 105mm howitzers began to crash down into the peat just out to their right. For Balls, moving his head away from the tunnel view through the missile sight, it was like emerging into the middle of some Second World War movie, but with the sound turned off. Brown puffs of smoke exploded in the air all around them but there was nothing to hear above the noise of the helicopter. ‘How the hell did he keep such a steady hover?’ Balls wondered.

  Acting as search-and-rescue cover in X-Ray Tango, Flipper Hughes and Pete Skinner had to work out their own mission plan on the hoof. Given little more than a grid reference and an outline of the mission by Jack Lomas, they were now following on at low level about ten minutes behind Yankee Hotel. Navigating from the left seat, Skinner could see that the grid reference was on virgin map. There were no markings at all because the firing point was so far inside enemy territory. They flew much the same route that Manley had taken, hitting the coastline of Berkeley Sound and then heading south.

  As they came through a gap in the hills, a thin column of smoke billowed from the ground at about the missile-firing point. Hughes and Skinner could clearly see the lights of the Stanley seafront as they edged forward towards the smoke. They hadn’t been able to contact Manley and Balls on the radio, nor were they having any joy talking to the SAS guys on the frequency given. Now it looked like the mission had been a disaster. As Hughes crept slowly forward assuming the worst, artillery shells began to rain down around them. The 105mm howitzer was trying to lock on to their position. Not fancying becoming a burning wreck themselves, Hughes turned tail and headed back through the hills.

  It looked like we’d lost our first Wessex crew. Cockpit conversation on the return journey was limited to little more than grunts of ‘bloody hell’, ‘fuck’, ‘shit’.

  Landing back at FOB Teal, Hughes and Skinner were disconsolate as they trudged slowly across to the ops room. They were also feeling the guilt of leaving their friends under fire. But to their amazement and delight, there in front of them sat Pete Manley and Arthur Balls sipping tea with Jack Lomas. ‘You bastards,’ Hughes cried with a huge smile, as relief swept over him.

  It was one of the most daring raids of the war. Pete Manley and Arthur Balls fired two AS12 missiles into the capital Port Stanley from two miles away. The aim was to give Argentine General Menendez a breakfast he wouldn’t forget. The first missile missed by just one yard, before flying down an alley and demolishing the roof of the police station. The second missile went rogue.

  Yankee Hotel had cleared the area with only seconds to spare. ‘Well done, it looks excellent to me,’ reported the SAS observer to them over the radio. Manley and Balls then headed at very low level back up past Berkeley Sound and onward to FOB Teal, tea, whole-hearted congratulations from Jack Lomas, and half-hearted abuse from Flipper Hughes.

  * * *

  It was only after the Falklands War that the outcome of their daring raid emerged. It turned out that General Menendez had not held his officers’ meeting there that morning after all. In any case, the first AS12 missile missed the Town Hall first-floor target by a matter of just three to four feet. As an anti-ship missile, a few feet either side was well within the AS12’s normal margin of error. So Arthur Balls had done a brilliant job as aimer under extremely demanding conditions. Instead, the missile had flown on down an alleyway and exploded into the top half of Port Stanley police station, which had been requisitioned by the extremely unpopular Argentine political officer, Major Patricio Dowling – who had reportedly been unnecessarily unpleasant towards the captured Royal Marines of Naval Party 8901 and to the islanders. Although the major fled back to the mainland soon afterwards, news of the attack on the occupiers went down very well with the locals.

  The second AS12 missile appeared to have snagged its wire, ironically on top of Wireless Ridge. Once the missile lost control inputs from the ai
mer, it was programmed to fall down and to the right. The missile had splashed short of Port Stanley seafront and into the harbour. In overexcited media reports, the Argentines accused the British of trying to sink their hospital ship Bahia Paraiso, anchored a short distance away.

  The origin of the plume of smoke spotted by Hughes and Skinner remains unclear. It may have been caused by an artillery shell setting light to the peat surface. Years later, a former special forces soldier told Pete Manley that his hidden position on the ground was heavily shelled immediately after the Wessex hovered overhead. As far as Manley was concerned, there was nothing whatsoever on the ground below Yankee Hotel as they fired their missiles. It is probable that the Wessex involved was X-Ray Tango, creeping slowly forward before being targeted by the radar-guided 105mm howitzer. As a result of the successful firing, one further AS12 attack was planned for a hardware depot on West Falkland, but was never carried out.

  Chapter 15

  ‘Follow me boys’: 12 June 1982

  THE LAND WAR so far had involved the politically expedient battle for Goose Green, the assault on Top Malo House, and a handful of skirmishes with special forces.

  The war was now about to reach its climax. Well dug-in Argentine positions on high ground awaited the British troops. Artillery and mortar fire threatened British helicopters foolish or daring enough to venture near the front line. In the early hours of Saturday 12 June, the final phased assault on the Argentine defences surrounding Port Stanley began.

  The net was now closing in on the Argentines forces in and around the capital. To the east at sea was the British task group. Air superiority was dominated by the Sea Harriers. To the west were the troops of 3 Brigade and 5 Brigade, poised for the final push. No-one underestimated the difficulty of completing the task in hand. Thousands of Argentine soldiers remained between Stanley airfield to the east and the hills to the west. The main task now was to overpower the Argentine defences in the hills as quickly as possible. The prospect of urban warfare with hundreds of civilians in the middle was too horrible to contemplate. We hoped the Argentine commanders would reach the same conclusion.

  While Pete Manley and Arthur Balls were leaving the forward base at Teal on the northern flank to attack Port Stanley, Lieutenant Willie Harrower and Leading Aircrewman Steve Larsen were in one of several Wessex on their way to Fitzroy, the new base on the southern flank. They were flying X-Ray Quebec, the same aircraft used by Hughes and Tuttey to lift survivors from the burning Sir Galahad three days earlier.

  At Fitzroy, the first job they were given was to lift several pallet-loads of artillery shells up to the 105mm guns near the summit of Mount Kent. Artillery bombardment, together with naval gunfire support from sea, would play a crucial role in weakening and demoralising the Argentine defences.

  Manoeuvring a ton of artillery shells beneath a Wessex meant flying slower and more carefully than our usual uninhibited style. The full power that was needed just to get off the ground left little scope for manoeuvrability or for dealing with sudden downdrafts. Fuel levels had to be kept deliberately low, meaning that pilots were always wondering where to get the next suck of fuel.

  When load-lifting went well, it was a fairly mundane activity. When it went badly, it did so horribly quickly. A little bit of swinging on the load was normal. But once the momentum got to a certain point, the whole aircraft would start to swing with it. It was tempting to try to correct the uncomfortable sideways movement with the cyclic stick. This usually made things worse. The ultimate response would be to hit the red release button and ‘pickle’ off the load. Aside from the odd incident with Mars bars, few of us ever got that far. Smooth flying and gentle turns usually solved most problems.

  Harrower and Larsen were therefore quietly relieved once they had finished lifting the external loads. Their next job was to move boxes of ammunition, stacked inside the Wessex’s cabin, up to the Royal Marines who were waiting in the hills for the go ahead to attack.

  Larsen sat in the cabin facing the huge piles of boxes. The cabin door was partly open, giving him a view of the Falklands scenery rushing past. The two crew kept up the usual chat about what was going on. As X-Ray Quebec flew low up a ridgeline to their planned drop-off point, Larsen edged back in his seat, aware that he would make a nice target sitting in the doorway. As Harrower flared off speed, Larsen could see a group of Royal Marines lying flat on the ground below them. A big moustachioed Marine was waving anxiously at the helicopter now hovering above his head. It didn’t need a degree in lip-reading to tell him that there was something bad going on and that they were in big danger. ‘We’re being told to get out of here,’ Larsen told Harrower hurriedly over the intercom. The Wessex nose dropped straightaway as X-Ray Quebec accelerated into a tight left-hand turn.

  At first they weren’t even aware of what was happening: there was nothing to hear above the usual grinding roar of the helicopter gearbox and whine of the Gnome engines. As the Wessex gathered speed and raced back down the valley they had just flown up, Larsen was amazed to see several large black circles appear in the ground alongside them, but he just didn’t compute. The circles appeared as if by magic. And then daylight suddenly poured into the rear of the cabin in front of him.

  ‘We’ve been hit, we’ve been hit,’ shouted Larsen. The sudden black circles in the ground were the result of mortar blasts peeling away the mossy green grass and instantly revealing the black peat underneath. Shrapnel from the explosions had punched several fist-sized holes in the aircraft fuselage. Amazingly, the aircraft was still handling fine. They decided their best option was to get back to Fitzroy to sort things out. The ammunition boxes appeared largely untouched, other than by bits of Wessex debris. Larsen leant over and picked up one of the culprits, a short fragment of metal from a mortar shell.

  Two of the Wessex maintainers, Mould and Trims, met them as soon as they landed back at Fitzroy. As the ammunition boxes were cleared out of the way, Leading Mechanic Charlie Mould had a good look around. There didn’t seem to be any damage at all other than to the skin of the aircraft. A bemused Larsen could only stand a few yards away and light up a cigarette to recover from the shock of it all.

  Within a matter of minutes, Mould had covered the holes with aluminium tape. It made the side of the aircraft look unduly shiny. Grabbing a handful of Falklands mud, he smeared it over the tape. Harrower and Larsen looked at each other and laughed: ‘Operational maintenance!’

  Larsen finished his cigarette. Time for the next job.

  Neil Cummins and I had spent most of our day within the confines of San Carlos Water, flying X-Ray Lima around the ships and shore bases for five hours. As Helicopter Delivery Service aircraft, we were general postmen and taxi drivers to whoever needed us.

  After landing back at Port San Carlos, I wandered back to the briefing tent, bergen on my back, helmet in hand. I was met by Mike Spencer who told me not to bother getting too comfortable. I was to catch a ride up to FOB Teal for the night. Minutes later, I was sitting on the cabin floor in the back of another Wessex, grinning stupidly at the crewman opposite me.

  Riding in the back was a whole different experience to sitting up front and driving the thing myself. With the cabin door wide open and the port window out to make way for a second machine gun, the noise and wind were tremendous. The helmeted crewman sat perched in the doorway facing backwards, attached to the aircraft with a harness around his waist. Map reading with only a view of what has just gone past is a challenging skill. Just outside the door on the right-hand side, the huge starboard wheel hung suspended in mid-air on the end of two metal oleos. At the front of the cabin was the amusing sight of the pilot’s feet dangling down beneath his seat. I hadn’t been paying attention when I got in and spent the journey wondering whether or not the feet belonged to my colleague Lieutenant George ‘I’m sorry but you’re wrong’ Wallace. Meanwhile, the ground hurtled past at over a hundred miles an hour, the aircraft fuselage rolling from side to side as we followed the contours of the v
alleys.

  Teal, our forward base on the northern side of the mountain range, was twenty-five miles east of the landing area at San Carlos. Just like Port San Carlos and most other Falkland settlements, Teal comprised a few scattered houses, farm buildings and windswept evergreen pine trees. Royal Navy Wessex and Sea Kings and Royal Marine Gazelle helicopters were constantly buzzing in and out to pick up, drop off or refuel. The distinctive thump of the RAF Chinook made its presence known before we could see it. Underslung below the huge double-headed helicopter were four black 4,000-pound fuel containers known by all as ‘bollocks’.

  I began to realise how fortunate it was that we had Bravo November. Whereas Sea Kings could and did bring fuel up to our forward bases at both Teal and Fitzroy, they could only carry one ‘bollock’ at a time. The Chinook could carry four. The importance of this cannot be underestimated. Without the need to flog the fifty-mile round trip to and from the San Carlos landing area, the commando squadron helicopters were far better able to support the front-line troops another twenty miles further east beyond the FOBs. This was especially important for the twenty-five Wessex that lacked the speed and capability of the larger Sea Kings. The fuel provided by the Chinook at a stroke more or less doubled our capacity to support the front-line troops.

  As night fell, the Wessex aircrew gathered in one of the old sheep-shearing sheds to be briefed by our own Major Adrian Short. He had just returned from the main 3 Brigade briefing with a numbered copy of the ops order, classified ‘Secret’. Tonight was the beginning of the final phase of the war. Troops from 3 Para, 42 Commando and 45 Commando were to attack the Argentine defences on Mount Longdon, Two Sisters and Harriet at midnight ‘Zulu time’ – 8 p.m. local time.