Scram!

by Harry Benson

  All of us were keen to get stuck into the action and get up to the front line. But Short was categorical that we should not expose our valuable helicopters to unnecessary risk. We had lost enough helicopters already and any more losses would significantly reduce our ability to get the job done. His tone became very dark. We were not to fly into any ‘hot’ landing zones. If we had wounded soldiers in the back and any died, we should be prepared to offload them as necessary to give us the extra power and manoeuvrability. The bottom line was that we were not to be overzealous. The prospect of front-line action was exciting but to be avoided. And now we were to get our heads down and get some sleep.

  The air was clear and icy cold as we headed out of the shed into the pitch darkness towards the hut we’d been assigned. About twenty miles away to the south-east, we could see the first flares light up the hills on the horizon. After ten days waiting for 5 Brigade to get into position on the southern flank, the Paras and Marines had finally been given the go-ahead. After our naïve and cocky demands to get involved in the action, it was a deeply sobering thought that the poor grunts on the ground were now in a full-scale firefight. We were suddenly very nervous about getting shot by our own sentries as we wandered around the camp.

  Twenty miles to the east, British troops were advancing towards their respective start lines for the night assault on the line of hills surrounding Stanley. At long last, the final phase of the war to reclaim the Falklands was to commence. For the troops who had endured the long march from Port San Carlos, followed by days out in the open exposed to the freezing South Atlantic weather, now was their chance to shine. Over previous nights fighting patrols had tested the Argentine defences of Mounts Longdon, Harriet and Two Sisters. Several patrols left behind Argentine casualties following vicious firefights whilst, remarkably, suffering none of their own. But it confirmed what they had already learnt from Goose Green – that the enemy would defend their positions robustly.

  For the British, the prospect of attacking well dug-in positions on high ground was daunting. Defenders would once again outnumber their attackers, the reverse of the conventional principle that attackers should have a three-to-one advantage. Before even reaching each hill, the British would need to cross a long stretch of open ground and minefields.

  In order to get all attacking units as close to their objectives as possible before alerting the Argentine defenders, each attack was to start in silence. The occasional enemy artillery starshell pierced the blackness and illuminated the surrounding rocky hillside, causing the advancing troops to freeze and drop to the ground. Astonishingly, they appeared not to have been seen and were able to continue onwards as darkness resumed.

  Their luck couldn’t hold. The troops of 3 Para were first into action. The silence of their approach towards the northernmost hill, the imposing Mount Longdon, was shattered when an unfortunate Para corporal stepped on a mine. Over the next eleven long hours, through dawn and well into the morning, the battle raged. Artillery and mortar shells from both sides, and naval gunfire support from the British frigates, mixed with heavy machine-gun and small-arms fire. Clearing the Argentine defensive positions was a slow and lethal process. Snipers and 50-calibre machine guns wreaked havoc. Soldiers saw their friends and colleagues killed or wounded. Extraordinary acts of individual bravery were required to advance upwards and onwards through each trench, sangar or pile of rocks.

  The initial assault on the western approach by B Company threatened to fizzle out after six hours of fighting. Sergeant Ian MacKay was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his single-handed assault on a key Argentine bunker near the western summit. His action broke the stalemate and allowed A Company to advance through along the ridge. Sixty-six millimetre Light Anti-tank Weapons, my former nemesis, were used to great effect to destroy sangars and were unofficially renamed Light Anti-Personnel Rockets. Stretcher bearers brought ammunition in and wounded out. In amongst the hell of it all, soldiers found time to brew tea or smoke a cigarette. Many took advantage of Argentine stores or weapons left behind in trenches. Some soldiers even removed their sodden boots and replaced them with dry boots requisitioned from dead Argentines.

  By the end of the battle for Mount Longdon, eighteen Paras lay dead and forty-seven wounded. Three more Paras and one REME craftsman were killed by Argentine shelling from Mount Tumbledown to the south during the subsequent thirty-six hours spent out on the mountain. Argentine losses included over thirty dead and 120 wounded. The eleven-hour battle for Mount Longdon proved the longest and fiercest of the final phase, even prompting the British commanders to consider withdrawal at one stage.

  The battles for Mounts Harriet and Two Sisters were similarly fierce, though shorter in duration. British losses were lower. The southernmost hill, Mount Harriet, was expected to be the toughest objective of all. The Royal Marines of 42 Commando approached their start line silently through two minefields, dropping to the ground without being spotted as again, starshell flares illuminated overhead.

  As the Argentine defenders faced a softening-up barrage of naval gunfire from HMS Yarmouth, the Marines watched in horror as a land-based Exocet missile flashed towards them out of Stanley. They fired in vain at the missile before it sped out towards the destroyer HMS Glamorgan far away to the south. Glamorgan had time only to turn away as the missile exploded into the ship’s hangar, destroying the flight deck and Wessex 3 helicopter, and killing thirteen men.

  Instead of attacking Mount Harriet from the west, the Royal Marines of K Company and L Company circled the hill to the south across open ground. The assault from the south-east took the defenders by surprise. K Company approached to within a hundred yards before engaging the enemy. As with the Paras, the Marines moved from bunker to bunker clearing out enemy positions and taking dozens of prisoners. Milan missiles were used as well as 66mm rockets. Remarkably just two Marines were killed during the approach and initial attack, but with many more wounded on both sides.

  Four-five Commando’s assault on the two peaks of Two Sisters began with yet another heart-stopping march across open ground. The first of the two peaks of Two Sisters was secured by X-Ray Company directly from the west with minimal difficulty, leaving the victorious Marines with a bird’s-eye view of the battles raging on the adjacent hills. The second peak proved far more troublesome. The Argentine defenders were well dug in and determined. Shortly after crossing their start line to attack from the north-west, Yankee and Zulu Companies became engaged in a firefight. Fifty-calibre machine guns and other machine-gun positions pinned down the Marines for several hours. Artillery shells were beginning to fall amongst both companies, killing and wounding. Eventually, Zulu Company Commander, Lieutenant Clive Dytor, took the initiative and led an exceptionally courageous charge across the 400 yards of open ground. His men followed through, clearing heavily defended positions one by one. Dytor’s charge, for which he was subsequently awarded the Military Cross, changed the course of the battle. A three-pronged attack by Yankee and Zulu Companies, with X-Ray following through along the connecting ridge, convinced the defenders to flee what should have been an impregnable position.

  By mid-June the Falklands autumn was beginning to give way to winter. The land forces endured more frequent squalls of rain, bitter hail, sudden snow showers, fine drizzle, enveloping mists and dense fog. In comparison with the impossibly courageous acts of the Paras and Marines, exposed to appalling weather conditions, our experience of war as aircrew might have seemed pathetically tame and benign. But it didn’t feel like it.

  In many ways, the South Atlantic weather proved our greatest challenge: it was volatile and could change in an instant. Some days brought brilliant sunshine with calm air and we could see for miles. The next might be atrocious with dangerously low levels of visibility. Sharp winds adversely affected helicopters transporting heavy sling-loaded artillery ammunition pallets.

  One day after the war, Al Doughty and I were crossing San Carlos Water with an underslung load. An hour earlier we
had climbed up to 5,000 feet in beautiful blue sky just to admire the view. Halfway across the bay, the Sussex Hills turned white without warning. We had just enough time to turn back and land our load and ourselves on the hillside before the snowstorm struck. Within thirty seconds the port engine wound down, extinguished by a deluge of snow that had built up inside the nose intake. On another occasion I spent one unnerving flight trying to get some stores out to an island settlement. Low cloud and strong winds meant that I had to fly around the coast. I ended up flying lower and lower until I was hover-taxiing alongside the cliffs just above the crashing waves. Thankfully the cliffs gave way to flatter land and I was able to pull over and shut down in the fog.

  To do our job in support of the troops, we needed to be fully alert. Back in the relative safety of FOB Teal, at least for those aircrew resting anywhere near the sheep shed, it was nigh on impossible to get our badly needed sleep. The HF radio loudspeaker bristled intermittently with ‘Helquests’ for helicopter casevac from their regimental aid posts (RAP). Behind the Mobile Air Ops Team (MAOT) manning the radio nets, Major Adrian Short was pacing up and down, wondering how best to respond to the mounting casualties from the ongoing battles. Flying a Wessex blind into pitch-black hills at night could easily be a one-way mission. It was still two hours before dawn. His crewman Al Doughty stood nearby, trying to gather as much tactical information as possible from overheard snippets of conversation. He was marking his map with details of RAP grid references, radio frequencies and callsigns.

  Eventually Short asked Doughty to go and remove the covers from X-Ray Juliett. Doughty was surprised that they weren’t going to take X-Ray Tango, Short’s aircraft from the previous day. Then he remembered his colleague Petty Officer Sandy Saunders laughing that Short had landed on top of a telegraph wire after returning from the 3 Brigade brief. Somebody else would have to deal with that particular problem.

  It was a spooky feeling wandering around the settlement alone in the darkness. Doughty could just make out the distant cracks and whoomps of battle. He took the covers off the rotor blades, engine intake and exhausts, and returned to the shed. MAOT was telling Short that there were now seriously injured soldiers that needed to be casevaced from the RAP on the north side of Mount Kent. Short turned to Doughty, ‘Are you ready to go?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ It felt better than addressing the Major as the more usual ‘boss’.

  Visibility was much better than either of them expected as they lifted off into the clear night and headed southeast. It was still half an hour before dawn, yet there was just enough contrast to be able to fly at a few hundred feet. Small pockets of low-lying radiation fog lay scattered across the landscape but were easily avoided. Passing Estancia House, the last easily recognisable feature that fixed their position, they picked up the track that wound through the valley and up towards the north side of Mount Kent. Without any obvious features on the ground, the only way to find the RAP in the darkness was through dead reckoning, flying an accurate course and speed for the right amount of time. The task was made easier this morning as there was no wind to take into account.

  Doughty had hastily drawn one-minute markers onto his map. By now the first hints of dawn gave them just enough light to be able to drop down to fifty feet above the ground at exactly sixty knots. The RAP should be four minutes’ flying time up the valley. Any further and they risked entering the battle area. ‘If we haven’t seen them at five minutes, we do a 180,’ he instructed Short.

  Just as Doughty was beginning to wonder if Short had heard him, he spotted a tiny green light out to his right. ‘I’ve got the LS visual at 3 o’clock,’ he shouted, to make sure.

  ‘Don’t shout and keep calm.’

  Doughty smiled to himself as he talked Short around a tight left-hand circuit and into an uneventful landing near the medical tent. Doughty unhooked his despatcher safety harness and walked over to the medics. There were already some twenty wounded men. Numbers were mounting. The first group to go would be three stretcher cases and four walking wounded from both sides, British and Argentine. While he helped arrange the stretchers, he reconnected his harness and plugged back onto the intercom. ‘Back on, sir. You’re clear to go. We need another Wessex out here to help us.’ As they lifted away, reversing up the valley and back towards the field hospital at Teal, Short radioed MAOT for a further aircraft to help out.

  The second Wessex was quickly airborne. Given the ferocity of the battles raging just a mile or two away, the two aircraft completed the casevac from Mount Kent with remarkable ease. Yet throughout what turned out to be a fairly routine mission for both aircraft, the thoughts of pilots and aircrew alike were dominated by a single relentless nagging fear: Where were the Pucaras?

  I have no idea how or why I managed to sleep so well. Apart from seeing the first flares way off in the distance, I missed the distant booms of the British 105mm howitzers on Mount Kent and a high-level attempt to bomb them by five Argentine Canberras during the night. But I was wide awake and packing away my sleeping bag by the time I heard X-Ray Juliett’s port engine power into life.

  I was tasked as co-pilot with RAF Flight Lieutenant Andy Pulford. Our crewman was Jan Lomas, survivor of the second Fortuna crash in Yankee Alpha (no relation to 845 detachment commander Jack Lomas). All three of us were new arrivals to the Falklands and looking forward to the action.

  With the likelihood of a very long day ahead, it was important that we ate while we had the chance. My favourite item in the Arctic ration packs was rolled oats. Tear open the foil packet, pour the powder into a mess tin with a bit of hot water, and you have a delicious hot sweet porridge. Together with my green plastic mug of hot sweet tea and some ‘AB’ – tooth-breaking biscuits, nicknamed ‘Ard Bastards’ – it was an excellent breakfast with loads of calories.

  After a short brief from MAOT in the shed, we gathered our bergens and crossed the hard ground towards our cab, X-Ray Tango, parked on the edge of a small valley and stream. Two telegraph poles leant in precariously toward the aircraft. So we were the unlucky crew who’d have to sort out Major Short’s mess. It seemed extraordinary that neither wire nor helicopter had given way. We ducked under the telegraph wire to get the covers off the Wessex. All the windows were frosted up from the cold night air and the green skin of the helicopter had a faint white tinge from the frost.

  A second Wessex started up behind me as I climbed up the side of X-Ray Tango. I slid open the lightweight window and eased myself into the left seat of the cockpit, unsure whether to be relieved or not that there was no window armour. On the one hand, I wouldn’t have to haul the heavy shield up into place and I would be able to see a lot better; on the other, this was the one day when I could definitely have done with a little more protection.

  Once the engines were started and the rotors turning, I busied myself with adjusting the heating system to defrost the windscreen and rearranged my map for the first task of the day. We were to return to San Carlos to pick up passengers from HMS Fearless.

  Take-off was very ginger. Pulford eased the aircraft slowly off the ground in order not to let the wire snap up behind our tail wheel and into the tail rotor. From the cabin, Lomas gave us a running commentary as the two telegraph poles established something close to their former upright position.

  We headed west, back towards San Carlos, passing the distinctive marker of Bombilla Hill. It was a stunning morning. As first light dawned, thin wisps of fog hugged the ground like cotton wool. We raced just above the white carpet which we knew would clear as soon as the sun rose. Back on Fearless, we refuelled, picked up our passengers and headed back towards Teal. Like schoolboys eager for a thrill, we were hoping like mad to be given a task up near the front line. Flying onward from our drop-off at Teal, we headed at low level towards the forward operating base up near Estancia House. As we approached, we heard Adrian Short’s voice over the radio inviting us to join him to pick up wounded soldiers from 3 Para’s battle on Mount Longdon. A Royal Marine Gazelle would
show us the way. It seemed like Short had forgotten his own brief and was as unable to resist the pull of action as the rest of us.

  The two Wessex joined up. X-Ray Juliett led with X-Ray Tango following about thirty yards behind in loose tactical formation. The formation slowed to sixty knots and dropped down to ten feet above the ground. We climbed over a small ridge north of Mount Kent, both aircraft rolling quickly through the skyline and downhill into a valley. We then wove our way south towards Two Sisters which loomed in front of us. The two Wessex were now on the rear edge of the battle area and yet there was no sign of life anywhere.

  The eerie feeling of impending doom suddenly shattered. As if in slow motion, I watched a small green Gazelle helicopter emerge out of nowhere to our right and fly straight into the path of X-Ray Juliett in front of us. There was no time for a warning as Pulford and I held our breath. We were about to witness an appalling mid-air collision. Amazingly, the Gazelle shot from right to left in front of the X-Ray Juliett. We breathed again as the Gazelle, flown by Navy pilot Lieutenant Commander Gervais Coryton, radioed instructions: ‘Follow me boys!’

  The three aircraft formation headed north to our left, slowing further and dropping even lower. Our wheels were now practically running across the grass. If it was possible to hide a twelve-foot-high Wessex helicopter in a five-foot deep valley, we managed it. By now, I had total confidence in Pulford’s superb flying. I followed our progress across the featureless terrain as best I could on the map, occasionally glancing across the cockpit instruments to make sure the Wessex was doing what it was supposed to, and mostly scanning the skies for Pucara.

  As we rounded the corner of a small river bed, the Gazelle led us uphill onto Mount Longdon itself. There was still virtually no wind and so we had no worries about turbulence and downdraft from the lee of the hill. The yellow grass turned to grey rocks and scree as we climbed the slope. Occasional puffs of smoke from mortar fire exploded far out in front of us as we approached a line of sheer rocks overhanging a ridge at the top of the hill. Underneath this protective wall were several troops crouching amongst the scree. It was the 3 Para regimental aid post. The Gazelle cleared away to the left and X-Ray Juliett hovered up toward the troops. We dropped our front wheels on to the grass fifty yards back down the hill and watched as stretchers were lifted across into the other aircraft.