Beyond Endurance: An Epic of Whitehall and the South Atlantic

by Nicholas Barker

  The surrender went smoothly enough and Astiz confirmed our assumption that the building was heavily mined. In fact it proved to be so heavily mined that our suspicions were further aroused. One of the booby traps we found was particularly fiendish. There were wires leading out to the middle of the football pitch where they had marked an H for the helicopter landing. That could so easily have been the end of helicopter, crew and the poor mug who had been delegated to accept the surrender. Astiz told me he had found the prospect vaguely amusing. I told him that the white flag obviously meant nothing to him and that I did not share his sense of humour.

  But there was also a moment of light relief. Tony Ellerbeck and his gang found a large quantity of condoms in Astiz’s room. I asked the Argentine what he expected to find on South Georgia and he replied in excellent English, ‘You never know. You have to be prepared for anything!’

  I remember feeling deeply grateful that Cindy and Annie had not fallen into his clutches. Indeed I felt sorry for any woman who had encountered such a charmless man. This may seem like condemning him without a trial, but later investigations did reveal a pretty seedy background. He had been responsible for the deaths of a significant number of left-wing activists in Argentina and had been given the command of the South Georgia garrison as a reward for services. Astiz was certainly not a man to be trusted. We flew him out to the Plymouth in their Wasp. I had drafted their surrender document which was then translated into Spanish by one of our interpreters and beautifully calligraphed by one of our hydrographers, Chief Petty Officer Ginger Woodhouse. It was a capitulation document worthy of a mighty warrior, far too good for a slug like Astiz.

  As we sat round the table for the formal submission Astiz was invited to sign the formal surrender and to write a sentence on the paper. As he was writing, I asked the interpreter what was being written. There was a pause. Then Astiz broke the silence and announced that he was recording his reason for surrender: ‘the superiority of invading forces’.

  ‘No chance of that,’ said David Pentreath as he struck out the offending word. Later he told me, ‘I did not care much for that man’s arrogance. I was pleased to transfer him to Endurance’

  The mopping-up operation was not a simple task. Leith was a fortress built on mines and explosives. I was keen to get some of my people ashore; they had not set foot on land for more than two months. But there was no way I was going to let one of Astiz’s little games add to the UK count of widows and orphans. Nobody went ashore until we were as certain as we could be that the area was clear.

  Argentine radio was putting a different interpretation on events. We were, apparently, guilty of ‘a treacherous act of war’. They also said that the Argentine forces on South Georgia, though hopelessly outnumbered, were still fighting fiercely against the British ‘aggressors’. There were, of course, dozens of British casualties, and our ships were sinking all over the place.

  Monday heralded the arrival of Tidespring with the remaining assault troops of ‘M’ Company on board. The poor chaps missed out on the entire operation, and, as it happened, they never made it to the Falklands either! But they did later have the satisfaction of recapturing Southern Thule and doing an excellent job as the South Georgia garrison.

  The problem at this stage was prisoners. We had a ship full of stinking scrap dealers, sleeping all over the passages. We also had the obnoxious Astiz and his henchmen who we put down into the hold under SAS guard because we felt that given even half a chance they would have gutted any one of us.

  We also had a ship’s company of submariners who were a very different sort. Lieutenant-Commander Bicain, Captain of the Santa Fe, had been sitting on a beach in Mar del Plata with Tony Ellerbeck and their respective wives only a few weeks previously. Now he was a POW in our wardroom. Intrigued to know who was right about the Santa Fe’s position during the intercepted VHF messages, Tony asked him directly.

  ‘So what were you doing last Saturday afternoon, about 16.00 when our boss was talking to Northwood?’

  ‘Looking at you lot through my periscope,’ he replied.

  ‘So why didn’t you shoot?’

  ‘I don’t know really, but I suppose it may have had something to do with the excellent cocktail party you gave us in Mar del Plata.’

  I have a lasting impression of all those who took part in Operation Paraquat, the recapture of South Georgia. Top of my list were the exceptional feats of aviation. Indeed one of the SAS echoed my feelings when he said, ‘All the airmen involved in Paraquat did a fantastic job. They just never knew when to give up.’

  John Coward wrote in his official report: ‘Both aircraft and aircrew are more or less dead beat after a week’s flat-out flying. They have done absolute wonders and without them the invasion of South Georgia could not have happened. I greatly hope that this will not be overlooked in the accolades which follow this operation.’ Happily our gallant aviators did get the recognition they deserved.

  The submarine, still berthed alongside the one and only jetty at King Edward Point, was not only taking up valuable space but remained a danger because of its torpedoes and charges. We felt it was best to try to shift it to the whaling station. Captain John Coward of the Brilliant, as a long-serving submariner, drew the short straw on this one. The engines were started up and they managed to get her clear of the jetty. Then she started lurching precariously. Down in the control room Chief Petty Officer Felix Artuso made a dash to blow some of the tanks to maintain buoyancy. The marines who were down there with him thought that he was trying to scuttle the submarine with them on board. In the moments that followed there was both shouting and shooting. John Coward had no idea what was going on but he heard the crack of the guns. Artuso had been shot dead. I was given the unpleasant task of conducting the enquiry. There was plenty of doubt about what exactly had happened amidst the confusion, but the Lance Corporal accused of firing the fatal bullet was cleared. We buried Artuso in the whaler’s cemetery at Grytviken, not far from Ernest Shackleton.

  Captain Redmond of the Tidespring helped us out of an equally tricky situation. He accepted the inevitability of becoming the prison ship and allowed us to transfer some of our prisoners to him. Unfortunately we had to keep Astiz.

  We were also able to retrieve the British Antarctic Survey team who had been marooned up on the Lyell Glacier. We were relieved to find them in pretty good shape. After a delivery of food and beer they came down under their own steam.

  Then we went round to St Andrew’s Bay to collect Cindy and Annie and the BAS men who had been looking after them. It was a great pleasure to find them all in good heart and health.

  Next it was a trip to Bird Island and Schlieper Bay. Tony Ellerbeck went in and evacuated the scientists and much of their equipment. There was also a crate containing a pair of South Georgia pintail ducks destined for Peter Scott’s Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge.

  And as if to complete the personnel inventory the three missing SAS from Grass Island turned up, a little the worse for wear, but without having suffered serious accident or injury.

  Indeed we had been extremely lucky. The Santa Fe had virtually surrendered to us by being on the surface. The island had been retaken more by good fortune than design. We had been on a roll. We had inserted forces without proper preparation or observation and had got away with it. Our best information had not come from any military source but from the British Antarctic Survey.

  There had also been a reluctance to see Endurance in an obvious warlike capacity. This may have been partly a political decision. How would it have looked if Endurance had been the command ship for this important operation? At some point this option must have been considered. Could it have been that we were ‘unarmed’ or had the ‘wrong communications’ that mattered? Possibly so. But there have been hints at least that Sandy Woodward did not have a completely free hand. All I can say for certain is that in his account of the earlier phases of the Conflict there is very little mention of South Georgia. Much later I asked him about t
his.

  ‘Were we fighting a different war?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘you had your own group. This was basically the logistic group and the forward operating base. I had the carrier group and General Moore had the land forces.’

  ‘But surely, weren’t we all working together?’

  ‘Yes we did, and the whole show was co-ordinated by Northwood. But my story was about my group.’

  ‘But we were never too far away from you and constantly under threat. If I had been an Argentine Admiral with the option of using my two small submarines, and possibly the Santa Fe’s sister ship, I’d have sent them to South Georgia knowing that the force there was virtually undefended. The sinking of merchant ships in particular would have been a massive morale boost to Argentina. Look what happened when they sunk the Conveyor.’

  He noted my comments but really had very little more to say that shed light on the reasons why we were left in such a precarious position.

  Now we had our first victory we were free to send home press briefings. There were perhaps half a dozen of these, not one of which was released. None of us had any real doubt why this was.

  But Mrs Thatcher was delighted by the news of this first definite advance in the conflict. It was Antrim who took the credit. I was not alone among the Captains of the other ships who asked the question, ‘Did we not all deserve a share?’

  Chris Nunn and ‘M’ Company were given the job of commanding the garrison and producing a full list of British Antarctic Survey equipment. We got the janitor’s job of searching the sea bed for any unpleasant surprises and generally tidying up the area.

  Brilliant and Plymouth left on 28 April to rejoin their group. Tidespring and Antrim were ordered north towards Ascension and a rendezvous with Antelope for the transfer of civilians and Commander Astiz. Once again it seemed very quiet. Endurance and ‘M’ Company were left as the sole custodians of South Georgia.

  We believed that the island was likely to become the forward operating base for merchant ships supporting the Task Group. If this was the case somebody either rated our punching power rather more than before or they were taking a terrible gamble. In the background we were aware of discussions at Northwood as to how South Georgia could be defended and whether or not it needed to be.

  South Georgia was already yesterday’s front page. The focus had shifted elsewhere now. On 2 May an Argentine cruiser, the General Belgrano, was torpedoed and sunk by HMS Conqueror. Two days later we lost the Sheffield.

  Our Intelligence gathering, ahead of the Belgrano sinking, told us that the Argentine Navy had split into groups not dissimilar to our own. The British Force consisted of the military group containing the assault troops, the carrier group which was led by Hermes and Sandy Woodward, and my own group which by now consisted largely of supply ships operating in and out of South Georgia.

  At that stage, although we were intercepting signals, we weren’t completely sure of the Argentine positions. We had pretty good evidence though that their carrier group (led by the 25th May) was operating to the north with some modern guided weapon destroyers, whilst the Belgrano (with two venerable ex-US destroyers) was employing a pincer movement and operating to the south. It seemed to us that there was more than a possibility that the Belgrano group was on the way to South Georgia. The expectation that this was unlikely to be a courtesy visit gave us several days of renewed anxiety. The supply lockers for our fairly meagre weaponry were half-empty, and even had we been well stocked our odds against a cruiser and destroyers were similar to those of a carthorse at Royal Ascot. And here we were charged with the responsibility of defending merchant shipping that floated around us like sitting ducks.

  We now know that the delay in further military action, and consequently the run on our 100 paper supplies, was mostly to do with the political argument about whether or not the Conqueror should attack the Belgrano whilst she remained outside the exclusion zone. When we heard of Conqueror’s ‘hit’ there was more than a little jubilation. All that was left to threaten us now was a couple of destroyers. After a submarime at close quarters and a cruiser steaming in our direction, they hardly seemed worth worrying about.

  Our joy upon hearing the fate of the Belgrano was soon tempered as the reality of what it meant began to sink in. The Belgrano had been our host ship in Puerto Belgrano only a few months before; we knew that their standard of training was not particularly high. Combine that with some excitable sailors, little real awareness of damage control procedures, and out-of-date life rafts and it added up to considerable loss of life. It was impossible to feel good about that.

  Chapter 11

  MOPPING UP

  We weren’t alone for long as merchant ships began arriving as part of the build up to the invasion of the Falklands. One of the first ships to arrive was the RFA Blue Rover. She became our more or less resident tanker. She was followed by the Yorkshireman and the Salvageman, then the biggest North Sea tugs. We knew they would be a Godsend since merchant ships were very prone to dragging their anchors in heavy wind conditions.

  Captain Stockwell of the Salvageman entered the bay in darkness. He had been told by the naval communications team on board that the garrison was expecting him and had a bit of a shock when the sea around him was lit by an enormous flare and an unfamiliar voice was heard on the radio saying, ‘Stand by to open fire!’ Moments later the spent flare drifted down and hit Alan on the head. In fact this alarming incident had happened purely through lack of communication. Chris Nunn had no idea of his likely time of arrival and was taking no chances.

  An influx of many vessels followed rapidly. One was Stena Seaspread, a diesel electric offshore supply vessel of about 6,000 tonnes which normally operated in the Thistle Oilfield in the North Sea. On board Seaspread were specialized damage repair teams with their equipment, under the command of Captain Paul Badcock, who had originated from our own village in Cornwall.

  After the departure of Tidespring, Antrim and Plymouth our task in South Georgia changed considerably. I was effectively Group Commander and Harbour Master for all the shipping that arrived to support the main battle group. I was also to provide communications and helicopter support for ‘M’ Company. All that was fairly straightforward, as was the task of preparing the shore bases and safe anchorages.

  Less palatable was the task of clearing up the explosives. In Leith alone this amounted to 1200 kilos of explosives plus detonators. It took us nearly ten days. Our diving teams were led by MCD Officer, Lieutenant David O’Connell. They neutralized TNT and plastic explosive in a dangerous state and dealt with mortars, rockets, and other ammunition. These were either used by our own forces for training purposes or counter-mined. They also uncovered personal effects, kit bags, radio equipment and documents of intelligence value which there had been some attempt to burn.

  At this time we also learned of Northwood’s assessment that the other Argentine Guppy submarine, Santiago del Estero, had sailed a week earlier and could be en route to South Georgia. We believed the threat was more than possible; the Argentines almost certainly knew we had no ASW search capability. Frankly there was little that could be done to protect the ‘high value units’ (the large merchant ships), but I was determined once again to use the local geography to give us as much protection as possible. We flew, every day at first light, a visual reconnaissance. We also made covert passages across the area from Grytviken to Stromness and covered the entrances to the anchorages as best we could.

  One blessing was that the Argentines had stocked their garrison with many months’ supply of tinned food and wine. These spoils of war were a considerable morale-booster.

  As we were considered to be a mine-sweeping, mine-hunting depot ship, there was always a chance we would be dispatched to the Falklands area to co-ordinate the efforts of the four commandeered trawlers who were steaming south to sweep moored mines. This scheme was abandoned at some stage and we remained at South Georgia. In my view this was the right decision.

  This
was an extremely busy period for us, and we were all too aware that the more merchant ships and ‘heavy units’ we had in the area, the more of a target we became. We received a number of signals suggesting that one or more Argentine submarines were going to pay us a visit. The submarine Salta was mentioned several times. She was apparently doing very little in the Falkland area and could have easily been tasked with an anti-shipping role in the South Georgia area. Fortunately for us the Argentines did not like operating their small submarines too far away from their own support. And we later learned that, for a large part of the conflict, only one of them was operational.

  One cheery event in mid-May was the arrival of a small ship, the Iris with ‘our’ marines on board. These were the same group who had been captured when South Georgia fell and the reunion brought us back to a full ship’s company. Some of our sailors who had also been captured were returned to us, as was my First Lieutenant, Mike Green, who had recovered from his appendicitis operation. Being back to full strength was excellent news. And it happened just in time to welcome the large ships – Canberra, Stromness, Norland and the QE2, all of which appeared in the bay, complete with their troops and choppers.

  QE2 had brought out Five Brigade which consisted of Scots Guards, Welsh Guards and Gurkhas. When you saw that lot mustered together it was almost possible to feel sorry for the Argentine troops on the Falklands. It was to be our task to organize the cross-deck operation – that is to transfer – this large group, with all their weapons and support. This included shifting armoured cars and a first aid post from the QE2 to Canberra and Norland who would ship them to the Falkland area.

  Unfortunately the BBC World Service announced the exact time of arrival of the QE2 at South Georgia, and it was pretty obvious from the signal traffic that Canberra, Norland and Stromness were going to be in the bay for the transfer. If the Argentines were going to hit us with submarines this was the optimum time for maximum devastation. I recall thinking that someone should perhaps remind the BBC that their broadcasts were monitored in Argentina.