by Pete Scholey
Vince Phillips, a member of the ill-fated Bravo Two Zero patrol.
Bob Bennett and Roger Cole setting up the 81mm mortar at Mirbat.
B Squadron’s 81mm mortar, with the fort at Mirbat in the background.
SAS troopers preparing for a HALO (High-Altitude Low-Opening) jump inside an aircraft using the oxygen masks that are essential to prevent the onset of hypoxia.
A fully-equipped SAS tactical parachutist. The Bergenstrapped to the back of his legs would be released to dangle belowhim on a strap once he deployed his parachute.
Crash Rescue patrol, Borneo, 1963; l–r: ‘Chopper’ Essex, Steve Callan, Frank Williams and Ricky Coomber.
A Squadron mobility troop carrying out trials on prototype Pink Panther Land Rovers in Libya, late 1960s.
D Squadron in Aden, 1966. The Regiment operated not only out in the wilds of the mountains but also covertly in the back streets and markets of townships.
(l–r) Pete Scholey, John ‘Lofty’ Wiseman, Don ‘Lofty’ Large and Colin Wallace – the ‘Old and Bold’!
The Argentines had taken the Falkland Islands, known to them as Las Malvinas, and were overjoyed. They were confident that the British people, most of whom had never heard of the Falkland Islands and had no idea where they were, would not support British military action in the far South Atlantic. Mrs Thatcher, however, had other ideas. Early in the morning on Monday 5 April, the SAS D Squadron flew out of RAF Brize Norton aboard an RAF VC-10. There were 60 SAS aboard along with 20 support personnel and a hold packed with enough hardware to start a small war – which was entirely their intention. They were bound for Ascension Island. Sticking up in the middle of the Atlantic near the equator, 1,400 miles (2,253km) off the coast of West Africa, Ascension Island is British territory and home to Wideawake, an American air base. It was to serve as the forward mounting base for the planned task force and a refuelling stage for southbound aircraft.
Pete, like me, watched all of the build-up to the Falklands campaign from the training grounds, although I was a bit more of a spectator than he was. Pete was in B Squadron’s Boat Troop and B Squadron was being held in reserve. My service with the Regiment was just about coming to an end, but I was drafted in to organize stores and supplies to make sure that B Squadron was ready to go – although if they went, I was also marked down to go along with them. Pete was desperately disappointed to have been left behind. With over 12 years’ experience in the Regiment, he was worried that this might be his last chance to take part in a ‘real shooting war’. Nevertheless, he went through the training exercises along with the rest of B Squadron. I joined them whenever possible and we made sure that we were all up to speed with all the squadron weapons, hopping in and out of helicopters, getting our feet wet in boats and generally doing everything to ensure that we were ready to move the moment our orders came through.
D Squadron left Ascension Island on 9 April, along with M Company of 42 Commando and a Special Boat Squadron (SBS; a Royal Navy sister unit of the SAS) section, as part of the South Georgia Task Group (SGTG) that consisted of HMS Antrim, the frigate HMS Plymouth and two support ships, the Fort Austin and the Tidespring. Their job was simple – retake South Georgia. Two weeks later, before the main task force had actually arrived in the combat zone, South Georgia was back in British hands, the Argentines having surrendered pretty much as soon as the SGTG showed up. This was a real morale booster for the lads in the task force, but a real sickener for B Squadron. It was beginning to look like they might not be needed at all.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. On 4 May the destroyer HMS Sheffield was destroyed by an Exocet missile launched from an Argentine Super Etendard strike fighter. The powers-that-be decided that something had to be done about the Exocet threat. If one of the carriers or a troop ship was hit, the retaking of the Falkland Islands would suffer an insurmountable setback. Unless the landings went ahead before the end of May, the southern hemisphere winter would set in, the ferocious weather making amphibious operations impossible. The plan that they came up with was to send in B Squadron, in the original version of Operation Mikado. B Squadron was to fly from Ascension Island in two C-130s and attack the Argentine air base that was home to the Exocet-armed jets. Pete and the others immediately set to work carrying out mock attacks on airfields all over the UK. I had to reorganize the stores and equipment they would need for their task. I spent just over a week sorting out the new equipment and making sure it was delivered to RAF Lyneham for shipping on to Ascension. I was ready to join Pete for the last couple of days’ training when I got a desperate call from RAF Lyneham. They had loaded our gear on to the two C-130s incorrectly. They needed me there to sort it out. While I was there, Pete and the others returned to Hereford and set off for Ascension without me. Pete was to have what he thought was his last crack at a real enemy, while I was to wait at home.
B Squadron arrived at Ascension to devastating news. A Sea King helicopter had gone down during a routine cross-decking flight, transferring men from the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes to the assault ship HMS Intrepid. Twenty-two men had been lost, 20 of them from D and G Squadrons. The loss of so many men at once would be a blow to any regiment, but to an outfit as small as the SAS it was devastating. Like me, Pete knew many of those who died. He had been in Dhofar with Sid Davidson, in Northern Ireland with Phil Curass and had played rugby with Paddy O’Connor and Taff Jones. Now he was more determined than ever to strike back at the Argentines. Now it was personal.
Just before dawn on the day after their arrival at Ascension, B Squadron were priming grenades, pushing rounds into the magazines of their Armalites and breaking open liners of linked ammunition for their GPMGs. Carrying all of their personal equipment, they then climbed aboard the Bedford trucks waiting to take them out across the runway to the C-130s. Fitted with probes for air-to-air refuelling, the Hercules transports would be able to take them all the way to the Rio Grande air base – but not back again. They would be abandoned there (provided that they were not shot down by Argentine interceptors or anti-aircraft defences on the way in) with their crews joining the SAS to escape into Chile for covert extraction after the demolition job was complete. It was a simple, direct plan that most regarded as ... a suicide mission. Then, as they sat in the trucks, word came through that the operation was cancelled. Pete couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or furious. It seemed as though everything and everyone was conspiring to keep him out of the Falklands. B Squadron was stood down, but the one thing that they couldn’t do was relax. They were about to be briefed for a new mission.
Within 24 hours, Pete was heading back out along the runway at Wideawake, carrying not the machine-guns and grenades that he had been preparing for the Rio Grande raid, but a diver’s dry suit and flippers instead. The ‘suicide’ attack on the Argentine air base had been abandoned, but now the two C-130s were to drop sections from B Squadron along with palettes of equipment into the South Atlantic in the vicinity of the frigate HMS Andromeda. Rigid raider boats would then pluck them out of the water and deliver them to Andromeda, which would take them on to San Carlos Water where they were to reinforce the sadly depleted D Squadron. Dropping from a Hercules into the open sea is not the ideal way to begin a relaxing cruise. The seats in the aircraft are not airline-style recliners. They are simple webbing affairs in the ‘passenger area’ of the cavernous cargo hold. Pete dropped his kit on the floor, checked his parachutes (main and reserve) then strapped himself into the seat to try to get some shut-eye if he could. The roar from the four turbo-props of the C-130 isn’t exactly conducive to restful sleep, but it was to be a long flight. Pete glanced around at the rest of the troop. Some were, to him, little more than kids, almost fresh out of Selection and untried in combat. He knew that they would look to him as the most experienced NCO in the troop if anything unexpected happened. Little did they know that this was his first operational jump into a combat zone too.
When the RAF parachute dispatcher called them to ‘Action S
tations’, Pete struggled into his dry suit. The neck seal has to be so tight to keep out the water that you have to fight to get your head through it. Then it has to be zipped up perfectly. When you are landing in water as cold as that in the South Atlantic, any water penetrating your suit will leave you frozen and dead from exposure in no time at all. Pete strapped on his ’chutes, made sure his fins were easy to get at when he was in the water and fastened a distress light to his wrist. Then, with the tailgate door of the Hercules fully lowered, making the noise inside even more deafening, he watched as the equipment palettes trundled along on their rollers and disappeared out of the yawning doorway. It was his turn next. He was leading the troop out of the aircraft, first in the ‘stick’. When the green light blinked on, the dispatcher yelled ‘Go!’ and slapped him on the back. Pete leapt out into the slipstream of the aircraft and moments later felt the comforting jolt of the parachute opening above him. He checked his canopy and then looked down to see the sinister grey shape of HMS Andromeda directly below him. The last thing he wanted was to crash onto the deck of the ship, so he yanked on the steering toggle and veered off to one side. Then he unclipped his reserve ’chute and dropped it into the sea. He could see the water rushing towards him, but judging the distance to the grey surface of the sea when the cloud cover made everything else a dull grey in the fading light was not easy. Pete decided to hit the release and dropped out of the harness just before he hit the water. Clear of the canopy and rigging lines, he inflated his life jacket and struggled into his fins. He could see the other members of his troop drifting down towards the heavy swell and, when he floated up on a wave, he could make out HMS Andromeda – far too far away for his liking.
Unfortunately for Pete, having been first out of the aircraft, he had ended up farthest away from the Andromeda. When he was down in a trough, all he could see was a wall of water, but when he floated up again he could see the boats picking the others out of the water. After 15 minutes in the water, there was no sign of a boat coming anywhere near him, no matter how hard he waved when he hit the crests of the waves. The closest one came was 270 yards (250m), but it picked up someone else then headed back to the Andromeda. The ship seemed to be getting further and further away. Pete’s hands and face were going numb with cold and he was starting to tire. He bent the plastic tube on his wrist, cracking the phial inside that allowed two chemicals to mix and glow brightly. He waved the arm with the distress light whenever he hit the top of a wave, but no one seemed to see him. When he realized that he had been in the water for a full 35 minutes, he began to fear the worst. It was growing dark very quickly now and with every minute that passed his chances of being spotted grew slimmer and slimmer. Then, as he crested another wave, a rigid raider suddenly popped into view. Pete waved his arm frantically and the boat veered towards him. A few seconds later, a very relieved and very cold Pete Winner was being hauled out of the ocean.
Pete’s problems weren’t over when he got to Andromeda. One of the C-130s had experienced in-flight refuelling problems and had been forced to turn back, so Pete’s troop were the only swimmers to be picked up by the rigid raider boats. One of the equipment palettes, however, couldn’t be found. It was floating free somewhere out in the South Atlantic and Pete was told that it would have to be abandoned as Andromeda was getting under way. It didn’t take Pete long to realize that the kit they had lost contained all of the troop’s personal equipment. Without it, they would be about as much use to D Squadron as a patrol of traffic wardens. Pete remonstrated with the petty officer who brought them the bad news, then shoved the man aside and headed for the captain’s cabin. Bursting in on the captain of a Royal Navy warship unannounced is simply not the done thing, but Pete certainly got the man’s attention and his blunt approach persuaded the captain to resume the search. Tired as he was, Pete made his way out onto the deck, peering out through the freezing sea spray as searchlights played on the water. Eventually, hours later, the ship’s radar picked up the palette and it was recovered safely. The Andromeda arrived in San Carlos Water the following morning, and Pete’s troop joined D Squadron doing what the SAS does so well, operating behind enemy lines, setting up observation posts, laying ambushes and generally making a nuisance of themselves until the day they boarded HMS Onyx to prepare for that final version of Operation Mikado.
Pete’s contretemps with the captain aboard the Andromeda was far from being his first brush with authority. The SAS would prefer it if its soldiers maintained a low profile and lived a quiet life when not doing their jobs in training or on operations. It takes a certain strength of character, however, to get through SAS Selection and training and sometimes that character is so strong and extrovert as to be irrepressible. Pete would be the first to admit that he’s got himself into a few scrapes in the past. When the Regiment sent him out to Hong Kong in 1977 to work with the Gurkhas and the local police, training them in unarmed combat techniques, Pete became entangled in a bar brawl while out drinking with a couple of off-duty Hong Kong police inspectors. For many years, having seen the sort of trouble that young soldiers can get themselves into when they are out and about in garrison towns, Pete had carried with him a heavy brass knuckle duster. The thing was an antique, a relic from World War I that Pete had picked up somewhere, but it still did its job. When Pete and the policemen were attacked, he slipped the knuckle duster out of his pocket and pushed it onto his hand. He laid out two or three of their assailants as he made his way towards the door, but was wrestled to the ground in the street and was using the ‘duster’ for its intended purpose when the uniformed police arrived and arrested him.
Although Pete hadn’t actually gone looking for a fight, being arrested for brawling is bad enough to warrant serious disciplinary action in the Regiment. Pete, furthermore, had been carrying an offensive weapon, something of which the judge took a very dim view when Pete appeared in court. Rather than impose a custodial sentence on him, the judge gave Pete the option of corporal punishment and Pete chose six strokes of the cane rather than three months in jail. It may have seemed like the easy option at the time, but the punishment inflicted such severe wounds on his backside that he ended up in hospital for a week before being shipped back to the UK on a medical flight. He reckoned he was the only sergeant in the British Army with 12 stripes – three on each arm and six on his arse! When he got home, he was RTU’d – Returned To Unit. Pete went back to the Royal Engineers, from where he had originally come, but was not out of the SAS for good. The RTU was for 18 months only. When he came back, he lost his stripes – the ones on his arms, at least. The others took ten years to fade.
Had he not been such a valuable asset to the Regiment, the Hong Kong caper would have meant the end of Pete’s SAS career, but he had proved many times over that he was one of the best. He had been wounded during Operation Jaguar in Oman in 1971 when he caught a ricochet that cut up his hand. A few millimetres’ difference would have meant losing his thumb, but Pete took comfort from the fact that a splitsecond’s difference would have meant him taking the bullet in the head.
Pete was also present at the battle of Mirbat in 1972. During the action, Pete had two responsibilities: he had to establish and maintain radio contact with B Squadron HQ at Um Al Gwarif, and also operate a .50-calibre Browning heavy machine-gun (HMG) on the roof of the BATT house, firing at the waves of closing enemy fighters whose objective was to take the 25pdr (see chapter 12 for the details of this battle). Pete sent a quick radio message stating ‘situation desperate – send reinforcements’, then ran back up to the HMG to engage the enemy, who by this time had closed to within grenade-throwing range of the field gun. Pete kept firing, helping to hold the attackers at bay until an air strike drove them back and reinforcements eventually arrived. The battle of Mirbat raged for almost seven hours and was witness to many acts of individual heroism. The rebels had saturated the defenders’ positions with rifle fire from their AK-47s, mortars and rockets. As the source of some of the heaviest defensive fire, Pete had b
een the focus for a great deal of the enemy’s ordnance. When he checked his machine-gun after it was all over, he found that it had scrapes and dents where it had been repeatedly hit by enemy fire, although he had come through it all without a scratch.
Pete was not so lucky when we were in Germany on exercise, thundering across the countryside in our ‘Pink Panther’ Land Rovers (Land Rovers literally painted pink, one of the best colours for desert camouflage). In fact, he got himself into a bit of a fix. The Land Rover is a wonderful vehicle, but the versions we were using in the early 1970s had their limitations. They have improved a lot, but back then they were heavy, cumbersome, underpowered and had a pretty poor turning circle. The turning circle wasn’t such a problem out in the desert, but in northern Europe it could become a liability, making the wagons far less manoeuvrable than we would have liked. In short, they simply didn’t always go exactly where we wanted them to go, especially if they were still fitted with the ‘balloon’ tyres we used in the desert. These were ideal for use on sand, but could be dangerous on the more solid surfaces in Europe. Pete found this out the hard way when he rolled one of the Pink Panthers. Standard procedure when a Rover starts to tip over, as far as I’m concerned, is to get the hell out of it: jump clear and stay clear until the thing stops moving. Pete, however, didn’t quite make it out in time and ended up with more than two tons of vehicle lying on his leg. Needless to say, his leg was broken. He wasn’t happy. You’ve never heard a trooper curse to his fullest capacity, running through his entire repertoire of most blasphemous swearwords, until you’ve heard one who’s just had a Land Rover dropped on his leg. Once we managed to get the wagon off him, Pete was whisked away by the medics, heading for a spell in hospital.
