Vulcan 607

by Rowland White

  ‘What’s going on, Monty?’ he asked. ‘How could all the aeroplanes be an hour out?’ Monty didn’t have any answers.

  ‘All we can do is wait,’ Price told him.

  They were soon joined in the Ops tent by George Chesworth. The Air Vice-Marshal too was quickly brought up to speed.

  The 228 went wild, lighting up with gunnery threats, missile threats and search radars. As 607 flew north, the Task Force locked on to them with every weapon they had, Hugh Prior was as worried about being shot down by the Navy as he had been about the Argentine defences. The entire 60-degree sector ahead of the bomber was filled with menace. So much so that Prior – the electronic-warfare instructor – found it impossible to differentiate the sound of one from another. He just had to trust that he was broadcasting the IFF frequency the fleet was expecting to hear. And make the post-attack transmission as soon as possible.

  ‘Did it seem all right to you?’ asked Withers, wanting his Nav Radar’s verdict on the bomb-run.

  ‘I’ve seen the offsets,’ Wright told him. ‘As far as I can tell it was fine.’

  None of them could be any more certain than that. Wright was as sure as he could be that his bombs were on target. Withers asked Hugh Prior to transmit the codeword. There were three options: silence, if the attack had had to be abandoned without alerting the enemy; ‘Rhomboid’, if the attack had failed but had alerted defences; and ‘Superfuse’, if the attack had been a success.

  ‘This is One Quebec Delta, over,’ Prior said over the VHF.

  One Quebec Delta, pass your message.

  ‘Good morning, this is One Quebec Delta.’ Prior paused. ‘Superfuse.’

  Roger, out.

  At the same time as Prior transmitted the message to the fleet, Wright set to scan his H2S radar as further confirmation of 607’s presence. Rather than sweeping from side to side, he focused the scanner directly at the fleet, channelling a narrow beam of energy towards the Task Force which, he hoped, would be picked up and identified by the ships’ own Radar Warning Receivers.

  Prior immediately got to work on the HF radio in an effort to get through to Red Rag Control. As well as confirming the success of the attack, he needed to get the final refuelling moved 200 miles further south. Their margins for reaching the planned Rio RV off the coast of Brazil didn’t look good.

  Three Foxtrot Tango Niner, this is One Quebec Delta, do you read?

  As they cruise-climbed Pete Taylor and Gordon Graham began routine fuel checks, until it struck Graham that they were pointless.

  ‘It’s not worth it,’ he announced. ‘We’re not going to get any fuel from anywhere, so why are we doing fuel checks?’

  They continued north, while Prior kept working the HF. A hundred and fifty miles from Stanley, the slow pulse of the Argentine search radar slipped into the distance behind them.

  Then, at 0757, Prior made contact with Red Rag Control. And while the news of their success was greeted with relief and satisfaction at Wideawake, anything more enthusiastic was tempered by their knowledge that they still had to bring the Vulcan and two Victors home.

  The grim waiting game aboard Tux’s Victor came to an abrupt end.

  ‘Superfuse,’ Mick Beer announced emphatically over the intercom, unable to keep the smile out of his voice. The rest of the crew erupted, yelling and screaming with relief and excitement.

  ‘Fuck, he’s done it!’ someone shouted. There was an intimacy possible in the cockpit of the Victor that the decked layout of the Vulcan didn’t allow. And now, all five of the tanker’s crewmen craned and swivelled in their seats to look each other in the eyes; to share the elation and satisfaction of pulling off the job they’d been sent to do under the most testing of conditions. Until the Vulcan’s transmission, a nagging feeling that the bomber crew had let them down had been hard to shake. It had been dispelled in an instant. But as the euphoria died down, thoughts turned to their own desperate situation. Their fuel state hadn’t been improved by the news of the raid’s success, but they could, at least, now throw themselves into trying to sort it out.

  ‘Right,’ Tux said, ‘let’s look at all of this and try to refine it; see where we stand; how far we’re going to get; where we can reasonably expect an RV.’

  Mick Beer tried to raise Ascension, but he struggled. In the early morning over this patch of the South Atlantic, the HF characteristics didn’t help his efforts. As the big AEO laboured with his radio set, the rest of the Victor crew began to discuss their options. They could only fly north for another four hours at most. If a TAT out of Ascension wasn’t at that point by the time they reached it, their jet was going down. As far as any of them was aware, there was absolutely no guarantee that Beer would get through in time.

  In passing the ‘Superfuse’ message to Northwood, a mistake was somehow made. It led to an anxious delay while the Ops Team there waited for clarification of the signal. It was nearly 8.30 before a staff officer confirmed BLACK BUCK’s success to the Air Commander. In the rabbit warren corridors of the state-of-the-art NATO headquarters, Air Marshal Curtiss smiled with relief. Like so many who’d been committed to the operation’s success, he’d harboured private doubts about whether they would pull it off. At the very least, he’d thought, it’s pretty nip and tuck.

  From the suburbs of north-west London, news was relayed to Whitehall.

  Sir Michael Beetham was sitting at his desk on the sixth floor of the Ministry of Defence. At 9.30, Air Vice-Marshal Ken Hayr came bursting into his office. The Assistant Chief of the Air Staff had run up the stairs from his Ops staff on the floor below. As the elegant New Zealander strode across the carpet towards Beetham, his hand was outstretched, his face a picture of happiness.

  ‘We’ve done it!’ he told Beetham, whose own grin quickly matched that of his deputy. Between them, they’d conceived and instigated the Vulcan operation. While Beetham had been its advocate within Whitehall, Hayr had monitored the developing plan’s progress at Waddington. The two men shook hands, before reining in their celebration. As Hayr explained, the bombs might have gone, but Vulcan 607 was still on its own out over the South Atlantic. There were thousands of miles and a further refuelling to go before anyone could finally consider the mission accomplished.

  At 41,000 feet, Martin Withers engaged the autopilot and 607 settled into her long cruise north. The first hints of marmalade orange were visible on the horizon as the sun began to come up – half an hour earlier at height than at ground level. Withers was shattered. Dick Russell was just thinking that he was probably condemned to his seat in the back until the final refuelling when Withers spoke to him over the conference intercom.

  ‘Are you coming up, Dick?’

  Withers wanted him to sit on the right after Pete Taylor had moved across to fly the bomber from the Captain’s seat. The bomber’s Captain was going to get his head down. The fuel tray was pushed smoothly back into the instrument panel like a filing cabinet drawer, and safety pins were slotted back into the triggers of both ejection seats. The three pilots shuffled around the hemmed-in spaces of the flight deck, while the ever-phlegmatic Taylor and a slightly nonplussed Russell strapped themselves into their harnesses. Bob Wright made the most of the hiatus to take care of a little housekeeping. He unclipped the five full pee-tubes from next to their owners and drained them into the chemical toilet that sat, unused till now, down in the bomb-aimer’s prone position. After hanging them back up, he returned to his chair and, for the first time, began to reflect on what the mission had achieved so far. Up front, Dick Russell settled on to the sheepskin-covered, uncushioned co-pilot’s seat and pulled out the fuel tray. A quick glance over the gauges immediately rekindled his earlier anxiety about the Vulcan’s lack of fuel. They weren’t out of the woods yet. Not by any means.

  Behind him, Withers curled up on the jump seat and closed his eyes. Sleep came quickly.

  Simon Baldwin hadn’t slept well. But he was still in bed when Air Vice-Marshal Mike Knight telephoned from HQ 1 Group at Bawtry.
Half awake, Baldwin was confused by the message.

  ‘What are you talking about, sir?’ he asked.

  The AOC had to repeat himself to make himself understood. While Baldwin hurriedly pulled on his clothes before racing down to the Ops block, Knight’s efforts to coolly and efficiently pass news to the Waddington Ops Room there were similarly frustrated.

  When John Laycock had returned in the morning, there’d been no news on BLACK BUCK from any source. The silence around the room was striking. People pushed paper around, chewed their pens and waited. Occasional, routine phone calls would be dealt with swiftly and sparely – once it was realized that the voice on the line had nothing of interest to offer. Just before ten o’clock, the phone rang again. The whole room turned to look. One of the Ops clerks picked up, listened and turned to Laycock.

  ‘It’s for you, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s the AOC.’

  Laycock took the handset and announced himself: ‘Station Commander.’

  ‘Superfuse,’ was all Air Vice-Marshal Knight said. Laycock considered it for a moment, then realized the word meant nothing to him.

  ‘Superfuse,’ Knight repeated impatiently.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about!’

  ‘For God’s sake! It’s the codeword in your Operation Order!’

  ‘Don’t have one, sir. We haven’t received an Op Order.’

  The line turned blue as Knight digested the news.

  ‘We’d only be an “Information” address here anyway, sir,’ Laycock explained.

  Each Op Order was classified ‘Action’ or ‘Information’. Since the Vulcans had deployed to Ascension, Waddington had been downgraded to ‘Information’. With the bombers under Northwood’s control, they no longer needed to know.

  ‘Never mind that,’ Knight stopped him. ‘“Superfuse” means that they’ve dropped the bloody bombs!’

  ‘Oh, right!’ Laycock exclaimed. ‘Thank you, sir. Very good news!’

  ‘I’ll talk to you later.’

  And the line clicked off.

  Laycock put down the phone and, with all eyes on him, told the expectant crowd that the raid had been a success. The room erupted from the tense silence that had gripped it all night into a welter of relief, excitement and pride. When Baldwin came hurtling in soon afterwards, it felt like winning the World Cup – the strain of a month’s intense focus and concern evaporated in an instant.

  Elation was in short supply on Ascension. Since catching ‘Superfuse’ over the HF, the frequency had come alive, but it was virtually impossible to decipher. Each call sign needed to be checked and authenticated. But the changes there’d been within the formation and the flurry of concurrent messages, often relayed from one distant aircraft via another, meant that only confusion emerged.

  Charlie Five Tango – that was Biglands – affirm request TAT to fly that route to make an earlier RV. Request you pass this to Red Rag Control. I will TAT on frequency and sub one seven.

  ‘Lima Charlie, may I relay? Over.’

  Confirm message, Charlie Five Tango, and read back.

  Two Mike Mike – Tuxford – returning with technical defect and does not require TAT. ETA Ascension One One Two Zero.

  It sounded as if Tuxford was on his way back carrying a problem, didn’t need fuel and was expected into Wideawake at 11.20. But all of this applied not to Tuxford, but to Biglands. Because of the broken probe, Tuxford and Biglands had changed places, but Price didn’t know that. The confirmation only served to underline how little he or anyone else at Red Rag Control really understood about what was taking place in the skies to the south-west. It was all guesswork. At 11.20, Tuxford would still be nearly two hours from Ascension and flying on fumes.

  All the Ops Team could do was make sure they had a tanker as far south on inbound track as they could and hope that the two jets would find each other. Wing Commander Colin Seymour, 55 Squadron’s CO, was already on his way. Someone, Price knew, was going to need the fuel.

  With one of Ascension’s two Nimrods heading southwest to assist the Vulcan’s RV off Rio with Barry Neal’s Victor, Price kept the other at an hour’s readiness on the Wideawake pan. In the event of a catastrophe, she could at least provide search and rescue cover up to 2,000 miles from the island. The Nimrod carried Lindhome Gear consisting of a large nine-man MS9 life raft linked by floating ropes to two containers full of stores, but it could do no more than find the survivors, mark their position and drop survival equipment. It couldn’t actually fish anyone out of the sea; couldn’t bring them home.

  Chapter 41

  While the Vulcan headed north towards the Rio RV, staying within striking distance of the South American mainland, Tuxford’s Victor was heading out to sea, away from any safe haven except Wideawake’s 10,000-foot runway. For nearly an hour, Mick Beer tried in vain to satisfy himself that the Victor’s desperate situation had been communicated and understood. As Beer persevered, talk on board turned to what would happen if he failed to confirm a rendezvous with a tanker. Tuxford was clear that they couldn’t ditch the jet. Each aircraft has specific ditching characteristics and, unlike the Vulcan, the Victor was believed to be unsuited to landing on water safely. Trials had shown that the forward bulkhead immediately behind the H2S radar scanner would catch the water like a bulldozer, dragging the nose under the surface and forcing the whole jet to dive deep underwater. Its crew would, almost inevitably, be lost.

  Instead, they worked out an alternative. It would mean abandoning the jet before the fuel tanks were really sucked dry. In order to have any hope of keeping his crew together, Tuxford had to be sure he could maintain control. Two hours from now, they decided, and still at least 800 miles from Ascension, they would set up in a slow cruise at 5,000 feet above the ocean. The height allowed plenty of time for the rear crew’s parachutes’ static lines to work. They would open the crew hatch on the port side of the cabin, then the three backseaters would jump from the Victor in rapid sequence. It should ensure that they weren’t too widely scattered. Tuxford and the co-pilot Glyn Rees would then stay with the Victor and try to bring her back over the point where the rest of the crew had bailed out, before pulling the yellow and black striped handles between their legs to fire their ejection seats. The hope was that they’d come down in the same patch of water. It wasn’t much to look forward to.

  They all then went through their abandonment drills. Every connection was physically checked: oxygen, static lines, lanyards, dinghies and the rest of their survival equipment. Each was wearing a Mae West lifejacket that carried an EPIRB locator beacon, a knife strapped to his leg, a heliograph to reflect the sun towards Search and Rescue crews, and a whistle. They had time, so it made sense to be thorough. On reaching the end of the checklist, they went back to the beginning and ran through the whole thing again.

  Right, thought Tuxford, while Beer kept working the HF, now it’s in the lap of the gods.

  The news on the BBC World Service was astonishing. The huge, booming explosions that John Smith thought might be the sound of an Argentine ammunition dump going up had been the result of an attack by an RAF Vulcan bomber. The shock of the bombing had caused a panicked tangle of naked limbs on the landing of Sparrowhawk House. Once dignity had been restored they made tea and sat around the radio while a barrage of Argentine anti-aircraft fire raged outside. There was nothing on the five o’clock or 5.30 news, but at six o’clock Stanley time the BBC reported the raid. By the time they heard the bulletin, the newscaster explained, the Vulcan would be over the South Atlantic on its way home.

  As a fourteen-year-old boy, Smith had watched the first Vulcan prototype, then still known only as the Avro 698, fly at the 1952 Farnborough Air Show. It was only the fourth time the revolutionary new aircraft had ever flown. At the time it had seemed like science fiction, but what had happened an hour and a half earlier was just bizarre. How could we be bombed by this old aeroplane?, he wondered. And a little part of him noted with satisfaction that he w
as probably a member of a pretty exclusive club: the only person watching the 698 at Farnborough that day to have subsequently been bombed by the thing.

  Tuxford and his crew could have done without it. Hearing the BBC announcing the successful bombing of Port Stanley seemed, at best, surreal and definitely premature. They were still four hours from home – assuming they made a rendezvous with a TAT and were able to take on fuel. There was good news though. Mick Beer had at last had his HF transmissions acknowledged by Red Rag Control. And that long-range conversation revealed that the tanker they so desperately needed was already in the air. While Tuxford and Rees concentrated on flying the aircraft, they pooled the fuel in the central bomb bay tanks to make sure that every drop they had on board was available to them. Beer relayed lat/long co-ordinates worked out by Nav Plotter John Keable to Wideawake. The RV was as far north as they dared go along a direct track between the Falkland Islands and Ascension.

  Bob Wright shook his Captain awake.

  ‘They want you up front,’ he told him as Withers opened his eyes and found his bearings. Vulcan 607 was closing on the final refuelling rendezvous and he needed to take back control of the bomber. Withers had been asleep for nearly two hours and it had done him good. It had been dark as he bedded down and, as he climbed the ladder up to the flight deck, the bright daylight was slightly disorientating. The anxiety he’d felt as they climbed away from the bomb-run was behind him, though. He clipped back into his harness and leg restraints and smiled at Dick Russell to his right. Then he looked at the gauges and realized that they were carrying less fuel than he’d ever seen aboard an airborne Vulcan. Russell was clearly uncomfortable with it. For the last hour, he and Taylor had been experimenting with the jet’s altitude, gently climbing between 38,000 and 41,000 feet in search of a tailwind that might give them a few extra knots of ground speed. They’d found nothing to help them. Vulcan 607 needed fuel within the next hour.