Scram! (30 page)

The reinforcements of 5 Brigade sailed south on board the luxurious
QE2
as far as South Georgia, thus staying well out of range of the Argentine Super Etendard jets and their Exocet missiles. These two Sea Kings of 825 Squadron then helped transfer them to the only slightly less luxurious
Canberra
and
Norland
, arriving in the danger zone of San Carlos a few days later.

Two days later, on Saturday 29 May, the container ship
Atlantic Causeway
joined the fleet. On board were the majority of 847 Squadron's Wessex and four of our crews, led by Lieutenant Commander Peter Hails.
Causeway
also carried 825 Squadron's anti-submarine Sea Kings, their
sonar
gear stripped out to convert them for their commando role. Just as a new front-line squadron of aircraft and crews had been formed from the Wessex training squadron at RNAS Yeovilton in Somerset, another new squadron was formed from the Sea King training squadron at RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall. Almost every Fleet Air Arm unit was now involved in the Falklands War one way or another.

Having lost
Conveyor
on the way into San Carlos four days previously, it was not surprising that the Royal Navy command were nervous at the prospect of sending
Atlantic Causeway
in on a similar mission. All of the aircrew on board
Causeway
knew perfectly well they were at serious risk of attack from Exocet. But they also wanted to get on with it. Hanging around at sea seemed pointless.

The armed forces are awash with various inter-service and inter-unit rivalries. The vast majority of it is healthy, good natured and tongue-in-cheek. There can sometimes be a hard edge that reflects competition between units that do similar things, such as between Paras and Marines, or between Fleet Air Arm and Royal Air Force. This is generally a good thing because it encourages excellence.

Within the Fleet Air Arm there is a long tradition of friendly banter between the anti-submarine squadron
pingers
and commando squadron
junglies
. Any potentially hard edges are much softened by a network of longstanding friendships, mostly because all aircrew start their training together and many serve together on the carriers and larger ships. So it is usually with good humour that
pingers
generally view
junglies
as little more than housetrained orang-utans, operating in the field; dirty, smelly and barely civilised.
Junglies
generally view
pingers
as fancy typewriter operators. Push a few buttons in the cockpit and the helicopter moves automatically from one
hover
over the sea to the next. It doesn't sound very taxing or exciting. Neither can see the appeal of the other.

The difference this time was that
Atlantic Causeway
's
pingers
were about to infringe on
junglie
territory. Could they cope with life in the field? Could they read a map?

Aside from the constant banter, the journey south on board
Causeway
had been largely uneventful. The Wessex flight, led by Lieutenant Commander Peter Hails, comprised four pilots, two aircrew, various maintainers and twenty Wessex 5s. The small number of aircrew gave the feel of an embarked flight but the large number of aircraft meant there was work for a squadron. All of the usual jobs needed filling but there were only six aircrew to fill them.

One of the jobs was ship's met officer. Although all aircrew are trained to forecast weather, most will admit that the subject remains a bit of a mystery. Proper met officers claim to predict the day's weather by reading the weather chart, interpreting the assorted isobars, air masses, temperatures and fronts. Aviators usually start with this method but soon resort to a quick look out of the window, a few radio calls to other ships, and a wise hedging of bets.

Peter Hails and aircrewman Chief Petty Officer Bill Tuttey had served together for two years on an RFA. ‘We haven't got a met man,' said Hails, ‘and you did it for two years.'

‘I lied,' replied Tuttey.

‘Well lie on this one,' said Hails.

When Tuttey's subsequent briefings of a cloud base at 10,000 feet were questioned by
pingers
, he would ask whether it was normal practice to doubt met briefings in this way.

Another of the essential jobs was ship's vicar. Hails called Tuttey in again: ‘We haven't got a vicar.'

Tuttey was duly seconded. Only a few people turned
up
for his first Sunday service. The second took place a few days after the sinking of
Atlantic Conveyor
and attracted a hundred converts.

On 29 May, the same day that Goose Green fell,
Causeway
was within flying range of the task force. With the loss of
Conveyor
still fresh in everyone's mind, it was vital to start offloading helicopters from the ship as soon as possible.

The first four of the radar-equipped Sea Kings launched straight away for San Carlos, stopping en route on the carriers
Hermes
and
Invincible
for fuel. The four-hour-long transit over the sea was a task for which the
pingers
were especially well equipped. Their arrival at the beachhead added significantly to the available helicopter resources on land.

Remaining on board
Causeway
, Lieutenant Tim ‘Flipper' Hughes was one of the four Wessex pilots. He had been dragged away from his ‘best job in the world', flying a smartly painted Wessex, callsign Romeo November, around schools and agricultural shows for the Director of Naval Recruiting. The choppy and freezing South Atlantic water was far removed from the glamour of posing in blue overalls on an English summer's day.

Having finally arrived in the Total Exclusion Zone, he and all the other embarked
junglies
were raring to go. Having watched the first four
pingers
disembark, it seemed inexplicable that the rest of them were being made to spend a thoroughly tense and frustrating three days hanging around.

Causeway
finally headed towards San Carlos exactly one week after the ill-fated attempt by
Conveyor. Junglies
and
pingers
alike couldn't know it then, but they were about to be thrown together into the same maelstrom.

* * *

The end of May marked a turning point for Wessex operations on the Falkland Islands. Operating together from a single base at FOB Whale had already allowed Jack Lomas to mix up his crews, making them more like a small squadron and less like a collection of separate flights. Lomas also knew from his time in Germany that any idiot can be uncomfortable under canvas. A more substantial operating base was needed, especially given the imminent arrival of the rest of 845 Squadron and the whole of 847.

The departure of 3 Brigade troops from Port San Carlos offered the possibility of regrouping the growing number of aircraft in one place and housing most of the air and groundcrews under a solid roof rather than flimsy canvas. A quick chat with Tim Stanning on board HMS
Fearless
for approval was followed by a visit to the Port San Carlos settlement manager, Alan Miller, who was generous and welcoming. Lomas invited the Chinook crews to join him in the move. So, on Sunday 30 May, the tents came down and the joint FOB moved around the corner of the bay to Port San Carlos.

Argentine air attacks on the British landing area at San Carlos had now dwindled almost to zero. The deteriorating South Atlantic weather and heavy attrition amongst the Argentine air force and navy jets both played important roles in this. By the end of the battle for Goose Green, the Argentine forces had lost forty aircraft. By comparison the British had lost seven aircraft comprising five Sea Harriers and two ground-attack Harriers.

Subsequent Argentine attacks would be focused on disrupting supply lines, whether the ships at sea or the troops on the ground. In any case, after the attack on Ajax Bay and San Carlos that had so nearly wiped out Hector Heathcote and Kev Gleeson, only two further daylight air raids were to reach San Carlos during the entire war.

That said, life in San Carlos Bay still had the potential to be extremely alarming. Argentine Canberra bombers, their crews trained by the British, launched two high-altitude bombing strikes at night. In the first raid in the early hours of Saturday 29 May, four bombs were dropped without success. The second raid two nights later put four bombs into Fern Valley Creek, the commando Sea King base, wiping out one tent and causing serious injury to the squadron's air engineering officer, Richard Harden.

Most of the other occupants were fortunate to miss the raid. They had transferred overnight back to
Fearless
after the assault ship had returned to San Carlos with land forces commander Major General Jeremy Moore. One day earlier and the bombing raid would have produced many more casualties and fatalities.

In the cold darkness of the morning of Tuesday 1 June, the container ship
Atlantic Causeway
sailed into San Carlos Water. The liner
Norland
was also arriving that morning from South Georgia, followed by SS
Canberra
a day later, to disembark the Scots and Welsh Guards of 5 Brigade. It was a critical moment in the war.

If
Conveyor
had been vulnerable to Exocet out at sea,
Causeway
was even more exposed to air strikes in San Carlos Water. Losing nine British helicopters on
Conveyor
had been a disaster; losing another twenty-four helicopters on
Causeway
could prove catastrophic. It was therefore vital to get aircraft off the ship as quickly as possible before daylight and the arrival of Argentine jets. On the improvised and crowded flight deck, there was initially only room to spread the rotor blades of one Wessex at a time. Manoeuvring the aircraft into place ready for launch involved a complicated game of flight-deck chess.

The day started badly. Flipper Hughes had just run
through
his pre-flight checks in the dimly lit cockpit of X-Ray Echo. Time was now crucial. He pressed the starter button for the port engine. To the collective dismay of aircrew and engineers waiting to prepare the next aircraft, the engine spun up but was not followed by the usual cracking of the igniters and
whoosh
of flame through the jet pipe. The igniters had failed. Hughes decided to get the starboard engine going and fly off unconventionally on a single engine. As an experienced pilot, he knew the Wessex could handle this. Alas the starboard igniters also failed to fire.

A sense of panic now began to grow. Twenty Wessex and four Sea King helicopters sat immobilised on the deck of the most obvious target in San Carlos Water. Thoughts of
Atlantic Conveyor
edged closer. History threatened to repeat itself. Precious minutes were lost as the frantic senior maintenance engineer decided which other aircraft to rob for spare parts. X-Ray Echo was minutes from being unlashed and pushed into the sea. The hastily fitted replacement igniters worked and the disembarkation process could begin.

Lieutenant Paul McIntosh had recently qualified as an instructor at the grand age of twenty-three with several Wessex tours in Northern Ireland already under his belt. While Hughes struggled to get X-Ray Echo started, he had been waiting anxiously alongside the second aircraft X-Ray Golf with its blades still folded. He could just make out the first glimmer of dawn as his cab was wheeled out onto the landing spot where the blades could be spread.

Hughes held in the hover alongside the ship, waiting for McIntosh to launch so that they could approach Port San Carlos together in the early morning light. Lieutenant Willie Harrower followed in the third aircraft to ferry the pilots back to
Causeway
for their next delivery. Not
knowing
the number of other Wessex already ashore, the plan was to disembark the first twelve aircraft and leave eight aircraft on board
Causeway
in reserve.

For the newcomers getting airborne for the first time, the scene in San Carlos Water was incredible. Warships, newly arrived passenger liners and supply ships jammed the bay. As the two Wessex approached the settlement of Port San Carlos, the unmistakeable shapes of the other Wessex became apparent in the bottom of a small valley. There was not going to be space for a dozen more aircraft. Worse, to McIntosh, the aircraft were not well dispersed and looked highly vulnerable to air attack themselves. Lieutenant Commander Peter Hails made the same observation when he arrived soon afterwards and told McIntosh to sort out a new landing site immediately.

From the air at dusk, these dozen Wessex at Port San Carlos look like a juicy target. There was an ongoing discussion about whether it was better to keep the aircraft close together like this at night – easier to defend – or spread them out – harder to bomb. I suspect we simply parked them closer so we wouldn't have to walk so far!