Scram! (34 page)

Leading Aircrewman Martin Moreby managed to spot two of the five Mirages as they sped through. The scene was lit up with an array of weaponry fired from the ships. As the attack cleared, smoke could be seen pouring from
Plymouth
's funnel and flight-deck area. A radio call summoned the Wessex to stop by to pick up the senior surgeon from
Fearless
. McIntosh lifted from the gulley and headed down across the water. As soon as their wheels touched the deck of
Fearless
, Rick Jolly ran across the flight deck. They now flew straight out into Falkland
Sound
where
Plymouth
had already turned to limp back in towards San Carlos, escorted by a Type-21 frigate.

With smoke pouring from the ship, Jolly was winched down onto the foc'sle. It was a scene reminiscent of his rescue of the sailors from the burning HMS
Ardent
. A few minutes later, the Wessex was called to approach the flight deck, now smoking less vigorously, to collect one of the wounded sailors on a stretcher. The flight deck of
Plymouth
was designed for the much smaller Wasp helicopter and in any case was now cluttered with damage control and firefighting equipment. McIntosh improvised by edging his starboard wheel onto the deck, leaving his port and rear wheels suspended over the sea. One wheel of the Wessex had landed. Martin Moreby helped medics slide the stretcher into the hovering helicopter. Jolly jumped in afterwards and X-Ray Tango headed straight for Ajax Bay.

Hearing the air raid warning red call on the long-range HF radio,
junglie
helicopters Sea King Victor Zulu and Wessex X-Ray Quebec immediately left the landing ships for the relative safety of land. Hughes called down to Tuttey: ‘If you don't mind, I think we'll go and hide behind those rocks.' He lifted off the deck of
Sir Galahad
and set the Wessex down on a spit of land a few hundred yards away to the south-west. Even though their refuel had been interrupted, X-Ray Quebec had taken on just enough to get back to San Carlos. As soon as the all-clear sounded, they could head back. The landing ships were not to be so lucky.

From the cabin door, Tuttey and his unknown SAS passenger had a clear view of the RFAs out to their right in Port Pleasant. Hughes picked up his camera from the dashboard to take some photos of the ships. Boughton's
voice
over the radio soon made it clear the raid was heading their way. ‘All stations, four enemy contacts west of Fitzroy.'

It was the soldier who spotted them first, pointing out the swooping black shapes that were now heading directly towards them. The Skyhawks sped past the ships, behind the Wessex, and away. It was just too far away to see the bombs falling from each jet. But their effect was soon apparent. To the helicopter crew with their helmets on and the Wessex whirling away noisily, the explosions appeared strangely silent. Numbed and in shock, Hughes could only think that his photos would be a scoop.

Sea King Victor Zulu was on the beach pointing west as the raid approached. From his cabin doorway, aircrewman Splash Ashdown was watching soldiers lying on the ground, test-firing their rifles to align the sights. He couldn't see the Skyhawks as they sped down the other side of the helicopter. So when John Miller shouted ‘We're under attack!' Ashdown calmly replied: ‘No we're not. They're just zeroing their weapons.' The noise of the explosions shortly afterwards made it clear that he was very wrong.

The first Skyhawk scored direct hits with three of its four bombs. Two bombs detonated towards the rear of
Sir Galahad
. The second and third aircraft either failed to release their bombs or missed altogether. But the damage was done. Almost immediately afterwards the second pair of Skyhawks swept past
Sir Tristram
leaving unexploded bombs that killed two Chinese crewmen and started fires. Black smoke started to billow out of the rear end of
Galahad
, although
Tristram
appeared relatively unscathed.

Inside
Sir Galahad
was a scene from hell. The exploding bomb had ignited a cache of fuel. The resulting fireball gathered pace and rolled through the tank deck. The
intense
heat set fire to clothes, flesh and hair of the exposed Guardsmen and crew. Ammunition cooked off causing new explosions. The subsequent evacuation from the tank deck and up onto the foc'sle was a model of exceptional order and individual courage. Stories abound of badly wounded and burnt men helping others worse off than themselves.

Hughes and Tuttey had no idea whether the Skyhawks would come back for a second strike. Had
Plymouth
not taken the hit out to the west, the Daggers would also have added to the horror at Fitzroy. X-Ray Quebec lifted off almost immediately.
Sir Galahad
now began to spew black smoke and flames from the stern. As the Wessex approached the ship, they could see crew members escape the blaze by jumping over the side into the freezing water. At the front of the ship, smoke and men were beginning to emerge up through the hold onto the forward deck.

Hughes hover-taxied the Wessex sideways across to the stern. Several Chinese crewmen were thrashing around in the water with suitcases floating next to them. Tuttey lowered the orange strop; one crew member managed to put his arms through it. As he was raised out of the water, two other crew clung onto him, their suitcases blowing across the surface. Somehow Tuttey managed to haul the three men into the cabin without any of them falling back into the sea. The two others were lifted up one by one. Hughes eased the aircraft's nose forward and pulled in power to transition away towards the shore.

Immediately after the attack, Miller and Ashdown had fled from the beach to the nearest cover and shut down. Within just two minutes they were starting up again. It was all too obvious that the Welsh Guardsmen would need urgent help. Over the short-range UHF radio an officer from
Sir Galahad
called: ‘Please hold off the front
until
we've launched the dinghies and lifeboats'. By now, the first two Sea Kings, Victor Zulu and 504, were approaching
Galahad
. Hughes repeated the request: ‘Approaching helos, hold off while they launch their boats.'

Both aircraft flared sharply to slow down, but the huge downdraft upturned several of the empty dinghies. ‘Wankers!' Tuttey said to Hughes. His frustration reflected the horror of the situation more than anything else.

One behind the other, the two Sea Kings began winching shocked and bedraggled survivors from the foc'sle of
Sir Galahad
. Having dropped off the shivering crew, Wessex X-Ray Quebec returned to the stricken ship to join in. Thick layers of paint were now peeling from
Galahad
's overheating funnel.

To the north of the ships, Stanning and Clark had watched the appalling event from a different angle. They and their crew, Sub-Lieutenant Brian Evans and Chief Aircrewman David Jackson, ran for their Sea King 507 in a desperate rush to get airborne and help. Within minutes a third 825 Squadron Sea King was on the scene as Sheldon and his crewman Petty Officer Tug Wilson arrived from Goose Green in 501. They were followed soon afterwards by a fourth, Steve Isacke in 509.

Sheldon was already low on fuel and directed 501 towards the apparently unscathed
Sir Tristram
. Her lifeboats had been launched to assist
Galahad
. As the helicopter approached the flight deck, the only indication that
Tristram
had been hit was a bomb hole below the flight deck. The big Sea King was cleared to land. Sheldon had no idea that the stern of the ship was on fire directly underneath him. Shortly afterwards, X-Ray Quebec took its place on the flight deck. Like Sheldon and Wilson before them, Hughes and Tuttey landed on
Tristram
completely unaware that they were on top of a raging
fire
. The Chinese flight-deck crew, like so many in Port Pleasant that day, displayed exceptional bravery.

It was a cruel twist that
Galahad
took the brunt of the day's bombing. After the initial blast and fireball that caused so many appalling burns, the worst of the fire and smoke was confined to the stern. Bodies scrambled over the side from the central deck into liferafts and other small craft. All of the helicopters were now either winching people from the front of the ship or directly from the rafts. The enthusiastic arrival of the first helicopters had given an idea about how to get the evacuees to shore faster. Now aircraft started using their downwash to blow the rafts towards shore, where shocked soldiers and medics from 2 Para acted as reception and first-aid parties.

Some of the liferafts began drifting towards the blazing stern of
Sir Galahad
and into extreme danger. Clark manoeuvred his Sea King in and out of the billowing black smoke, behind the mangled ruins of
Galahad
's flight deck, to blow the liferafts away from the exploding ship. Behind Clark, in the cabin of the Sea King, Stanning assisted Jackson with the wounded as the thick smoke and acrid stench of burning metal and flesh filled the cabin of the helicopter. The fires on
Tristram
had now taken hold and she was also being abandoned.

All six helicopters took turns in winching wounded men from both ship and liferafts, dropping the blackened and bloodied bodies onto the immediate shoreline and later on into Fitzroy settlement. Hovering over the front of
Sir Galahad
, all crews felt the random blasts and heat of the exploding munitions eating away at the tank deck. Sheldon closed his window after one particular blast, somehow hoping it would add protection. Winching soldiers up from a nearby dinghy, Tuttey could hear the
bumphs
going off next to Sheldon's Sea King, even with his helmet on
and
above the sound of the Wessex. ‘They're doing a good job,' he said to Hughes.

As Boughton winched the last few men off, the task shifted towards moving the badly wounded back to the field hospital at Ajax Bay and on to the hospital ship
Uganda
.

In the back of each aircraft, crewmen including Tuttey, Ashdown, Wilson, Jackson and Egglestone, all came face to face with the full horror of terrible burns and wounds: the blackened hairless faces and the stink of burning flesh. At the beach first-aid post, Tuttey loaded several wounded soldiers on stretchers to take them back to Ajax Bay. At first he thought one of the Guardsman was Indian; his head was like a big black football. It was the very badly burned Simon Weston. Tuttey lit a cigarette and stuck it in Weston's mouth. The burns gave off a terrible heat as well as smell. A medic at Ajax Bay later told Tuttey that it was the worst burns he'd ever seen.

In the cabin of the Wessex, the unknown passenger seemed remarkably unfazed. A wounded Guardsman was bleeding badly from a severed hand that was hanging by a few tendons. The SAS man simply pulled out his knife and cut off the useless hand, despatching it out of the cabin door without ceremony, whilst shoving a shell dressing onto the wounded stump. But it had clearly affected him. At the end of the day, Tuttey asked where he wanted to get off. ‘Anywhere,' he replied, ‘except where we have just come from.'

War viewed through the windscreen of an aircraft can seem remote. It is largely a visual experience, without the noise, smell or even temperature of the battlefield. The acrid smoke and terrible smell of burning flesh had made it very real indeed. Even if it was a dreadful day for the crewmen, it was almost worse on this occasion for
the
pilots, unable to see their passengers but often overcome by waves of appalling stench. Hughes was not the only pilot to tell his crewman during the rescue that he was not feeling very well.

Back at San Carlos, McIntosh and Moreby had been one of several crews to hear the ‘All stations: all available aircraft required for casevac' radio call from a clearly very agitated Gazelle pilot.

McIntosh had answered immediately as the assigned casualty aircraft: ‘Request location.'

The reply from the Gazelle was ominous: ‘Head towards Fitzroy and it will be obvious.'

In the distance, they could soon see the smoke rising, still not knowing what awaited. It didn't take long to find out.
Sir Galahad
was ablaze from end to end. Casualties were being ferried ashore and there were floats everywhere in the water. Shutting X-Ray Tango down to load casualties, McIntosh was struck by the calmness of the situation. A Royal Marine officer seemed to be taking efficient charge. The two of them were left to conduct a sort of field triage, prioritising which casualties should go back to Ajax Bay first and, worse, who would be left behind. A journalist insisted on taking a space in the Wessex. McIntosh left him behind.

As X-Ray Tango returned to San Carlos, a second wave of Skyhawks sped past them. It was one of two further Argentines raids on that day. Three hours after the attack on Fitzroy, four Skyhawks sent as a follow-up attack were driven away from Port Pleasant by sheer weight of small-arms fire. As they fled to the south, they sighted the landing craft at the mouth of Choiseul Sound. The craft was returning from Goose Green with 5 Brigade headquarters vehicles and vital radio equipment. Having previously been
shot
up near Elephant Island by the naval gunfire of HMS
Cardiff
, the coxswain of the landing craft unwisely thought it safer to travel in daylight. For the Skyhawks, it was an undefended target. Two of the jets swooped in for the attack. The first overshot but the second sunk the landing craft with a direct hit, killing six men.

High above their heads, two Sea Harriers spotted them. Diving in for the attack, Flight Lieutenant Dave Morgan and Lieutenant Dave Smith destroyed three of the Skyhawks, including both attackers. Two were shot down by Morgan's Sidewinders. The third eventually crashed into a sand dune, after attracting cannon fire from Morgan and a Sidewinder from Smith. The fourth Skyhawk escaped without help from the four accompanying Mirage escorts that failed to provide their top cover.