Scram! (22 page)

The fuel tanker
Tidepool
sailed into San Carlos Water on the morning of 25 May, bringing Mike Crabtree and his flight of two more Wessex. The five Wessex of 845 Squadron were still outnumbered by the ten more powerful Sea Kings of 846 Squadron. After losing three Sea Kings to crashes and the Chile mission, now another was grounded following a misjudged landing near Fanning Head that had broken off the tail. Six were employed lifting endless loads from ship to shore. The other four continued their night-flying role in support of the special forces patrols around the Falkland Islands.

Either way, more helicopters were urgently needed to speed up the advance out of the beachhead, across East Falkland, and on towards the capital Port Stanley. Six more Wessex and four heavy-lift Chinooks were expected to arrive the next day with
Atlantic Conveyor
. The ground forces were relying on them.

Argentine National Day had started well for the British. Defence against air attacks had relied heavily on three
continuous
and overlapping Sea Harrier patrols to the north, south and centre of West Falkland. The major limitation was the ninety-minute endurance of the Sea Harriers, which included transit time to and from the aircraft carriers
Hermes
and
Invincible
. The Royal Navy was understandably nervous of bringing the carriers in too close to the islands. Sink one or both carriers and the British air defence would be in disarray, rendering the task force impotent.

As the outer layer of the Navy's strategy of defence in depth, the Sea Harriers were extraordinarily effective. The Argentine air force pilots were well aware of the stunning success of Lieutenant Commander Sharkey Ward's Sea Harrier trials unit in aerial dog fights against American F-5 Freedom Fighter and F-15 Eagle jets back in the UK. This fearsome reputation caused dozens of Argentine attackers to turn back simply on detecting the sweep of Sea Harrier's Blue Fox radar. Those prepared to ignore this deterrent ran the gauntlet of the lethal Sidewinder missiles and cannon carried by the ‘black death'. The problem was that the long transit to and from patrol left the Sea Harriers with little time on task and the landing force with holes in the outer defence.

Local air defence around San Carlos relied on the ‘goalkeeper' ships, sitting bravely exposed out in Falkland Sound as bait, inviting attack. In the role of goalkeeper,
Broadsword
had already notched up one Dagger on the first morning and a possible Skyhawk two days later, claimed jointly with the land-based Rapier. Rapier's own performance had been far less impressive than advertised.

The Royal Navy were also applying their strategy of positioning a Type 22–42 combo as a missile trap way out to the east, at worst to provide early warning and at best to lure and destroy the incoming attack altogether.
Attacking
jets would first have to avoid the Sea Dart missiles fired at them from the Type-42 destroyer forty miles away. Any that survived would then have to get past the Seawolf missiles fired at them from the Type-22 frigate at close range. Seawolf had already knocked down four Argentine jets. Sea Dart was yet to have its first success.

That morning, the Type-22 HMS
Broadsword
, and Type-42, HMS
Coventry
, were positioned on picket duty north of East Falkland. It was most likely an Argentine Hercules transport plane that first spotted the two ships on radar and reported their position back to the mainland. Soon afterwards three Argentine Skyhawks took the bait. The first Sea Dart launched from
Coventry
at long range knocked out one of the jets. The other two jets turned and fled. The 22–42 combo plan was working.

It was three hours before the next air strike appeared, this time heading for the San Carlos area. Sparky Harden, one of my twenty-one-year-old contemporaries, along with Hector Heathcote, had just arrived on
Tidepool
. It was his first air raid. Hearing the cry: ‘Air raid warning red, air raid warning red, SCRAM, SCRAM!' during tasking, he needed no further invitation to roll his Wessex steeply onto its side and flare into a fast-stop landing. Lowering the nose of the aircraft carefully down onto the boggy Falkland soil, he pulled the throttles and started unstrapping. What seemed like seconds later, he was lying on the damp grass next to his Geordie aircrewman ‘Smiler' Smiles, listening to the distant screech of jets crossing behind the hills. He watched the flash as a Rapier missile threaded its way across the sky. Four Skyhawks sped through San Carlos Bay out of sight. He couldn't see the Skyhawk that was hit, whether by cannon fire from the ships or Rapier or both. The pilot ejected into the water to be picked up by one of the Royal Marine boats.

The other three aircraft fled to the north, making the mistake of passing within range of the two ships out to the north of Pebble Island. A second Skyhawk was destroyed by a Sea Dart missile from
Coventry
. Opportunistic, it was their second of the day.

Meanwhile Ric Fox, Pete Manley and Dave Greet had been looking for an opportunity to get on board one of the supply ships for a shower after four days of sleeping rough. During a lull in the tasking they parked Yankee Sierra on a spare flight deck and headed down below. The Chinese laundrymen promised to return their combat clothing clean within the hour. After a well-earned hot shower, they were heading into the galley area when the ship's alarm sounded: ‘Action stations, air raid warning red'. Awaiting the return of their clothes, there was little they could do as the ship's crew disappeared to man their posts but help themselves to curry.

It was early afternoon when the next Argentine strike came in. This time the bait was well and truly taken. This strike directly targeted the ships
Coventry
and
Broadsword
, which had been responsible for despatching two of their aircraft that morning.

The first flight of two Argentine Skyhawks sped low out of the distant horizon of Pebble Island, fifteen miles to the south of the ships. High above them, two Sea Harriers on Combat Air Patrol were given directions to intercept them. The leading Sea Harrier was just three miles behind the Skyhawks when he was ordered to break off the attack and leave it to the ship's own missiles.
Coventry
, steaming ahead of
Broadsword
, was the better placed to acquire the low-flying jets. But the radar for her Sea Dart missile failed to get a lock. It was
Broadsword
's turn. Her radar now locked on to the approaching jets. Just as Seawolf seemed ready to claim its fifth and sixth
victims
, the computer system inexplicably froze, leaving both ships with only cannon and small-arms fire for defence. The Skyhawks swept towards
Broadsword
and released their bombs.

In the flight-deck hangar of
Broadsword
were two Lynx helicopters, one previously damaged in rough seas, the other the victim of cannon damage from a Dagger attack in San Carlos Bay three days earlier. Outside on the flight deck itself was ranged a third Lynx, borrowed from
Broadsword
's sister ship HMS
Brilliant
, and the only one of the three in good working order. Just inside the hangar stood Sub-Lieutenant Ray Middleton, another twenty-one-year-old contemporary of mine who had been fast-tracked through training onto the Lynx. His father was Lyn Middleton, captain of the aircraft carrier HMS
Hermes
, some 200 miles to the east.

The flight deck of
Broadsword
was not a good place to be on this day. Middleton Junior watched open-mouthed as bombs left the fast approaching Skyhawk. The jet was so low that the first bomb didn't even enter the water. It just bounced back off the sea with a giant splash and straight through the front of the Lynx, taking the helicopter nose with it. Middleton picked up the hangar telephone to report to the bridge. He found himself completely unable to speak due to shock.

Apart from destroying the front of the Lynx helicopter, the attack by the first two Skyhawks was wholly unsuccessful. Three of the remaining four bombs had missed altogether. The second Skyhawk attack swept in behind them moments later. The frustrated Sea Harriers above now turned their attention to this second pair, only to be ordered once again to break off their intercept.

This time
Broadsword
picked up the attacking jets with her radar and was ready to fire her Seawolf missiles.
Usually
, the best way to operate the combination of
Coventry
's long-range Sea Dart missiles and
Broadsword
's Seawolf missiles was to keep both ships as close together as possible. Both ships were manoeuvring hard from side to side. However, to
Broadsword
's dismay,
Coventry
's manoeuvre took her straight across the bows of
Broadsword
and broke the Seawolf radar's missile lock.
Coventry
was now horribly exposed, firing off Sea Dart in desperation. This time three of the four bombs smashed into
Coventry
's port side, exploding deep within the ship and killing several of the ship's company.
Coventry
was instantly crippled by the huge explosions, which cut off all power supplies and communication within the ship and filled it with thick black smoke.

Coventry
began to list badly as water filled the holes in her port side. There was no need for any announcement. The crew began to abandon ship into their liferafts. Every helicopter operating in the San Carlos area was immediately instructed to head north-east to assist in the rescue. Anti-submarine Sea Kings from nearby Fort Grange were also sent to help. Even some of the night-flying Sea Kings were woken up and scrambled, at subsequent cost to that night's planned special forces insertions.

Simon Thornewill in Victor Alpha was soon leading a gaggle of five Sea Kings past Fanning Head and out to the north-west over the sea. Away from the protection of the San Carlos hills, he was very aware of how exposed they were. A further air strike would make them sitting ducks. Worse, none of the crews were wearing immersion dry suits to protect them if they were shot down and went into the water.

The first Sea Kings on site were confronted by the
shocking
sight of a large British warship lying at an acute angle, smoke pouring from her superstructure. Orange rafts and men in orange once-only survival suits bobbed up and down in the water, drawn into the ship's side and unable to escape. Helicopters began to gather on the scene. Chief Aircrewman Alf Tupper was lowered down from his Sea King into one liferaft to help winch the survivors up into the helicopter. The rafts were full of very frightened sailors, most of whom were soaking wet and frozen from their unexpected swim in the icy South Atlantic. Some crew members were also burned or wounded. The same sorry story was encountered by other Sea King aircrews dropped into other liferafts. As the survivors were winched up into the aircraft one by one, so much water drained into the Sea Kings' cabins from the once-only suits that pilots could feel it sloshing around and destabilising the aircraft.

Each Sea King took on board twenty or so survivors before heading back to San Carlos, or transferring them to the nearby
Broadsword
. With
Broadsword
's flight deck out of action, blocked by the bomb-damaged Lynx, a clear area was urgently needed onto which to offload some of
Coventry
's survivors. The hangar roof now became an impromptu flight deck, too small for landing but big enough for winching.

The round trip, from San Carlos to the stricken
Coventry
and back, was forty minutes. For a Sea King this posed no problem. For a Wessex, the reduced endurance meant thinking very hard about fuel. Heathcote and Gleeson had been transferring tents and other maintenance equipment from
Tidepool
to their new forward operating base when they heard the call on the radio. Heathcote was flying alone because simple operations within the San Carlos made much more sense to fly single pilot, allowing the
aircraft
to lift a further 200 pounds of fuel or load. With a little over an hour's fuel remaining, they agreed they should ‘leg it'. Within a few minutes, they had second thoughts and turned round for a quick refuel on
Tidepool
before setting course for HMS
Coventry
.

Oily Knight and his aircrewman Arthur Balls had also been doing an offload in San Carlos. They had broken off as soon as they heard the request for further aircraft over the radio. Not knowing exactly where to go, they followed the direction taken by the Sea Kings ahead of them in the distance.

By the time they arrived,
Coventry
was floating on its side with
Broadsword
still in attendance, its Lynx sitting forlornly on the flight deck with serious damage to the aircraft nose; it was clear the Lynx wasn't going anywhere. Two other Sea Kings were winching survivors from the water. A few people in their orange lifesuits were trapped right up against the side of the upturned hull, unable to get away. Although there was now no sign of smoke, Balls warned Knight that the ship might go up at any moment.

Transferring people to and from any ship without a serviceable flight deck requires quick thinking from all of the crews. This was especially true when the ship is listing at an angle. Because of the direction of the wind, it seemed best to position the Wessex over the hull of the ship and actually land both front wheels on the upturned hull, leaving the tail suspended over the water behind the survivors. Knight reckoned he could claim this as a deck landing for his pilot's log book.

Balls left Knight to get on with his unorthodox deck landing and concentrated on winching survivors up from the liferaft below him which had become trapped between the bridge front and the foc'sle. The first man to be winched
up
was being manhandled into the dangling orange strop. But it had been put on the wrong way round, across his chest instead of around his back. Despite shouting and waving at the survivors below to turn the strop around, Balls eventually thought
sod it
and winched him up as it was. Facing inwards instead of outwards made it far harder to get the passenger through the doorway. But there was a reason why the strop had been put on the other way. Viewed from the front, the sailor looked fully dressed and normal. But from the back, it took Balls's breath away. There was nothing. No clothing, no skin. Just a mess of burnt flesh. Even above the roar of the hovering Wessex, Balls could hear the man screaming in agony. He had never felt so helpless. But he had to get on with winching the others. Many other casualties also had burns or broken limbs. The cabin quickly became a scene of mayhem. ‘I need to ease the crowding. Let's get some of these guys onto the other ship,' he told Knight.