Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Battleground podcast. I'm Saul David and today Patrick Bishop and I will be talking about arguably the most dramatic moment of the Falklands campaign when, with the bulk of three commando brigades safely ashore on East Falkland, Argentinian planes attack the warships and merchant support vessels in Falkland Sound and San Carlos Water during the morning of 21 May 1982. We
We ended the last episode with the arrival of the first Argentinian plane, a ground attack Pekara, at around 8am. Patrick, you were on the bridge of the troop ship Canberra, known as the Great White Whale. Tell us what happened next. Well, this is my view from the bridge. The bridge had these projecting wings, bridge wings, that stuck out actually beyond the superstructure.
of the ship, so you had a fantastic view there. And when I got back, I wrote about what I saw in my book, Winter War, which I wrote with John Witherow, who came down with Fire Brigade. Anyway, this is what I said at the time. East Falkland looked delightfully green and soft. It did not, however, look nearly as safe as we had imagined it to be from studying the maps. And instead of rearing straight out of the water, as the contour line suggested,
The hills around San Carlos water sloped gently into the sea and were clearly not going to present enemy aircraft with much of a problem. We'd been enjoying the view for only 10 minutes when the ship's tannoy announced an air alert red. After all the dummy runs, it had got to the point where it was almost inconceivable that a real Argentine plane would appear. I should say now that there were all these sort of endless drills on the way down.
"Air alert yellow meant prospect of an enemy air attack. "Air attack red meant there is actually an attack." We had heard this so many times that we'd got pretty blasé about it. Anyway, this time we actually saw an aeroplane, a Pucara, whipping fast over a hill at the eastern end of the water. We watched from the bridge with fascinated horror. "Engage, engage," roared Captain Christopher Byrne. He was the naval senior officer on the ship.
The GPMGs on the ship's side started pouring bullets at the plane. Something twinkled under its wings and a salvo of rockets streamed brightly down towards HMS Argonaut. Judging from the boldness of his approach, the pilot did not expect to see so many ships because he quickly swang away towards the shelter of the hills on the northern side of the water, pursued by machine gun bullets, blowpipe missiles and sea cats that exploded immediately.
harmlessly behind him. It's a great description, Patrick. Incredibly dramatic. And this is just the beginning, isn't it? I mean, this is the first moment. So, I mean, the real danger, of course, is going to come when the faster, heavier or more heavily armoured and loaded in terms of weapons planes arrive. And that is the Mirage and Skyhawk jets. How long does it take for them to get there?
I suppose about half an hour later, so this was just the hors d'oeuvre, you know, but it was very dramatic because it's the first time we've actually seen an enemy aeroplane. And then suddenly there's this avalanche of incoming aircraft, Mirages and Skyhawks. Now the Mirage, remember, is the aircraft supplied by the French to the Argentinian Air Force.
and the Skyhawks, an American, by now quite elderly American jet. We'll talk a little bit about that later on. But basically what we saw was just this incoming aircraft after aircraft. It was just continuous. We felt that continuous action. There were a few lulls in between, but...
you'd hear this sort of countdown as the aircraft came in. You know, it's 200 miles and closing, 150 miles and closing, et cetera. And suddenly, wham, there it was in front of you. And this huge defensive barrage of GPMGs making a hell of a lot of noise. All these missiles coming from all over the place. And it really is...
It's quite sort of strange you have this sort of detached feeling because you're watching these planes flash by and being chased by these missiles and you're kind of whooping on the missile, if you like. And then once in a while, in one case I did see a jet, one of the missiles connect with a jet and there's this fireball and that's the end of that jet. Though miraculously almost it seemed we saw one jet being hit and then this little black-shaped shootout from the
from the cockpit and then a parachute blossom and float down to the water. And we were relieved that the guy appeared to have got out unhurt. And indeed, later I went and saw this pilot and the only injuries he sustained was breaking his leg on the way out when his knee hit the edge of the cockpit. So it was pretty astonishing stuff.
Now, on board Canberra with me was, we were actually, it turned out later, we discovered we were in the same place. We were both standing on the bridge wing. And this was a young 17-year-old machine gunner, Mark Hankin. Now, he's got some very vivid memories of what he was doing at that day, at that hour. The air raid started and fighter jets from Argentinian mainland started arriving in San Carlos, attacking the ships.
When the first air raids came in, I was with a rest of 42 in the Peacock Lounge on board Canberra and it was just a terrifying time.
The windows were blacked out. I can remember we were all sat around in sections, cross-legged, sat on the floor, all ready to fight, camcreme on. We all had our fighting order, our weapons and ammunition. And we were just sat there listening to these planes screaming overhead, machine gun fire, rockets firing, anti-aircraft fire going on.
their bombs and missiles getting fired and it was just terrifying. I can remember looking at the floor, gritting my teeth. No one was talking or laughing now. If a bomb would have come through that ceiling, I've no doubt it would have been the biggest loss of life during the conflict. We were probably about 900 Marines all sat together. It would have been an absolute disaster.
but mid-morning, being a GPMG gunner, I went and took a shift up on the Canberra. Now the bridge on the Canberra, it has sort of, one of a better word, two horns sticking out from it. My position was on the end of the port side of one of these horns on the bridge.
I mean, I don't know how high up they are from the level of the water, but it must have been 150 feet, something along those lines. And certainly if you'd have fallen off the tip of the horn, you wouldn't have actually hit the ship. You'd have dropped straight in the water because they were actually hanging over the side.
The GPMG that I had, we had a pintle mounting for it that would fit to the rail. And the idea was that obviously that that mounting would hold the gun steady and you could fire at the incoming aircraft. Mid-morning, me and Chris Burns, Burns was my number two on the gun. GPMGs is sort of, you know, it's a section troop weapon. It's a belt-fed machine gun firing 7.62 ammunition rounds.
It's got an effective range of 800 metres or more. It can go further in a sustained fire roll. And my job was obviously to aim and pull the trigger. And Burnsy's job was to keep clipping belts on so the weapon didn't run dry. So we got onto the bridge. Now we could see what was actually happening. And during the lulls in the air raids, you know, there was landing craft chugging up and down. There was helicopters flying actually below our eye level,
staying low and ferrying troops and equipment ashore. In the bridge behind me, there was obviously senior officers to me in there, and I could hear the radio blurring away. And we had Royal Navy ships steaming up and down in San Carlos water with the radar dishes whirling. And I assume that they're obviously looking for the incoming aircraft.
Anyway, we've been up there for a short time and then the next thing, the radio behind me and the bridge sparks up and you can hear a voice on it saying, "Air raid warning read, two hostile aircraft, 50 miles, ETA, five minutes, bearing 1234." So then a Royal Marine Sergeant would come out of the bridge and right behind my position, there was like this old naval compass set in a stanchion on the deck behind me.
He would come out, repeat the message that we just had over the radio. He'd shout it out and then set the bearing on the compass. And then he'd point to the horizon in the direction where the threat was coming from. So now it's like, you know, you can hear your heart beating, your head, your ears breathing fast. Pulse is going like the clappers, dry mouth, red warning led to 10 miles, ETA one minute.
Sergeant comes out, repeats it, sets the compass, pointing in another direction, and it's...
I'm sure I was swearing under my breath, "What the hell? Why can't we get this right?" And then the next thing, two aircraft will come screaming through the sound from a completely unexpected direction, not the last one given. And they just, the noise of explosions, rockets being fired, bombs being dropped, machine guns firing. And all my job was to do was to pull the trigger back, hold the trigger back and try and create a wall of lead for the planes to fly through.
Now, the planes were coming in that low. You didn't have to fire up into the sky to hit them. We were actually firing out from the ship, from the bridge, horizontally. And, you know, be firing straight ahead. And we had one-in-one tracing. You could see where your rounds were going. And then you'd look to the right as the planes were flying towards the fire. And you'd just adjust the elevation of your wall of lead so it was at the right elevation for the plane to fly through it.
and then the planes would fly through it and then you do a quick readjustment and start firing again. Burns is by my side, he's clipping more belts on so the ammo doesn't run dry and this just kept getting repeated and repeated all morning lulls and then the same air raid warnings would come through
So it was a pretty exciting time. I'm sure I was scared on there, but the most frightening part of that day was being in the Peacock Lounge in the dark because they blacked the windows out, listening to it. I felt like on the bridge that actually you could see what was going on and you could try and do something about it.
You know, let's say it was an exciting, it was an exhilarating time. And eventually that morning, we eventually got the message that 4-2 were going to be put ashore. And I must admit, it was a big relief. None of us wanted to be sat on that big white ship, you know, in the middle of the sound. I mean, how they never hit us, I don't know. I think I've since heard that the pilots thought that we were a hospital ship because we were painted white.
And that was just a coincidence that the Canberra was a white ship. And I think that was pretty lucky on our behalf because, you know, if we'd have been painted grey or some other colour, we'd have probably got hit pretty bad.
But that was it then. We got a show and it was a big relief to get a show. It was just great to get off that boat. So that was Marine Mark Hankin remembering his time on board Canberra when the raids came in. And it's a wonderfully dramatic account of him and his 900 comrades of 42 Commando sitting in the Peacock Lounge.
And as he describes it, if a bomb had actually come in there, it would have been an absolute disaster, probably the worst loss of life of the whole war. And it's interesting, you get something similar, as we will come on to with the Sir Galahad disaster, where you've got people packed below decks, incredibly vulnerable.
And then, of course, he actually comes out to where you were, Patrick, as he describes firing the GPMG from one of the horns of the bridge. It must have been literally just yards from you, firing belt-fed ammunition and that description of not knowing where the planes are coming from, constantly changing his position. I mean, it's just...
It's an extraordinary account of a young soldier who clearly felt a lot happier, like you did, out on deck than he did below deck, where you just can't see anything and you're so disorientated. The other thing is that I think being behind a weapon gives you a feeling of security that you don't have if you're just standing there, even though the weapon might not be doing very much. It's a sort of psychological crutch, if you like.
Now, I want to say something here, Saul, about the Argentinian kit, because, you know, it's perfectly natural that the Argentinians would be buying stuff from France. That mirage went all over the place. I mean, the Israelis used mirages and made their own version, the dagger, which also is sold back to the Argentinians.
But there's been a bit of controversy lately, hasn't there, about the whole question of what happens when you send kit to a nation that gets into a war with one of your allies. All this business about the Exocet and what the French did and didn't do.
to aid us once the war had begun. You've done a bit of work on this. What's your feeling about that controversy? Maybe you could just explain what the controversy is to start off with. Yeah, well, the controversy is alleged. I mean, I'm still to see any hard proof, to be fair, Patrick, but it is strongly alleged that the Exocet missile, French-built and supplied to the Argentinians, as you say, fired both from land and ships and also, in most cases during the Falklands War,
from planes, the Super Etendard fighter-bomber plane, the allegation is that it had a kill switch on it. In other words, it had technology that if the French had activated it, it would have meant that the missiles would have fallen harmlessly into the sea. And of course, the argument is that they had this safety device installed
inbuilt on the missiles just in case they were up against an enemy themselves that actually wanted to use these weapons against the French. Now, of course, the argument then goes, well, we were NATO allies of the French. Why didn't they give us this information? What we haven't got is a comment from the French at the moment as to why that was the case, or if indeed there is any truth in that. You might say, well, that's hardly surprising.
The argument is reasonably compelling, which is, and this is the argument made by the current Admiral Lord West, who was then Captain Alan West, who was the skipper of the frigate Ardent, which was later sunk during the campaign by bombs. But he very much has skin in the game. He feels very strongly about this issue. And he's come out on the record saying the reason they never gave us that information is because the sale of Exocet missiles would have fallen through the floor or
if people buying it had known that the French could literally disarm it if they wanted to. And it's a reasonably credible argument. So is that the case? We don't know. We'll have to wait and see what's going to happen next. But certainly there have been a lot of challenges by Admiral West and others in Parliament for the French to come clean about this. Yeah, but that rumbled on almost from the end of the war about what the French had and hadn't done. And, uh,
It was often said that President Mitterrand had not been our greatest friend in the conflict. I think there's quite a lot of evidence that French were giving us stuff that wasn't made clear at the time, including some air combat practice, if you like. So it's one of those things. It's part of the great...
The great never-ending rivalry between Britain and France, I think, will probably never get to the bottom of it properly. Now, the most vulnerable vessels during this period, of course, are the slow-moving, flat-bottomed and virtually defenceless landing craft, which are constantly going back and forth, ferrying men, kit, from ship to shore,
Now, in one of those was Sergeant Dave Watkins, the Royal Marine coxswain of Foxtrot 3, who we interviewed previously. Now, his memories of that occasion are very interesting. So let's listen to them now. The first time it happened, I can remember clearly, I didn't actually see it. I heard it. It's just a high-pitched scream. And we didn't know. We didn't know what was going on. We heard all the air raid warning revs coming over the radio and all that sort of stuff.
But when you get an air raid warning red, that's one thing, but you don't know where it's coming from. And we had to just carry on. We may well have had a boatload of ammunition or a boatload of troops or a boatload of equipment. So you couldn't offload that. You just had to carry on and do the best you could. And then we got to a point where air raid warning red would be given, but they would then give you a direction either from the east or from the west or whatever.
And by this time, quite a few people are both on the boats within San Carlos water now and that were on the land who, for some bizarre reason, began firing weapons at the aircraft, which are traveling at like five or six hundred miles an hour.
And you were in as much danger from the shore fire as you were from the aircraft fire. Do you remember rounds falling in and around the boat at that point? Yeah, most definitely. And when the bombing started, when they were dropping bombs, one of the things that sticks in my mind even today, it just makes me, my blood run cold. If the Argentinian aircraft or air force had targeted the landing craft
which were about as manoeuvrable as the 10-mile-an-hour boats, flat-bottomed. Everything would have gone pear-shaped, but for some reason we escaped it. They targeted the capital ship, the fearless and all that, and they seemed to drop bombs ad hoc, really. It would be very difficult to say they were targeting anything. I think a lot of them were just trying to get into...
San Carlos water, get rid of the bombs and get away. Because by which time they had an immense range of firepower from the ships with the sea cap missiles and then from the land with the rapier missiles and so on and so forth. And then obviously on top of all that, you had the Harriers around as well. So...
They must have been quite a fraught sort of mission for them to come in. They lose 16 aeroplanes that day, you know, which is quite a toll. And as you say, as the casualties mounted, they must have very much been of the, you know, of the mindset, let's get in and get out as quickly as possible. An interesting sort of quip that came out from it wasn't my particular boat. It was one of my colleagues who picked up an Argentinian pilot who'd come down in San Carlos water.
And I think he'd suffered a severe leg break or two leg breaks. I'm not really sure now. But this guy was absolutely adamant that he was going to be eaten because the Royal Marines and the Paras are evil people and they will kill you and eat you.
And he firmly believed that. So that was Dave Watkins, the coxswain of landing craft Foxtrot 3. And he makes a fascinating point, I think, Patrick, about the mistaken Argentinian strategy to attack warships. If they'd actually targeted the landing craft, as Dave Watkins suggests, and we will come on to the targeting of a landing craft later,
on that infamous day, 8 June, later on in the story. But if they'd done that at this early stage, you know, in his view, and it makes a lot of sense, they'd have cut the invasion off at the knees. But it's not really surprising that they didn't because the Argentinian Air Force had never actually...
or trained for this kind of war, that all their efforts were pointing towards Chile. So they had literally zero preparation for a war of some duration against a well-equipped NATO standard country. And so they were starting from scratch. And I think we've got to remember that when we're looking at what they did. I think of the three Argentinian services, the
The Argentinian Air Force performed by far the best. And we can't really say that we defeated them because they were still operational right up until the last minute. It really was an extraordinary effort, both in terms of skill, bravery and intelligence.
thinking on their feet and making up a plan as they went along. It did present us with huge problems. They could have been bigger, but that's something we've got to be thankful for. But in the circumstances, they made life extremely hard, both during and after the landing. No question, the bravery of the Argentinian pilots and indeed their aeronautical skill. But I think
it is perfectly fair to question the targeting. What are they actually aiming for? They should have gone for the Canberras. We've discussed in an earlier episode, I think, Patrick, they should have gone for the auxiliary ships as much as for the warships. But anyway, we'll leave that issue and let's move on. I did love the bit right at the end of that where he talks about the Argentinian pilot who presumably with the broken legs was the same one you spoke to or you saw later on, Patrick. But him telling the crew of the landing craft who
picked him out of the water that he genuinely believed that if captured he's going to be eaten so ferocious was the reputation of the British powers and marines and it reminds me of the you know the kind of world war ii stories of some of the books I've written where the Japanese leadership I mean this is in a slightly grimmer sense convinced civilians on pacific islands like Okinawa and elsewhere that it was better to literally top themselves commit suicide and be captured by the American marines because they would be raped killed and even eaten it's interesting that that
sort of slur, as it were, recurs again. Anyway, back to the action. And another man who remembered the air raids on the 21st of May was Jeremy Larkin, the skipper of the amphibious assault ship HMS Fearless. Let's hear from him. We start in darkness, as I say, a little late. And like all these things, it always takes longer than you mean.
It was a very successful day. We got everyone ashore quite early. We then moved the ships into San Carlos and were more or less established there before the Argentines got themselves together to conduct the first rains. And of course, the second half of the day was quite exciting from that point of view, with the loss, apart from anything else, of ardent weather.
and damage to some other ships, including Antrim, I recall. What was your own personal experience that day? I mean, where were you on Fearless during the day of the landings? Oh, that's quite funny, really, because she wasn't really hugely well-fitted for modern warfare by the standards of the day.
And we had an amphibious operations room, which was quite well fitted with good communications plans and was a new radio we had then. But the maritime ops room was very pokey. It looked very much like the ops room I enjoyed when I was qualifying as a young navigator in frigates 15 years before. It wasn't very big either. And it was full of the Commodore, quite a large person, and his and my staff. And what's more, what radar we had couldn't see over land so far as aircraft were concerned.
So I endured the first attack, squeezed in a corner, wondering what the hell I was doing here. I said to myself, "This is no good," and I convinced Michael that the best place for me was actually to be somewhere that was visible. So I clambered up to the gun direction platform, which was right above the bridge.
and really spent the rest of the war up there, so far as attacks were concerned, amongst the young men manning the missile and gun sites. We had a lot of people around the upper deck, we had a lot of small arms parked around the place, little extemporized sandbags, shelters and things.
And not that anyone's going to hit anything, but for lots of traceable things to be coming up at airplanes, it does disturb your concentration a bit. And your position was not exactly safe, was it? I mean, there was an incident where I think someone in the gun direction platform with you actually gets injured by shrapnel. Well,
Well, I'm not quite sure what the origin was, but I mean, something came whizzing by and there was a bang. I'm not sure it wasn't actually one of our own four or five-inch shells which exploded near the aircraft, but we did collect some shrapnel in the various aisles and pops around me. And I looked over, that was an occasion actually, going back to my anecdote about people not leaving the weapon systems. I looked over at my two magnificent teams manning these ancient, both were 40 millimetres on the wings of the bridge,
with young men lined up, feeding them with ammunition, inspiring sight, cues of them, about six on each mountain, just holding clips of ammunition. And clearly someone was hurt. So with all my decibels, which were then considerable, I invited them to get back on the guns, which they did. Well, the medical teams came and did the right stuff for this poor chap who'd had his calf shot through by some piece of shrapnel.
But it was an object lesson in, yes, let the medical people do it and don't get distracted.
of course, the next lot came boning by quite shortly afterwards. What I love about that piece from Jeremy Larkin, Patrick, is again, this idea that much better to be up on deck, actually seeing what's going on. So it very much fits with the point you were making and also Mark Hankin. But also he really is determined to lead by example, isn't he? You know, that description of someone being wounded and everyone going to assist him and him saying, look, for goodness sake, you know, stick to your post, the medical people will come and help. But
But just on a more general point, pretty much everyone we've spoken to has very nice things to say about Captain Larkin. And from that extract, you can see why. Yeah, I think we see that tradition of leading from the front, leading by example, being visible to your men in virtually every unit that took part in the operation. I want to say something here as well about the very high level of fortitude that was
shown by the non-military people that were there in San Carlos water. You've got to remember that Canberra was staffed by men and a few women who'd actually never been anywhere near a wall before. When the ship got to Ascension,
The crew were offered by P&O the opportunity to get off there, go back home, forget all about it. And they were given this choice and they all said, no, we're going to stay. So you had this very stoical civilian crew going about their duties completely unflustered by what was going on. And I think not enough is made of that terrific sort of experience.
that they showed cheerful, just as if they were really on a cruise.
that they'd been pulled off when the war broke out. So bravo to them. Yeah, it's a very good point, Patrick. And I think you mentioned either before or in your book that they're actually going about their business making lunch that day while this air battle is going on ahead of them, while everyone is in mortal danger. Extraordinary sang-froid shown by the merchant seamen and a great effort, frankly, to have stayed on and gone down into the war zone. Even though...
This was all very wonderful. We'd all much rather have been ashore, as Julian Thompson was. This is the commander, of course, of 3 Brigade. He was able to watch this all going on from the relative safety of the shore, where he'd set up his HQ, and he tells us what he was seeing from that vantage point. Well, it was a lovely day. It was rather like being in Scotland in the best, a lovely winter's day. Clear, blue skies,
And we sailed into the St. Carlos water, the first waves having landed from outside. And there was nothing going on. And suddenly this aeroplane popped over the horizon and started bombing. And that's when it started. So there were air attacks all that day. Luckily, mainly against the ships outside of St. Carlos water. In other words, the escorts out in Falkland Sound, not against many of the ships inside, though there were some.
they sank H. Mazzard and they damaged two or three others and so
the Navy started taking casualties right away. And the Navy put a fantastic show. In fact, it was probably the hardest fight they'd had against airplanes since Crete. In fact, it was the biggest air-sea battle since the Second World War. A lot of ships, a lot of aircraft eventually over the various days got shot down. And it was quite an inspiring sight actually, watching the Navy fighting back.
and we were in the best seats all around the edge by the time we'd landed. And you could hear ringing cheers go out every time an aeroplane was shot down.
You know, we felt very strongly that the Navy was doing a great job. And it's a great little piece, isn't it, of, you know, you like to think in an amphibious action, the danger is getting to the shore, getting on shore. We spoke last time, of course, about how there wasn't really any opposition, but there's an awful lot of opposition in terms of planes. And the danger is for the Navy. And he gives due compliment. Obviously, the Royal Marines are always...
have been closely attached or are under the overall command of the Royal Navy. But he gives proper kudos to the Royal Navy for fighting back against this pretty desperate action in San Carlos water and Falkland Sound. And as he describes it, and it's interesting when you put it in these terms, the largest air-sea battle since the Second World War, and in particular for the Royal Navy,
since the infamous fight at Crete in 1941 where an awful lot of destroyers and other Royal Naval ships are lost. That's right, yeah. There wasn't anything like that between the end of the war and this period. And it's as...
again play to that theme that we've been talking about, about how this feels very much in that sort of World War II tradition. There's certainly never been anything like it since. Anyway, great sort of historic moment and particularly from the air war perspective. So when we come back we're going to be hearing from two Harrier pilots who were flying combat air patrols above San Carlos water that day.
Welcome back. In part one, we discussed the counterattack by Argentinian planes on the day of the landing, the 21st of May, 1982, and heard the dramatic accounts of those, including Patrick, who faced the attacks in ships, landing craft and on the ground. Now we're going to hear from two Sea Harrier pilots who were in the air that day.
Tim Gedge was then a 39-year-old lieutenant commander in the Naval Air Service and a former commander of 800 Squadron, which was flying off Hermes. At the start of the war, he was asked to create a new Sea Harrier Squadron called 809. And in just three weeks, he managed to scrape together eight planes and pilots, six naval and two RAF.
As the main task force had already left, the squadron flew part of the way via Gambia and Ascension and went the rest of the way in the merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor, which had been converted to carry Sea Harriers.
Arriving down in the South Atlantic in mid-May, Gedge and his men flew from the Atlantic conveyor to the two aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible, which was stationed to the east of the Falklands. Now, they went, of course, divided up four per carrier. Gedge, interestingly enough, although he was a lieutenant commander and a former lieutenant,
a boss of 800 Squadron, really just adds himself as a supernumerary to the unit and flies effectively under the orders of the new commander. Patrick talked about the skill of the Argentinian pilots, and we're now going to hear from Gedge about the confidence that they, the British pilots, would be able to take on anything the Argentinians could throw at them. Without trying to sound too smug about it, Gedge,
I think we were very confident that we could put up a good show. We were heavily outnumbered, but in the two years that I'd had command of 800,
We'd fought the Sea Harrier against a huge number of different types of aircraft. In fact, most of the aircraft in the Western world, both in the United States and in Europe, actually, funnily enough, with the sole exception of the Mirage 3. A lot of us had got experience of fighter aircraft, the Sea Vixen and later the Phantom aircraft.
And we knew what the Sea Harrier could do, and perhaps more particularly, we knew what it could not do. So that in air combat is hugely important. So we had this experience of practice air combat missions. And also, we had done a lot of this on instrumented ranges, which
So I had huge confidence that we would put up a good show despite the numerical disadvantage. And that proved its worth when we were down there. So that was Lieutenant Commander Tim Gage. Interesting to hear that they'd done this wide range of training except for the Mirage 3. But I think that was well within the kind of capabilities that they'd gained from their exercises with other aircraft.
Now, on that fateful day, the 21st of May, the job of the Sea Harriers was to fly combat air patrols, CAPs, as they're called, close to San Carlos water, one just to the north, one to the south, and one over West Falkland, obviously with the intention of trying to stop the Argentinian attackers before they got there. At first light, a pair of Harriers took station at each of these locations,
to vector onto the attacking aircraft, either by actually sighting them themselves or by
radar directions given from one of the ships. The aircraft carriers were normally 150 or 200 miles east of the Falkland Islands, so we had quite a long range transit into the main sort of area of operations or the amphibious operations area, which is where the majority of the Argentine attacks were expected because that was where our shipping was.
This involved a sort of 20 or 25 minute transit flight
The normal way we operated was to do the first sort of 50 miles or so at very low level to a particular point in the ocean and then climb out from that point. The reason for doing that was we knew that there was a TPS-43 radar they had in Stanley. It was a pretty capable radar and that could actually see well out to sea. It couldn't see surface targets, but it could certainly see aircraft climbing out from a point out.
So we reckon that if we climbed out always from a particular point, they would think that the aircraft carriers were there. And that proved to be the case, in fact. So the normal sortie was a sort of 50 mile low level transit, then a climb transit for
for 20, 25 minutes, and then you'd be on task for 20 minutes. And by that time, you'd have to come back. What's interesting about what we've just heard from Tim Gedge, who was one of the Harrier pilots over San Carlos water that day, Patrick, is he couldn't react even when he saw Argentinian planes for the very good reason that he would be moving into that
sea defence zone that the pilots effectively had to stay out of. And we're going to come on in a future episode to hear Gedge talk a bit more about this and an opportunity where they could have interceded if this hadn't been the case. But I suppose, you know, when you think about it, it makes complete logical sense. You know, if the British planes are going to go into that defence area, there's a danger they'll be shot down. They're going to confuse the anti-aircraft defences. I
when, if in the case of Gedge, you actually see the enemy closing in on British ships and you can't do anything about it, which effectively means that the air defence system, as far as the Sea Harriers were concerned, was really about either intercepting the Argentinians before they got there or tackling them after they'd already dropped their bombs and attacked the ships. Interdiction, as it's called, I think. But, of course, that business of getting within range of your own guns is...
is something that's plagued British Air Force pilots ever since the invention of military aviation. I mean, we've all heard the wry comments by World War II pilots, saw that, you know, Dunkirk and places like that, the thing you really had to worry about was not the Luftwaffe, but the Royal Navy anti-aircraft gunners. So that's a perennial problem of military aviation, whatever side you're on.
Now, another pilot in the air that day was David Morgan, Mog to his friends, who was an RAF pilot, but he was an exchange pilot and had been training with sea carriers at Yeovilton, their Royal Naval Air Base there. He was attached to 800 Squadron, which was on board HMS Hermes, the carrier. His first mission in the South Atlantic was a ground attack mission.
at Port Stanley Airfield. That was back on the 1st of May. Now, that's going back a bit, but we want you to hear this because it's a really fascinating bit of testimony. This is taking part, remember, at the time of Operation Black Buck when the Vulcans try and bomb the airport and stop the Argentinians using it.
This is what he told me. Yes, I'd spent seven years, two tours in Germany, one on the ground and one flying GR3s. So we were very much orientated against the Soviet Union.
And, of course, my whole life had been ground attack up until then, and now I was trying to become an air defence pilot. Was there any training that you had for that, or did you have to make it up as you went along? There was a course. It was 90 hours of flying and probably about the same amount of ground school.
And I'd done about a third of it when the Argentines invaded. And within 48 hours, I was sailing for the South Atlantic and never did finish the course. So when do you actually start flying operations off Hermes? We did a fair amount of flying all the way down there, working out tactics and practising dropping weapons, which the Navy hadn't seen before, things like the cluster bombs.
Working out air-to-ground, air-to-air, air-to-ship tactics. But the first actual war mission we did was on the 1st of May, quite appropriate being May Day. A nine-ship attack on the airfield at Stanley. Remind me what the outcome of that was. The Vulcan went in before first flight and managed to get the very first bomb on the southern half of the runway.
We came in very shortly after dawn with a view to taking out any infrastructure at the airfield and any aircraft we could find. So this was in the wake of the Black Buck raid? Initially, we were tasked to go and fly post-strike reconnaissance for the Vulcan.
And we said, sod that, we're going to go in with weapons and cause some mayhem. So what were you firing into the airfield? The first four aircraft had loft thousand pound bombs thrown in from three and a half miles using the fairly advanced kit we had on the aircraft. You could get a fairly accurate bomb in from three and a half miles.
Then the rest of us came in, five of us came in at low level, aiming for a standard sort of attack on a Warsaw Pact airfield target.
using cluster bombs, the last aircraft following up with retired 1,000-pound bombs to drop on the runway, which we knew wouldn't do any good, but the captain was insistent that we try to get some bombs on the runway. And how are these guided? Are these just dumb bombs that just go straight down? Yeah, we didn't get laser-guided weapons until the last couple of days of the conflict. We were running in between 5 and 15 feet on the radio altimeter.
pulling up to 150 feet to drop the weapons to give them time to fuse and then diving back down into the smoke and the crud to try and get away from the ground fire again. But you did actually get hit at one point, didn't you, by anti-aircraft fire? I got hit a huge bang and everything started vibrating, but the aircraft was still flying. So I dropped the third cluster bomb over the aircraft pan outside the control tower.
and then dived into the smoke behind the control tower, going past. I was level with the windows of the control tower, which is normally around about 50 feet on an airfield. And it wasn't until I went back later I realised it's a two-storey building, and the bottom of my aircraft was probably about 10 feet off the ground. Now, can you tell me what you were doing on the day of the landings? That's the 21st of May. What was your role then? For the landings, we basically were putting caps on,
north and south of Falkland Sound and also some over West Falkland to try and catch people coming in through the mountains. I actually didn't have any trade on the 21st or
although there were a lot of aircraft shot down by my fellows and by the ships, obviously. What does it mean, actually, flying a CAP, a combat air patrol, in terms of the routine? You're on station for what kind of amount of time? That varies a lot, and it was one of our bugbears. The ships were obviously trying to stay as far away from the island as possible to avoid the exocets, and we wanted and the army wanted us...
and the ships in the sound to get as close as we possibly could so we could have the maximum time on combat air patrol. But shortly after the landings, we actually got to the stage where the ships were so far away that by the time you'd gone in at high level, dropped down to a cap height of typically between 5,000 and 10,000 feet, you actually had about two minutes before you had to turn around and go home again. We were just coming in with the radar equipment
blaring to try and scare anyone away if they were in the area. It improved hugely a few days after the landings when we got word that there was a tin strip at Port San Carlos, had 650 feet I think it was of PSA1 strip
which was enough to get us airborne with full weapons and internal fuel. So once we got that in action, we could spend about 30 minutes transiting in, do about 30, 35 minutes on cap and then land at San Carlos, refuel, get airborne again, do another 20 minutes on cap and then go back to the carrier. So we were getting...
to an hour on cap, whereas before we only had two minutes. What's the...
Going through your head when you're flying over those islands or indeed over the sea, it's a pretty lonely place, isn't it? If anything goes wrong, you're going in and you're probably not going to be rescued. What kind of psychological stress does that place on you? The only real psychological stress I experienced was actually on the ship. I think I'm writing saying everyone felt the same as me. Once we were in the air, we thought we were the kings of the world.
And although we knew that numerically probably a number of us were going to get shot down, I always felt it probably wasn't going to be me. So I didn't have any psychological stress when I was in the air. I was frightened a couple of times when I saw the ground fire coming back on the 1st of May from Stanley Airport.
For a fraction of a second, I was frightened. And then training took over and we carried on. The only other time, I think, was in my final engagement on the 8th of June, where I was suddenly aware that I was there effectively at the time for a few seconds on my own with four enemy aircraft.
But once again, it was very transitory and then just got on with the job. So that was David Morgan, a Sea Harrier pilot, talking about his first mission in the Falklands when this low-level ground attack, which is very interesting, actually, because we've spoken about the Black Buck attack, as you've already referenced, Patrick. The fact that the Sea Harrier pilots then went in afterwards on an attack mission of their own,
you know is not so well known and I think it's gripping to hear the description of the low level flying I mean one of the interesting things about when they're training is that they're absolutely very strict rules about how low you can fly in wartime that goes out of the window and if you're a daredevil pilot which of course a lot of these guys are you know all bets are off you know he's talking about literally 10 or 15 feet flying above the surface you know
heading down into the crud so that he could get away from that attack. I mean, really absolutely gripping description of modern flying in a combat situation. Yeah, I don't think any of us could really conceive the skills that you need or the reactions, the physical, mental reactions you need to be able to do that sort of stuff. I was also slightly taken aback by that reference to cluster bombs because, of course, now these are banned and we regard them as a pretty kind of nasty sort of weapon. But obviously they were in our...
in those days. There's also an interesting reference, which Gedge, of course, talks about, which was the confidence of the British pilots. And, you know, you and I both know a lot of warfare is mental. It sounds like they're bigging themselves up, but it's tremendously important when you're going up against an opponent armed with some pretty serious kit themselves that you have that confidence that you can deal with them. What was his description? We were the kings of the world when we were in the air, and everyone felt that.
You know, almost to a man, the C. Harriers. And we should also remember, as was mentioned by Tim Gedge, they were hugely outnumbered. So it's absolutely vital that you believe in your kit and you believe in your training, which it seems that they did. That's right. You've got to have that esprit, really, if you're going to do that job. Now, on that day, the 21st of May, neither Tim Gedge nor Morg Morgan shot down anything.
enemy planes, but many of their comrades did, and two of Morgan's 800 squadron comrades on Hermes, one of whom was Lieutenant Commander Mike Blissett, were chasing two Skyhawks out of the anchorage when they spotted a new wave approaching.
They shot down four Skyhawks. These are the American A-4s. Then two hours later, Lieutenant Clive Morrill and Flight Lieutenant John Leary, who is about to become one of the most successful pilots of the war, shot down one each. The Harriers were armed with these Sidewinder missiles, they're American manufactured, designed missiles.
They were particularly deadly once they'd locked on to an enemy aircraft. And of the 27 fired in the entire war, 24 hit their targets. That's a very impressive rate.
Lieutenant Commander Andy All, the commander of 800 Squadron, said, Well, praise for your training doesn't come higher than that.
So what was the final totals? Remind me, what was the actual kind of score, if you like, of the air combat that day? Well, as is usually the case, Patrick, there's a disagreement on exact numbers. But, you know, they're very close. I've read two, either 16 or 17 Argentinian planes shot down that day on the 21st of May and not a single British plane lost. And no British plane lost during the whole campaign to air-to-air combat.
But that didn't mean that they were stopped getting through attacking the ships, as you know all too well. And by the end of this dramatic day, four ships had been damaged by bombs and other missiles, and one, the frigate HMS Arden, had actually been sunk. So although the landings have been a success and 4,000 men are now ashore, the ground war has begun properly in earnest, and this threat from Argentinian planes is going to continue for a farewell longer.
We're going to discover exactly how big that threat was next time when we'll be discussing the disastrous sinking of HMS Coventry and the merchant supply ship Atlantic Conveyor on the 25th of May. That's just four days later. And then we'll be moving on to talk about the controversial land battle that took place at Goose Green three days after that. We'll see you then.