CHAPTER NINE
On Tuesday, 2 June 1981, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother had launched the new Ark Royal, the third Invincible-class carrier, at the Swan Hunter shipyard at Wallsend on the Tyne. She had performed the same ceremony for the previous Ark Royal thirty-one years before.
But the Defence Secretary, John Nott, had already put a dampener on proceedings. His review was reaching its climax. Speculation, rumour, and leaks about big cuts in the Navy were already in wide circulation. In a bad-tempered debate in the House of Commons two weeks before the launch, Nott had said of Ark Royal as she waited to thunder down the slipway: ‘I do not think she would have been ordered if we were making the decision today’.
And, sure enough, three weeks after the new ship had taken to the water for the first time, Nott announced the decision, as part of his review, that only two of the three Invincibles would be kept in service. But which two?
The name ship of the class, Invincible herself, had been nearly a year in trials already. At the beginning of March, the ship and her crew had suffered a tragic setback, when two of her Sea Kings, while performing manoeuvres around the carrier in misty conditions in the Channel, had collided in mid-air. Five crewmen were lost. The effect on the ship’s company was devastating. A pall and a silence fell over Invincible. That evening, Malcolm Fuller sat gloomily in Neil Rankin’s cabin as the two searched for answers as to how it could have happened. Captain Livesay made a poignant broadcast to the ship’s company. His message was that, if the lives of those lost were to be honoured, the ship had to press on, to make a success of what they had been striving to achieve. The ship held a memorial service the following Sunday. But it also did bounce back.
As time had passed, Neil Rankin – Wings – had warmed to the task of making the most of Invincible and her assets. After the lengthy trials, she had finally got her own Sea Harrier squadron, No 801, with its commanding officer, Nigel ‘Sharkey’ Ward. He had flown supersonic Phantoms from the deck of the old Ark Royal. Now he was anxious to demonstrate the qualities and prove the capabilities of the Sea Harrier.
801 squadron had only five Sea Harriers aboard Invincible. But Rankin soon learned that the ship could do a lot in short bursts. Indeed, thanks to the heroics of the maintainers and the air crews, she was able to keep more aircraft in the air for longer than seemed reasonable. In that respect, she was embarrassing some of the American carriers and their squadrons. During one NATO exercise, she was able to keep an aircraft on combat air patrol continuously for five days.
One advantage that the Sea Harrier pilots had soon discovered was that the combination of Invincible’s Ski-jump ramp and the aircraft’s V/STOL characteristics meant that they could continue flying in conditions that would probably defeat even the biggest of conventional carriers. In heavy weather, a carrier’s flight deck would be pitching thirty-forty feet at each end, making conventional launches, and especially landings, extremely dicey, if not impractical. But the Ski-jump gave an added safety margin on take-off. And, on return, a Sea Harrier could simply come to a hover alongside the ship, midway along its length where the pitching was at a minimum, and then edge sideways and down to land safely on the flight deck. So, again, in certain conditions, Invincible was finding that her Sea Harriers were embarrassing the US Navy’s fighters in air interceptions.
The Americans were also becoming mightily impressed by the anti-submarine performance of the ship’s Sea King helicopters. It was all helping to boost morale again. Within the inevitable limits of her design, and the numbers of aircraft that she had, the crew was making her work.
And yet, the crew’s growing enthusiasm for Invincible was still not shared by everyone in the Navy. Despite all the battles that had been fought to get her and her Sea Harriers, some still saw her as little more than a glorified cruiser, rather than a worthy flagship for the Fleet. But the reports that Invincible, and especially her Sea Harriers, were starting to meet or exceed expectations started to filter back to the admirals on the Naval Staff in Whitehall. The mood began to shift. Unfortunately for the Naval Staff, and especially the First Sea Lord, Sir Henry Leach, that only added to the poignancy of the Navy’s position. Here was concrete evidence not only of Invincible’s worth, but also of the flaws to the kind of operational analysis that had discounted the value of the Sea Harrier.
When it had been announced that the Navy would be allowed to keep only two of its new carriers, it was widely assumed that a buyer would be sought for Ark Royal while she was still being built. But when a potential customer emerged in the shape of the Royal Australian Navy, the problem immediately arose that the Australians wanted to take delivery some two years before Ark Royal would be finished. So the focus quickly switched to Invincible. And, pretty soon, Invincible found herself playing host to an Australian Navy inspection team. Many on board could not believe that, just when their hard work seemed to have shown that Invincible and what she stood for worked, she was to be sold off.
As might be expected of any prospective buyers, the Australians had some issues. There was the vibration question. They also wanted to know how easy it would be to modify the ship to carry more fuel, for the longer ranges that they wanted. But, generally, they seemed to like what they saw.
It was all too much for the First Sea Lord. When John Nott asked him to meet an Australian delegation, he told them bluntly that, as far as he was concerned, Invincible was a great success, was an important part of the Royal Navy’s future, and was not for sale. The episode did nothing to help the atmosphere between the Chief of the Naval Staff and the Secretary of State.
But it was also indicative of how wide the chasm was between the perspectives of the two men and what they represented. Henry Leach seemed simply not to accept that Invincible was going to be sold. He continued to try to persuade John Nott to change his mind. In October, he wrote to the Defence Secretary, again arguing that the proposed sale made no sense, either militarily or financially. Invincible was just beginning to show her military value, he said. He regarded the 175 million pounds being asked for her as a ‘knock-down sale price’, and said that she was being let go ‘virtually for a song’. 1 He suggested that maybe she could simply be kept at reduced cost in reserve. Perhaps as a delaying tactic, he hinted that, at the very least, the sale should be put off, since it would take time for the Navy to reshape itself with new submarines and frigates to try to fill the capability gaps that her departure would leave behind.
However, there seemed to be little new in these arguments, as far as John Nott and his advisers were concerned. Indeed, far from regarding Invincible as a valuable, shiny new asset for the Navy, many of them still saw her as an expensive, vulnerable white elephant that probably would not last five minutes in an all-out fight with Soviet forces in the Norwegian Sea or the northeast Atlantic.
Still, Henry Leach would not let go, and sought a meeting with John Nott. The move was to lead to another bizarre episode.
It was late on a Thursday in November 1981, and the First Sea Lord arrived at the Defence Secretary’s office for an appointment to find John Nott preparing to hurry away to his constituency in the West Country. He had no time for a meeting. To John Nott, there was nothing more to say on the subject of Invincible. To Henry Leach, this was unacceptable, and he announced that he would pursue the Defence Secretary to Cornwall if he had to in order to sort the matter out. Whether John Nott thought he was serious or not, he left.
But the admiral was both angry and serious. He summoned John Nott’s private secretary, David Omand, and told him that – one way or another – he was going after him. The civil servant tried to persuade him that nothing could be done about Invincible. ‘It’s over,’he said. ‘There’s nothing to be done’. 2
But the First Sea Lord was determined. Omand reluctantly agreed to try to arrange something. And so it was that, the following morning, the two men headed for Paddington Station to catch a train to the West Country.
It was an ill-starred expedition. It had been snowing. The train timetables were in a shambles. The journey proceeded at an agonizing pace, and the train got later and later. In their first-class compartment, Leach and Omand tried to pass the time, chatting cheerfully, and even exchanging each other’s briefs and rehearsing the argument to come. Eventually they arrived at the chosen venue for the meeting, an early nineteenth century mock-medieval country house called Caerhays Castle, the home of a prominent West Country Conservative, set in a valley outside St Austell. It was already late, dark, bleak, and bitterly cold. John Nott greeted them at the door and ushered them into the warm. The host’s hospitality and dinner delayed matters further. But eventually Nott and Leach retired to another room for a dramatic fire-lit showdown. They talked for about an hour with no meeting of minds. Henry Leach had to catch the last train back to London. So John Nott agreed to drive to the station with the admiral.
As they continued to argue, the First Sea Lord offered to find the 175-million-pound price tag for Invincible with savings elsewhere in the Navy budget, even though he made the offer resentfully, believing that the Fleet would, in effect, be paying twice for Invincible. But John Nott would not accept that anyway. As, finally, they stood in the freezing cold on the platform at St Austell station at what was, by now, well after midnight, Henry Leach asked the minister for his decision. But John Nott said that he would telephone the Ministry of Defence in the morning to give his answer. He did. The decision stood.
All this time, the negotiations had been continuing with the Australians and a sales contract had been agreed. It might have been an agreement for a second-hand car. The price was, indeed, 175 million pounds, plus seven-point-two million for spares and stores, with a ten per cent deposit to be paid within thirty days of signing or – interestingly in view of subsequent events – 1 April 1982, whichever was later. Handover was scheduled for 30 September 1983, unless Invincible’s sister ship, HMS Illustrious, still had not been completed by then, in which case the handover would be held back until 31 March 1984 at the latest. 3
In fact, although nobody knew it at the time, the contract would never be signed. Henry Leach had tried one last, desperate gambit, warning that The Queen would have to be informed of the sale, since she had launched the ship. Like all his other arguments, it made no difference. 4
Like Henry Leach, but for very different reasons, senior officials in the Treasury were concerned about the price, and still wondered why the newer Ark Royal could not be sold, thus raising more money. A complication in choosing Invincible was that, to keep a force-level of two carriers until HMS Ark Royal arrived, as was the government’s declared policy, the elderly HMS Hermes would have to be kept in service instead of Invincible alongside Illustrious, at an estimated extra cost of thirty million pounds. So the net revenue to the Treasury from the sale would be only about 145 million pounds. As one senior Ministry of Defence official pointed out, that could still buy one brand-new nuclear-powered Fleet submarine. Henry Leach’s view remained that, however fine such a vessel might be, it would not begin to make up for the breadth of abilities that the Navy would be losing with the sale of Invincible. 5
In late February 1982, the deal was finally confirmed and announced. Among a flood of regretful signals sent to the ship was one from the C-in-C Fleet, Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, one of the senior officers whom John Nott and his aides felt had been sympathetic to their prescription for the Navy. Fieldhouse wrote: ‘Despite the long warning time, I know the decision on Invincible’s future has come as a sad shock to you, as it has to us all. My faith in your ship, your ship’s company and embarked squadrons, remains unshaken. The running on of Hermes and the retention of your sister ships show that the importance of your role is widely acknowledged. I know that throughout the remainder of your challenging and varied programme you will continue to operate to the very high standard you have already set yourselves. There is a lot of water to flow under your bridge yet’.
HMS Invincible came under the direct responsibility of the Flag Officer, Third Flotilla, Vice Admiral John Cox. He had been a key ally of Captain Livesay’s as he had battled for resources and priorities to turn his ship from an untried and unfamiliar concept into an effective fighting unit. His dismay was also clear, as he signalled: ‘What do I say? What can I say? The decision that has just been announced, albeit not a total surprise, hurts badly’.
The Navy, and Henry Leach, did win one concession from John Nott. A visit was arranged for him to the amphibious assault ship, HMS Fearless, off Portland. She and her sister ship, Intrepid, had both been earmarked for disposal. The First Sea Lord called Fearless’ captain personally, and told him that, ‘short of killing somebody’6 , he and his ship’s company had to pull out all the stops because the future of the two vessels depended on it. For once, luck was on the Navy’s side. The sea was calm, the sun shone, and everything worked. John Nott came away impressed, and acknowledged that it had been mistake to decide to scrap the ships. They were reprieved. It was yet another example of how the Navy was able, just, to hold on to something that would prove to be of great value, and keep a capability going that would become a key ingredient in the Fleet’s long-term future.
On Invincible, crew members who had made up that first happy band of the ship’s company had begun to disperse to new jobs. Among the recent departures had been the first commanding officer, Michael Livesay, who had had such an impact on the ship and her crew. His successor was another extraordinary character, and an exceptional commanding officer, but it fell to him to come to terms with the sale of the ship, and how to handle it.
Jeremy Black had joined the Navy in the summer of 1946. He had been a sub-lieutenant and then a lieutenant aboard the Navy’s last battleship, HMS Vanguard. He was a gunnery officer aboard the aircraft carrier, HMS Victorious, in the Far East. He had commanded a couple of destroyers, including the big guided-missile destroyer HMS Fife, with a crew of over 500. Even so, his first impression of Invincible was similar to that of many others who had gone before, that she was huge.
Black had been working at the Ministry of Defence, and was looking forward to another spell at sea. As a senior captain by now, he had considerable hopes. Indeed, he had expressed interest in command of either Invincible or Hermes, Britain’s only two aircraft carriers by then. He was delighted to be told that it would be Invincible. He took command on 5 January 1982. He slipped on board at ten o’clock that morning. By midday he was in charge.
Black had almost left the Navy once early in his career when he had faced a court martial in Singapore. Not knowing anyone, and desperate, he had decided to go in search of a fellow gunnery officer to defend him. Thus, he found himself knocking on the door of a certain young captain, Henry Leach. They had never met before. But Leach agreed to take on the case, and proceeded to work tirelessly on it. Black was acquitted of all but the most minor of the charges. Black was to hold Leach in the highest esteem and affection ever after.
Now, as he surveyed his new command, he was impressed by her size, but was also immediately struck that she seemed a very fine ship, and that her ship’s company had an air of confidence about it. He began to reflect on why that might be. She was new. She was novel. She was unique in the Fleet. She had been a great success in her trials and her first few months of operational service. But it was more than just confidence. There was, he noted, ‘that wonderful spirit which is instantly detectable in a happy ship’. 7
That spirit might have taken a knock with the news that she was to be sold. The crew was upset. But Captain Black was equally struck that morale did not take the dip that he had feared. People, it seemed, wanted to get on with the job, to go out with a bang rather than a whimper.
And it was a busy time still. There were exercises off Scotland and Norway. With thick snow covering her flight deck, she practised for the first time her potential role as a Commando carrier, with assault helicopters and Royal Marines aboard. But she was back in Portsmouth by late March, with her air group and crew dispersed for Easter leave.
It was four o’clock in the morning on Friday, 2 April 1982, when the telephone started ringing at the Black family home. This was a large, comfortable cottage-style farm house on the outskirts of the village of Durley, near Southampton, with broad lawns and beautiful views out over the fields and rolling countryside of Hampshire. It was an ideal place to relax. And that is what Jeremy Black had been doing with his family after the hectic and challenging first three months that he had had in charge of Invincible.
Black and his wife were fast sleep. As he stirred himself to the sound of the ringing phone, the captain was ready to be angry with this intrusion and whoever was on the other end of the line. His mood, and his state of alert, underwent a rapid transformation. It was the ship. At 0227, the C-in-C Fleet had signalled Invincible, Hermes, and a number of others ships to come to four hours notice to sail by noon the following day.
The commanding officer ordered a general recall, and asked what the fuss was about. He was told that there was some trouble brewing in the Falklands. Black issued a few more instructions. Already running through his mind was the thought that it would be a daunting task reassembling the hundreds of crew members who were currently scattered around the country, across Europe, and even as far as the United States. Then he decided to snatch a few hours more sleep before heading into the dockyard.
He realized that things were going to get very busy.
In the long-running history of the dispute between Britain and Argentina over the sovereignty of the Falklands Islands, there had been periods of diplomatic tension before. And there was, of course, the fact that the Falklands had also been the scene of a notable naval battle in the First World War, involving the previous HMS Invincible.
That Invincible had been sent to the South Atlantic with her sister ship, Inflexible, under Vice Admiral Sturdee following the Battle of Coronel, off Chile, at the beginning of November 1914. In that encounter, a group of British cruisers had been overcome by a crack squadron of German armoured cruisers under Vice Admiral Count Maximillian Von Spee. Invincible and her squadron were coaling at the Falklands on the morning of 8 December when Von Spee’s squadron suddenly appeared, apparently intent on attacking the islands. The tables were turned. The British battle-cruisers put to sea and, in a running battle, the superior British firepower destroyed the German squadron, and Admiral Von Spee went down with his ship.
For some of those now contemplating events in the Falklands in the spring of 1982, there was the memory of a much more recent, minor flurry of naval activity concerning the islands, in late 1977, while the previous Labour Government was still in office. David Owen, who had been the young and energetic Navy Minister who had helped push through the concept of the through-deck cruiser, was now a very young Foreign Secretary. The Labour Government was about to embark on new negotiations with Argentina on the Falkland Islands. But the previous eighteen months had been a tense period in Anglo-Argentine relations, with a number of incidents, including the firing of warning shots at a British survey ship, and an Argentine landing on a remote island of the Falklands archipelago, South Thule.
With this in mind, his Navy background, and a particular respect for the power of the Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines, Owen had requested the secret despatch of an SSN to the South Atlantic, just in case. The First Sea Lord then was Admiral Sir Terence Lewin. He and the Naval Staff were concerned that an SSN on its own was a very blunt instrument – it could do nothing, or it could sink a ship with a torpedo, but it had none of the intermediate levers of traditional gunboat diplomacy at its disposal and so, in the view of the Navy professionals, it would not be very effective as a deterrent. There would also be problems in communicating at such distance with a submerged submarine.
The Naval Staff argued that, if a force was to be sent, it should be balanced. There should be a couple of destroyers or frigates, plus support ships. Such a force would also help with the communications issue. Here again was another example of the different perceptions between those inside the Navy and outside it of what sea power was, how it worked, and how it could and should be used. But the priority for most of the government was that this deployment should remain secret until such time as it might actually be needed, in order not to upset the negotiations in advance. David Owen at least knew what naval towns were like, and how rumours spread, and he feared that news of the despatch of surface ships would leak out.
But the small group was indeed despatched, and the secret held. The submarine HMS Dreadnought was joined by the frigates Alacrity and Phoebe, a tanker, and a stores and ammunition ship. The idea was that the submarine would deploy close to the Falklands, while the surface ships would remain well out into the South Atlantic – about a thousand miles from the islands. It was felt that then, if they were detected, that might actually be an advantage – it would be regarded as ‘non-provocative preparedness’.
There is still some dispute about whether the Argentine Navy got a hint of what was going on. But the episode came and went. So what lessons were to be drawn? Later, it would be argued that, if such ‘non-provocative preparedness’ had been attempted in 1982, there may never have been an Argentine invasion. The fact that it was not certain whether the ships in 1977 were ever detected, and they were certainly not declared at the time, meant that their real deterrent value was never tested.
David Owen and Terence Lewin would later have a very public disagreement over the nature and meaning of the rules of engagement (RoEs) for the force. As Owen suggested, they clearly did anticipate the possibility of an attempted invasion. The official military perspective was that the main concern was Argentine interference with British shipping, rather than invasion. There were considerable military doubts about whether such a small British force could really have deterred a determined Argentine move to take the islands.
The Lewin view was that the real deterrence lay in Britain’s overall naval capabilities at the time – the age-old ‘fleet in being’ argument. The fact was that, in 1977, the Royal Navy still had a full-size aircraft carrier, the old Ark Royal, which could have become the centrepiece of any task force for the South Atlantic. Her Phantoms and Gannet AEW aircraft would have provided a genuine air defence umbrella, while her Buccaneers had a very obvious ability, if needed, to launch sizeable strike missions, including possibly against the Argentine mainland. As far as Lewin was concerned, that latent capability was one reason why no-one has ever heard of the 1977 Falklands War. Four-and-a-half years later, Ark Royal had gone, and however Buenos Aires may have interpreted all the other political signals emanating from London over that intervening period and change of government, the Royal Navy’s ability to muster a fully-capable force to retake the Falkland Islands was more open to doubt, at least from an outsider’s point of view, than it had been. Deterrence failed.
By 1982, the mixture of tensions over the Falkland Islands had become more volatile. The military government in Buenos Aires under General Leopoldo Galtieri was more desperate, and the attitudes of the British Government seemed more ambiguous. The Nott review, and in particular the planned sale of HMS Invincible and the decommissioning of the ice patrol ship HMS Endurance, seemed to signal reduced interest in maritime affairs generally, and in the South Atlantic in particular.
Endurance was a modest, German-built cargo ship, originally called the Anita Dan, and launched in 1956. She had been strengthened to operate in ice and was bought by the Ministry of Defence in 1967. Her conversion to military use had included fitting a flight deck and hangar for two small helicopters, and adding two small 20-mm machine guns. And that, in terms of her military potential, was it. But the symbolism of her presence in the South Atlantic was not really doubted. The dispute for years between the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office was whether it was worth the cost of running her, and who should pay for it. She had seemed for a while to be living on borrowed time.
In London, the messages of unease being sent back from the South Atlantic by Endurance’s commanding officer, Captain Nicholas Barker, in late 1981 and early 1982, were often heavily discounted. Nick Barker was seen as a person dedicated to preserving his ship and its role.
And there was other evidence of the very contradictory nature of Anglo-Argentine relations, particularly between the two navies. In the autumn of 1981, the Argentine Navy’s magnificent sail training ship, the Libertad, the largest of its type in the world, had moored off Greenwich on an official visit, and Sir Henry Leach was invited to go aboard for an inspection. When he arrived, he saw that the ship had arranged a huge welcome, with sailors manning the masts and yards, and a ceremonial guard on the quarterdeck. Leach thanked them for the honour that they had done him, and then enjoyed a most convivial lunch with several of the officers.
By March 1982, general unease over the situation in the South Atlantic was mounting. In the last week, serious thinking about contingencies and the earmarking of ships for possible deployment to the South Atlantic finally began. An SSN was ordered south, and then a second. The C-in-C Fleet, John Fieldhouse, visited Gibraltar to observe the large flotilla of Navy warships on exercise there. He conferred about possible plans with the man in charge of the exercise, Sandy Woodward, now a Rear Admiral.
Wednesdays were normally not meeting days for the service chiefs, who tried to use them to get out of London to visit units and establishments around the country. So it was on Wednesday, 31 March 1982. Henry Leach had been in Portsmouth. He arrived back at the Ministry of Defence in the early evening to find an intelligence report and a number of briefs. The intelligence report suggested that an Argentine landing seemed likely on about 2 April. The others suggested that this period of tension was potentially no more serious than others that had gone before, and that no further naval deployments were either necessary or desirable.
The First Sea Lord was very concerned. He felt that the advice before him was contradictory. His other chief reaction was, ‘what the hell was the point of having a navy if you don’t use it for this sort of thing’?8 He decided that he must seek out the Defence Secretary. While there had been some preparatory thinking on naval contingencies, he needed political approval to take things further, and in particular to start assembling a task force.
But John Nott was not in his office. Having discovered that he was in the House of Commons, Henry Leach jumped into his car and headed in that direction. He was still in his First Sea Lord’s uniform from his visit to Portsmouth. Despite this, he could not get past the imposing policeman on duty in the Central Lobby, who was not in the least bit ruffled by the sight of the Chief of the Naval Staff demanding an immediate interview with the Defence Secretary. So Leach sat on a bench while efforts were made to locate John Nott.
Henry Leach was rescued first by one of the party whips, and taken to the whips’office. While he was waiting, somebody thrust a whisky into his hand, for which he was grateful, and which he felt he rather needed. He chatted amicably for about fifteen minutes, but did not feel – for security reasons – that he could really say why he so urgently needed to see John Nott. Eventually word came that the Defence Secretary was with the Prime Minister in her room, and he was asked to go up.
The character of the meeting changed dramatically with the First Sea Lord’s arrival. The thrust of the discussions up to that point had been how to get the Americans to intervene. There had been little talk of military options, except perhaps sending an extra submarine. Leach himself was somewhat stunned by the atmosphere in the Prime Minister’s room. There seemed, he felt, to be a lack of ideas, a void. When Margaret Thatcher asked him for his view, he said that little could be done to forestall or defend against an invasion now, and recapturing the islands would require a very considerable naval task force.
He was asked about air cover, and he said that he believed that the Navy had just enough Sea Harriers, but that it would clearly be a risky operation. But he insisted that he could assemble the necessary task force in forty-eight hours.
Margaret Thatcher asked if it could really do the job. Henry Leach replied that not only could it do the job, but it should. ‘Why do you say that?’ the Prime Minister asked. ‘Because if we do not,’ Leach responded, ‘or we pussyfoot in our actions and do not achieve complete success, in another few months we shall be living in a different country whose word counts for little’. 9
The First Sea Lord was very clear and decisive. That was his character. It was a critical intervention. And he was made for the moment. John Nott was amazed, and not a little sceptical. He had had more than a year of bitter skirmishing with Henry Leach. The two of them did not get on at all. What the Defence Secretary did not know at the time was the amount of preindenttory work and thinking that the Navy had been doing in the previous few days. In any event, it seemed to impress the Prime Minister. Henry Leach managed to convince her that the operation would be feasible, if hazardous. He left the meeting with the authority that he had sought to prepare a task force. There would be scepticism in other parts of the Ministry of Defence. But the die had been cast.