AL CRAIG COULDN’T help but feel a little sorry for Tim Gedge. The former Buccaneer pilot thought the 809 CO had proved to be a superb boss over the short time he’d had to prepare the new squadron. By the time they’d flown out from Yeovilton, three weeks after being conjured from nothing, they’d felt like a unit. That camaraderie had only deepened aboard Atlantic Conveyor. But with the splitting up of the squadron between Hermes and Invincible the esprit de corps that Gedge had tried so hard to foster was hard to hold on to.
And Sharkey Ward’s insistence that there could be only one SHAR squadron aboard Invincible, and only one SHAR squadron CO, didn’t make it any easier. On board Hermes, after an appeal from Neill Thomas, Lin Middleton had agreed to recognize 899 Squadron as a separate entity. On board Invincible, Sharkey explained to Gedge, while he would be afforded the status and courtesy due the boss of a naval air squadron while off duty, and would attend the Command briefings, 809 would be subsumed within 801. Aboard the smaller carrier, with just ten Sea Harriers embarked instead of the twenty-one jump jets now sprawled around Hermes, it made more sense. But there were limits.
‘Your aircraft are the wrong colour,’ Ward told him, ‘they’ll have to be repainted.’
‘I think ours are the right colour,’ Gedge needled gently, explaining the provenance of the paler camouflage, ‘and that yours are wrong.’
In the end, the carefully calculated shade of Barley Grey developed by Farnborough would stay, but, as aboard Hermes, the phoenix badges on the SHAR’s fins were soon covered up.
Gedge had expected as much. He and Ward were chalk and cheese. Beyond the piercing blue eyes both men possessed there seemed to be little more in common. Ward, the self-styled maverick, thrived on strong opinions and a hard-charging, damn-the-torpedoes approach to leadership. Gedge may have been a more self-contained, less obvious character, but it was he whom the Navy had entrusted with the first frontline Sea Harrier squadron and who’d earned newspaper headlines for humbling the USAF’s new dogfighter extraordinaire, the F-16. And it was Gedge who, in less than a month, had raised a second SHAR squadron from scratch. Whether Sharkey liked it or not he was determined to keep the 809 flame burning.
While he took a phlegmatic approach to 809’s sublimation within 801 in public, privately Gedge continued to record his squadron’s activity as a discrete operation as best he could – a place where diligence and rebellion intersected. ‘From this week,’ he noted on 20 May, ‘the diary covers the 801 (Invincible) detachment of the squadron.’ Though unable to detail the movements of Covington, Slade, Leeming and Brown aboard Hermes, he was meticulous in keeping up to date the Fair Flying Log for the Phoenix Squadron pilots embarked on Invincible, all of whom continued to wear the 809 Squadron wings on their flying suits with pride.
Thick cloud settled like smoke just 200 feet above the sea. As Invincible steamed south of the islands in a feint to divert attention from the amphibious forces gathering around the northeast coast, the new SHAR pilots were briefed by 801’s QFI, Mike Broadwater, on every aspect of the squadron’s operation, from domestic arrangements and safety equipment to flying procedures. In the end, despite Broadwater’s best-laid plans, the weather curtailed his hope of getting all the 809 pilots airborne in the morning.
When, at 1230Z, the ship went to Action Stations, only Gedge and Brave began briefing to fly. 809’s two most experienced pilots were launched into the clag as part of Trident Section, a four-ship familiarization and CAP sortie led by 801’s Air Warfare Instructor. For most of the sortie they were flying on instruments and couldn’t see either each other or anything else. Unable to launch on their own fam flight, Al Craig and Dave Austin were going to have to pick it up on the job.
The weather to the north of the Falklands, where Hermes was operating in support of the Amphibious Task Group, was proving a little kinder. But only a little. Tasked with an attack against a fuel dump on West Falkland, the GR.3 pilots wondered whether their first operational mission might get scrubbed as a result.
‘Oh, they’ll launch you in this,’ came the less-than-reassuring reply, ‘no problem.’
FINRAE didn’t work. Despite the best efforts of the squadron’s small, eighteen-man cadre of engineers on the journey south, the trolley developed by Ferranti to align their inertial navigation and attack system wasn’t functioning as advertised. Without it, the head-up display and weapons system wouldn’t be much help. Instead the 1(F) pilots were going to have to operate using nothing more than standby instruments, the small collection of dials to the bottom left of the instrument panel, and a fixed sight on coaming. Wind, throw, drift and anything else that might have a bearing on the accuracy of their weapons delivery would simply have to be estimated based on instinct and experience.
We’re back to pre-war technology, thought Bob Iveson. Even Battle of Britain pilots had moving gunsights.
To ensure they could at least find their way through the cloud to their let-down point, Hermes tasked one of the 800 Squadron SHARs to follow behind, tracking their progress towards the Dolphin Point headland on the eastern side of Falkland Sound.
After briefing, they signed the Form 700s to accept the aircraft and strapped into the cockpits of the jets, their green and grey RAF camouflage an unfamiliar, almost colourful sight on a carrier deck presenting nothing other than shades of grey. Each was armed with 600lb BL755 cluster bombs – one beneath each wing and a third bolted beneath the fuselage between the ADEN gun pods.
Squire launched at 1430Z. Iveson, performing his first short take-off from a carrier deck since his exchange tour with the US Marine Corps, was next. Pook was the last to leave the ski-jump, using his left index finger to punch the undercarriage ‘UP’ button as he eased the nozzle lever forward. He flicked the flap lever to clean up the wings before, settled into wingborne flight, he followed Green Leader and Green Two into the gloom. They were careful to keep their speed below 250 knots to avoid provoking any unwelcome attention from HMS Brilliant’s Seawolf missile operators.
Neill Thomas got airborne in a Sea Harrier a few minutes after the 1(F) Squadron section. A terse RT transmission on the ATC frequency let them know he was on his way. And after staying low and slow for fifteen minutes he pushed the throttle forward, pulled the nose up and accelerated into the smothering cloud. Cruising west at 30,000 feet, he swept the skies ahead with his Blue Fox radar until the three Harriers appeared glowing brilliant orange on the little CRT screen on his instrument panel. He locked on to them and, when the time came, confident that the three radar contacts were where they should be, he thumbed the RT to tell Green Leader his formation’s track looked good. He wished them luck and turned back for Mother.
As he led 1(F) Squadron into action for the first time since the Second World War, Peter Squire was struck by the peacefulness of their high-level transit towards the target. With confirmation from the escorting SHAR that all was well, he cut the power and began his descent towards the less-inviting prospect of the low-level ingress towards the target. Flying in a loose arrowhead formation, the three GR.3s dropped through the thick cloud towards the sea. At 1,200 feet they emerged into the clear air beneath it. As they closed up and accelerated over the coast of West Falkland, the distinctive drone of the engine was replaced by the percussive beat and buffeting of the airframe as it bludgeoned its way through the thick, moist air. A mile or so separated them. As well as checking the boss’s six, Iveson and Pook covered each other’s tails. It was second nature. As they carved into turns, condensation whipped over the top of the jets’ little anhedral wings; pale vortices streamed off the tips. The boulder-strewn landscape beneath barely registered as it blurred past. Their focus was on the path ahead. At this speed and altitude it had to be.
From their IP (initial point) at the foot of Mount Sullivan, 5 miles north-northwest of the target, they slipped into escort formation. To complicate the job of the defences, Iveson was going to fly across the target at 30º off Squire’s track, before Pook then streaked across on the same heading as the Flight Leader. They ran in at 500 knots, just 50 feet above the gently undulating ground beneath them before climbing to a height of 150 feet for weapons release. Ahead, through the flat armoured glass of the front of the cockpit, Iveson spotted the houses of Fox Bay settlement. And, nearby, he saw the target: 40-gallon oil drums and stacks of jerrycans, dispersed widely to protect them from destruction by any single well-aimed bomb.
A perfect shape for a cluster bomb pattern, thought Iveson as he watched Squire make his attack. The 147 bomblets ejected in all directions from each of the formation’s nine BL755s would cause a hailstorm of submunitions. Instead of sniper rifles, the GR.3s were hunting with shotguns.
Iveson watched the first of Squire’s cluster bombs pepper the target, triggering a chain reaction of secondary explosions before a massive fireball erupted, belching filthy black smoke into the sky. Seconds later he speared across the target, pickling the weapons as he went.
A good hit, thought Pook as he watched Green Two streak across his nose from right to left before diving back down to the height of the long grass and out over the water. Pook concentrated on making sure his own attack counted. Bombs gone, he cornered the throttle lever and made for the safety of East Head at the entrance of the bay.
It had been a clinically effective demonstration in offensive air power; well planned, professionally executed, successful. Coming in without warning from the hills, Green Section were in and out, leaving destruction in their wake, before a single shot appeared to have been fired in their target’s defence.
Protected by the headland, they turned northeast and climbed back up to high altitude over Falkland Sound, their RWRs beginning to pulse to the sound of a search radar transmitting from Pebble Island.
Squire reported it in the debrief that followed their safe return to Hermes.
D Minus One, and it seemed that there was confirmation that the radar that had so preoccupied Sandy Woodward prior to the SAS raid against the island airfield was still operating.
Nothing was going to rub the adrenalin-fuelled smiles off the faces of Squire, Iveson and Pook though. Not yet anyway.
‘Sir, not the photo again …’ complained one of the 3 Escuadrilla pilots. None of them wanted to leave the warmth of the crewroom and head out into the cold and wet. But to a chorus of groans and eye-rolling, Alberto Philippi stuck to his guns.
‘Everybody outside,’ he insisted, ‘the photo is an order!’
It was rare to get the whole squadron together in one place. He felt it was important to capture the moment.
Each wearing a leather flight jacket decorated with an accumulation of unit patches, including the hawk and lightning bolt of the squadron’s own badge, the twelve pilots traipsed outside into the drizzle. They lined up in two ranks, some in beanie hats pulled down against the chill. Behind them, the Skyhawks were chocked up along Río Grande flightline. Then, using the little camera Philippi always carried with him, one of the ground crew snapped them smiling.
‘Always in the action’ went the squadron motto.
And so it would prove.
In Santiago, the British Ambassador, John Heath, was summoned to the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs for an urgent meeting with Foreign Minister René Rojas Galdames. Behind the building’s imposing portico and classical facade, Rojas Galdames explained that the burned-out remains of a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter had been found on a beach 18 kilometres south of Punta Arenas. It appeared not to have crashed but to have been deliberately set on fire. Despite an ongoing search there was no sign of the crew. Rojas Galdames said that he would be issuing a statement about the incident later in the day and that he had already informed Argentina.
He handed Heath a formal note of protest about the helicopter. The wreckage clearly indicated ‘that British units had entered Chilean territory and violated Chilean sovereignty’.
The words were reproachful, but his eyes told a different story.
And with the diplomatic formalities complete, a broad smile broke out across the face of the Chilean Foreign Minister, leaving Heath in no doubt at all about how Chile really felt about the intrusion.
‘When are you going to invade?’ asked Rojas Galdames, laughing.
Nearly 1,500 miles to the southeast, Operation SUTTON was already underway.