The ship got under way this morning at about 0500, and there was a good deal of rejoicing and festivity on board as we headed north east away from the island of East Falkland, passing and saluting other ships as we left. The mood changed abruptly at about ten, when the Captain announced that our departure was in fact going to be delayed indefinitely, as the RAF had, for reasons quite beyond rational explanation, failed to get four Phantoms out to Ascension Island to act as the required back-up for the four at Port Stanley. I mean, they’ve only had four months to do it, so I don’t know why we were so surprised that they hadn’t got it sorted out. I honestly think, sometimes, that the RAF couldn’t, as the saying goes, victual a woodpecker in the New Forest.
Our mood was cheered, however, just after lunch, when the Captain again broadcast, and said that despite the problem on Ascension, we had been instructed by the Admiralty to depart anyway, so presumably the First Sea Lord has been pinning his opposite number from the Crabs against a wall and picturising him in a fairly forcible manner. There were, quite literally, loud cheers throughout the ship as that announcement was made, so we are, at last, on our way home.
As a kind of celebration, we sank an Argentine ship! Not, as you might have expected from that kind of statement, as a resumption of hostilities, but just as a final act before we departed the area (hopefully) for good. The vessel in question was a small auxiliary, captured and quite badly damaged in the fighting, called the Bahia Buen Suceso, and we used it as a sort of test for all our weapons, even the Vulcan, which was persuaded to take part by manually over-riding its discrimination circuits. All the small arms on the ship (20 mm and so on) were used, and then the Sea Harriers sorted it out a bit with rockets and guns, we also had a final fly-past of just about every aircraft on the ship; ten Sea Harriers, most of the ASW Sea Kings and both the AEW Sea Kings, as a final farewell to the islands and to the very many people we are leaving behind there as we go.
Postscript time – neither the sinking of the Argentine ship nor the fly-past were entirely without drama. The Sea Harriers had a bash at the Argentine vessel with bombs, but for some reason, despite the fact that the ship wasn’t firing back (or perhaps because it wasn’t firing back), their aim was not terribly good. In fact, as one photographer put it, ‘If you wanted a picture of both the bomb-bursts and the Argentine ship, you needed quite a good wide-angle lens’. I liked that – subtle. The Flying Tigers, as 814 have modestly dubbed themselves, finally finished the job off by depth-charging it. This slightly unusual use of a depth charge in fact blew the ship into three or four pieces, very spectacularly, after which, obviously, it sank quite quickly.
The fly-past was characterised by a bit of a cock-up on the part of a certain RAF air traffic controller at Port Stanley Airfield, who, having been informed that the formation, which had taken the better part of an hour to get itself together and in the correct sequence and so on, was running in, he calmly told it to go away, as he had a Phantom recovering short of fuel. After a brief argument the 23-aircraft formation broke up and started to return to the ship, at which the pilot of the Phantom chimed in and announced that he wasn’t short of fuel at all, and could stay up for hours and hours. All 23 aircraft then tried to get themselves into some sort of order again, and by all accounts they were still doing their best to formate correctly as they over-flew the airfield. The offending controller was RAF, so the Crabs are right at the top of everyone’s Shit List today.
Despite this, though, the fly-past obviously looked quite good from the ground, or at least good enough to fool the Admiral, who disembarked late yesterday, as he sent us the following signal:
VERY MANY THANKS FOR A MAGNIFICENT FULL HOUSE FLYPAST. A THOROUGHLY PROFESSIONAL PERFORMANCE BY ALL AIRCREW AND AIR DEPARTMENTS. THE FALKLANDS WILL MISS YOU.
While on the ‘well done, chaps’ theme, he also sent the following signal to us:
THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR STERLING SUPPORT DURING MY SPELL AS CTG. THE OPERATION AFTER THE CEASEFIRE HAS DEMANDED SUSTAINED VIGILANCE, EFFORT AND COOPERATION WITHOUT THE INCENTIVE OF AN IMMEDIATE THREAT, AND OFTEN IN ADVERSE CONDITIONS.
THE SUCCESS OF THIS PHASE REFLECTS THE COMMITMENT OF THE MEN AND WOMEN OF ALL THREE ARMED SERVICES, THE RFA AND THE MERCHANT NAVY.
WELL DONE. I WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY RETURN HOME IN DUE COURSE.
(CTG = Commander of the Task Group. RFA = Royal Fleet Auxiliary).
He also appeared on ITV in a pre-recorded broadcast, to express much the same sentiments, which was rather nice of him.
One funny which I heard about today. A little ditty did the rounds recently about how we should all be more friendly and helpful on the telephone, and should give the number or location, followed by who you were. (I do that in any case, in fact). Anyway, one stalwart on the ship dialled a number, the ‘phone was picked up, and a voice said ‘Yup.’
Irritated beyond reason, the caller launched into a short lecture on good manners, the importance of reading the various ditties sent round the ship, and a number of related subjects, and finally finished up by insisting that, there and then, the person at the other end of the ‘phone line should answer the telephone correctly.
He waited expectantly, and the voice (which had been completely silent throughout this tirade) finally said ‘202. Captain here. Can I help you?’ Strangled and embarrassed squawk, followed by hastily replaced receiver. It’s nice to know that our Captain has a sense of humour!
The evening film, held over from last night, was ‘Firefox’, which really was quite embarrassingly bad, with a disjointed plot, bad script, and lousy special effects. It was also far too long. A good one to miss, in short.