Battle for the Falklands: The Winter War. Patrick Bishop
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number of targets was so great that they could not all be engaged.’
The British, on the other hand, had troops that were not only well-trained but also had a pride in their abilities and a degree of determination that made the prospect of defeat almost intolerable. George Orwell wrote in Homage to Catalonia: ‘People forget that a soldier anywhere near the front line is usually too hungry or frightened or cold or above all too tired to care about the political origins of the war.’ The British were no ideologues. They were just better soldiers.
It has not taken long for the memories of the Falklands war to dim. The things that are still vivid are the noises: the perpetual wop-wop of helicopters, the buzz of artillery shells. Neither of us had been shelled before. Like everything in the war it was surprising how quickly you adapted to it, though no one ever got used to it.
We were only fired on for a few hours but we soon learned to distinguish between the whizz of outgoing fire and the whistle of incoming. We experienced brief moments of terror but knew that if we were properly dug in it would take a direct hit to kill us, although this was rumoured to have happened to one unlucky man who had his head knocked off by a shell. ‘His number was definitely on that one,’ the teller would invariably say, whenever the story was repeated. The smells are still easy to recall: the hot eye-watering blast of aviation spirit exhaust that hit you every time you got on and off a helicopter. The powdery tang of artillery smoke and the acrid smell of a hexamine fuel block. There are other ineradicable memories: the horrible stillness of dead bodies; the sight of a row of survivors from Ardent, their expressionless faces smeared a ghastly white with Flamazine anti-burn cream, lying on the floor of the Ajax Bay field dressing station.
The war was a profound experience but not a particularly revealing one. On the whole it tended to confirm the truth of clichés. It did bring out the best in people: courage in the case of the civilian crews of the troop ships who more than anyone had the right to wonder what on earth they were doing there; compassion and dedication in the doctors and nurses who tended the casualties.
And at times it was hellish. The nights were long, about fourteen hours of darkness in which there was nothing to do but sleep, for we were not allowed to show any lights after dusk in case we gave away our position. It was always numbingly cold. We lived with seven layers of clothing on our chests and three on our legs and slept in them all, and usually with our boots on too. But despite the cold and the wet and the uncertainty, like everyone in this winter war we always slept well.
1
The Empire Strikes Back
HMS Invincible edged away from the quayside shortly before 10 a.m. on Monday, 5 April, tugs and small chase boats buzzing around her like impatient flies (writes John Witherow). She moved grandly down the Portsmouth Channel, exchanging salutes with ships and acknowledging the cheers of thousands of people lining the rooftops, quays and beaches in the crisp spring sunshine. Union flags skipped and curled above blurred heads and caps were doffed in extravagant gestures. From the Admiral’s bridge we could see the lone Sea Harrier fixed to the ‘ski jump’, its nose pointing skywards. At the stern, helicopters squatted on the flight deck, their blades strapped back. The order for ‘Invincible’s Attention’ to the 500 men lining the deck in their best rig was swept away by the wind and they ‘came to’ like a group of conscripts on their first day’s drill. We moved away from the small boats, past the old sea forts and into the Channel. Behind us came HMS Hermes, the old warhorse, already looking stained and weatherbeaten. A small group of men, for once not caught up in the urgency of departure, stood staring back at ‘Pompey’, others gazed towards the horizon. It had been a long time since the country sailed to war.
The speed of developments since Argentina invaded the Falklands three days earlier had been breathtaking. Crewmen, called back at short notice from their winter sports, had clambered aboard carrying skis while others arrived with rucksacks from hiking holidays. Every available Sea Harrier had been grabbed and warehouses emptied of spares and food.
The departure, however, gave the men a chance to collect their thoughts. There was a slight sense of the absurd; of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta with the might of the Royal Navy off to bloody the noses of who they referred to as ‘a bunch of bean-eaters’. But the tears in the eyes of the young man on the bridge were real enough and there was no doubt on board that we had to avenge a wrong and restore national pride. Alongside pictures of the ships in the Task Force someone had put up a notice: ‘The Empire Strikes Back’.
But would it come to a fight? We were confident we were off on a cruise, a piece of sabre-rattling to concentrate General Galtieri’s mind and hasten a diplomatic solution. The days of gunboat diplomacy were over and surely no one would be foolish enough to fight over some far-flung islands at the bottom of the world? Not everyone on board, however, was so convinced. Captain Jeremy Black said on the second day, while we were still within sight of land, that war was likely. He had to say this to prepare the crew for the worst, but he also identified the issue of sovereignty over the islands as the stumbling block to a peaceful settlement. In the end he was proved right.
Gradually the rather jolly outing began to appear less jolly and hearing a rating sing ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’ lost its charm. The only two board games in the wardroom were Risk and Diplomacy. The latter was rarely played. Even the notice in the flying room which said ‘Due to the untimely death of Mae West all life preservers will be known as Dolly Partons’, became less amusing. We were simply more concerned with getting a life jacket. As the mood of the ship darkened the closer we moved to the Falklands, so the British bulldog spirit of affronted pride gave way to a greater degree of realism and apprehension.
The officers, and especially the pilots, though, remained pugnacious throughout. ‘I’ve been dying for ages to have a limited war,’ commented Lt.-Com. ‘Sharky’ Ward. ‘It enables us to sort out the chaff and cut through the red tape.’ A helicopter pilot, Lieutenant Darryl Whitehead, married two days before we sailed, added in a surprising aside: ‘I know it sounds a bit bloodthirsty, but I would like to drop a real depth charge on a real target.’
The ratings demonstrated a more understandable desire to stay alive. Officers would speak of them getting ‘the jitters on the lower decks’ and at times they looked distinctly nervous. The crew were careful to express their doubts out of earshot of the officers. On a visit to the frigate, HMS Broadsword, we asked junior ratings in their tiny mess in the bowels of the ship, ‘What do you think of it so far?’ ‘Rubbish,’ came the stock reply. ‘Do you want to go home?’ ‘Not ’alf,’ they said, more seriously. An officer stuck his head round the door. ‘Do you think we ought to kick the Argies off the Falklands, lads?’ he enquired encouragingly. ‘Yeah, they orta be taught a lesson,’ was the response. As we filed from the room one of the boys, no older than eighteen, winked.
But however nervous we became at times, the men were touched by that Portsmouth send-off and the mass of mail and the young girls demanding to be pen pals. They knew the country was united behind them and their tattoos ‘Made in Britain’ (or ‘Brewed in Essex’ on their beer guts) displayed their nationalism.
The pulse of the ship was taken daily by the Captain, like a caring family GP. Much later in the voyage, after the Belgrano and Sheffield were sunk, the question of morale was raised when he doubted the veracity of two pieces we had written. One hack had seen a rating sitting on the floor during the threat of an Exocet attack, tears rolling down his cheeks as he looked at a picture of his girlfriend, and another had told me that until Argentina fired that first missile all he knew about the country was that they ate corned beef and played football. Now he rated them. The captain found it hard to believe his men could behave or speak in such a way. In the cramped confines of a ship, where men lived cheek by jowl for months on end, discipline was essential; especially during a push-button war where seconds matter. By writing about the crew’s doubts the Captain thought discipline and morale would be undermined. One thousand men were crammed together on Invincible, from Prince Andrew, then second in line to the throne, to the lowliest rating from the Gorbals. Although there was interplay between the different ranks, their boundaries were jealously guarded. Most preferred it that way. Morale was certainly mercurial. It could ebb and flow according to ship ‘buzzes’, the internal word-of-mouth