One Hundred Days Page 5

  Hawkyard to Hoddinott: ‘That’s two Super Es. Just popped up for sure. May be about to launch missiles.’ And now Glasgow’s Ops Room really comes alive. They are one hundred per cent prepared for just this event. It was, after all, precisely what they were there for.

  ‘CHAFF!’ calls Hawkyard, and across the room the hooded figure of Chief Petty Officer Jan Ames bangs his closed fists into the big, easy-to-hit-in-a-hurry chaff fire buttons.

  Hawkyard again broadcasts on the radio circuit to the whole Battle Group: ‘This is Glasgow…’ As he starts to speak he suddenly remembers he ought to have been saying ‘Handbrake’, our codeword for Agave radar. Hawkyard now corrects himself, hurriedly. ‘HANDBRAKE!’ he exclaims, ‘BEARING TWO THREE EIGHT.’

  Simultaneously the fingers of the Air Picture Supervisor, Leading Seaman Nevin, are clattering away trying to release the full picture of the incoming raid, tracks 1234 and 1235 on the inter-ship computer circuit, Link 10. Then, turning to see his relief standing at his shoulder ready for the watch change, the Electronic Warfare Supervisor, Leading Seaman Hewitt, quickly hands over and fairly flies up the steep steps to the upper deck to help with the re-loading of the chaff rocket launchers. ‘I had never,’ he admitted later, ‘moved at that speed in my entire life.’

  As the Leading Seaman goes, Hawkyard switches back to UHF and tries to convince the Force Anti-Air Warfare Commander in Invincible that this is real. But he is not succeeding. Hoddinott hears with alarm Hawkyard’s voice rising in frustration, desperately trying to convince the FAAWC that this is deadly serious and not just another nervous ‘ghost’.

  Again he calls: ‘This is Glasgow. Track 1234 – bearing two three five – range three five – strength two – closing fast. Track 1234 correlates handbrake bearing. Invincible, over.’

  FAAWC, who has dealt with three or four such ‘panics’ that very morning, wants more evidence. As far as he is concerned, the cry ‘Handbrake’ has been heard more often than ’Good morning’ today, and he isn’t going to commit the entire Group to expenditure of our rapidly diminishing chaff stock without solid reason.

  Invincible acknowledges: ‘Roger, out.’

  But at least he must know that Glasgow was sure of her own warning. Anyone listening on the Air Warfare net can hear Glasgow’s chaff rockets launch with that ‘Whoosh’ which is to become uncomfortably familiar to all of us.

  Down at Glasgow’s EW Console, Rose calls again: ‘Handbrake in lock-on mode.’

  Bedacarratz is on the point of releasing his missile and Paul Hoddinott feels the chill dread that hits you when you have incontrovertible evidence that a big missile is on its way towards you. For the next few minutes, the technique is for Glasgow to place herself carefully among the four clouds of chaff which are blooming around her, and which should decoy the missile off course to miss the ship. But chaff drifts with the wind. And you must stay in the pattern. Speed and position must be very quickly corrected.

  Captain to Officer of the Watch on the Bridge: ‘Come hard left to zero two five. Adjust speed for zero relative wind.’

  At 1402, the pilots release their missiles and bank left. The Exocets fall away, locked on to their targets. Neither pilot has the least idea what ship he has aimed at, nor are they going to hang around to find out. They know only that a radar contact has appeared on their screens in roughly the right bit of ocean. And they get out fast, diving back down, close to the water, beneath our radar beams, heading West.

  We never detected them again.

  Almost simultaneously, two amber dots, so small they can only be seen intermittently, appear on the radar of Glasgow, tracking their way fast across the screen.

  ‘ZIPPO ONE! BRUISERS! Incoming. Bearing two three zero. Range twelve miles.’

  Hoddinott orders his Sea Dart surface to air missile system into action to shoot them down.

  Hawkyard calls again to Chief Ames, his Missile Gun Director: ‘Take Track 1234 and 1235 with Sea Dart.’ But it does not work. Unsuccessfully – nightmarishly – the fire control radar can not lock on to the small fleeting targets at that range. They keep trying, but the dots keep disappearing. Frustration mounts and the Captain fumes. Hawkyard again calls Invincible advising them to clear two Sea Harriers from the line of fire. But the Ops Room in the carrier answers that they believe the raid is spurious.

  Glasgow’s AWO now desperate, almost shouts on the radio circuit: ‘NEGATIVE! THE FORCE IS UNDER ATTACK! RAID 1234 AND 1235 BEARING AND RANGE CORRELATES WITH HANDBRAKE.’

  Invincible still does not agree.

  Chief Ames, still furiously trying to engage the Exocet with Sea Dart, cannot help wondering how long the missile will take to hit, fearing it would strike Glasgow amidships where the Ops Room is. Like many others he begins to resign himself to his fate.

  It is Captain Hoddinott himself who first realizes, with enormous relief, that Glasgow is safe. One of the missiles is heading towards Sheffield, and the other is going well clear.

  Sheffield, with Captain Salt not in the Ops Room, has, for whatever reason, not got her chaff up yet. Hoddinott later recalled saying to Hawkyard, worriedly: ‘What the hell’s happening in Sheffield?’ The only response he received was from his own operators who said they could get no answer.

  Twenty miles away, things were moving to a tragic conclusion in the small destroyer named after Britain’s city of stainless steel. Problem number one was that she had been transmitting on her SCOT satellite communications system at the critical time when the Etendards’ radars were used. This blotted them out in Sheffield.

  The absence of the Captain, incidentally, in his cabin directly after lunch, was bad luck, not bad management. He was perfectly entitled to be in his cabin. The Captain must not try to stay alert and on watch indefinitely if he is to remain effective. He has to pace himself carefully and learn to rely on his watch-keepers.

  The second problem was that the significance of the reports from Glasgow was not appreciated in Sheffield any more than they had been in Invincible. There was some kind of a gap in her Ops Room and no action was taken. It is tempting to conclude that if the Glasgow’s warning of the Etendard radar had been accepted in Sheffield’s Ops Room, chaff would have been fired and might have proved effective; or that Sheffield’s own radars might have detected both the Etendards and the incoming missiles. They were, after all, some four miles closer, albeit presenting a much smaller radar target to Sheffield than to Glasgow. And Sheffield had shown herself to be first class at this procedure only a few weeks previously in live missile-firing exercises off Gibraltar. Now, at war, how could their performance be less?

  For whatever reason, at 1403 Sheffield’s chaff was not launched. Up on her bridge, Lieutenant Peter Walpole and Lieutenant Brian Layshon, looking out over the starboard bow, spotted a trail of smoke six feet above the sea, about a mile away and coming straight for the ship. There were only seconds left. One of them grabbed the broadcast microphone and shouted: ‘MISSILE ATTACK! HIT THE DECK!’

  The Exocet struck them at 1404. Amidships. Starboard side. A few feet above the waterline. There was some doubt that the warhead went off but several men were killed instantly. A large fire was started, releasing great quantities of heat, smoke and fumes which were to cause others to die, many of them in heroic circumstances. Sheffield was the first Royal Navy ship to be hit by an enemy missile since the Second World War. Almost forty years on.

  The hole in Sheffield’s side measured four feet by about fifteen feet across – from the Auxiliary Machinery Space to the Forward Engine Room. Damage from the blast had gone up as far as the lower structure of the bridge, and the centre of the ship was filling with thick, suffocating black smoke. The fires were feeding on leaking fuel and the firemain water pressure had dropped to zero. Steering was lost, but the big Olympus gas turbines were still, miraculously running.

  More than twenty miles away in the Force Ops Room in Hermes, we are still in Air Raid Warning White – FAAWC in Invincible was still insufficiently convin
ced to have changed it. I am hearing none of the drama. Actually I am standing in the Ops Room having a conversation with a staff officer about tonight’s plan. When, a few minutes after Sheffield is hit, we receive our first report, it lacks both detail and immediate impact.

  ‘Sheffield has suffered an explosion.’ Nothing more definite or descriptive than that. I take note, but permit business to continue as usual, everything moving ahead. It’s 1407Z.

  Explosion? It could still be anything from where I stand – a fire starting, a gas bottle exploding, a weapon malfunctioning on test. The possibilities are endless. Could be a torpedo, but unlikely to be a mine in this depth of water. Could even be a missile. The thoughts speed through my mind. But where were the warnings we should have received in the Flagship?

  I wait patiently, saying only: ‘Are we still in communication with Sheffield?’

  Someone replies: ‘Yes, sir.’ That at least is a good sign. With nothing however coming from her, I’m listening and watching carefully for the reactions of the ships and aircraft nearest to the scene.

  Arrow and Yarmouth start to move forward towards Sheffield. Seems sensible to me: let them run. And there is a message from Glasgow. He is leaving his picket station making all speed towards Sheffield. Now we know something has happened. Still not exactly what. But something serious.

  We can see the helicopters shifting across to help. The picture is becoming clearer – and the one thing in my mind is that if it was a missile, the next one can happen again at any moment now. I get off a signal to Glasgow: ‘Do not go to Sheffield’s assistance. Leave that to the others. Adjust your position to cover for Sheffield.’ It is probably unnecessary for me to tell him. I get off another to Arrow: ‘Take charge at the scene of action. You have Yarmouth and helicopters to assist.’

  I had no intention of taking charge in detail. And I must cast aside any temptation to do so unless things are plainly going awry. After a few more minutes, we finally receive a message from the stricken destroyer that she has indeed been hit by an enemy missile. And now, from Invincible, comes the message to everyone else: ‘We have had an Etendard attack. Confirm, an Etendard attack. Probably using Exocet.’

  The information continues to filter through slowly and methodically. Nothing of the ‘Hold the front page’ variety. And although I can see that Arrow and Yarmouth and the helicopters are close to Sheffield, there is a rising tension in Hermes’s Flag Ops Room. Everyone can feel it, as if we were somehow helpless and that we ought to be doing more. One of my staff blurts out: ‘Admiral, you must do something!’ Which is precisely what I should not be doing, I reckon.

  I reply gently enough: ‘No…leave it be.’

  For I had no intention of issuing a stream of detailed orders, twenty miles from a fierce fire which must be threatening, if it reached the Sea Dart magazine, to blow up the entire destroyer and her people and any other ship or aircraft close by. First of all, I still did not know precisely what was happening, secondly, I did not wish to clutter up the radio communications, and thirdly, my policy was to let the information come in, to let the highly trained men on the spot run the operation and call for what they needed, with us in Hermes only making sure they get it. What they did not need was a stream of ill-informed questions and second-guessing from the Flag. Besides, I trusted them. All of them, to do the right thing, near enough.

  Having survived the first emerging sign of panic in my own Ops Room, I proceeded to divorce myself from the details of the rescue and salvage work. Like any military man, I am not allowed to throw an attack of the ‘wobblies’ on these sorts of occasion. Never to panic if at all possible. And I was working hard to convey to my staff an atmosphere which I hoped was one of calm and confidence. It’s amazing what you can get away with sometimes.

  I told myself rather sternly: ‘Now here we have a problem. We’ve probably lost a destroyer from our picket line on Day Four of the war. Well, I have been expecting such a loss for some time now, and I also expect there will be more of the same. I do not feel any real sense of shock, at least not immediately, and nor can I allow anything emotionally primitive, like a desire for revenge, to cloud my judgement. I am just going to deal with this, as I have been trained. We now have a “hole” in our missile screen, two ships from the inner line have moved out. There are three of them milling about in the left field and my problem is how best to deploy the rest.’

  Perhaps more than most, I was all too aware that a well co-ordinated enemy could, and should, strike us again as soon as possible, while we are still off balance. At the time, I believed we were on the very outer perimeter of the Etendard attack range. So I issued instructions that would take the Battle Group, in no hurry, to the east, just while we attended to the wounded and sorted out the future of the burning Sheffield.

  The fire appears to be getting out of control, Captain Salt’s men are struggling for water and they need pumps, which we fly over to them. The Computer Room staff stayed too long at their posts trying to keep the ship’s defence systems working. They all died. Chief Petty Officer Briggs kept going back into the Forward Damage Control Section Base to drag equipment out. Finally, overcome by fumes, he too died.

  The Sea Kings lowered the gas-turbine water pumps on to the decks, together with special fire-fighting and breathing apparatus. Yarmouth sprayed Sheffield’s starboard side, and Arrow the port side with all the fire hoses they could. More hoses were passed over. But it was an awful, losing battle, and the heat crept inexorably forward, towards the Sea Dart magazine.

  Then Yarmouth thought they heard a torpedo in the water and broke off to try and find the submarine that had fired it. Then it happened again. And again. Altogether they thought they had detected nine torpedoes that afternoon. Some time later we deduced that the propeller noises they kept hearing on their sonar had to be from the outboard motor on the small inflatable dinghy which was buzzing round Sheffield, helping to fight the blaze. Yarmouth’s Captain, Commander Tony Morton, could not believe this at the time; probably still doesn’t!

  In the middle of the afternoon, with the increasing danger of a major explosion, Captain Salt gave the order to abandon ship, and the remainder of the crew was taken off, by helicopter and across to the frigates.

  Sam Salt arrived on board Hermes soon afterwards. I could see by the way he swallowed that he was close to tears, but he was no less brave for that, on this most terrible day. We did our best to speak in a matter-of-fact tone, to keep a hold on the situation, but I fear that in my worry, I was less than sympathetic. (Years later Sam told me I said, flatly: ‘I suspect someone’s been bloody careless.’) What I remember is being aware that I could not afford to let this situation get out of hand, any more than he could.

  The man who shouted ‘Admiral, you must do something’, the nine torpedoes, Sam Salt’s tension, my own too, were all symptoms of the trauma of battle. Of men who, in their different ways, were learning to cope with their heightened emotions. Quite apart from those directly involved, that day was, on reflection, a bit of a struggle for all of us. Panic, worry and tension are all extremely infectious. But the loss of this destroyer must not be allowed to dominate my life.

  The key to crisis management is control. In my immediate case it was the continued control of the Battle Group and within that, the control of the Sheffield situation, the saving of life, the avoidance of unnecessary further risk to life and, above all, self-control, putting down incipient panic, in all of its forms, as harshly or gently as was appropriate. I had to accept that Sheffield was no longer a front-line unit. And I didn’t want to see a whole team of firefighters on board her when the magazine could go up at any time. Neither could I just leave her for the enemy to find, nor yet did I much want to try towing her out, in case she blew up and maybe damaged another ship with her.

  It was, in a sense, the Argentinians themselves who solved the immediate Sheffield problem for me. We came across signs that the Argentinian submarine might be moving into the area close by Sheffield to
attack and destroy ships coming to the rescue. I did not much care for that kind of behaviour. So I arranged to have a hot reception committee awaiting should he turn up. Sheffield suddenly ceased to be an embarrassment; her new role was to act as a rather unusual ‘tethered goat’, floating and made of hot metal. Waste not, want not.

  Now more bad news was coming in. One hour after Sheffield was hit, three Sea Harriers had taken off from Hermes to carry out an attack on the airstrip at Goose Green, hoping to catch some of their aircraft on the ground. Only two returned, the third having been hit by anti-aircraft fire as it flew in at low level over the water. It crashed in flames in the shallow surf and ripped its way up the beach and through the dune grass in front of the strip. The other aviators were sure the Fleet Air Arm pilot Lieutenant Nick Taylor was killed by the shells, since he did not eject, but there was nonetheless great sadness in the Group over his death and I must confess that I felt very ’down’ by the end of the afternoon.

  I also decided I should not risk any more of our precious Harriers by allowing them to go out on these high-speed, low-level, cluster-bomb attacks against heavily defended Argentine positions. Quite simply, I could not afford to lose my strictly limited force of air defence aircraft – only about thirty-four in the whole country – on this not-very-effective sort of task. It made better sense to wait for the RAF to provide some Harrier GR3s, not much use at air defence and optimized for ground attack. I resolved that from now on, if they were to bomb at all, it would only be against specific high-value targets or from high level – less accurate, I knew, but less expensive in Sea Harriers.

  Meanwhile Sheffield continued to burn, her deck plates now getting very hot and her paint blistering in large patches over extensive areas. The fire was slowly gutting her, but still not getting to the magazine. Sam Salt wanted to go back and assess the chances of saving her. This was put off until the next day as I did not want to risk losing a helicopter full of good men when we all knew perfectly well she could go up at any moment. Furthermore, poor Sheffield, supposing she could be saved, was now so badly damaged as to be of no military value, and not even much as scrap.