Page 25 - ABA Salvoes 1999-2024

— Op SUTTON — could be launched, which might be in about three weeks time. The Admiral said that his idea was to use the SBS and SAS to gather information on which to build up an intelligence picture. NGS task units would be on call to cover the patrols, and would carry out harassing bombardments to keep the Argies on the hop. It was clear that we were going to have a very busy time. We would start by beating up the Airport at Stanley. An NGS gun-group of HMS GLAMORGAN (DLG), HMS ARROW and HMS ALACRITY (Type 21s) were earmarked, with Capt Mike Barrow RN of HMS GLAMORGAN OTC. We all joined HMS GLAMORGAN for briefing and I allotted FO5 to HMS ALACRITY with BSM Richards as LO, and FO2 to HMS ARROW with Sgt Jukes as LO. This was a new role for Sgt Jukes who remained as a successful LO for the rest of the campaign.
The next day, 30 Apr, Britain imposed a 200 mile Total Exclusion Zone (TEZ) round the Falklands, and we finalised plans for the opening bombardment. Apparently an RAF Vulcan bomber was to carry out a bombing run on the runways at Stanley, followed by Sea-Harrier (SHAR) attacks on the buildings and installation, and then the three gun-ships would fire 50 salvos each at selected targets from a target list. When discussing the FSA with Capt Barrow, the problems were that it seemed almost certain that the Argies would have laid minefields east and south of the Stanley peninsular, but ships could not come in close because of the kelp (which could grow up to several hundred feet long) clogging the water intakes for the turbines. We decided that an FSA 15,000 yards SW of Cape Pembroke would be the most suitable and Capt Barrow decided that all three ships would steam in — in echelon — fire their serials and exit the same way. Any ship can be a minesweeper — once.3 I went down to the ops room to watch the Vulcan come in on the radar, and then the SHAR attacks, but from now on there were continuous air raid warnings: two Mirages at 120 nm, another two at 100 nm, one of which launched an Exocet missile, but it was out of range. However SHAR caught them on the way back and claimed a kill. They did a victory-roll over us, which upped our morale. HMS PLYMOUTH reported a sub contact and depth-charged it, bringing it to the surface – not for the first or last time it was a whale! Shore Skyguard radars picked us up when we came into action on Fireplan SLEEPY SUMMER and we were soon under air attack. The bridge reported an astonishing amount of AAA fire going up from the Stanley area and one Mirage shot down by it. The pilot managed to eject and come down not far off, but there was no chance of us picking him up, and he would not have survived for more that a few minutes in the icy waters. Meanwhile both spotters were up in their ship’s Lynxes, HMS ALACRITY’s with Chris Brown aboard decided to spot from the north, near Kidney Island, and were soon under fire, receiving damage that forced them to return to the mother ship. They only just made it with a holed fuel tank. Willy McCracken in HMS ARROW’s Lynx did not make the same mistake. All the gun-ships were damaged:
HMS ARROW’s funnel was holed, HMS ALACRITY had a bomb pass between her funnel and mast, exploding a few yards abeam and drenching her with water, and HMS GLAMORGAN was straddled by two missiles, which shook the boat and damaged the Seaslug launcher (all that happened was that a few bulkhead fittings fell off). It was clear that daylight bombardments were going to be dangerous, but all three ships came back to the Stanley gun-line that night and did a further bombardment, but for the time being daylight bombardments would not be on.
We learnt that the Argie cruiser Belgrano had been sunk. This was good news to us as she had been loitering around the edge of the TEZ to the south and presented a grave threat to us. Further good news came with the arrival in the RFA FORT AUSTIN of FO3 (Capt Nigel Bedford) and FO4 (Capt Kevin Arnold) and their teams, and two more LOs, Capt Bob Harmes and BSM Malcolm. Both the LOs were untrained and would have to learn their jobs as they went along, and they both did it very well. I could now redeploy the teams in a more balanced configuration, sending Chris Brown’s team to the SAS and the LOs to ships earmarked for the gun-line. Last night contact had been made with two Argie surface craft in the TEZ; these could have been ex- French A69 frigates, which are dangerous as they are armed with Exocet. We steamed north to intercept them, firing missiles from the helo. One image disappeared from the screen and the other fled, but as a result the night’s bombardment was cancelled.
BSM Richards came up on Nestor (short range satellite channel), asking for information on Fox Bay which HMS ALACRITY had been tasked to bombard, but as he was speaking Action Stations was sounded and two Etendard aircraft were detected on radar. They disappeared again but had fired four Exocet AM 39s, one of which hit HMS SHEFFIELD, which we could see was on fire. Another landed behind HMS ALACRITY and a third passed overhead HMS YARMOUTH. A combination of bad weather and taking off the crew of HMS SHEFFIELD disrupted NGS plans, but BSM Malcolm had brought new edition 3 gridded maps, which were immediately circulated with a new target list to the LOs. I had planned to insert Kevin Arnold’s FO4 at Fox Bay to observe the area and prepare a bombardment plan, but was told by Richard Preston (of FOF1) that there were other plans afoot. Later Adm Woodward came up on Nestor and said he was planning to set a 22/42 anti- air trap, using daylight NGS as a ‘come on’. The idea was that the ships would come in close to bombard and the 42 would engage any aircraft that had the temerity to attack the ‘combo’ using Sea Dart missiles. Any aircraft that got past would be engaged by the 22, acting as a ‘goalkeeper’, with its Sea Wolf close range missiles. This sounded good news as we had rather lost the initiative and it was disheartening to be chased off the daylight gun-line. I had requested that ships upped their 4.5 inch ammo outfits for NGS, only to learn that most were carrying up to 100%
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