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onto the Atlantic Conveyor near by behind us, which was soon on fire. A senior Royal standing beside me said “Well, there goes our heavy lift in smoke”. The significance of this remark only impinged on me when I learnt that she carried all the heavy-lift helos for the landing force, i.e. over a dozen Wessex and three of the four Chinooks (the fourth one was airborne at the time). Their loss seriously slowed down the speed of advance of the ground forces. 148 Battery was increasingly required to find extra teams in order to meet the demands, which sometimes meant that a party had to be split into two. For example NGFO 1 in support of the SBS required a spotter for Fox Bay and another for Port Howard at the same time, so Bdr Allin was given the task of Port Howard. But meanwhile at Fox Bay, the main part of FO 1 was having an interesting experience with kelp, as their report for 26 May shows. The situation became critical when 5 Brigade landed and the BC had to find additional spotting teams for them also, not to mention for the second FSCC. The actual sequence of bombardments during Op SUTTON is too confusing to even remember. There were usually four ships on the gunline at any one time, all five FO teams sometimes splitting into more, four or more LOs and three SACC/ FSCC teams. 14 different ships appeared on the gunline and between them carried out 45 bombardments, firing 6413 salvoes. There has been a recent trend to equate successful fire support with the number of rounds fired. This is not always so: every spotted and corrected round is worth a hundred fired into the blue, more in hope than expectation. We liked to think that during Op CORPORATE we made every round count. We knew that ammunition stocks were limited and had to be conserved. One out-of- context sequence should be mentioned. The Navy were unhappy at having been chased off the daytime gunline, so devised a Type 42/22 trap for the AAF; the plan being to move a pair of ships inshore and bombard. Any aircraft attacking would have to face the Seadart missiles of the Type 42s, and those which might have got through would be confronted with the close range Seawolfs of the Type 22s. The flaw in this plan was that we did not have adequate EW cover. The first ‘combo’ was COVENTRY/ BROADSWORD on 9 May. [The visibility was poor and the bombardment was not challenged]. That night the NGS teams transferred to GLASGOW/ BRILLIANT. The weather was clear and the AAF arrived from over the West Falklands below radar cover. BRILLIANT shot the first pair down, but the second pair attacked GLASGOW, their
HMS Fearless at anchor, Ascension Island.
bombs bouncing over the bridge. The third pair did a bit better: one bomb hit amidships. We waited for the bang, but once again nothing happened and we limped away at 7 knots with the turbines damaged. Another attempt was made on 25 May, but this time there were no NGS teams available. HMS COVENTRY was hit and sank in 20 minutes. SF patrols had brought information on what looked like Exocet trailer-mounted launchers on the very southern edge of Stanley. We had carried out several bombardments, but had to be very careful because of the close proximity of occupied houses. But on 12 June GLAMORGAN had to come close to Stanley Peninsular in order to support 45 Commando’s attack on The Two Sisters, and was hit by one of the Exocets at its maximum range. 27 men were killed and wounded: the last British NGS casualties of the war. After the 3 Cdo Bde attack on 11/12 June I had been warned by FOF 1’s staff that there was only enough 4.5” ammo to support one more bombardment on this scale. Having discussed the matter with Admiral Woodward, we reckoned that we might find sufficient to support the final attacks on Stanley, albeit on a reduced scale, but luckily the Argies surrendered later that day after the 5 Bde attack.
The rest is a story of the return. The Battery travelled in Canberra which took a fortnight home. I had a state suite, complete with a charming young stewardess! As we neared England, the bars closed at midnight and all the opened bottles were destined to be ditched over the sides. But the stewardess rescued a crateful for my cabin and I sent word the Battery officers who duly assembled to do justice to the situation. The Bde staff got word of it, and we finished the last drops at 0300hrs. I couldn’t sleep, so went up to the sun-deck. It was a brilliant morning as the Great White Whale sailed slowly into the Solent. When we came off the Isle of Wight we could see the crowds collecting all along the coastline, and a fleet of small boats came out to greet us. Bands played, and our families all had special passes to let them into berth 7 at Southampton. I reflected on the difference between this and ASCANIA’s arrival at this selfsame berth in December 1956, when 33 Para Field Regiment returned from Op MUSKETEER. Then there had been no crowds, no bands, in fact no welcome whatsoever and yet, then as now, we had been doing what the country had asked us to do. Such is the perversity of human nature!
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