As the first Argentine pilot clears the high ground to the south of San Carlos Water he gets his first glimpse of the enemy. For the first few seconds he is almost mesmerised by the sheer number of vessels and the activity he can see taking place in front of and below him. Luckily for him this lasts for just a few seconds before he snaps back to reality. Due to his high speed relative to the size of the target area which is less than 5km wide at its widest point he has less than 20 seconds to make his bombing run. Without the time, space or fuel to do anything more than line up his bomb sight with the ship that just happens to be ahead of him the pilot begins his attack. Angry white puffs of smoke start to appear along with very faint dashes of yellow in the sky, the British are shooting at him. White columns of smoke rapidly shoot up into the air, The British are launching missiles at him. Keeping as low to the water as possible the pilot fires a burst at the ship ahead with his cannon. The ship grows to fill more and more of his vision. Now that he is close enough to make out the shapes of men scurrying about on the upper decks (the number of men firing weapons at him is discomforting, all it would take is one lucky hit in the wrong place) the pilot releases his weapons and the aircraft jumps forward and upwards freed of the weight and drag of its bombload. Pulling his control column back and to the right slightly the pilot guides his aircraft past the ship and notes that he is actually looking up at the ships radar masts from below. He counts himself lucky not to have collided with any aerials or wires he was that close.
Next comes a harsh turn to the west to get clear of the expected bomb blast and for a quick glance back at his target. All this has taken place within a matter of seconds. In the speed and confusion there is no way of really telling whether or not he managed to hit his target. All he can manage is an extremely fleeting glimpse of a ship in one of his cockpit mirrors. He’s not even sure if that was the ship he attacked. Heading westwards over East Falkland towards home he is only just now able to process and take stock of what he just witnessed. He recalled the large and spread out formations of ships and how he had “popped up” towards the west of the group. The ships in front of him had all been grey and all appeared to be warships (or at the very least had all been shooting at him). On the right extreme of his vision he had been able to see a large white shape. That must have been the cruise liner that the British were known to be using as a troop ship. Therefore, it made sense that the British landing ships were in the eastern part of the formation closer to the landing beaches and the ships to the west were where the warships were trying to provide protection. Deciding that he personally had nothing to lose by breaking radio silence (to be honest that had pretty much gone to hell already now that the British quite obviously knew that they were here) he sent a message out to the other Argentine aircraft in the area advising them to try and make their bombing runs to the east over San Carlos Bay. Whether or not his comrades would be able to heed his advice was another matter. It had been hard enough for him to even find San Carlos Water let alone worry about which part he would cross over. His mission completed and on the way home he was now faced by three dangers. Phantoms, Harriers and the ominous and incessant glares from the warning lights that would signify a perilous fuel state.
The pilots that followed went through a similar experience. Again and again they would find themselves having to attack whichever ship just happened to be in front of them rather than seeking out high value targets. The only difference was that the British seemed to be rapidly becoming better and better at this game called air defence.
A total of 10 Mirage’s, 24 Daggers and 40 Skyhawks had sortied out to attack the British landings. Bar a few Mirages that had remained behind in case the Chileans started having ideas these aircraft were nearly the entirety of Argentina’s remaining fast jet fleet. Before any of these aircraft had even reached San Carlos the British had already extracted a heavy toll. First the Mirages had been intercepted by a pair of British Phantoms on combat air patrol. While the Mirages had been successful in driving the Phantoms away it had come at the cost of 6 of their number with the remaining 4 having to return home due to dwindling fuel reserves. Unfortunately, for the Argentines there had been a second pair of British Phantoms on CAP to the south of the first which had managed to intercept a formation of Daggers flying out of NAS ALMIRANTE QUIJADA at Rio Gallegos resulting in the destruction of 10 of their number with a further 2 only surviving by dropping their ordinance and running for home. Without any form of early warning system onboard the Dagger pilots even known that they had been locked up by missiles until it was too late. One of the British pilots would later describe the interception as “Lambs happily trotting off to slaughter”. The Phantom crews having not only conducted a successful air to air intercept but having also achieved the status of flying ace’s now withdrew. As always the fuel state was on their minds and having used nearly all of their missile compliment there was little reason for them to stay in the area and so they turned north east and began the return trip towards EAGLE while being careful to stay clear of the BRISTOL group.
The Sea Darts of the BRISTOL group were able to claim 7 Skyhawks as well as one of the Learjets being used to guide the combat jets towards their targets.
The final hurdle before reaching San Carlos were the four Sea Harriers that were able to bring down another 5 aircraft and force a Dagger to jettison his ordinance and turn for home after the pilot had become lost.
In total 11 Daggers and 27 Skyhawks were able to carry out attacks against the ships of the amphibious group within San Carlos water.
These aircraft were met by fierce hail of fire from both ship and shore. Aboard the ships
every gun ranging from the 4.5 inch naval guns loaded with AA shells down to GPMG’s sometimes mounted on guard rails in a rather ad hoc fashion and often nearly every single 7.62 SLR (the standard British service rifle at the time) in the ships inventory. Sea Dart, Sea Wolf and Sea Cat missiles joined the fray.
In stark contrast to its impressive performance when used by the Bristol group engaging high flying Skyhawks over open water in San Carlos the Sea Dart again showed its weakness in its inability to take on very low flying targets in an environment that caused heavy radar land clutter. While a small number were launched by HMS COVENTRY not one was able to achieve a lock on any of the Argentine aircraft. Much more success was achieved by the Sea Wolf missiles launched by HMS BROADSWORD. The Sea Wolf system as well as the VM40 radar was also equipped with a TV tracking system that had a much easier time of identifying and engaging the low flying attacking aircraft than the various radars. The fully automated nature of the Sea Wolf system meant that its reactions times were much quicker than the other missile systems. The missile itself was also capable of proximity detonation greatly increasing its chances of success. Knowing that friendly aircraft were being kept clear of the area the missilemen and upper deck weapons crews had a completely free field of fire. Over the course of the attack Sea Wolf accounted for a total of 5 aircraft downed out of seven missiles launched. Sea Cat however was verging on obsolesce. The system did have some things going for it in that it very rarely failed to respond or misfired and was available in larger numbers. However, these were cancelled out by its slow speed and lack of accuracy. The Sea Cat was unable to bring down any of the Argentine aircraft. However, according to accounts from surviving pilots it seems that in many cases the slower speed of the Sea Cat was giving them time to spot the missile and take evasive action. This ability for self-preservation however came at the expense of bombing accuracy.
Argentine aircraft that ventured closer to the shore found that the Paras and Marines were all to happy to stop digging foxholes for a few moments and put up a hail of small arms fire of varying calibres with a few shoulder lunched Blowpipe SAM’s thrown into the mix.
Wherever they were over San Carlos however, one constant threat that the Argentine pilots had to contend with was the Rapier SAM system. While it was assessed to have a good performance against high altitude targets it was judged to be exceptional when used against highly-manoeuvrable low flying targets of the sort presented by the Argentines. Indeed, the men of 12 Air Defence Regiment found themselves in the extremely unusual position for SAM crews of firing downwards onto their targets. The positions of the Rapier systems had been worked out by a computer back in Britain however this threw up a major performance affecting issue. The computer had calculated the positions based on the objective of defending the landing forces ashore rather than the ships out in San Carlos water.
Of the first ten missiles fired only three achieved hits. However, as the attack went on the performance of the Rapier crews improved dramatically. Part of the problem was that the radars on the ships were using a similar frequency to that used by the Rapiers Blindfire radar causing interference. Once this problem had been identified the operators began to ignore the acquisition radar and instead used the systems optical sights and lined up missiles with targets using their own native wit and experience. By the end of the attack Rapier missiles had accounted for a total of 8 enemy aircraft.
With a total of 15 aircraft lost at the hands of SAM’s, gunfire/small arms and one aircraft colliding with the terrain San Carlos had earned the nickname “Death Valley” amongst the Argentines. However unfortunately for the British there was a reason why they came to call it “Bomb Alley”.
Yet another consequence of the Argentines Air Force’s lack of training and experience in maritime strike missions was brought to the fore. As a result of an oversight made by the planners and armourers much of the WWII era ordinance being released by the Skyhawks and Daggers was not configured for ultra-low level strikes. Neither the air force nor the navy had ever really been called upon to carry out anything more than mid to high altitude bombing missions against unsophisticated opposition and therefore had never developed a body of highly detailed knowledge relating to different types and configurations of ordinance for different missions. The result was that the bombs were being released from too lower an altitude and were impacting before they had had sufficient time to arm. This resulted in many ships being struck by ordinance which failed to detonate or as in the case of HMS ALACRITY on the 6th weapons simply smashing their way clean through the ships and out the other side into the sea.
HMS ACTIVE, HMS PLYMOUTH, HMS ANTELOPE, RFA SIR LANCELOT, RFA SIR BEDIVER and RFA SIR GALAHAD all sustained hits from weapons that failed to detonate causing varying degrees of damage.
Many ships also sustained casualties and some minor damage to the upper works when they were hit by bursts of 20mm and 30mm cannon fire. Tragically for the British one of the Argentine Dagger pilots had the foresight to aim his cannon shells at the various small craft that he correctly deduced were ferrying men and equipment ashore. This resulted in the loss of Tango 5 on of the LCVP’s from HMS INTREPID. The landing craft rapidly sank after being struck by 30mm shells. Of the 30 men of 42 COMMANDO onboard 19 were rescued from the lethally cold water by Tango six, another LCVP. 11 men were lost to a combination of shell impacts and in some cases men were believed to have been weighed down by their own equipment and unable to stay afloat.
The first ship to be put out of action was HMS ANTRIM. At first with Captain Young (Who had commanded the operation to retake South Georgia) ordering the ship to turn northwards in order to present a smaller target and bring here Sea Slug missile system on her stern to bare on the threat her luck seemed to be holding when the first few bombs missed her entirely, though they were close. Here luck ran out however when first she was struck by two 1000IB bombs barely a second apart released by a Dagger. The first bomb struck the port side stern on the corner of the hanger. In a cruel twist of fate or depending on your point of view million to one odds the weapons impacted on one of the bulkheads that ran fore to aft (as opposed to one running across the ship which it would have most likely smashed clean through) which brought it to a halt with enough force to cause the detonator to function. The resulting blast obliterated the flight deck and hanger as well as the galley below. The second bomb impacted the Sea Slug missile launcher and detonated. Whether it was as a result of the impact with the launcher or its being enveloped in the fireball from the first detonation is still a topic of debate. These two detonations killed a total of 32 men and leaving many more wounded. With the stern part of his ship ablaze and his primary weapon system destroyed Captain Young knew that the battle now was an internal battle to save his ship and crew. Immediately he gave the order to flood the magazines and bar those operating the twin 4.5 inch guns forward set his crew to work fighting the fire.
The actions of HMS ANTRIM’s crew would to a significant degree help to rewrite the book on shipboard firefighting. Like the men of the GLASGOW ANTRIM’s men had to work with firefighting equipment that was lacking in both quantity and quality. Unlike the GLASGOW however, ANTRIM still had electrical power which made life easier and with the fire located on the stern of the ship the firefighting parties only had to attack it from one direction. Like the GLASGOW unfortunately the amount of combustible material onboard was helping the fire to spread as wooden cabinets and foam cushions placed against bulkheads in compartments adjacent to fires burst into flames as the heat transited through the metal walls. To combat this the firefighting effort was focused on containment rather than extinguishment. Damage control parties used axes, crowbars and sledgehammers to remove or in the case of fixed fittings literally smash away anything that could catch fire and expose the bare metal of the bulkhead. Firefighting hoses were used to cool the bulkheads and bring the metal back from the brink its heat failure point. HMS YARMOUTH moved alongside to provide external fire fighting support and transferred some of her firefighting equipment to ANTRIM.
Just over an hour later when it was judged that full containment of the fire had not only been achieved but was holding and after the necessary equipment had been transferred from YARNMOUTH a re-entry was made into one of the compartments and the process of extinguishing the fire and reclaiming the affected areas of the ship compartment by compartment began.
Though she had survived the damage to ANTRIM meant that her war was over and indeed as he toured his ship as surveyed the extensive damage Captain Young thought that he wouldn’t be surprised if this was the end of her career was over.
Not so lucky was the Type 21 Frigate HMS ARDENT. Having during the night conducted a naval gunfire support mission in support of D Squadron SAS’s diversionary raid on the Argentine airfield at Goose Green the ships had been transiting northwards to reinforce the ships screening the landing force. When the air attack began she was still a little way to the west of the rest of the ships and outside of the range at which they could provide mutual overlapping AA fire. This made her an attractive proposition for some of the Argentine Skyhawk pilots. As the first Skyhawks homed in on her the ship manoeuvred for all she was worth and put as much lead into the air as possible. The Skyhawks unfortunately approached from a direction that was outside of the arc of fire for the ships 4.5 inch gun and the Sea Cat missiles were unable to achieve a lock. Two 500IB bombs impacted the ship towards the stern destroying the Sea Cat launcher and flight deck with its attendant Lynx helicopter.
Still able to move but now without its main air defence system there was little that ARDENT could do except make best speed towards the relative protection of the ships in San Carlos Bay. In a famous episode of the battle Lt Cdr Sephton formed a party of men and broke out the ships entire stock of GPMG’s. Securing them to any free space on the upper deck railings and with one of the weapons manned by the ships civilian NAFFI manager they showed that if their ship was going down she was going to go down fighting.
The next attack resulted in three bomb hits. While the weapons did not explode they caused damage as they smashed their way into the ship and came to rest within. With his ship already on fire, under attack and without any bomb disposal expertise anywhere nearby Captain West ordered the bombs to be extremely carefully manhandled and dumped over the side of the ship. Miraculously none of the weapons detonated. No sooner had this been carried out the next Skyhawk came to try its luck. The ship was struck by a further three bombs one of which impacted the superstructure amidships and detonated. The second and third bombs while not detonating impacted the ship just on or below the watering fore and aft on the starboard side causing heavy flooding.
The crew valiantly fought to save the ship but it was to no avail. With two serious fires rapidly getting out of control, the entire ship aft of the funnel destroyed or aflame and the ship listing to starboard due to flooding Captain Alan West could see the writing on the wall. Close to tears he gave the order to abandon ship. As the men assembled on deck helicopters began winching off the wounded while those who were still able bodied enough began to climb into life rafts. Like too many other Captains so far in this conflict Captain West made a point of being the last man to leave and was forced to endure the sight of his ship slipping beneath the waves.
The Leander class frigate HMS ARGONAUT was next up for the chop as it were. The first attack came from a lone Skyhawk. Firing bursts from its 20mm cannon as it approached the ship shells impacted the masts and upper works putting the ships Type 965 radar out of action. Without the radar ARGONAUT’s ability to defend herself from the next wave of aircraft had been severely impeded. The next aircraft that attacked managed to land one bomb on the ship. The bomb detonated on impact when it struck the ships Sea Cat missile magazine with the resulting blast also put the boiler room out of action leaving the ship crippled and dead in the water. It was all to easy for the third and final Skyhawk. Two more bombs struck the ship with one coming to rest within the superstructure without detonating. The killer blow however was the bomb that entered the ship just above the waterline and detonated when it is believed that it struck machinery in the engine room. The resulting explosion deep within the ship blew apart nearby hull plates causing a massive inrush of water as well as nearly snapping the keel. With the ship going down by the stern and having seen what he described as a “pillar of flame shooting out of the funnel and holes in the deck and ships side” like Captain West Captain Weatherall could see that the situation was beyond saving and was forced to give the order to abandon ship.
HMS ANTELOPE was struck by a total of 6 bombs. Two of these passed clean through the ship and into the sea while the other four came to rest within the ship. With his ship now in effect one massive powder keg waiting to explode Commander Tobin after conferring with Admiral Woodward gave the order to very carefully and quietly evacuate the ship. The only men remaining aboard were a firefighting party extinguishing a small fire that had been started by friction from the impact of one of the weapons and a Royal Engineers bomb disposal team who were helicoptered aboard to undertake the unenviable task of locating and defusing the unexploded bombs. The first two bombs were relatively straight forward jobs (well as straight forward as can be when defusing a live 1000IB bomb) the second and third proved to be more problematic. One of them was nearly inaccessible due to wreckage while the other was judged to be in an extremely dangerous condition. With this communicated back to EAGLE the decision was made to tow HMS ANTELOPE away from the other ships and landing beaches while the bomb disposal experts continued with their efforts. With the sheer amount of explosives now onboard including both the argentine bombs and the ships own ordinance no one wanted to be nearby if that lot went up (the guys onboard probably wouldn’t live long enough to notice).
Aboard the SS CANBERRA which was finally in the process of offloading the men and equipment that she had been transporting the crew found themselves playing host to yet more guests. The three crews now without ships things had gotten a bit crowded on the ships that had come to their aid and so these men were gradually transferred to the CANBERRA if nothing else to keep them out of the way. As the civilian crew found out over the following days and weeks this was something of a mixed blessing. While the Paras and Marines had been rather obnoxious at times there was nothing more annoying than being told how to do your job by someone else. It was one thing for a tourist to do it to a waiter or barman but it was a new and unwelcome experience for the engineers and deck hands to experience it from men who probably did know what they were talking about. With no ships and little left to do the survivors of the lost ships began to pass the time and to a degree take their minds off what they had experienced by making mischief around their new home.
The bombing runs over San Carlos had been costly for both sides and both the surviving Argentine pilots and British sailors considered themselves lucky to still be alive. However, it was most certainly not over yet. The British were not about to let the Argentines go home unmolested after they had so rudely gatecrashed the landings and there was still the matter of the Exocet carrying Super Etendards to consider.
