Battle for the Falklands: The Winter War. Patrick Bishop

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СКАЧАТЬ their heads and putting on white elbow-length gloves. The urgency that the klaxon conveyed was contagious and you would find yourself running, slamming down hatches as a disembodied voice kept repeating, ‘Action stations, action stations. Assume NBCD state one. Condition Zulu.’ The initials referred to nuclear, biological and chemical defences, which meant making the ship airtight from attack. Condition Zulu meant all the hatches and doors had to be sealed, a higher state of alert than ‘yankee’. Sealing up Invincible could take anything between ten to twenty-five minutes, depending on the training of the crew. Once completed it was rather like being locked in a vast tomb, knowing escape would be hindered by sealed decks with scores of men competing to get through the ‘kidney hatches’. At first we found ourselves assigned to the Damage Control Centre of the ship during action stations. This was presided over by Lt.-Com. Andy Holland, known to everyone as ‘Damage’, who gaily chattered about Invincible being able to take five Exocet hits before sinking. After some thought this seemed a bad place to be. It was right in the centre of the ship and at Exocet height. Discussing the safest position during threat of attack became a pastime, rather in the manner that overweight people discuss the merits of diets. The press wandered around the ship debating the chief targets, sometimes watching what was going on from the Admiral’s bridge and at other times seeking refuge in the Captain’s day cabin, lying on the carpets and staring at the bulkhead.

      But at least we could move around in search of safety. Most of the crew had no choice but to stay in their assigned positions sweating it out. Many would try and sleep. Others would just lie there, write letters, read girlie magazines or play cards. Some were distinguishable only by their names written across the forehead of their white anti-flash hood, disguising all but their eyes. It was possible to go for days, even weeks, without tasting the salt on your lips or feeling the wind. The weather throughout continued to belie all predictions. Instead of raging seas we had fog and instead of sleet we had crisp sunny days. There were one or two gales but down in the bowels of Invincible, fitted with stabilizers, the roll was barely discernible. Steaming along in a large British warship had as much to do with the sea as flying has with travel in a jumbo jet. At times, it seemed, we might as well have been in a submarine. The sense of vulnerability, even claustrophobia, was impossible to avoid. Modern warships have abandoned armour plating, taking the view that the money is better spent on missile defences. One hair-raising theory that ‘Damage’ told us about the light construction of Invincible, was that an Exocet could pass right through without exploding. No one seemed keen to test the theory.

      I had acquired a small cabin at the stern of the ship, just above the waterline. The escape routes from this cubicle were negligible. You had to move down a passage, through several sealed doors and then up ladders. ‘It’s not worth it,’ one sub-lieutenant told me. ‘All the doors will buckle if we’re hit and you’ll never get out.’ At the outset the hacks had been placed in the Admiral’s offices. This was rather like sleeping in a canning factory during an earth tremor. The rooms were full of filing cabinets and as the ship vibrated the files reverberated, as in an outlandish and off-key tintinnabulation. I tried sleeping with ear-defenders and then with cotton wool ear plugs. Neither was effective. We tried to locate the root of the noises, sticking sheets of paper between the cabinets – also with no success. Gareth Parry of the Guardian struggled naked over desk tops in the middle of the night, tapping the ceiling in a futile attempt to pinpoint a particularly irritating rattle. He retired to his camp bed muttering, ‘Sleep is release. The nightmare starts when we wake up.’

      Apart from the calls to action stations, training exercises were given greater verisimilitude with the addition of smoke canisters, thunderflashes and one pound scare charges dropped alongside the ship. ‘We’ve got to give the men the smell of cordite,’ the captain said. The mood of impending struggle was heightened with notices recommending the crew to make out their wills and ensure the name of their next of kin was up-to-date on official documents. We were issued with identity discs which gave rank, name and blood group. Later on we had to carry at all times a life jacket at our waist and a bright orange survival suit. Anti-flash hoods were worn relaxed around necks, like grubby cravats.

      Many crewmen received brief courses in first aid. The ship’s surgeon, Bob Clarke, gave a humorous account on television of how to shove morphine injections into your leg, ending the programme with a smile and saying ‘have a good war’. Although extra supplies of plasma, morphine, antibiotics, plaster of pans and intravenous fluids were on board, Clarke said cheerfully: ‘We’ll decide those people who are worth saving, and make it as comfortable as possible for those who are not.’ Potential hazards from whiplash, such as mirrors, glasses, and loose objects, were removed and flammable material like curtains and cushions were stowed away. Invincible was gradually transformed from a relatively luxurious craft, certainly far more luxurious than we had been led to expect, into an austere fighting unit, prepared for the worst.

      I remember sitting in the wardroom at the end of April watching the closed-circuit television churn out a more or less continual diet of soap opera, war films, Tom and Jerry cartoons and extracts from comedy shows. Pilots, wearing their green one-piece overalls or rubber ‘goon suits’ to protect them against the freezing South Atlantic, lounged casually in armchairs. Some carried 9mm Browning pistols in shoulder holsters. Around them coffee tables had been piled together and tied to pillars with string. The landscape watercolours had gone from the walls and the crests above the bar removed. The cabinet case which had displayed relics of the triumphs of former HMS Invincible’s (including the victory off the Falklands in 1914) was now covered with brown paper on which cartoons and new trophies had been drawn, including a whale for 820 Squadron which had depth-charged one in mistake for a hostile submarine. Television programmes started with a picture of a topless girl accompanied by a Welsh male-voice choir. Someone said they used to show extracts of Emmanuelle before senior officers addressed the crew to ensure there was an audience.

      But as we moved south to Ascension life remained good. There were drinks in the evening before dinner, a good wine list, and a four-course meal invariably followed by port. Films were shown three times a week on the screen in the dining room or wardroom. There were cocktails on the quarterdeck as the sun dipped over the horizon and sing-songs. What a way to go to war, we all thought, without actually thinking we would.

      Invincible, like most large naval ships, was a self-contained world. It had its own doctors, dentists, library, television, bars, shop and entertainment. There was even a Chinese cobbler, tailor and laundry, which the fourteen Chinese on board adopted as their action station. There were hundreds of Hong Kong Chinese in the Task Force, mainly in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships, which sailed alongside, supplying the warships with food and fuel. On one, Sir Geraint, we were served meals by a nervous Chinese steward wearing a tin helmet, his own protest at being thrust into such a war.

      Different ranks would be divided into their own messes. One night with the petty officers the journalists became the butt of all the good-humoured jokes, staggering out without our ties which joined an already impressive array of trophies. Even though they were rationed to three cans of beer a day, they would not allow us to buy a drink. Whenever a glass of lager appeared someone would produce a small bottle and pour a substance into it with a grin. They cursed the officers as incompetent, the ship as badly designed and their fate as grim. None of them really wanted to fight but if they had to they would.

      At the Equator we were summoned to meet King Neptune and his court, who arrived on the flight deck on the hydraulic lift used for the Harriers and Sea Kings. Several were sentenced to have a foul substance smeared on their faces and dumped backwards into a canvas swimming pool. Among the victims were the Captain, Prince Andrew, the pressmen and their ‘minder’, the Ministry of Defence press officer who had taken to the bridge in the futile hope of escaping the ‘policemen’ who roamed the ship.

      On 16 April Ascension emerged from the Atlantic, a barren volcanic rock basking in the tropical sun. Instead of the Task Force fleet anchored offshore as we had expected, there were only a few ships, including HMS Fearless, the home of Commodore Michael Clapp and the future base of Maj.-Gen. Jeremy Moore. The rest of the fleet, it later emerged, had moved on at speed СКАЧАТЬ