Wright reset the controls, resisting the temptation to switch the scanner off altogether to avoid letting it drop again. He retuned the display, willing the circular image in front of him to settle down. Around him, the five other members of the crew waited anxiously for confirmation.
With fifty miles to run, the picture stabilized. The ageing radar had come good but, ahead of them, where he should have been picking up an echo from the 2,313-foot peak of Mount Usborne, thirty-three miles to the west of Stanley, there was nothing. He passed on the news over the intercom.
Ahead of him, Withers considered the situation for a moment. They had to find the islands before climbing for the bomb-run. Unless they knew they were in the right place, it didn’t matter how well the radar and NBS were working. Totally out of the question was the possibility of loitering at altitude before getting established on the bomb-run, or worse, running in twice. Both would hand a decisive advantage to the Argentine air defences. All surprise would be lost. Neither would amount to anything more than a straightforward request to be shot down. Perhaps, he thought, they were just too low for the H2S to pick up the mountain’s summit. If they could just gain a couple of hundred feet of altitude, it might allow the scanner enough of a view forward to confirm their position. There was a danger that in doing so they would climb into the view of the Argentine search radars, but Withers, suffering from a disconcerting feeling that they didn’t actually know where they were, felt it was a risk worth taking. It’s got to be worth a quick preview, he thought, and gently pulled back a touch on the joystick to raise the bomber’s nose.
The elusive peak immediately hove into view on Wright’s screen. I’ve got it, he told the crew. After over eight hours aloft, without a single opportunity to check or confirm their position, they were just a mile away from where Gordon Graham had calculated they should be. A combination of skilful dead-reckoning and the new twin Carousels had worked as advertised. Bob Wright moved his joystick a fraction to bring the green glow of Mount Usborne’s radar reflection under the cross-hair markers on his screen. Withers relaxed his grip on the Vulcan’s stick to take her down to 300 feet again. And Dick Russell flinched as he heard a menacing pulse through his headphones. Hugh Prior’s voice cut through the background of the intercom.
‘Echo-band radar, twelve o’clock. Possible Argentine search radar.’
Listening intently to the Passive Warning Receiver for threats to the jet, Prior had heard the slow ticking of an AN/TPS-43 radar at the same time as Russell, its tell-tale PRF beating at ten-second intervals. On a 3-inch display ahead of him an unbroken green line told him the radar was sweeping from the south-west, right in front of them.
‘No threat at this time,’ he told the crew.
Russell, sitting in the dark, wasn’t as reassured as he wanted to be. He sat on his hands in a comforting, but clearly hopeless attempt to protect himself.
On Sapper Hill, just over a mile to the south-west of Stanley, the men of Colonel Arias’s GADA 601 anti-aircraft unit maintained a twenty-four-hour watch for intruders as their powerful American-built radar swept the skies around East Falkland. For weeks they’d trained, gaining confidence and skill by tracking the movements of their country’s own Air Force. Now, just before 4.30 in the morning local time, they briefly picked up an unidentified contact to the north-east. She was low, coming in on a heading of 245 degrees, travelling over the water at around 300 knots. Then she disappeared.
Chapter 38
‘Sharkey’ Ward pushed forward the throttle lever with his left hand and pulled the SHAR into a climb. At 20,000 feet, he dimmed the cockpit lights of the little fighter. Above him, the southern-hemisphere stars shone brightly, but cloud obscured his view below. He doubted there would be any trade for him tonight, but he still hoped he’d get lucky. With his own Blue Fox radar on standby, he listened out for surprises reported by the naval escorts on radar picket duty. Twenty minutes after getting airborne, he pressed the RT transmission button to welcome the Vulcan to the Falklands.
‘Morning!’ he offered cheerily, but heard nothing from the bomber in reply. They weren’t playing, so he left them to it. He’d wait for her to broadcast news of the attack and depart the area in one piece, then he’d head back to the blacked-out flight deck of HMS Invincible.
Forty miles out, low over the water on a heading of 245 degrees, 607 accelerated to 350 knots in preparation for the pop-up. As the big delta powered south-west, Gordon Graham counted down.
Five, four, three, two. On one, Martin Withers spooled the four Olympus engines up to maximum revs and pulled her smoothly into a 15-degree climb to altitude. The roar of the engines in the back of the crew compartment signalled the arrival of the critical part of the mission.
As she left the cover of low level, 607 flew straight into view of the Argentine search radars. Every ten seconds the sweep of their scanners provoked a beat from the bomber’s Radar Warning Receiver. As before, Hugh Prior reported the radar to his crew, finishing the same way: ‘No threat at this time.’
It didn’t feel like that to Dick Russell, the only man on board with nothing to do to displace his anxiety. Now the enemy could be in no doubt about their presence nearby, Prior switched on his IFF transponder. At Wideawake, he’d been given settings that simulated an Argentine maritime-patrol aircraft. Like the rest of the tricks at the AEO’s disposal, the principal value of the bogus call and response of the transponder was that it might buy them time. But, with the Vulcan’s own bombing radar now painting every Argentine RWR in its path, he knew that, ultimately, well-drilled air defence crews would see through their deception.
Among the radar operators of GADA 601, perched on their rock-strewn hill, 400 feet above sea level, there was uncertainty. They could see the incoming bomber on their screens, but what was it? One of their own, perhaps – likely even. This had not, so far, been a shooting war after all. The young crew’s first reaction was to check whether or not there were any Argentine aircraft in the area. It was only minutes, though, before the air defences took on a more threatening posture. Around BAM Malvinas, Skyguard fire-control radars were getting ready to search the sky for targets, their operators preparing 35mm Oerlikon batteries to defend what they passionately and proudly believed was theirs.
At 9,500 feet, Martin Withers eased the power back, the bomber’s upward momentum carrying her the final 500 feet to 10,000-foot altitude for the bomb-run. Twenty miles to run. Three minutes. As the Vulcan levelled off on a heading of 240 degrees, Withers trimmed her to settle into the bomb-run. Speed was good: 330 knots indicated air speed, a speed over the ground of nearly 440 mph; not so fast as to unsettle the bomber’s equilibrium. An altitude of 10,000 feet: as well as stability, height was crucial too – if it wasn’t exact, the bombing computer couldn’t calculate the forward throw of the bombs or even measure the plan range to the target. Withers pulled down the smoked-glass sun visors around the cockpit windows to prevent exploding flak and bright lines of tracer destroying his night vision. Next to him, Pete Taylor pulled down the visor on his Bone Dome. Withers again cursed the failure of his own helmet’s intercom at Ascension. The thin cloth cap he was wearing made him feel intensely vulnerable.
At the Nav Radar’s station, Bob Wright was setting up the NBS for the bomb-run, making live the switches. He talked to the crew as he tuned and retuned the old radar to get his cross-hair markers as fine on his offsets as possible: Ordnance Point, Cape Pembroke and Mengeary Point. The three headlands were distinct on his display, green illuminations returning from solid ground meeting the blackness of the sea.