‘I’ve got the offsets. Everything looks fine.’
With the offsets’ positions relative to the target fed into it, the NBS had everything it needed to get the bombs on target: the bearing and slant range to the target; the aircraft’s height and true airspeed; a wind component; and the forward throw of the bombs. Now Wright could let the old computing machine begin directing them to the release point. From here on, this was Bob Wright’s show. Everything that happened aboard 607 was designed to position or keep the bomber where he said it needed to be to get the bombs on target.
Go to bomb, he said over the intercom. Ahead of him, a meter began to indicate the range to target. The NBS was working. And from it, a steer signal was sent to Martin Withers on the flight deck. A left–right needle displayed on the bomber Captain’s instrument panel told him whether or not he needed to adjust his heading.
Check demand, Wright asked his Captain. Withers reported back the correction his indicator was asking for. Without taking his eyes off the green porridge, Wright responded.
Take it out, he asked and Withers gently brought the nose into line. Demand zeroed, he confirmed to his Nav Radar.
‘Tell me when the last bomb’s gone,’ Withers continued, aware that because of the fuel shortage, they wouldn’t be out of the woods just because they might make it through the bomb-run unscathed. ‘We’re not going to run out at low level. I’ll climb straight out.’ For now, the Captain just had to concentrate on nothing else but keeping the wings absolutely straight and level and the speed on the button. Stability meant accuracy.
With ten miles to run, less than two minutes, to the target, Withers dropped a hand to the console to his left and flicked the bomb door control to ‘Open’. Selecting ‘Auto’ could have left the job of opening them to the NBS, but if there was going to be a problem with them, he wanted to know now in time to try to do something about it, not in the final seconds before the bomb release point.
Open bomb doors, he told the crew, ready to catch any disruption to the bomber’s balance as they swung down into the airflow. As they travelled slowly through their 90-degree arc, the disturbance to the bomber’s smooth progress through the sky could be felt slightly in the cockpit. The doors locked into position either side of the rows of bombs like a dog baring its teeth and a magnetic doll’s-eye indicator in the cockpit flicked from black to white.
Bomb doors open, confirmed Withers. Vulcan 607 was settled perfectly into her final run-in to the target. Then Hugh Prior’s headphones erupted in a high-pitched, angry rattle as the 228 RWR picked up a short-range fire-control radar. A quick PRF, one pulse running into another like the buzz from a malevolent insect. Skyguard. A fire-control radar looking for a lock-on, guiding the twin barrels of the Oerlikon cannons through smooth but sharp, decisive movements in search of a target. Three bright dashes cut across the indicator on Prior’s control panel to tell him the radar emissions were coming from a point off to the left of the Vulcan’s nose.
‘Gunnery control radar. Medium threat. Ten o’clock. Jamming,’ Prior reported to the crew. He’d resisted the opportunity to react until now for fear of doing no more than confirming the Vulcan’s presence. There was nothing more to be gained by doing so. They had been discovered. He had to act. Prior reached up to the newly installed control panel for the Dash 10 pod and switched it on, hoping that, despite the tripped fuse at Ascension, it would work as advertised. Of the rest of the crew, only Dick Russell, still sitting on his hands in the bowels of the crew compartment, heard the raw noise of the 228 through his headphones – and he wouldn’t have chosen to. The rest of them couldn’t afford to be distracted now. To Prior’s left, Bob Wright was locked in concentration, his face buried in the H2S radar scope. Next to him, Gordon Graham monitored the NBS, backing up the Nav Radar’s efforts. Ahead of them, Withers remained focused on keeping the bomber on track. Any effort to jink and turn to break a radar lock would wreck their bomb run. Over the 10,000 feet the bombs had to fall, even minor movement would be amplified, ensuring that, without any doubt, they would miss the thin strip of the runway. From this height, had they been flying in daylight, it would have looked no bigger than a match placed on an Ordnance Survey map. Like the bomber crews of the Second World War, they had to hold their nerve, not deviating at all as they pressed home their attack.
Powerful white noise emanated from the pod under the Vulcan’s right wing to obscure the view of the Skyguard radar, at the same time throwing the Vulcan’s radar detection pulse out to one side – telling air defence crews that the jet was miles from the point where it was actually flying. Ten seconds later, the urgent tone from the 228 broke off. The Dash 10, it appeared, had defeated the Skyguard radar and without it the 35mm cannons it controlled were blind. Relieved, Hugh Prior crossed his fingers under the desk, willing the Argentine gunners not to come back at them again.
Ahead of the bomber, a little to the right of their track, Martin Withers and Pete Taylor saw lights from Stanley flickering in the moist air through gaps in the broken cloud.
And in the back, the distance to target dial between the two Navigators was decreasing steadily towards the point – two miles from the target – where the NBS computer would release the first bomb. Gordon Graham called out the distances.
Four miles to run.
Chapter 39
Elizabeth Goss woke up early, not quite understanding why. The young mother who as a little girl had surprised her parents with early predictions of the arrival of visiting cars just knew something was different. In the distance she could hear the barely perceptible drone of an aircraft. But that in itself wasn’t unusual, these days. Since the invasion there had been a constant stream of Argentine aircraft of all types coming in and out of the airfield. Day and night. But some instinct told her this wasn’t the same. The engine note was heavier and more substantial. More threatening even. She lay in bed, unable to move and hardly daring to breathe as the unfamiliar sound grew in intensity. Stock-still in the dark, with her husband fast asleep beside her, she held her breath and listened.
Three miles to run, Gordon Graham continued – one mile to bomb release – then began counting down, five, four, three, two, one…
Still two miles away from the airfield itself, at the point that the ballistic computer calculated the middle bomb of the stick would hit the middle of the runway, the first of the thousand-pounders fell away from the bomber’s cavernous open belly. Just under a quarter of a second later it was followed by the second. From 607’s height of 10,000 feet and with her speed over the ground of just over 320 knots – nearly 400 mph – the bombs’ forward throw would carry them to the target while they gathered massive, destructive vertical speed. To his left, Bob Wright watched the little mechanical counter clicking up. It appeared to be ticking over in slow motion, each bomb taking what felt like an age to follow the one before. Behind him, though, the heavy bombs dropped from their racks with relentless, metronomic efficiency.
On the flight deck, Martin Withers steadily increased his forward pressure on the stick. As the Vulcan disgorged a 10-ton payload, she tried to climb. Relieved of her burden, she wanted to soar, but until the last bomb was gone Withers had to keep her steady. Next to him, Pete Taylor was struck by an omission. He felt like he was in a movie, but one that was missing its soundtrack. Accompanying the bomb-run, he thought, should be the sound of a swirling crescendo from a symphony orchestra. Something suitably dramatic, at least. Instead there was just the soulless, metallic scratch and crackle of the intercom and a tight feeling of anticipation.