Scram! (4 page)

Sheltering downwind in the protection given by the crashed aircraft, the team crouched and discussed what to do next. The surface of the glacier was like nothing they had seen. In parts it was flat and snowy. Elsewhere it was cruelly serrated with waves of ice interspersed with blue crevasses disappearing into the depths. Walking off the glacier was not a sensible option. And it seemed highly unlikely that their only source of rescue, the Wessex 3, would return to rescue them that afternoon. The SAS troops had already survived one tumultuous night out in the open. All the aircrew had been on survival training courses where the mantra was: protection, location, water, food. Protect yourself against the elements and work out how you are going to get out before you worry about water and food. The team set about preparing themselves for another night on the glacier.

One group of SAS soldiers roped themselves together. They set off the few hundred yards back up the glacier to retrieve some of the equipment left behind in the crashed Yankee Foxtrot. The aircrew and remaining troops inflated Yankee Alpha's nine-man liferaft for protection and ran out the HF
radio
antenna to tell
Antrim
they were still alive. Ian Georgeson, as the tallest person present, was elected aerial holder. The aircrew all carried search-and-rescue SARBE short-range UHF radios in their lifejackets. But these would only be useful for talking to the rescue aircraft when it was more or less within earshot. If it came at all.

Out at sea on
Antrim
, a wave of relief swept over Tidd as he was given the good news that his team were all well. To him, it was as if the dead had been raised. Meanwhile Stanley and his crew were already on their way back to the glacier armed with blankets and medical supplies. The weather was worsening with thicker cloud and violent squalls. Stanley managed to hover-taxi up the side of the glacier all the way to the top. Despite making contact with Georgeson on his SARBE via the emergency frequency 243 megahertz, there was no sign of the crashed Yankee Alpha. A depressed Stanley reluctantly returned to
Antrim
to consider his options. It was late afternoon.

After a thorough check of the Wessex 3 by the engineers, Stanley decided to have one last crack at rescuing the survivors. It seemed like tempting fate to fly a sixth mission to the top of the glacier with just one engine to support them. Stanley had twice experienced engine failures during his career, once on land, once into the sea. Fortuna Glacier would be a bad place to experience a third.

With low cloud scudding over the ship, Stanley lifted off for the final attempt of the day armed with a new strategy. He would punch through the cloud and try to approach the glacier from above. To a
junglie
pilot, this strategy would be utterly incomprehensible. Flying into cloud is a recipe for disaster. Without radar control, coming back down is likely to end in tears. But to a radar equipped anti-submarine pilot, this was bread-and-butter stuff.

Although the clouds were fairly thin over the sea, the mountain tops ahead were now shrouded in a thick layer of cloud. Flying clear at 3,000 feet, the prospect of getting down onto the glacier, let alone spotting the wreck, seemed remote. Yet as the Wessex flew above where the glacier should be, a hole appeared magically in the cloud beneath them. There in the middle of the hole lay a single orange dinghy perched on top of the glacier. It was an unbelievable stroke of luck. Stanley spiralled rapidly down through the hole and landed on the ice just as the cloud closed in above them.

The SAS team were yet again extremely reluctant to leave behind their kit and equipment on the glacier with the wreck of Yankee Alpha. But faced with the choice of another night of hypothermia and frostbite, there was really little option. The problem still remained of how on earth to fit fourteen large passengers into the tiny cabin of the Wessex 3. For Stanley's first rescue hours earlier, the rear cabin had been cramped with two crew and six passengers. Even if they could cram in a further eight people, the Wessex would be dangerously overloaded way beyond the design limits of the rotor gearbox and the capacity of the single engine.

One by one, the team squeezed into the back. Bodies were everywhere. Observer Parry worked his radar screen whilst sitting on top of one trooper lain across the seat. Arms and legs hung out of the door and windows. Eventually everybody somehow crammed in. Any kind of emergency, such as a crash or ditching into the sea, would be utterly disastrous. With the strong wind assisting their take-off, the helicopter slid off the side of the glacier and headed back to the ship. There was little scope for conversation because of the cold and wind blowing through the open doors and windows. Although smoking was
supposedly
not permitted on board, Stanley and Cooper both lit up cigarettes and looked at each other in astonishment: ‘Wow. That was fun!'

Behind them and out of sight of the pilots, most of the crew and passengers did likewise.

There was still the small matter of landing their overweight helicopter on the heaving deck of
Antrim
. Their only hope was lots of wind over the deck, which would reduce the power needed to maintain a hover. They would only have one attempt at landing. Should they misjudge their approach, the helicopter would have absolutely no chance of recovering for a second attempt. Ditching into the icy black sea would mean certain disaster for most or all of them in the back.

Stanley radioed ahead for the ship to get onto a heading that gave maximum wind over the deck. His final approach was judged to perfection. The helicopter descended straight towards the deck avoiding the usual careful hover. In amongst the crush of bodies in the back, Jan Lomas could make out the air speed indicator on the observer's panel. It wavered around sixty knots at the moment they touched down on the deck. A controlled crash would have been good enough. Instead it felt like a smooth landing. Lomas was gobsmacked.

The near disaster on Fortuna Glacier was a worrying start to Britain's campaign to reclaim South Georgia and the Falkland Islands. One failed mission by the SAS; two crashed helicopters. But for the astonishing skill of the Wessex 3 crew, it could have been so much worse.

Chapter 2

Junglies: 1979–82

WHEN I LEFT
school, I didn't bother with university because I'd always wanted to fly. I tried for British Airways and failed the interview. The military was the obvious next step. The RAF didn't appeal for the not terribly convincing reason that I didn't fancy being stuck on some German airfield for years. My stepfather introduced me to a friend of his, a Royal Navy captain, who opened up the possibility of flying with the Navy. It also didn't hurt to see the Fleet Air Arm adverts of the day showing Sea Harrier jets and helicopters. Underneath was the line ‘Last week I was learning to park my dad's Morris Marina …'. I followed the recruitment trail and applied to the Admiralty Interview Board
.

And so on a wet October day in 1979, I found myself squashed into a minibus heading for Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, Devon, one of forty apprehensive young men hoping to become Royal Navy pilots and observers. I was now Midshipman Benson, aged nineteen years and one week
.

* * *

For many years, pilots and aircrew of the naval air commando squadrons have been proud to call themselves
junglies
. The original
junglies
were the crews of 848 Naval Air Squadron who operated their Whirlwind helicopters in the jungles of Malaya from 1952. Operating in support of the Gurkhas and other regiments, the commando squadrons became known for their flexibility and ‘can-do' attitude, an approach that has continued to the present day in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The very first commando assault took place during the Suez crisis of 1956 when twenty-two Whirlwind and Sycamore helicopters of 845 Naval Air Squadron landed 650 commandos and their equipment in a mere one and a half hours. Given the limited capability of these underpowered helicopters, it was an astonishing feat. In 1958, naval air commando squadrons were involved with support operations in Cyprus and Aden. From 1959, 848 Naval Air Squadron operated with Royal Marines from the first commando carrier HMS
Bulwark
, and later from HMS
Albion
, mainly in the Far and Middle East. It was at Nanga Gaat, the forward operating base deep in the jungles of Borneo during the Indonesian confrontation of 1963, using Whirlwind 7 and Wessex 1 helicopters, that the nickname
junglies
was born. The new twin-engined Wessex HU (Helicopter Utility) Mark 5 entered service in 1965 in Aden, Brunei and Borneo, bringing with it a substantial improvement in lifting capability. The Sea King Mark 4 increased capability further, entering service with 846 Naval Air Squadron in 1979.

By early 1982, Britain's political and military priorities had altered dramatically. In place of the Far East adventures, the typical
junglie
could expect to spend a substantial part of their winter training in Arctic warfare in northern
Norway
and the rest of the year on a couple of six-week rotations in Northern Ireland.

It was into this environment that I emerged as a baby
junglie
on Monday 1 March 1982. Officially we were Royal Navy officers first and Royal Navy pilots second. Unofficially we all knew exactly who we were.
Junglies
first, Navy second.

My training was fairly typical. After convincing the Admiralty Interview Board that I had sufficient leadership potential as a young officer and sufficient coordination as a trainee pilot, I joined Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth in the autumn of 1979. For many of my new friends and colleagues, this was the first time they had been away from home. For me, with ten years of boarding school under my belt, the routine and discipline of Dartmouth was a piece of cake.

My naval and flying training took nearly two and a half years from start to finish. Along every step of the way lurked the ever-present threat of being ‘chopped'. Most of us survived our first thirteen hours of flight experience in the antiquated tail-dragging Chipmunk aeroplane at Roborough airport near Plymouth. The similarly antiquated instructors at Roborough were all experienced assessors of young aviators. Those of us with sufficient aptitude passed. Those who didn't got chopped.

After passing out of Dartmouth, I spent the summer of 1980 on ‘holdover' at RNAS Yeovilton in Somerset. Holdover was the Navy's attempt to slow down the flow of pilots to the front line. Defence cuts meant that there were simply too many aircrew in the system. Yeovilton was home to the
junglies
, flying Wessex 5 and the new Sea King 4, and
stovies
, flying the Navy's shiny new Sea Harrier vertical take-off and landing jets. My few months at Yeovilton were brilliant fun. I knew that either
junglie
or
stovie
would be an attractive option once I finished flying training.

Towards the end of 1980, I resumed my place in the training pipeline and completed a range of ground courses. My fellow trainees and I spent a gruesome week being schooled in aviation medicine and advanced first aid at Seafield Park in Hampshire. Here we learnt how easy it was to become extremely disoriented whilst airborne. Each of us was strapped in turn into a rotating chair that was spun around. Starting with our heads down and eyes closed, we were then asked to lift our heads up and open our eyes. Watching others become completely unbalanced and fling themselves involuntarily out of the chair was a lot more entertaining than when we had to experience it for ourselves. The most shocking demonstration was to sit in the chair with eyes closed while the chair was spun up very slowly indeed. I was not aware of any movement at all. Opening my eyes to discover the world rushing past at a rate of knots was extremely disconcerting, though highly entertaining for onlookers.

In an adapted decompression chamber we all experienced a few minutes of hypoxia, the state of drowsiness that ensues at high altitude, and which can lead to death if insufficient oxygen reaches the brain. The staff set up a realistically simulated helicopter crash scene for us to use our first-aid skills. All Royal Navy aircrew have a special memory of the horribly realistic sucking chest wound that blows little bubbles of blood and the supposedly wounded leg that turns out to be completely severed.

We also spent eight days in the New Forest on survival training. This involved being dropped in the middle of nowhere with only the clothes we were wearing and a tiny survival tin full of glucose sweets. The first twenty-four hours were not fun. Ten of us were invited to swim
across
a freezing lake to clamber into a nine-man liferaft that simulated a ditching at sea. Discomfort, sudden attacks of cramp, and one of our colleagues with the runs, made the time pass very slowly indeed. It was a relief to be able to swim back to the shoreline and start an eighty-mile trek over the next three days. The last five days were spent building a shelter called a ‘basher' and practising our survival skills – setting traps, carving spoons out of bits of wood, and skinning and cooking a rabbit that had been temporarily liberated from the local pet shop. I lost a stone in weight during these eight days.

Our final noteworthy course was one well loved by all Navy aircrew. Colloquially known as ‘the dunker', the underwater escape trainer is a diving tower filled with water. The purpose of the dunker is to teach aircrew how to survive a ditching at sea. Perched on the end of a hydraulic ram above the water is a replica of a helicopter cockpit and cabin. The aircrew, dressed in normal flying gear and helmets, strap into the cockpit at the front or the cabin at the back. The module then lurches downwards into the water rolling neatly upside down some twelve feet underwater. Our mission is to escape before we all drown.

The staff took us through the ditching procedure. As soon as you know you're heading for a swim, the first thing is to pull the quick release lever that jettisons the door. In the dunker, we simply had to simulate this. As the helicopter hits the water, with one hand you grab onto a fixed handle in the cockpit, with the other you prepare to release your straps. As the helicopter disappears under water, you grab one last gasp of air. When all movement stops, you release your straps, haul yourself out using the handle as a reference point, and allow buoyancy to take you up to the surface.