The Navy Vol_70_No_4 Oct 2008 - Navy League of Australia

million pounds worth of vital Chinook helicopters and their
munitions. ARK ROYAL’s Gannets were purpose built to give
early warning of such threats at four times the distance that
sea level radar could provide. Operations rooms could then
have vectored aircraft onto enemy intruders long before they
became ‘weapons free.’ This AEW capability had been refined
and exercised by the RN on many carriers over forty years
and was discarded just four years before it was finally again
needed in war.
If ARK ROYAL’s 12 fast interceptors been available to
Woodward their range would have meant that the Argentinian
Air Force would have been engaged, not over the British Total
Exclusion Zone, but well to the west before they entered it.
A combat air patrol of Gannets and Phantoms would have in
all probability have saved Atlantic Conveyor, SHEFFIELD,
COVENTRY and the Type 21 frigates ANTELOPE and
ARDENT from being sunk. It would also have been likely
to have prevented the DLG GLAMORGAN and the frigates
PLYMOUTH, ARGONAUT and GLASGOW from incurring
loss of life and serious damage. Most significantly long
range fast jets, vectored by Gannets, would have dealt with
the Skyhawks and Daggers before they bombed the LSLs
SIR GALAHAD and SIR TRISTRAM at Bluff Cove. Fifty
men died in this attack and another fifty seven were severely
burned. The aircraft that did the damage escaped unscathed.
Operation Corporate 1982
- ‘A near run thing’
Hindsight and speculation are dangerous, but the strong
probability is that most of the UK’s casualties at sea during
Operation Corporate could have been avoided if wisdom
and knowledge of the reality of modern naval warfare had
prevailed in Whitehall rather than groundless optimism,
wishful thinking and false economy in the decades which
preceded the conflict. The British victory in the Falklands was
unnecessarily expensive in lives and materiel. Like Waterloo
it was a ‘damn near run thing’. Woodward called it a “nip and
tuck” operation. It could, and should, have been much less
expensive and risky. The missing factor was what Cunningham
had also lacked when fighting around Crete - carrier based air
supremacy, without which every surface vessel is at serious
risk from the strike power of land based air forces.
Conclusions drawn and strategic
lessons learned
Woodward, Cunningham and Somerville’s campaigns have
much in common. They were provided with nearly too little and
nearly too late. They were forced to take risks and, inevitably,
took serious and preventable losses in men, ships and materiel.
They were operating beyond the capacity of the RAF to offer
more than token support. They lacked the most capable aircraft
that were available. They were opposed by a determined and
skilful enemy who attacked them by air across narrow waters.
They lacked forward reconnaissance and adequate warning of
attack. Against the odds, through their own determination and
the courage and the dedication of their aircrew and operations
teams they managed to pluck improbable campaign victories
from what appeared very likely to be serious defeats.
The strategic lesson of lasting value to be drawn from the
history of the FAA is that nothing less than the best ships and
the best aircraft at sea will ever be sufficient to win a naval
campaign. Anything less is likely, once again to result in lost
ships, lost opportunities and lost lives. Tragedy at sea during
war is the known and predictable price of national neglect of
naval aviation in peacetime.
A supersonic air superiority F-4 Phantom about to launch from HMS ARK ROYAL. The effect of 12 Phantoms in the South Atlantic
during the 1982 conflict may have been decisive in protecting the fleet and preventing loss of life and ships. (RN)
THE NAVY VOL. 70 NO. 4 29