21st was D-day and the amphibs managed to get all our initial troops ashore without any major trouble. Shortly after dawn a Gazelle was fired on by Argentine troops retreating from Fanning Head and crashed in San Carlos Water. A second one sent to investigate was also downed and the crews were killed. The first attack on the ships came at 0900(L) when an MB339 from Stanley stumbled upon the amphibious group in San Carlos Water and attacked HMS Argonaut with rockets.
The main raids started shortly afterwards and continued unabated all day with waves of Daggers and Skyhawks coming in at low level from West Falkland. We established CAPs to the north and south of Falkland Sound as well as over land to the west. The Argentine aircraft were all too low for radar to pick them up and it was very much a visual fight. By the end of the day, 801 on Invincible had downed a Pucara (guns) and 2 x Daggers and we had dealt with 1 x Dagger and 5 x Skyhawks. One of our newly-arrived reinforcement pilots (ex-GR3) couldn’t get his Winder to lock, so attacked with 30mm at extremely close range. The target exploded with him very close behind and he flew through the debris without damage! On RTB he snagged the missile system but we discovered that he hadn’t turned them on!! His type conversion (a couple of trips) hadn’t covered selecting missiles - oops!
Another AIM9L had a thermal battery problem and launched several seconds after it had been fired, missing the target. The pilot then sprayed the A4 with 30mm and left him trailing smoke before he had to bug out with low fuel. The Skyhawk diverted to Stanley, where they discovered that one of his main u/c legs had been shot off and he was ordered to eject.
The day ended with 17 Argentine fast-jet losses and two helicopters taken out near Mount Kent by GR3s from Hermes. We had also got our troops ashore virtually unopposed. On the negative side, HMS Ardent had been sunk by Skyhawks in the Sound and three other warships had been damaged. No1(F) also lost a GR3 pilot on his first mission when he was hit by a Blowpipe missile over Port Howard. The pilot ejected at very low level, travelling very fast and ended up in the water with serious injuries and unable to get into his dinghy. He was saved by some Argentine soldiers, who rowed out in a small boat to rescue him.
We all realised that the next few weeks were going to be busy.
Mog