Cdr 'Sharkey'Ward RN
 

Hi,
Just re-reading his book 'sea harrier over the falklands' for a bit of falklands nostalgia.
So what happened to the chap ?Did he end up commanding a ship ?
Did he quit in disgust ?
Is he still with us ?

Just intrigued to know...

Torygraph: ......Compared with many international locations, investing in property on Grenada (which includes the tiny islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique) can also be relatively free from red tape - providing you take the right advice.

For those interested in buying, Sharkey Ward, a retired Royal Navy commander and former fighter pilot, offers personally hosted holidays in Grenada for £500 per week (excluding flights) per couple. "The idea is to show guests the island so they can decide whether they want to pursue it," says Mr Ward, who would look after any property that resulted from this service.

As I remember, he never took his ship driving exams. He stayed in the MoD for a while and then left for a job in Turkey.

Forgive me for taking this off topic in 3, but has anyone ever come across a RAF pilot called Scruff Oliver? He would be in his 70s (at least) by now and when I met him almost 25 years ago, he was hosting gamekeeping/fishing/hunting etc weekend breaks and other similar holidays.

Sharks was guiding visitors to Yeovilton circa 1984 - My wife was in the Royal Observer Corps and she reckons he was the guiding light. Quite entertaining apparantly.

Knowing my wife any attempt at manouvering for Fox Two would have been defeated.

Cant believe I just wrote that..

Didn't he start up a private security company in the Late 80's protecting tankers in the Gulf.

seems to be here

http://my.telegraph.co.uk/sharkey_ward/

Cdr "Sharkey" Ward RN
 

Had the great pleasure of meeting Sharkey during a period of counter Narcotics Ops in the West Indies a couple of years ago. He was in spectacular form, hugely welcoming and entertaining and seemed to be enjoying his place in the sun. The thing that impressed me most was his fantastic carpentery skill with which he has finished off his residence, amazing. Needless to say with the proliferation of rum in the area the few days we spent there were in a suitable haze but Grenada is a beautiful Island and Sharkey has discovered some fantastic spots and beaches which he was good enough to share with us. If any one is in regular contact please pass on my very best, I believe he is still a regular contibutor to the Telegraph and Times via the letters page and adds his twopenneth' worth on current MoD policy. :ok:

Never met Sharkey, but I can vouch for Grenada. Its a wonderful island

He flew in a T8 with his son when said son graduated from 899. He spent an hour in the crewroom bragging about himself. One particular dit I remember was "how easy it was to wax an F16 in an FRS1". When challenged on this by a very experienced SHAR pilot he said "just because you can't do it doesn't mean it can't be done". Silence all round, I'd have thrown him out except his son was there. Son is an excellent chap by the way. Sooooo this god of the air went off for his flight-and they had to return early because he was airsick!! Nobody laughed about that!! He may have been good once but has always been regarded as an arch bullsh***er. He really offended a lot of people that day and even more at the end of SHAR bash at Greenwich when he was beyond embarrassing. Grenada can keep him- I won't be going.

Thank goodness. Someone from the force said it, when a Journo would rightly be castigated for initiating criticism of such a disinguished bloke.

I'm not one for building people up and then demolishing them for no real reason, but what Moe says does chime with a lot of what you hear around the bazaars.

He obviously achieved a huge amount, and was a successful SHar pilot, and on that basis alone I'm not fit to lick his boots. He also writes very well, if you put aside the content. His dedication to his blokes must have made him a good Squadron CO, too, I'm sure.

But he has said and written some appalling things about his fellow professionals, many of whom were his equals (if not his betters). Anyone would think that he won the Falklands War single-handed, and that the other SHar unit down there (who got more kills, and whose kills didn't include a sitting duck Hercules) were incompetent non-achievers.

Arrogance and ego are a must-have for a fighter pilot, but they do need to be leavened with just a tiny bit of humility and generosity of spirit towards one's comrades in arms and won wonders if Sharkey had that in sufficient measure to balance his larger than life ego?

I have not met S.W, and I know he has rubbed a lot of Navy people up the wrong way; I was told of a 'phone conversation with a Navy Test Pilot which basically ended with " last seen languishing in a latin American jail "...

However I have found one navy test pilot since to be so absolutely full of himself, & arrogant way beyond rude that he was hated by all around - not very professional...

When the Indian Navy bought Sea Harriers, the Flight Test team that went out for trials reckoned the Indians could teach the R.N. a lot about operations, rather than organising cocktail parties. Note the low loss rate.

A neighbour is an ex-R.N. Admiral who happily gave up flying so as to get command of a ship, which says a lot.

I'd tend to think the Royal Navy is still a lot more concerned with B.S. Than doing things right ( though the maintenance of the Seajets was reckoned better than RAF ) - so I would take whatever Sharkey says, in a diluted form, as about right.

As for the F-16, the FRS1 ( note not using BVR ) was said to beat it & about anything else, though obviously that would require tactics, not the Sun 'newspaper'- described viffing.

I attended a talk by the late Navy Test Pilot Taylor Scott who happily chatted about waxing F-14's in an exercise, simply by using radar on standby & detecting the other guys by emissions.

Like Sandy Woodward's description of sneaking into a U.S. CBG, I think this relied on peace-time rules rather than what would happen in an all-out war.

Al R - a consummate gentleman fighter pilot who was an excellent single seat fighter pilot and mentor to many a struggling student.

Scruff, that is. Not that Bearded Bull****ter Ward, who I have also met.

Sad to hear of Scruff's passing away.


Edited because I misss-spoolled 'hear' earlier - and then ran out of Internet time in the Frankfurt Airport Senator lounge!

Beagle,

well you've been closer than I, but I expect even Sharkey Ward can spell.

The R.N. is still full of B.S. procedures, and anyone mentioning it seems to get ousted - Sandy Woodward's own book '100 days' hardly shows an aircraft minded person ( I have met him & he seemed a charming chap, but switched off when I mentioned I'd worked with Sea Harriers, that was in about 1995 ).

As for being air-sick as someone mentioned, I'd have thought it common knowledge that tolerance builds up & reduces according to the amount of vigourous flying one does; I got to the stage where I was pretty 'bullet-proof' in a light aircraft, but after a break then being strapped into G-Hawk I was not well at all - didn't actually heave but close to it.

Seems to me from the outside ( just, I was involved in a mild way from UK during the Falklands ) Sharkey was the right man in the right place at the right time - I worked with someone who had been his wingman who seemed to think so.

Not everyone wants to brown-nose their way to ship driving...

Double-zero, you're probably right.

His book proved that he could spell "I" and "me" on many an occasion.....

Beagle,

Haven't we all met people like that, surpisingly few in aviation ( but dozens of RNLI types at my sailing club, who all reckon they were special forces )

at least a " there I was, nothing on the clock but the maker's name " story can be worth listening to, even if only to take to bits afterwards...

Hmmm.....

I'm a RNLI supporter. A 'governor', actually - whatever that means.....

Would far sooner listen to their tales than any of Ward's.

Yes, he did a very good job back in 1982. That will always be true.

What a great fighter pilot Sharkey was; won the air war single handledly by his own account.

Was almost perturbed that my own involvement was irrelevant, but then so was that of the other SHAR sqns so not too bothered.

Good on you Sharkey, hope you're prospering.:D

Thanks everyone.

Was thinking of buying the book - but I'd rather have a balanced read.

Buy it - it is a good read, and now you know a bit about his personality you can interpret what he writes in context.

I recommend:

'RAF Harrier Ground Attack, Falklands' by Jerry Pook as well as 'Hostile Skies' by David Morgan.

You can buy both together from 'Big River' for £19.37, I see.

They also sell Ward's book 'Sea Harrier Over The Falklands: A Maverick at War'.

what it actually says is Double 0 doesn't understand the way the RN used to work.

The Navy's primary business is, hardly surprisingly, driving ships... a task given to the Executive Branch, and flying was a sub-specilisation of that branch. The RN Officer corps was streamed into the General List and the Supplimentary List. Thus a Junior Pilot could be either GL(X)(P) or SL(X)(P).
To rise above the rank of Commander you had to be GL... and this is the important bit... it was expected you would have had command of a small ship (typically a frigate or destroyer).

Most aircrew were recruited onto the SL, it got them through the training pipeline quickly as they started flying training on graduation from Dartmouth. Therefore an SL(X)(P) with career aspirations would a. have to request transfer to GL, and b. go off to complete his Bridge Watchkeeping ticket and gain seamanship experience.

Some GLs were allowed to fly but would only do 2-3 tours before returning to ship-driving for the sake of their careers (If they chose to keep flying they too would be unlikely to rise above Cdr.)

So, Double 0, your neighbour obviously had aspirations, and as he made Admiral that was obviously a good decision? As far as I know things are slightly different today; everyone leaves Dartmouth on a level playing field and those who show potential for high rank, from any specialisation, are groomed after the first few years service; and their career managed appropriately.

It is still, generally, the case that to rise high you need to acquire broad experience... what use a Captain of an Aircraft Carrier who can land a GR7 on the pitching flight deck, but can't put the ship alongside the wall in Guz (aka Plymouth)?

Fair enough,

But in other more enlightened Navies the skipper of a carrier is a pilot;

as for berthing manouvres, I thought that was left to the sweating 1st / executive officer, and in real life is controlled by the tug-master !

Aspirations are one thing, but one is either a flyer or not...

Double Zero,
Quite so. The US Navy understand that the purpose of a CV is to project air power, and therefore the skipper must have a fundemental understanding of its employment in the exactly the same way an RAF Station Commander is supposed to. Hence both the skipper and CAG are aviators. I believe that the XO is normally a boat-driver who can deal with the "wet" issues on the skippers behalf.
The ability for a skipper to be able to land aboard his own boat is a simple form of leadership and engenders respect from the nugget to the CAG.
It also enables aviators to have proper careers, helping to retain the brightest and the best, rather than encouraging them to "jump ship" to the RAF / airlines to carry on flying.
It will be interesting to see how the RN play this, as really the CVS' have always seem to have been seen as large ASW destroyers by the RN, and skippered accordingly.
My concern is whether the RN can retain enough pilots of sufficient quality to produce CV skippers; perhaps in this era of "jointness" the skipper should be an RAF Group Captain?!!:}

Thanks for that !

As to the 'bridge watchkeeping ticket' - I presume that's what the very junior poor sod on the Glasgow had when it was T-boned by a tanker & carried into harbour on it's bulbous bow ?!

The navy never seem to learn - if we get 2 large carriers,

A; one will be in dock

B; they treat people so badly - it needs more than I-pods- they can't crew them ( where have I heard that before, press gangs ?! )

C; They don't even as far as I know make out if they're going for the F-35B ( to me an obvious choice, but some Phantom huggers seem to think they're getting the Nimitz ) or what.

There seems a very poor chance of having a pool of Navy fast jet pilots,
as the last lot saw their aircraft & station binned...

Why did he try to contact the Vulcan on Black Buck 1?

His book seems to be similar to Chuck Yeager's book.

I read Sharkey's book a month or so ago and have a sneaking suspicion that he didnt like the Air Force much .. :suspect:

If you said you had been to Tenerife I bet he would claim to have been to Elevenerife.

Gave my copy to a charity shop.

Then you should get your copy in Pronto. Why sit back when you can have the real Falklands story as told from your perspective.

All the books here are a good read IMHO, haven't read Morgans yet. But I have got my own pictures of his** & Pooks handiwork north of Mt Kent!

**Hare not Morgan, I'm getting old.

I had the honour of being present when one of Sharkey's wing-men ( a poor description for someone who became an ace then navy Test Pilot ) gave a talk - just as he was leaving to drive an airliner, having been made an offer he couldn't refuse !

If really really bored, dial in 'harrier' then 'history' & 'harrier testing'...

My father was an engine fitter on escort carriers in WW2, & he reckons the internal politics then were more of a snag than the axis forces, inc Kamikaze !

Which, along with my own experience with BAe - first run like a swiss watch by John Farley, later run like a rubber spanner by accountants - is why I see a fair bit of truth in Sharkey's tale.

FarEast: In what ways, exactly?

CG

CG
I think that its a size thing.............ego that is.

Check your PMs

Glass Houses and Stone Throwing
 

Double Zero

PPRune is a good place for vigorous (sic) discussion but if you wish to undermine BEagle's post by criticising his spelling you need to make sure that your own is faultless. Alas it isn't.

I read Sharkey's book a month or so ago too and I thought it was a bloody good read. It did descend into farce however when he began accusing the RAF of 'calculated insults' ie when he wasn't given seniority and allowed to disembark the VC-10 first on return to Brize, when he wasn't invited to the welcome-home party for the returning batallion etc etc. Basically everyone was a w****r except him. I was disappointed because the guy obviously did a brilliant job in the South Atlantic but at the end of the book he simply comes across as a c**k.

Far East,

In what way?

When I was a staff officer at HQ STC the great majority of the 3 Gp Harrier maffia were of the opinion that the great "Sharkey" Ward was a complete embarrassment to the FAA. Not to be trusted with confidential information and also a go it alone knob. What say you Spon?:ok:

3P

Mstjbrown I agree re spelling - touche...

I certainly did not mean to undermine Beagle's or anyone else's post - but I did think we were supposed to discuss points of view here ?

I must say I get more than a hint of " not one of the in crowd " - officer's messes are not a great way to judge people...so effectively disregards if Sharkey was effective in role or not.

As a separate item not particularly involving Sharkey, " The Secret War For The Falklands " by Nigel West is worth a go, though my girlfriend would kill me for saying that as he was an annoying prat during her previous husband's spy scandal ! As far as I can make out he ( not N.West ) was innocent - and as a military aircraft photographer I'm on shaky ground for that as well as my spelling.

For what it's worth, I agree with the comment re. Yeager - as far as I can make out his great skill to get to Mach 1 was being either brave or daft enough to hang on - & his interview by J.Clarkson revealed a pretty unlikable character - " The Spitfire was a pony-arsed airplane "

Well I wouldn't mind seeing a turning fight between a Mk9 & a Mustang; then again who was it who dropped his tanks & tried shooting them for fun, when the rest of his squadron was in one of the largest fights at the end of WW2 ?!

Thread drift, hat, coat...

Or the P-51's .5 mgs v the Spits 20mm cannon.

Or the Mk9 Spit against the Allison engined Mustang before the guys at Hucknall worked their magic on it!

Are you referring to Mrs Schilling's orifice, or later 2-stage mod's ?!!!

Sorry, was thinking of Allison-built Merlins...