RAF v RN - Falklands
My ex Marine friends tell me that, if they had a man down in Borneo, they always tried to get a Navy helicopter for a medivac as they were more likely to cope with whatever clearing was available. The instructor who taught me to fly was RAF and based at Boscombe Down. One of the many aircraft he flew was a Beaver. At that time there was a flight of Army Beavers at Old Sarum and these guys used to go out looking for difficult fields to land in. My RAF instructor was not even allowed to land his Beaver at Compton Abbas, or anywhere there wasn't regulation fire and rescue facilities.
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These piping times of peace do seem rather edgy, do they not?.
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A Navy Wessex showed up out of the murk while the RAF sat perched like Sea Gulls on Dolphins.
I suppose it will take the Navy to explain the concept to Air Force.
I suppose it will take the Navy to explain the concept to Air Force.
RAF/RN Culture Differences
Whilst on RAF IOT at Cranwell in 1981- 5 of us were told on Thursday we would be travelling to Dartmouth on Sat to compete in Tri college cross country- We arrived and the RAF SRego who was with us told us the RAF had always come last in this race and the same would happen this time but we were to try hard!
The RN team were all Marine officers who had returned from Artic Warfare to train for the event several weeks earlier- one chap asked me how long we had been training - we only heard on Thursday was the reply - he asked if we had any men with us- we were perplexed till he mentioned that they would never run with enlisted men in the team because if one fell they would have to stop. The Sandhurst team showed up and each one was an Ethiopian officer cadet -yep, we came last by a long way. That night we went into the Dartmouth cadets mess- they appeared to do an 18 month IOT - all in a large barrack block with dawn sailing on the Dart- we were invited ashore for drinks- I returned to Cranwell defeated in the race but with a better appreciation of the different cultures of the services and the relative ease of our 18 week IOT compared to the RN course!
The RN team were all Marine officers who had returned from Artic Warfare to train for the event several weeks earlier- one chap asked me how long we had been training - we only heard on Thursday was the reply - he asked if we had any men with us- we were perplexed till he mentioned that they would never run with enlisted men in the team because if one fell they would have to stop. The Sandhurst team showed up and each one was an Ethiopian officer cadet -yep, we came last by a long way. That night we went into the Dartmouth cadets mess- they appeared to do an 18 month IOT - all in a large barrack block with dawn sailing on the Dart- we were invited ashore for drinks- I returned to Cranwell defeated in the race but with a better appreciation of the different cultures of the services and the relative ease of our 18 week IOT compared to the RN course!
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I flew with several test pilots at Farnborough from all 4 services; they were all excellent but the best ones were the Royal Marines and Army Air Corps in that order.
Thread Starter
This was exacerbated by personalities and it was rumoured that the Captain of Hermes was fighting three wars; the first against the RAF, the second against HMS Invincible and the third against the Argentines. We spent a lot of time attempting to ameliorate this, with varying degrees of success.
First reaction was it's crazy that egos and inter-personal conflicts still blow up amongst those who are leading the people who are fighting and dying - but then on reflection it's been that way throughout military history, and probably always will be!
I continue to find Falklands stories absolutely extraordinary - and am working on the screenplay.
Just read Paul Tremelling's book Harrier 'How To Be a Fighter Pilot' which has some comments relevant to the subject under discussion in a later era.
Thread Starter
Damn good book that.
His description of 2 ship low-level close air-support in a narrow valley in Afghanistan (?) in marginal weather was hair raising...!
His description of 2 ship low-level close air-support in a narrow valley in Afghanistan (?) in marginal weather was hair raising...!
Whilst on RAF IOT at Cranwell in 1981- 5 of us were told on Thursday we would be travelling to Dartmouth on Sat to compete in Tri college cross country- We arrived and the RAF SRego who was with us told us the RAF had always come last in this race and the same would happen this time but we were to try hard!
The RN team were all Marine officers who had returned from Artic Warfare to train for the event several weeks earlier- one chap asked me how long we had been training - we only heard on Thursday was the reply - he asked if we had any men with us- we were perplexed till he mentioned that they would never run with enlisted men in the team because if one fell they would have to stop. The Sandhurst team showed up and each one was an Ethiopian officer cadet -yep, we came last by a long way. That night we went into the Dartmouth cadets mess- they appeared to do an 18 month IOT - all in a large barrack block with dawn sailing on the Dart- we were invited ashore for drinks- I returned to Cranwell defeated in the race but with a better appreciation of the different cultures of the services and the relative ease of our 18 week IOT compared to the RN course!
The RN team were all Marine officers who had returned from Artic Warfare to train for the event several weeks earlier- one chap asked me how long we had been training - we only heard on Thursday was the reply - he asked if we had any men with us- we were perplexed till he mentioned that they would never run with enlisted men in the team because if one fell they would have to stop. The Sandhurst team showed up and each one was an Ethiopian officer cadet -yep, we came last by a long way. That night we went into the Dartmouth cadets mess- they appeared to do an 18 month IOT - all in a large barrack block with dawn sailing on the Dart- we were invited ashore for drinks- I returned to Cranwell defeated in the race but with a better appreciation of the different cultures of the services and the relative ease of our 18 week IOT compared to the RN course!
I don't remember much whingeing from them when I was on a TACP, organising RAF MERT to extract them in some unbelievably dangerous situations. So probably not enough said.
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Rather like the meeting of the heads with Maggie on 2nd April 82, where CAS said he couldn’t help, head pongo said he would require 30k troops to retake the islands and 1SL said “We will sail on Monday Ma’am”. (I paraphrase!) And we did. The only SHARs left behind were still on the production line at Dunsfold.
Mog
Mog
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Yes, some of our SAR rearcrew were on the MERT dets and their tales of recovery under fire are hair-raising - maybe TN could just remind us what the RN helicopters were doing at the time?
Rather like the meeting of the heads with Maggie on 2nd April 82, where CAS said he couldn’t help, head pongo said he would require 30k troops to retake the islands and 1SL said “We will sail on Monday Ma’am”. (I paraphrase!) And we did. The only SHARs left behind were still on the production line at Dunsfold.
Mog
Mog
YS
Last edited by Yellow Sun; 13th Apr 2023 at 13:10.
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If we return to the time of the thread, I believe a lot of the problem stemmed from the fact that prior to the war John Knott was about to cut the Navy. So when the war broke out the Navy saw it as a way to prove they were the force that was needed. An example is, what to 72 Sqn became known as Op Headless Chicken. 5 Bde was due to sail along with the Puma Force, until someone at Northwood said Pumas can't operate off ships. Oh so where is there another Wessex Squadron they said. Send 72 they said. So in typical War Film fashion we were all at a Squadron Dining In when the Sqn Cdr was given the message, you're off to war. Over the Easter weekend we all packed and flew from NI back to Benson passing the Pumas going to take over in NI. Engineers worked like beavers to modify our Cabs for the cold weather and we raided stores for war kit having handed it all in when we went to NI. Sqn Cdr went to Northwood for final briefing before embarking, to be told by Admiral Fieldhouse, "You can **** off back to Ireland, I don't want anymore Crabs in my War". We returned to NI, Pumas returned to Odiham, our wife's had had a party and drank all the Booze and the Navy reformed 847 with Wessex that had been in storage and with aircrew that had been in Desk Jobs. So from the very top it was seen as a Navy war and they didn't need any help from anyone and certainly not a fully operational RAF squadron!
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C Met O HQSTC rang me [I was P Met O 1 Group Bawtry]. "The bastards have invaded the Falklands!"
Me: "What are my orders sir [or some such humble stance]?"
C Met O: "Nobody appears to have a plan. Just stay near the phone".
I can confirm the RAF "We have no plan" scenario from an oblique source.
C Met O HQSTC rang me [I was P Met O 1 Group Bawtry]. "The bastards have invaded the Falklands!"
Me: "What are my orders sir [or some such humble stance]?"
C Met O: "Nobody appears to have a plan. Just stay near the phone".
C Met O HQSTC rang me [I was P Met O 1 Group Bawtry]. "The bastards have invaded the Falklands!"
Me: "What are my orders sir [or some such humble stance]?"
C Met O: "Nobody appears to have a plan. Just stay near the phone".
YS
Last edited by Yellow Sun; 13th Apr 2023 at 16:35.
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With the best will in the world LB, but 42 Sqn deployed to Ascension, not on the spur of the moment, but to an operating base with which they were acquainted and visited on a regular basis. There may have been no contingency to retake the Falklands but there were plans in place to operate in the South Atlantic and it was some of these that were activated. I doubt that the C Met O would have been aware of any relevant contingency plans, other that in the broadest terms.
YS
YS
Certainly Met support for S hemisphere was pretty crude [upper winds were very much based on what previous aircraft had reported].
In a commendably short space of time the numerical model was extended to S hemisphere once the balloon went up. If there were contingency plans to extend south, they did not get much priority before the invasion..
The other area where C Met O should have been in the loop is the involvement of the Mobile Met Office: forecasters holding VR commissions, because he was their head honcho at one star level. I had a fair few MMU staff on my books [eleven stations] and there was precious little excitement in the early days.
But it was a long time ago and I do not trust my memory so I have to claim E & O. E!