Harry Benson - Scram!

‘Yes, I’m just stuck,’ came the reply.

Freeing themselves from their own tangle, neither crewman was able to reach the emergency exit above them. This time movement was almost comically restrained by their goon suits, the tight waterproof immersion suits they wore to keep them dry in the event of a ditching in the sea. One of the taller SAS troopers finally reached up to the yellow and red handle and jettisoned the bubble windows above them. The gaggle of thirteen men scrambled out one by one. There was some concern that the aircraft might either disappear down into a crevasse or burst into flames at any minute. So it was with considerable bravery that Lomas and Wilson managed to clamber up onto the fuselage, past the steaming exhaust, and reach down to free a smiling and grateful Georgeson. As luck would have it, the only minor injury was to the very same SAS staff sergeant who had been injured in the first crash. He now had a matching pair of identical injuries from two crashes within ten minutes.

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.

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 .