Hugh McManners - Falklands Commando

Each night we hoped for news of the big push going in, only the learn that the positions on Mount Kent were being ‘consolidated’, or that messages were being dropped by canister on the Argie troops urging them in Spanish to surrender. We would debate every night (as we’d done continually throughout the campaign) as to when they would finally see sense and give up.

I spoke to Rod Bell, the Spanish speaker, afterwards as we sailed home, and he said that the leaflets dropped by the Harriers were in ‘BBC’ Spanish, which few of the Argie soldiers were likely to understand. Those who did he said would find the phraseology amusing rather than frightening, awe-inspiring or morale-sapping.

We could hear continual shelling day and night, particularly from the enemies’ big 155mm field guns. There was also a lot of aircraft activity, with the sounds of jets and anti-aircraft fire coming from Stanley (we hoped Brit Harriers on bombing missions). Helicopters were flying both day and night in our area – which we knew were enemy. On several occasions the enemy 155s pumped a few shells in our direction – but not near enough for serious concern.

We’d lost radio contact with everyone. Our patrols could talk to us but were remaining silent – the usual situation, and they wouldn’t transmit until they had something to report. We could not communicate back to Fearless even using CW (Carrier Wave, using morse code), because the local conditions were bad and the operator on board could only get bits of our messages. We spent night after night wandering around trying from different positions.

With HF radio it’s purely luck when you happen upon a place where you can get through. Twenty paces could turn loud mush into clear, bell-like transmission. The land-based radio nets, which were much closer to us than Fearless , were using the same radio sets as us and we knew where (roughly) they were so we could orientate our radio antennae. They’d become much clearer, maybe from having moved closer, until we finally succeeded in getting through. Unfortunately we did not have the correct codes for their nets, but they did send our coded messages on to the ship. By this convoluted method we were able to hand on the information that we thought our area was probably clear to enemy and that, when we were certain, we’d report.

The patrols were finding absolutely nothing, so we called them back in, assuming that the Argie helos we’d heard must have been withdrawing their troops into an Argentine ‘Fortress Stanley’. The patrols came tramping in the next night, and having run out of food ransacked the cache. Our message, that we had completed our evolution and the area was clear, was coded up and sent along with a request to be extracted.

Such was the pressure on helicopters being used to lift stores, mostly artillery ammunition, that we had to wait three days before they came to get us. We’d eaten all the food and were imagining hot showers and food on plates while we sucked our last Rollos and nibbled biscuits AB.

When the helos finally came, it was to a grid 1500 metres too far north. When we failed to appear, they went away and it was only through having firm words on the radio with the helo tasking agency, and messages down the tortuous communication chain back to the ship, that we persuaded them to have another go at picking us up. Thankfully the same helicopter sortie returned, having refuelled in the interim, or we could easily have spent another three days waiting. As soon as their engines were faintly audible, we abandoned caution and any attempts at concealment, letting off orange smoke-canisters to ensure their attention.

Two Sea Kings arrived, one carrying the SBS OC Jonathan Thomson and his RSM, plus various other members of the SBS. Andy and a few others, less their bergens, were mysteriously taken on board and without explanation the Sea King took off. The rest of us started loading kit and men onto the second aircraft, which lurched upward and shuddered off at shoulder height, hugging the ground.

I clambered aboard the third Sea King, which took off and screamed northwards very, very low, following every valley and hillock. We had no idea whether we were going to a ship at sea or in Bomb Alley, or a trench or tent in San Carlos or Teal Inlet. Someone attracted (very carefully) the pilot’s attention. He said San Carlos, so we all hoped that meant Intrepid and a shower, dhobi and hot food, rather than the shore-based option. I was very pleased to see her familiar dock and flat arse-end, and the marshaller waving us down.

The flight had taken 30 minutes, over Salvador and Teal. When we’d gone out on Operation Brewers Arms all these areas had been hostile, to be flown over only at night at very low altitude. Now the helos flew over by day. So although the war was not yet over as we’d hoped it might have been by now, we’d clearly progressed.

The same familiar friendly faces were as usual at the Flyco window over-looking the flight-deck. Roy Laney waved, and welcomed us back over the flight deck tannoy. But our happiness was short-lived.

The mysterious extra Sea King that had taken Andy and some of the boys off first, had been going to San Carlos Settlement with a coffin on board for a funeral. ‘Kiwi’ Hunt, one of the SBS’ most experienced recce team leaders, had been killed during another operation, and they’d picked up his closer friends to take them to the sad ceremony. It was a bitter moment, particularly when we learned how it had happened. Kiwi’s team had been dropped off in the wrong place by a Navy helicopter. Then while trying to locate themselves, they’d been ambushed by an SAS patrol.

That night, in Intrepid’s ravaged gunroom-cum-operating-theatre, we tried to have a wake for Kiwi. It didn’t really work. We were all too tired to do more than drink a can or two of lager each. Andy asked for silence: “I don’t know what to say…..I’ve never done this before, and I hope I don’t have to do it again. A toast please… an absent friend, Kiwi Hunt.”

There was complete silence for some twenty long seconds. Then someone said to me, “Well, which ship are you going home on then, boss?” I said, firmly into the silence, “ QE2 . No doubt about it.” As I spoke, and it was a real wrench to try to make the feeble joke, talking burst out spontaneously around us.

The evening of our return to Intrepid at the end of Operation Brewers Arms, Roy Laney had greeted me in the wardroom with the news that I’d just missed seeing my younger brother Peter by 24 hours. Lieutenant Peter McManners at that time was one of the troop commanders in 9 Parachute Squadron Royal Engineers, and had come south in the QE2 , before transferring to Canberra at South Georgia. He’d spent the last night before being put ashore at San Carlos, on board Intrepid . His troop had originally been attached to the Welsh Guards, but to Peter’s great relief (after a disagreement with their Commanding Officer during their last exercise in UK) had been transferred to the Scots Guards, with whom he remained. Roy had recognised our family similarity and introduced himself.

Although we never actually met whilst in the South Atlantic, I heard of Peter from several people throughout the campaign. It was rather a strange feeling to know that Peter was so close and yet out of contact. There was no reason or likelihood that we would meet in the normal course of events. I knew he would do his job well and could only hope that nothing bad was going to happen to him. There was no time for me to worry – but my mother, having her two sons bobbing about in the South Atlantic involved in mysterious military activities, had all the time in the world for that. It was very hard for both my parents, especially when the landings started and news and information dried up. All relatives were told at that point, not to expect to hear anything from us, as we would no longer be able to write. This very sensible advice brought to those at home the enormity of the transition from preparedness to actual combat.