Hugh McManners - Falklands Commando

Voluntary PT was at 0830 for an hour: running round the flight deck with a series of exercises and games on the upper decks. Sweaty, in now-ragged t-shirts and dirty shorts, we repaired to the aft concert room where coffee would be served out of an urn, in plastic cups with biscuits. Next door the souvenir shop continued as normal, selling Canberra t-shirts, logo’d hats, ashtrays, expensive silk scarves and perfumes. Further along there was a constant queue for the ship’s barber, who was fighting a losing battle trying to cut everyone’s hair. He was more used to doing expensive ladies’ styling than hundreds of short back and sides.

Looking after Canterbury Court, we were extremely fortunate to have an extremely pretty blonde stewardess, who from time to time brought us tea and cakes in true P&O cruising style. She seemed to like pirates, and was looking forward to a long grape-picking holiday in the South of France. If I’d been thinking straight, I’d have made an immediate offer to drive her down there – but I wasn’t, and that’s another one of my life’s many regretted missed opportunities.

But we had also to write our ‘post-operation’ reports, which were required to be completed before the ship docked. This was a bore but necessary, and kept us busy and out of trouble.

Everyone had been doing their own thing for some three months. We’d become even more independent than before which, given the nature of our unit, was problematic. It was important that the unit be reintegrated by the time we got home, as the first stage of our ‘normalisation’. We could no longer indulge our preferences and idiosyncrasies. This change caused friction. We were also not prepared as a small unit to be inconvenienced by the central organisation of the ship, which started out trying to control aspects of life that didn’t really warrant controlling. In short, we were a prickly group of people, very united against the outside world, and also pretty fractious within our own ranks.

Bob Harmes’ cabin was directly under the promenade deck along which the running took place. There was a rule that you were not allowed to run before and after certain times. Someone regularly ignored this rule and, to make matters worse, wore boots. I went into Bob’s cabin one evening to find him lying on his bed with his pistol in his hand staring intently at the ceiling. “I’m going to get that bugger the next time he comes round.”

When Canberra finally sailed for the UK, the officer of the watch announced over the tannoy, in the usual P&O cruising style, details of where we would be going and how long it would take. The ship would sail to Ascension Island, where some people would be helicoptered ashore to fly back to the UK by RAF VC10, and where others would be flown on, including an MoD equipment-evaluation team (better late than never we supposed).

But most importantly, there was to be a complete cabaret troupe courtesy of the Combined Services Entertainment organisation. This was rumoured to include a number of female dancers and singers, and so generated lively interest.

Canberra was not going to stop at Ascension but press on to UK at best speed, with helicopters flying off and on along the way with, we hoped, a lot of mail. The days were made busy with various jobs and diversions, but as all we wanted to do was get home, the voyage dragged.

Every night there’d be figures leaning philosophically on the rail watching the wake, ignoring others carrying sacks, who surreptitiously threw things into the water. The inevitable clamp down on ‘gizzets’ was still producing Colt 45s, grenades, overlooked ammunition (I discovered a full pistol-magazine in the bottom of my bergen the night before we docked) and other dubious things that people were quietly lobbing into the waves.

Our thoughts, as we sailed north into the tropics, past Ascension Island and back into the known world, were focused on returning home. But there was also the realisation of a unique experience which we’d survived that was suddenly coming to an end. We were professional soldiers, and regarded what we’d done as a job for which we’d trained, which, because it’s what we always did, was therefore nothing out of the ordinary.

As far as we were concerned, the Falklands were now somebody else’s problem. Having spent so many long hours thinking through difficult problems and carrying out our operations, we gave no further thought to the Islands, their inhabitants, or the troops that were now being sent in as the protective garrison.

But of course, it’s the aftermath of every war that presents the biggest problems. How to rebuild after the mayhem, and avoid the same thing happening again? There were also serious issues facing units who’d been involved in the various disasters of the campaign, the greatest being the so-called ‘Bluff Cove’ bombing of the Welsh Guards, which in fact took place in the Fitzroy Roads.

My own disaster with the killing of the three Falkland women, apart from Colonel Keith Eve telling me how badly the house had been damaged, and Battery Sergeant Major Jock Malcolm telling me what had happened on the ship, was never mentioned again, and I don’t know to what extent other people were aware that I was responsible. So although the aftermath of this terrible tragedy seemed as though it would not require me to endure a Board of Enquiry or any other sort of investigation (at least nothing of which I was aware), the same was not going to be true for others.

C anberra made her landfall with the coast of England off the Royal Naval Air Station of Culdrose in Cornwall. Sea King helicopters from the base flew out to the ship bringing various people, like 29 Commando Regiment’s Commanding Officer Lt Colonel Mike Holroyd Smith – ‘HS’, who’d flown back to the UK from Ascension. Several of the newsmen who had gone down to the Falklands on Canberra were flown on too, bringing videos of news footage they had taken to show us.

We assembled in Canberra’s William Fawcett Room to hear from HS of the arrangements for the disembarkation on the morrow. He had some well-chosen words to say to us:

“There’s going to be a welcome for us at Southampton as you never saw before – certainly nothing like it since the end of the Second World War. I know for certain that several of you are being met by parents and girlfriends, and I’ll give those people details afterwards.

You should be aware that the folks at home have been under a very great strain, far more than you realise, and in many ways a greater strain than we’ve been under. I arrived home last week, having flown from Ascension, and found my family looking very drawn and tired. You will have to be careful and aware with your families, and go easy on them because they’ve been through a lot of worry.

We’ve got coaches coming down from Poole with your families aboard. Those not actually being met can travel to Poole on these coaches, but of course you are free to do what you like.

I understand that several hotels in the city are offering free rooms, dinners, etc for us and I’ve got the list here.

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to ask you all to come back to work on Monday morning. There’s an awful lot to do – as I’m sure you realise, and I want to get it done next week so we can get away on leave. Although we haven’t worked it all out yet, you should get at least six weeks.

I would also ask you to go carefully with the blokes who didn’t come down with us. They will be feeling very left out of things. Just remember it wasn’t their fault that they didn’t come along, and they’re just as good as you lot, but haven’t got the tales to tell.”

My parents were coming down to Southampton to meet me. All the arrangements had been made by the 148 Battery rear party, who’d been doing an excellent job keeping everyone informed, and had organised the coaches to bring the families down to the dockside. They’d also been covering all our normal work and training commitments as best they could, in our absence.