Saturday 1 May 1982 was the day when the Falklands Conflict became a reality.
The Task Group suffered its first war casualty – 20-year-old AB Ian Britnell, from Type 21 frigate HMS Arrow, who sustained an injury to his liver when he was struck by shrapnel from a cannon shell when the ship was attacked by Argentine jets during the first bombardment of Stanley.
The sailor was transferred to HMS Hermes, where he was operated on by Principal Medical Officer Surg Cdr J Soul.
Indeed, medical matters were to the fore on 1 May for British forces involved in Operation Corporate, the retaking of the Falkland Islands
Hospital ship HMHS Uganda sailed from Ascension Island on 1 May, in much better shape than when she had left Gibraltar just three days earlier.
Her flight deck had been tested on her passage south, stores were unpacked and shortfalls noted, with further stores ordered to be picked up at Ascension.
Lectures were held to brief personnel on what they might expect – including around 22 Royal Marines bandsmen who would act as medical orderlies and stretcher bearers, as well as lifting moral with musical performances where possible.
Ironically – and sadly – the first person to be treated on board the newly-created NOSH (Naval Ocean-going Hospital Ship) was her master, the British India Steam Navigation Company veteran Brian Biddick.
Capt Biddick was taken seriously ill, and an emergency operation was carried out in the ship’s operating theatre. Uganda then diverted to Sierra Leone to allow Capt Biddick to be airlifted back to the UK before continuing to Ascension.
Less than three weeks later, as Uganda was receiving her first patients from the Conflict – her crew learned that Capt Biddick had died in hospital in Wiltshire.
Arriving at Ascension on this Saturday were the first of eight Sea Harriers of 809 Naval Air Squadron, which landed at Wideawake Airfield after a nine-hour flight from RNAS Yeovilton, refuelling in mid-air from RAF Victor tankers.
The Sea Harriers remained at Ascension to await the arrival of RAF GR3 attack aircraft, and their ‘taxi’ south – container ship SS Atlantic Conveyor.
But above all else, Saturday 1 May was the day that the shooting started around the Falklands.
Warships of the Carrier Battle Group began to enforce the Total Exclusion Zone, and were quickly into their stride in seeking out enemy ships and beginning to test and soften up Argentine defences ashore.
By mid-morning, destroyer HMS Glamorgan and frigates HMS Alacrity and HMS Arrow were sent inshore to bombard Stanley airfield while frigates HMS Brilliant and HMS Yarmouth went off to investigate reports of a submarine, supported by Sea Kings of 826 NAS.
The RAF landed the first blow against Argentine forces in the Falklands, as a lone B2 Vulcan bomber, which had taken off from Ascension just before midnight on Operation Black Buck 1, continued its seven-hour flight south, refuelling five times en route – the RAF Victor tankers were supported by their compatriots in a complicated pattern of refuelling sessions.
The Vulcan, carrying 21 1,000lb bombs, dropped them just before 0800 in a stick at an angle across the airfield at Stanley, one of them hitting the centre of the runway, although the damage was repaired in a day or so.
The bomber, which had approached Stanley virtually undetected, returned safely to Ascension mid-afternoon after a flight of almost 8,000 miles.
That was merely the overture to a day of intense air activity which ended with British forces firmly in the ascendancy.
The Vulcan raid was followed up by a three-pronged carrier-launched attack, two on Stanley and one on Goose Green, by Sea Harriers from the Carrier Battle Group flagship HMS Hermes (800 Naval Air Squadron), while just before dawn HMS Invincible sent up the first Combat Air Patrol (CAP) mission of the day.
The bombing raids caused widespread damage to buildings and equipment, and one taxiing Pucara aircraft was hit by shrapnel, its pilot killed
These two aircraft carried out a reconnaissance run past the newly-bombed Stanley airfield then continued their patrol.
From around midday onwards Sea Harrier pilots were in regular contact with Argentine aircraft, some of which broke off rapidly at the first sniff of a Sea Harrier, others which fired missiles and cannon at the British fighters but almost all of which missed (though there were one or two close shaves).
Brilliant and Yarmouth were the target of a clutch of turbo-prop aircraft that managed to take off from Stanley loaded with bombs, but when intercepted by Sea Harriers they ditched their munitions and headed back to the airfield.
The three Royal Navy ships bombarding Stanley from a distance of three miles were attacked by Dagger aircraft, all three sustaining minor damage, but one of the aircraft was shot down by an air-to-air missile – the pilot was Lt Jose Ardiles, cousin of Spurs and Argentina footballer Osvaldo Ardiles. Lt Ardiles was the first Argentine pilot to die in air-to-air combat in the conflict
The naval bombardment was maintained until after midnight.
When the first day of sustained combat between the two nations was assessed, the British were far the happier.
Argentina had lost or suffered serious damage to at least four of around 25 aircraft (Mirages, Daggers, Skyhawks and Canberras) launched from the mainland to attack the British task force, and no significant damage had been done to any ships. One Mirage, damaged by a Sea Harrier missile, had been shot down by Argentine troops as it limped into Stanley, killing the pilot.
There was no confirmation of whether an Argentine submarine had indeed been a threat, but if there was a submarine it would have been subjected to a fearsome attack.
The attacks also kept Argentinian military leaders guessing over where and when the landings might take place – assaulting Stanley certainly opened up that possibility in the enemy’s mind.
And somewhere in amongst the mayhem in the skies and ashore, British special forces landed on the islands to help draw up a picture of the strength and position of Argentine defences.
Today’s image, from the Imperial War Museum collection (© IWM FKD 1196), shows four Fleet Air Arm Sea harriers flying in close formation over the Falkland Islands in 1982. To see more of the Museum’s excellent collection, see https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections
* These posts can only give a brief sense of what was a complex and fast-moving situation 40 years ago, and cannot cover the involvement of every ship, squadron and unit in detail – for a much more comprehensive account see naval-history.net at https://www.naval-history.net/NAVAL1982FALKLANDS.htm
