Ambush of a Harrier
The 20th of May did not bring any major change. The soaked Commandos gathered up their disordered and even damaged kit to load it into the helicopters, where at least the pilots and ground crew had been spared the full force of the elements. But this difference in comfort was accepted by all, since it was in the troops’ interest that the pilots should remain as clear-headed as possible. They were on the slopes of Mount Rosalía. Only at about ten in the morning did things improve a little and, despite the risk of colliding with some rise in the ground, the helicopters took off; after fifteen minutes of flying practically blind, they had to set down again. A new opportunity around midday took them to an abandoned little house to the south — Rosalie House — where they landed with all the security measures appropriate to the warning that had brought them there. At about two in the afternoon the weather cleared, and half an hour later they finally arrived at Port Howard, thirty kilometres away. The operation was carried out late in relation to the original warning about the possible presence of the enemy, based on signals detected four days earlier. Even so, Major Castagneto detached two Puma helicopters — each carrying a section — to reconnoitre to the north and north-west of Howard, to a depth of fifteen kilometres, which produced no visible results. Nor was it the first time the Commandos had been used, as they said, “to chase sheep”…
There was little daylight left, and 601 Commando Company prepared to spend the night in the settlement, which was occupied by 5th Infantry Regiment. At that point Major Yanzi, in charge of the four helicopters, decided to return to refuel. Castagneto had argued, in front of General Parada, commander of 3rd Brigade, and Lieutenant Colonel Reveand, commander of the Helicopter Company, that those aircraft had to remain with the Commandos and must not deprive them of mobility. Castagneto and Reveand became embroiled in a heated argument: the helicopter commander cited the risks, and the Commando commander replied that in war everything was risky, and that even a shoot-down was compatible with the missions they were carrying out:
“Much more than the dollars a helicopter may be worth, the life of one of my Commandos is worth, and he may need that aircraft!” exclaimed an enraged Castagneto.
But no reasoning could change Lieutenant Colonel Reveand’s stance, and Major Yanzi set off back to the capital, leaving the Company isolated at Howard, completely cut off from the likely British landing areas on Gran Malvina Islando (East Falkland). That night the forty men bivouacked in a shearing shed near the rudimentary jetty, where part of a section of Engineers was also billeted. There they endured the rigours of atrocious cold, made worse by a constant wind that intensified it, and by the damp that seeped up through the gaps in the floorboards.
At first light on Friday 21st, Captain Frecha went to identify the dominant points from which to establish the anti-aircraft ambush, which was set up near the command post of 5th Regiment, in the centre of the settlement, practically along a fence that divided two fields. At Port Howard the regiment’s only anti-aircraft defence consisted of .50 calibre (12.7 mm) machine guns, with limited effective range: eight hundred metres at most. The Blowpipe missiles, by contrast, were effective out to three thousand metres. Although that Infantry Regiment was deployed there with two sections from 3rd Engineer Company and elements of 3rd Signals Company, up to that point Howard had lived a life similar — as Castagneto put it — to that of “a quiet summer afternoon in some Argentine province”.
Further south, at the mouth of Malvinas Strait (Falkland Sound), 8th Infantry Regiment with 9th Engineer Company was encamped at Fox Bay. The Commandos’ anti-aircraft group took up position one hundred and fifty metres from the water, near where A Company was located, in the following order: Captain Ricardo Frecha towards the bay area, near a peat store; then First Lieutenant Sergio Fernández; and then Corporal Jorge Martínez as aiming unit no. 3, each one separated by twenty metres. Fernández remained unhappy in that team because, as the commander of an assault section and eager to lead it in war, he had had to give up that role in the interests of the whole. He felt frustrated in the ambition of his entire life: he was a mere aimer, performing a task that, in his view, could have been carried out by a non-commissioned officer…
But the role of the man in charge of a surface-to-air missile is not as subordinate as this officer, in his state of mind, made it out to be. First, the aimer must place himself along the likely line of flight the aircraft will take, given the characteristics of the terrain; and secondly he must stand fully exposed, without any protection, in order to fire as nearly head-on as possible, since, owing to the aircraft’s speed, the missile is hard to guide effectively if it passes across the front: beyond three thousand metres it becomes uncontrollable.
With the sun up, at about quarter past eight, the sound of helicopter rotors began to be heard. At first the Commandos thought they were friendly, because they were coming from the direction of Darwin–Goose Green; but shortly afterwards they spotted, far off over the Sound, an aircraft that was clearly overflying the area on a reconnaissance mission, which Argentine helicopters did not do, as they took the most direct route. Half an hour later it approached Shag Cove — a nearby inlet — and any doubts were dispelled: it was an armed British Lynx. It remained there for quite some time and then left relatively close by, at about four kilometres, but beyond the range of ground fire.
The Company commander went to the central communications post to establish contact with Port Stanley and find out whether the aircraft would be hunted. The sound of jet engines was then heard. It could only be an enemy aircraft, and First Lieutenant Fernández thought immediately: “We are going into action.” He looked at his watch: it was five minutes to ten. They quickly took up their firing positions, aiming to the south-east towards the far end of the bay (four kilometres away), from an excellent location with a wide field of fire. As it came into clearer view, all doubt vanished: it was the unmistakable silhouette of a Harrier, with its two wide air intakes and swept wings. It was approaching on a slightly oblique course, possibly to observe the coast better, and when it was three thousand metres away, Frecha and Fernández opened fire. The two missiles shot off in parallel, simultaneously, towards the target.
The aircraft was flying low over the water, twenty metres above the surface, when it suddenly banked to its right, towards the opposite shore closing the bay. The pilot had seen the attack and was manoeuvring evasively, and it looked as though he were about to smash into the heights on the far side of the bay. But after some three hundred metres on that heading, and without reducing speed, he changed course and flew at low altitude over Howard. The incredible manoeuvrability of the aircraft meant that the two missiles exploded along the strip of shore running beside the Sound. As it flew over the settlement, the men of 5th Regiment, taken by surprise, did not manage to fire at it, and the aircraft disappeared behind the hills inland.
The three men handling the missiles were relatively close to one another so they could communicate without radios, as both their hands were occupied. Close by stood Major Mario Castagneto, who had come to join them, also in the open. “Those were moments when you had to set an example,” he explained to me. Four or five minutes later, a second Harrier appeared from the same direction as its partner. As everyone was now on full alert, it was observed more carefully. Its approach seemed endless to the anti-aircraft team tracking it through their sights. They tried to ensure an accurate shot by letting it come closer, since the further away it was, the more chance it had to evade the missiles. They felt the twenty-one kilos’ weight of the Blowpipes, which had now been reloaded.
The aircraft was coming in more head-on than the previous one, flying low, at around seven hundred and fifty kilometres per hour, enough to allow it to manoeuvre comfortably around the hills. Despite the aimers’ composure, through the sight it looked enormous, very close. When the Harrier began to turn side-on, at a thousand metres, Frecha and Fernández fired their missiles almost diagonally. A moment later and the shot would have been inaccurate. Because of a technical fault in his missile — which veered out of control towards some houses — Captain Frecha had to bring it down, and it fell some twenty-five metres away (it later had to be blown up). Corporal Martínez had not fired. But First Lieutenant Sergio Fernández had, and an explosion briefly hid the enemy aircraft from sight.
“I have that instant image seared into my mind,” recalls Fernández, “the explosion and the nose of the aircraft emerging from it.” Once the guidance phase of the missile was over, he lowered the weapon to see the whole picture and assess the effect of his shot. Disappointed, he saw that the Harrier was still flying, “and it had not disintegrated in the air like confetti”. But it began to trail smoke, to roll, and a fraction of a second later its pilot ejected and his orange-and-white parachute opened. The fighter-bomber continued on its path and then crashed a short distance away, at the bottom of the bay.
Everyone’s excitement was intense: now the infantry had gone into action for the first time, because they were forewarned, and their conduct had been outstanding, given that they were raw conscripts. They fired at the aircraft with every weapon they had, even pistols. The noise of rifle fire was impressive, though of limited effect, with their commander, Colonel Mabragaña, setting the example by firing his FAL standing fully exposed. Shouts of triumph, the characteristic correntino sapucai cries, filled the air, sharply contrasting with the tears of the kelper children, the hysterical outbursts of their mothers and the nervous crises of their fathers, who came out of the houses in which they had taken refuge when the aircraft activity began. Shots were still being fired, because the soldiers, who had fired at the already damaged Harrier, now continued to shoot at the figure of its pilot…
Without losing a second, Major Castagneto and the medical officer, Captain Llanos, jumped on two motorbikes and headed towards the bay where the airman was floating. Officers, NCOs and soldiers ran after them, some shouting as they went for the firing to stop:
“Cease fire! Cease fire! You’re going to hit the pilot!”
Fortunately, the euphoria, the distance and the movement combined to prevent them from hitting him. But the freezing water is merciless, and when Doctor Llanos arrived first by motorbike near the bay and saw the British airman a hundred metres away, he had no option but to watch him, unable to swim out to him in those conditions.
Castagneto had branched off as they left the settlement, heading towards where the aircraft had crashed. At that moment the doctor spotted a boat, and an NCO from 5th Regiment who had reached the shore told him:
“I’ll go and get him!”
Helped by another comrade, the corporal rowed out to the downed pilot and between them managed to haul him aboard. When they reached the shore, several officers from the Commando Company — Llanos, Fernández, García Pinasco, Anadón — dragged him onto the beach along with his parachute and survival gear. The pilot had injuries to his face and a fractured left collarbone, as a result of his violent ejection from an aircraft travelling at full speed and banked over, which had caused him to slam into the side of the cockpit as he came out; he did not even have his helmet, which had shattered on impact. Although he was wearing a flying overall that gave him some protection from the water, he was almost frozen and struggled to speak; but at no point did he lose consciousness, to the extent that Sergio Fernández noticed that, as he sat up to get out of the boat, the pilot rubbed the transparent kneeboard on his right thigh — where aviators make their notes — with his hand, in order to erase the course written there. The Argentine officer managed to memorise the double group of numbers and letters and later reproduced them to report to Port Stanley.
Llanos, with his perfect command of English, identified himself as a doctor and, after asking about his injuries, he and Fernández tried to calm the prisoner:
“Are you okay, are you hurt? Don’t worry, we are friends now; take it easy.”
The pilot, without speaking, nodded with movements of his head. With the help of Staff Sergeant Poggi, they settled him on Llanos’s motorbike, and the doctor told him to hold on to him because he was going to take him to a hospital. Using the international sign used by aviators — thumb raised — the pilot indicated his agreement. First Lieutenant Fernández wrapped him in his jacket and they set off.
Meanwhile, Major Castagneto had headed towards the place where the Harrier had come down, some ten kilometres from Howard. He rode parallel to the narrowing bay, then crossed the river — “those bikes would do anything,” he told me — and, after a further stretch, reached the crash site half an hour later. “The largest piece I found was the wheel,” he said. “I even came to think it might be the remains of an aircraft from another era…”
In its final run, as it broke up against the ground, the aircraft had hit a horse, cleanly severing its neck so that the head lay a good distance from the body. Castagneto loaded all the pieces he could carry, which he thought might be important for intelligence analysis — including the communications equipment — and set off back. It was near midday, and the naval–air battle in San Carlos had already taken place.