In my most recent Insight, I referred to “Truth, Honesty and Integrity”. During my time as the Sea Harrier Desk Officer in the MOD and, later, as the Air Warfare Adviser to the First Sea Lord, I was exposed to a litany of lies and untruths in Staff Papers emanating from MOD/Air and it was part of my Desk’s remit to provide formal comment on the same.
Prior to that, I had spent several years in the frontline flying the F-4K Phantom with the Fleet Air Arm, much of it embarked in the HMS Ark Royal. We operated with and against our RAF counterparts in many NATO and National exercises, often involving such excellent outfits as Wing Commander Hank Martin and his 43 Squadron “Fighting Cocks”. During this period I maintained the highest regard for the RAF fighter pilots in the frontline. I had held this regard since my very early days and my upbringing in an RAF family (The Son of a Crab, as my Naval colleagues initially christened me – a nickname I wore with pride).
That regard was strongly reinforced through my Basic Flying Training and, later, through my conversion to the Harrier at RAF Wittering, where professionalism, honesty and integrity ruled the day. Later and during my time in command of the Sea Harrier world, I welcomed the arrival and assistance of several outstanding RAF Harrier pilots. These jump-jet maestros contributed significantly to the safe conduct of VSTOL operations in my 3 squadrons and were largely responsible for the accident-free introduction of the Sea Harrier to service, for which I am eternally grateful. Flight Lieutenant Bertie Penfold joined us on commissioning as the Squadron Qualified Flying Instructor. He was followed in quick time by Flight Lieutenants Ian Mortimer and Paul Barton who excelled as Sea Harrier Display Pilots and ground attack aficionados. Others such as Flight Lieutenant Ted Ball joined us in their wake and all of them earned my full trust and respect in very quick time.
Imagine my surprise in 1979 when I was exposed to a cascade of unprofessional and disingenuous statements and Papers generated by the upper echelons of the RAF in the Ministry of Defence.
It was part of my job to provide objective comment on sister-service Air Department procurement requirements. Two major projects persuaded me to speak truth to power and to openly question their efficacy and operational utility through the medium of formal Directorate of Naval Air Warfare Staff Papers.
The first concerned the Multi-Role Combat Aircraft, Tornado – over 300 aircraft being procured at enormous cost for the Cold War Air Defence role (ADV) and the Ground Attack and Reconnaissance role (GR). MOD/Air had produced a Paper for Ministers claiming that the ADV could provide 24/7 fighter air defence of Fleet units at sea out to a range of 700 nautical miles from shore-based airfields. (This was in line with their arguments which led to the ill-informed 1966/7 carrier decision.) My formal Paper attacked this claim as being false and, using official data, demonstrated that the ADV utilising all the UK’s supporting Air to Air Refuelling tankers could not even provide such Fleet defence out to 400 miles and probably much less. MOD/Air could not fault my figures or my logic and so they resorted to telling Ministers, “We are the Royal Air Force. We are the experts in air warfare. We can do what we say we can do.” Our Ministers believed this propaganda and the oversized ADV procurement program was allowed to go ahead. As we now know, land-based tactical fighter aircraft utility and availability soon proved to be non-existent during the Falklands War.
The second Project was directly linked to the Tornado GR program. It was for the procurement of the JP 233 Runway Denial Weapon System, costing approximately £10 billion in the late 70s. I explained in a formal Paper that to deliver this weapon over and along a Soviet or Warsaw Pact runway, the Tornado GR would have to fly at very low level and high speed down the length of the runway. Importantly, and having a very poor radius of action, the Tornado GR would always have to rely on slow speed Air to Air Refuelling whilst penetrating the Soviet frontline in order to reach its targets. That frontline had sophisticated surface to air weapon systems all the way along the front and, target airfields themselves also had a multitude of extremely effective air defence weapon systems. It was very clear that the Tornado GR and associated tanking aircraft would be highly vulnerable to such air defence systems and would not survive. MoD/Air again professed disingenuously to Ministers that I was wrong and that they could do the job. But I was proven to be correct later during Operation Desert Storm when 7 Tornado GR aircraft were lost attempting to deliver the JP 233 weapon over Iraqi airfields where air defences were minimal by comparison. The £10 billion weapon system was never deployed again – an enormous waste of defence budget funds that should have been avoided.
These were not the only projects that I criticized or disagreed with, and the end result of my endeavours was that in the 80s the Royal Air Force openly christened me personally as their “Number One Enemy”. This was the start of a prolonged “hate campaign” against me – just for being professionally objective. Nobody else was speaking truth to power and this deafening silence enabled the MOD/Air lack of honesty and integrity to continue up to the present day.
This is now manifold in the plethora of RAF-related public relations initiatives to exaggerate the part played by them in the Falklands air war. The 40th anniversary is nearly upon us and there is a clear intent to mislead the public concerning their participation. Repainting Typhoon fighter aircraft in Union Jack colours at considerable cost and flying them over the white cliffs of Dover is a clear example of this deception. No land-based tactical RAF fighters took part in the War and to continue to suggest otherwise is shameful and arguably dishonourable.
The same should be said about the disingenuous efforts of many RAF aficionados who, in book form, podcasts and planned documentaries, distort the truth about the Falklands air war. A fine example of this is the book, “Harrier 809”. It plagiarizes and then modifies (with Boy’s Own-style fabrication) the authentic accounts of air combat as related in my own book, “Sea Harrier over the Falklands”. That is not my overriding concern now. What is of concern is that the book acts as a platform for glorifying and exaggerating the importance of the many failed attempts by the RAF to be seen to be engaged in the fighting war. The Nimrod and a Canberra aircraft deployed to Chile failed to provide any intelligence concerning the conduct of the war and never entered the Total Exclusion Zone – presumably because there was too much risk attached to that. Despite their failures, these 2 initiatives are lauded at considerable length within “Harrier 809” even though their contribution to the air war was a big fat zero.
No, I do not hate the RAF, but I despise those at high level who are willing to resort to lies and deceit in order to perpetuate their own self-aggrandisement/existence – and at direct cost to the availability of weapon systems for the other 2 Services.
If we Brits want to patrol and/or engage or confront in overseas territories, a Carrier group is essential, and a priority. To those who decry Carriers as outmoded, I merely point to the Super Powers of the USA and now China, who have such forces at the centre of their forward planning. Are they too “outmoded”? A carrier Group is, in effect, a completely mobile armed force of soldiers (Marines) , Ships and Aircraft. The RAF can only operate from a firm secure base. Even though they may refuel in the air, they can neither re-stock or re-ammunition in the air nor carry out any essential servicing/repairs. In other words they are “grounded” until a base is constructed.
Dead on the money Sharkey, it’s a worry that politicians were taken in by them, but not much changes! Looking forward to seeing you in June.
If we Brits want to patrol and/or engage or confront in overseas territories, a Carrier group is essential, and a priority.
To those who decry Carriers as outmoded, I merely point to the Super Powers of the USA and now China, who have such forces at the centre of their forward planning. Are they too “outmoded”?
A carrier Group is, in effect, a completely mobile armed force of soldiers (Marines) , Ships and Aircraft.
The RAF can only operate from a firm secure base. Even though they may refuel in the air, they can neither re-stock or re-ammunition in the air nor carry out any essential servicing/repairs. In other words they are “grounded” until a base is constructed.