Dear Stephen Prince,
It was my loss not to have been able to share a platform with you at the Royal Navy Association celebration on the 18th. Covid intervened but I was very fortunate when Commander Robin Kent stepped in to fill my shoes and did so in commendable fashion.
Afterwards, he voiced his concern to me about one of your remarks whilst you were setting the scene. That is to say, your statement that “the Black Buck raids affected the course of the war by persuading the Argentine high command to move squadrons of Mirage III fighters from southern Argentina North to protect Buenos Aires”. It is important for all of us to be aware that detailed research both in the UK and in Argentina (the latter by much-respected Argentinian military historians such as Santiago Rivas) completely debunk this claim which was put forward disingenuously by RAF wishful thinking. You might wish to read Lieutenant-Colonel Ewen Southby-Tailyour’s excellent paper on this issue which is available as a PDF at this link:
STANLEY RUNWAY and the BLACK BUCK RAIDS 1982
This wishful thinking/propaganda represents an attempt to rewrite history and to exaggerate the limited effective combat participation played by the RAF in Operation Corporate. This in turn tends to distort the relative importance and value of UK’s diverse military air combat assets, most of which are tactical rather than strategic. I hope you will find the following first-hand review of associated events down south useful.
On 1 May 1982, several waves of Mirage III fighter aircraft sparred with the Sea Harriers of my squadron, 801 NAS in Invincible. The Mirages conducted slashing attacks against pairs of my aircraft over East Falkland but, for the most part, turned away and ran for home before they were engaged in full combat. On each such occasion, they ditched their centreline fuel tanks to ensure a speedy getaway. This was critical to their later employment because they ran out of spare fuel tanks and without them no longer had the range to intercept Sea Harriers defending the Carrier Battle Group and, later, San Carlos Water. Eventually, when they did engage in full combat before close of play on the first of May, two of them were shot down by my Sea Harriers who made full use of the aircraft’s very capable air intercept and air combat weapon system. This success persuaded the Argentine high command to order its fighter aircraft to avoid Sea Harrier engagement at all costs. This deterrence by Sea Harrier had marked impact and success throughout the course of the air war.
Ascribing this deterrence success to the Black Buck raids is a most serious error when it comes to historical authenticity and when evaluating the part played by the RAF and indeed the Fleet Air Arm in the Falklands air war. In the air-to-air war, the RAF played no part with Sea Harrier formally being credited with 25 kills and none against. In the air war in general Her Majesty’s Warships accounted for approximately a further 25 kills. Despite early post war claims to the contrary, the deployed RAF Regiment Rapier squadron achieved zero kills; half of one kill over San Carlos was credited to the Rapier of T-33 Army battery. The Vulcan bombing raids failed to interdict the runway at Port Stanley where normal operations continued throughout the conflict. The only positive RAF contributions to Operation Corporate Warfighting were the relatively small number of combat missions flown by RAF ground attack Harriers operating from our carriers and the logistic support provided by the lone Chinook helicopter (not forgetting the important Hercules resupply flights from Ascension).
In the light of all the above, it is rather disappointing to hear the Naval Historical Branch playing along to the tune of the RAF propaganda machine.
This is highly relevant to the present defence debate in Whitehall, including the ongoing Defence Select Committee Aviation Procurement Inquiry. Allow me to explain further.
By the time the Task Force had set sail in 1982, the Ministry of Defence had contrived to provide the Fleet with a strictly limited number of Sea Harrier aircraft procured solely with the intention of “Hacking the Shadower”. The RAF had promised Ministers that they would provide air defence for the Fleet throughout the oceans of the world. They failed miserably to do so, leaving air defence of our Naval and land forces down south in the hands of just 20 Sea Harrier jump jets and our surface warships (the latter operating in landlocked waters for which their major weapon systems were not designed). This is why it was a close-run thing.
40 years on, a strikingly similar situation has arisen. We have two aircraft carriers in our Fleet but without any fully designated Air Group fighter squadrons. Administrative and operational control of all UK’s F-35B fighters is held by the land-based Royal Air Force – who continue to fight against the procurement of an adequate number of F-35s to fulfill the Air Group needs of our two capital warships. At the same time and significantly, the RAF has embarked upon the quest for yet another expensive land-based fighter aircraft, the Tempest, without requiring the new aircraft to be fully carrier-capable. Should an adequate number of Fleet Air Arm F-35s not be procured and the misguided Tempest Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program be allowed to go ahead without being fully carrier-capable, Britain’s declared Strategic Maritime Policy and the power projection utility of our carriers will be severely prejudiced – once more a Fleet without adequate embarked fighter air defence, the latter being a key part of the integrated Fleet Weapon System.
RAF propaganda, so tenaciously supported by King’s College London land-based airpower Academics, misguidedly claiming that the Black Buck raids had a significant deterrent effect on the course of the Falklands Air War is shameful and needs to be recognised for what it is: a continuing campaign to discredit the global utility and proven Warfighting effectiveness of Her Majesty’s Carrier-Borne Fixed Wing Fleet Air Arm.
If such broad recognition is not understood and acted upon/corrected by Ministers and Civil Servants, they will be doing a grave disservice to the Nation and placing the future of our Fleet and our Strategic Maritime Policy in jeopardy.
Yours most sincerely,
Sharkey Ward.
Shortly after the Falklands War, a common perception and one held by me for a while, was that the Black Buck raids had been as much a psy-ops operation to let the Argentines know that the Vulcans could reach their mainland bases and to close the runway at Stanley so that they could not base their Mirage air defence fighters there. I subsequently realised that I had been drawn in by the propaganda and while there may have been a little justification for the former claim, there was absolutely none for the later. Had Stanley runway been long enough to operate those Mirages, which it was not, they would have based a few there and the first Vulcan would have been picked up by the long range radar, which the Argentines had established at Stanley, and shot down on its initial approach. After which there would have been no more Black Buck flights, which at least would have saved the RAF the embarrassment of handing over to the Brazilians an American Shrike missile that we were not supposed to have! See the article ‘For Want of a Nail’ in DefenceUK’s journal, Pro Patria 4 (www.defenceuk.org).
Well said Nigel. Alas getting any message through to the media, public and politicians who have no experience of either maritime or Air operations. Accademia has no people with operational background nor experience. I have been trying for years to get the message across that policy that is not based in operations reality can never succeed except in failure. As Admiral Dymock has repeatedly said to me there has to be a large scale fatality issue affecting British Forces to start remedial action.
Keep well. Days in TARTAR were interesting!!!
Best
Christopher