Dragon Fire (The Battle for the Falklands Book 2)
Read Dragon Fire (The Battle for the Falklands Book 2) Online
Authors: Peter von Bleichert
DRAGON FIRE
THE BATTLE
FOR
THE FALKLANDS
By
Peter von Bleichert
Copyright 2015.
Peter
von Bleichert
Registered:
Library of Congress; and, Writers Guild of America
Proofread by
Joseph P. Bogo
Excepting
Capitán
de
Fragata
Augusto
Moreno,
pilot
for the Argentine Navy during the 1982
Guerra
del
Atlántico Sur
and participant in the aerial
attack upon HMS
Sheffield
, all other characters
appearing in this work are fictitious.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this
publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including: photocopy, recording, or any information
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright
holder/publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles/reviews.
Books by Peter von
Bleichert
Fiction
Crown Jewel: The Battle for the
Falklands
Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan
Non-Fiction
Bleichert’s Wire Ropeways
Blitz! Storming the Maginot Line
Thanks to my teachers: Jonathan E.;
Bruce H.; Paul M.; Karen S.; and, Panayiotis Z.
And, a special thanks to: Robert N.
(UK).
Michael Muxie, III
(in memoriam).
And, to those lost on both sides of the
real Falklands War: ‘Sleep well you Bonnie Lads/
Duerme bien valientes
muchachos
.’
ARGENTINE
REPUBLIC:
Cabo
Segundo (Corporal Second Class) Gaston ‘Raton’
Bersa
Teniente
de
Fragata
(First Lieutenant) Santiago Ledesma
Capitán
de
Navío
(Captain) Jaime Matias
…and,
Doctor
Waldemar
Amsel
;
Ministro
de
Defensa
(Minister of
Defense) Juan Cruz Gomez; &
Capitán
de
Fragata
(Lieutenant Commander) Augusto Moreno.
UNITED
KINGDOM:
Captain
Lawrence Fryatt
Leading
Seaman John Mcelaney
Lieutenant
Commander Nigel Williams
…and,
Ordinary Seaman Rodi Dando; Lieutenant Angus Lowry; & Lieutenant Seamus
McLaughlin.
A British Overseas Territory, the Falkland
Islands are a stark, wind-ripped South Atlantic archipelago some 400 miles east
of Argentina’s Patagonian coast, and 850 miles north of the Antarctic
Circle.
Comprising East Falkland, West
Falkland, and 778 smaller islands, the Falkland Islands are roughly the size of
the American State of Connecticut—about half the size of the country of
Wales—and the capital is in the port city of Stanley on East Falkland.
Falklanders are primarily of British,
Chilean, and St. Helenian descent.
The Argentine Republic claims sovereignty
over the Falkland Islands.
Called
Las
Islas Malvinas
by Argentinians, the archipelago is viewed as part of the South
Atlantic Department of the Province of Tierra del Fuego.
The United Kingdom has never recognized
this claim.
Although Falklanders have expressed a
clear preference to remain under British rule, in hopes of easing tensions during
the 1960s, London engaged in talks with Argentine foreign missions.
The talks, however, failed to reach any
meaningful conclusion.
In the early 1980s, a ruthless dictatorship
ruled Argentina.
Accordingly, it suffered
a crippling economic crisis.
In an
attempt to distract and unify its restive populace, Argentina initiated
Operación
Rosario
on April 2, 1982, and invaded
the Falklands.
Argentine forces outnumbered the British
garrison 10-to-1.
Resistance was rapidly
subdued, and within hours, Argentine forces occupied Government House in Stanley—the
Falklands’ capital—and flew their flag over this symbol of British hegemony.
British Prime Minister Thatcher—dubbed the
‘Iron Lady’ by the Soviets—immediately denounced the invasion.
She roused her military, organized and
commenced Operation Corporate, and dispatched a Task Group to retake the
islands.
After fierce air and naval battles, British
forces landed on East Falkland.
By
mid-June of 1982, British marines and soldiers held the high ground around the
capital city.
Soon thereafter, the routed
Argentine occupation forces surrendered.
Despite this clear-cut defeat, Argentina
has continued to claim the South Atlantic archipelago as her own.
In 1994, the Transitional Provisions of the
Constitution of the Argentine Nation were amended, thereby alleging ‘legitimate
and everlasting sovereignty’ over
Las
Islas Malvinas
, South Georgia, and the Sandwich Islands, as well as the corresponding
maritime and insular areas.
With this legislation, the capture of said
territories became a permanent and unswayable objective of the Argentine people…
“
Who hears the fishes when they cry?
”—Henry
David Thoreau
4 May 1982
H
er
Majesty’s Ship
Sheffield
was the lead
hull of the Royal Navy’s premiere Type 42 guided-missile destroyers.
Christened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1971,
Sheffield
was located south-east of the
Falklands, patrolling the Total Exclusion Zone, an area within which Great
Britain had promised to destroy any intruding Argentinian vessels.
Sheffield
was accompanied by HMS
Coventry
and
Glasgow
—also Type 42s—sailing to her
north.
Together, the three ships ran a
radar picket for the Task Group.
Aside
from these three ships, the Task Group was composed of the aircraft carriers
Hermes
and
Invincible
, the landing platform docks
Fearless
and
Intrepid
,
several other destroyers, as well as various container ships, ferries,
freighters, frigates, liners, logistic ships, patrol vessels, submarines,
supply ships, tankers, trawlers, and tugs.
Even an ice patrol ship—HMS
Endurance
—had
been thrown into the mix.
The group was
on ‘defense watch’ routine and at ‘air warning yellow’ as, two days prior, a
British nuclear attack submarine had sunk Argentina’s cruiser, the
General
Belgrano
.
Retaliation was expected.
Hermes
and
Invincible
had launched Sea
Harriers on combat air patrol, and ahead of the steaming group,
Glasgow
and
Sheffield
swept the skies with their long-distance radars (
Coventry
was experiencing difficulties
with hers).
◊◊◊◊
At 9:45 that morning, two Argentine Navy
Super
Étendards
had departed Rio Grande, Tierra del
Fuego.
Each of the French-built strike
aircraft carried a single
Exocet
AM39 anti-ship
missile at the right wing hard point, with the long, heavy weapon
counter-balanced by a fuel tank on the other side.
Vectored out to sea, the Super
Étendards
met a Hercules tanker and topped-off their
fuel.
Then they headed for the last
reported position of the British Task Group.
The Argentines also included Type 42s in
their inventory, and had used them to practice missile runs.
Using the British-made destroyers, their
pilots had learned to ‘pick the lobes’ of the Type 42’s elderly air-search
radar.
They would fly in low and listen
for their cockpit radar warning to sound.
Whenever it did, they would shed more altitude, and thusly became
proficient at sneaking in without detection.
This was how the two Super
Étendards
got
within 40 miles of the Royal Navy’s Task Group this day.
Glasgow
got the first inkling that something was amiss when she got a brief, fleeting
radar contact.
She immediately put up
chaff—a radar-deceiving cloud of aluminum needles—and reported in to the
group’s flagship,
Hermes
.
Not long thereafter, the carrier
Invincible
got her own radar hit and
vectored her airborne Sea Harriers—affectionately called ‘
Shars
’—to
investigate.
When the
Shars
found nothing, the contacts were declared ‘spurious’
by the group’s anti-air warfare commander.
Meanwhile, with
Sheffield
on their
nose, the two Argentine Super
És
sped in at near wave-top.
Sheffield
’s
Operations Room was nestled deep in the destroyer’s hull.
This is where the Air Warfare Officer—the
AWO—manned a radar display.
Like the
others huddled in the dimly-lit and cold room, he wore anti-flash gear composed
of a white fire-resistant hood and elbow-length gloves.
The AWO’s partially masked face glowed yellow
in the screen light as he watched the line sweep around the screen.
When the radar’s beam of radio waves struck something
airborne and solid, it backscattered and boomeranged back, to be collected by
the antenna mounted high on
Sheffield
’s
superstructure.
On the screen, the line
came around again.
This time, it
revealed three blips.
The AWO knew that two of the blips
represented friendly Sea Harriers, and the other a Sea King helicopter on a
supply run.
The AWO had been on duty for
several hours, and his eyes blurred and itched.
He took them off the screen, and dug his fingers in for a good scratch.
The two Argentine aircraft had closed to about
25 miles from the British warship.
Both
Super
És
climbed and turned on their Agave radars.
The system energized, and found and locked on
to
Sheffield
.
“
Blanco
,”
Lieutenant Commander Augusto Moreno, the pilot of the lead Super
Étendard
yelled as he used a hand signal to communicate
with his wingman.
Both men fed the data
into their
Exocet
missiles.
Sheffield
’s
AWO’s radar line left two more blips on the screen.
They were miles out and in a different
quadrant than those known to represent friendly aircraft.
When the AWO’s tired focus returned, the
blips had disappeared; this first chance for
Sheffield
to detect the stalking aircraft had been missed in a
moment of human fatigue.
Unfortunately
for the Royal Navy destroyer and her company, a second opportunity was missed,
as well.
At the same moment the Argentines had
climbed to get a radar fix on
Sheffield
,
the ship’s captain contacted London by satellite.
Perched high in the ship’s mast was located an
emitter warning antenna that would have detected the enemy’s energy
emission.
However,
Sheffield
’s satellite communication system happened to use the same
frequency band as that of the Super
Étendards
’
radar.
Therefore, as the destroyer’s
captain sent his reports home, the emitter warning antenna was deafened.
With their
Exocets
locked-on and warmed up, the Argentine jets continued to charge on the
oblivious British warship.
The Super
És
again flew below the lobes of
Sheffield
’s radar.
“
Fuego
,”
Moreno said as he signaled by hand.
Both
pilots toggled their firing switches, and as the half-ton missiles dropped into
the slipstream, both pilots counteracted the jarring force using ailerons.
The solid-propellant motors of both of the
anti-ship missiles ignited, fire torching from their tail ends.
The
Exocets
then settled
in 12 feet above the calm, blue sea.
Within seconds, they were moving at just beneath the speed of
sound.
Due to their cruise altitude and
the curvature of the Earth,
Sheffield
remained blinded to their approach.
When the Argentine missiles were just six
miles from
Sheffield
—less than 50
seconds from impact—the destroyer’s AWO spotted the returns and announced:
“Interim radar contact.”
The Operations Director
strolled over and asked the AWO: “What’ve you got, then?”
On the screen, what had previously been a
smudge of light, became two distinct blips.
The
Exocets
were now 30 seconds away from
Sheffield
.
“Probable targets,” the AWO shouted.
The Operations Director informed the Missile
Director of the contact.
Twenty-five seconds…
The Missile Director queried the ship’s
Sea Dart surface-to-air missile fire control system.
Twenty seconds…
Along with the captain, the
officers-of-the-watch and the rest of
Sheffield
’s
bridge personnel, Sub-Lieutenant Lawrence Fryatt kept a wary eye on the
sea.
A terrible feeling crept over Fryatt
as he scanned his assigned quadrant of sea with binoculars.
He spotted something, a puff of smoke on the
horizon.
Fryatt focused his binoculars
there.
The sea’s surface shimmered within
the black-edged circle of his view.
Torpedo
?
Fryatt wondered.
He scrutinized the
picture again and shifted his view upward.
There, just above the diamonds of reflected sunlight, an airborne white
cylinder skimmed above the waves.
It was
pointed right at him.
“Missile; terminal,” Fryatt yelled at the
very same moment the Action Information Center—the ‘AIC,’ or ‘Op
Room’—announced ‘air warning red’ over the bridge speaker.
The captain raised his own binoculars and
said, “
Exocets
,” using the name as a curse.
Fryatt raised his binoculars again and
found the second missile.
He knew that
the weapons were already inside the engagement envelope of
Sheffield
’s Sea Darts.
Anyway
, he thought,
Sea Darts are nearly useless against sea-skimmers
.
Sheffield
’s
captain initiated a turn.
Then he used
the address system to order the ship’s company to brace for missile impact
before calling for ‘damage control state 1.’
With the ship already on ‘defense watch, second readiness,’ all
watertight compartments had been sealed, and with less than five seconds to
impact, there was no time to get chaff up and properly bloomed.
Fryatt looked around.
Most of the people were already on the floor
and huddled together.
Fryatt pressed the
captain’s shoulder to urge him to get down, but the captain pushed back.
So, both men stood there, transfixed, and
watched as the
Exocets
streaked in.
One
Exocet
malfunctioned.
It wobbled, dipped, and
slammed into the sea.
The captain and
Fryatt looked at one another and smiled.
Their chances of surviving had just doubled.
The smiles faded fast, however; as the
remaining
Exocet
continued to home in.
Time slowed for Fryatt.
He even counted in his head:
Three
,
two
,
one
…
There was a blurred white streak, and then
Sheffield
lurched hard.
The
Exocet
had pierced her amidships, just above the waterline,
tearing a jagged gash in her side.
The
missile penetrated ‘2-Deck’ at the Galley, killing several sailors
instantly.
The missile’s momentum drove
it into the Forward Auxiliary Machinery Room and the Forward Engine Room.
The impact’s shock wave buckled doors and
collapsed ladders, and shrapnel tore the high-pressure fire main and ignited
the diesel oil in the engine room ready tanks.
The unspent missile propellant contributed thick black toxic smoke that
suffocated personnel as it marched through compartment after compartment.
Sheffield
burned.
Fryatt had been knocked to the deck.
He strained to rise.
Achingly, he managed to do so and checked on
the captain and the others that had been stationed around him.
Fryatt then went to the fire-fighting
system’s control panel.
Water pressure warnings flashed.
Fryatt manipulated switches as he tried
desperately to restart the pumps.
To his
dismay, and despite numerous attempts, each section’s pumps failed to
restart.
Then the panel flickered and
went black as the bridge lost power.
Fryatt opened the outer hatch and the bridge was instantly inundated
with pungent smoke.
He began to make his
way aft.
Fryatt’s feet felt warm.
He looked down at his heavy standard-issue
boots and saw their thick rubber soles sizzling on the deck.
He looked around.
The ship’s grey paint had begun to peel from
the superstructure as the steel warped.
There’s an inferno inside
.
Fryatt leaned over
Sheffield
’s
gunwale.
Heat smacked him in the
face.
Instinctively, he recoiled and
raised his hands to protect himself.
Fryatt’s eyes stung from the acrid fumes created by burning fuel and
plastics.
Tears streaming, he blinked it
off.
Then he took a deep breath and held
it, shielded his eyes with a hand, and leaned over the side.
He again felt the high temperature.
Though he could smell and feel the singing of
his eyelashes and brows, he opened his eyes, and resisting the urge to close
them and retreat, he managed to survey the damage.