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Harry Benson - Scram!

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Harry Benson Scram!
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    Scram!
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    Preface Publishing
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    2012
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    London
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    978-1-84809-362-1
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Scram!: summary, description and annotation

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2 April 2012 marks the 30th anniversary of the invasion of the Falkland Islands. This is the thrilling untold story of the young helicopter pilots most barely out of their teens who risked their lives during this brief but ferocious war. In April 1982 Harry Benson was a 21-year-old Royal Navy commando helicopter pilot, fresh out of training and one of the youngest helicopter pilots to serve in the Falklands War. These pilots, nicknamed junglies, flew most of the land-based missions in the Falklands in their Sea King and Wessex helicopters. Much of what happened in the war the politics, task force ships, Sea Harriers, landings, Paras and Marines is well-known and documented. But almost nothing is known of the young commando helicopter pilots and aircrewmen who made it all happen on land and sea. This is their Boys Own story, told for the very first time. Harry Benson has interviewed forty of his former colleagues for the book creating a tale of skill, initiative, resourcefulness, humour, luck, and adventure. This is a fast-paced, meticulously researched and compelling account written by someone who was there, in the cockpit of a Wessex helicopter. Few of these pilots have spoken publicly about: The two helicopter crashes and eventual rescue following a failed SAS mission high up on an in hospitable glacier in South Georgia The harrowing story of the Exocet strike that sunk the transport ship Atlantic Conveyor The daring missile raid on the Argentine high command in Port Stanley The constant mortar fire faced while supporting troops and evacuating casualties The hair-raising head-on attacks by Argentine jets on British helicopters The extraordinarty courage shown during the evacuation of the bombed landing ship The secret nighttime low-level missions to insert and resupply SAS and SBS using night vision goggles If you liked , and youll love The word Scram was used to warn other to go to ground or risk being shot down by their own side as Argentinean jets blasted through bomb alley 014. Soon after the Argentine army invaded the Falklands in the early hours of 2 April 1982, it was the Royal Navy commando helicopter pilots, nicknamed , who flew most of the land-based missions in the Falklands in their Sea King and Wessex helicopters. Facing both mortar fire and head-on attacks by Argentine jets, they inserted SAS patrols at night, rescued survivors of Exocet attacks and mounted daring missile raids, as well as supporting the British troops and evacuating casualties, often in appalling weather conditions. Harry Benson was a twenty-one-year-old Wessex pilot, fresh out of training, when war started. He has interviewed over forty of his former colleagues for this book, creating a fast-paced, meticulously researched and compelling account written by someone who was there, in the cockpit of a Wessex helicopter. From the Inside Flap Scram! Scram! was all I heard though my coms as I caught sight of two Argentine A-4 Skyhawks blasting through bomb alley toward the anchored British flotilla. In front of me every ship opened up with everything they had as missiles and tracer streaked though the sky to meet the incoming aircraft. All we could do as helicopter pilots caught out in the open was head for the hills. Literally.

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Harry Benson

SCRAM!

The Gripping First-hand Account of the Helicopter War in the Falklands

Maps

T - photo 1The final land battles of the Falklands war took place in two disti - photo 2The final land battles of the Falklands war took place in two distinct phases - photo 3The final land battles of the Falklands war took place in two distinct phases - photo 4The final land battles of the Falklands war took place in two distinct phases - photo 5The final land battles of the Falklands war took place in two distinct phases - photo 6

The final land battles of the Falklands war took place in two distinct phases. Night of 11/12 June: Longdon, Two Sisters, Harriet. Night of 13/14 June: Tumbledown, Wireless Ridge and Sapper Hill.

Foreword

Julian Thompson

Commander 3rd Commando Brigade in 1982

Harry Bensons aptly named Scram! is the first account to be written about the junglies part in the Falklands War of 1982. The junglies being the name for the Royal Navy troop lift helicopters, dating back to the campaign in the jungles of Borneo in the 1960s. Back then, the Fleet Air Arm helicopter aircrews made a name for themselves as can do people a reputation that they more than upheld in the Falklands War. Scram, broadcast over the helicopter control radio net during the Falklands War meant take cover from Argentine fighters. This call was a regular feature of life down south, especially during the first six days after we landed while the Royal Navy fought and won the Battle of San Carlos Water; arguably the toughest fight by British ships against enemy air attack since Crete in 1941. As the Argentine fighter/bombers came barrelling in I would watch heart in mouth as the junglies headed for folds in the ground, remaining burning and turning until the enemy had left. Sometimes there was nothing for it but for them to keep on flying, especially if the helicopter in question was carrying an underslung load; or had just lifted from a ship well out in San Carlos Water, with nowhere handy to hide.

Today there is a road network in East Falkland. In 1982 there were no roads outside Stanley and a rough track from Fitzroy to Stanley. Every single bean, bullet, and weapon had to be flown forward from where it had been offloaded from ships unless it was carried on the back of a marine or soldier, or by the handful of tracked vehicles capable of negotiating the ubiquitous peat bog that along with stone runs and dinosaur-like spine backed hills constituted the Falklands landscape. Likewise every casualty had to be flown back. Without the junglies there would have been no point in us going south to retake the Falklands; we would have got nowhere.

I am glad that Harry Benson has given space to tell of some of the activities of the non junglie choppers. He relates in some detail the story of the epic rescue of the SAS from the Fortuna Glacier in South Georgia by HMS Antrims anti-submarine helicopter; a pinger to the junglies. What the SAS thought they were doing up there is another matter, and my opinions on the matter are best left unsaid. Harry Benson also devotes space to the activities of the 3rd Commando Brigade Air Squadron; the gallant 3 BAS, or to some TWA (standing for Teeny Weeny Airways) 3 BAS suffered the highest casualty rate and was awarded the most decorations in proportion to its numbers of any organisation on the British side in that War. The outstanding support given to the land forces by the only RAF Chinook to survive the sinking of the Atlantic Conveyor is also given due recognition.

We went south with far too few helicopters initially. Those we had were flown every hour they could be; often with bullet holes in fuselages, red warning lights on in cockpits denoting malfunctioning equipment; breaking every peacetime rule. One of the 3 BAS Scout helicopters had a bullet hole in the tail section patched with the lid from a Kiwi boot polish tin. Todays health and safety nerds would have an apoplectic fit. The aircrews worked themselves into the ground. In wartime you should have at least one and a half times the number of aircrew as you have aircraft. Aircrew fatigue will strike long before the aircraft wear out. We did not have this ratio of crews to aircraft. The imperatives of warfighting had long been forgotten. While the rats in the shape of politicians and civil servants had gnawed away at the manpower of the Fleet Air Arm along with everything else connected with defence. Fighting 8,000 miles from home was not the war we had prepared for in the long years of the cold war. But you rarely fight the war you think you are going to fight; this had been forgotten too. Fortunately for those of us fighting the land campaign, none of this fazed the junglie aircrew; our lifeline. They got on with the job, often flying in appalling weather, in snow blizzards both by day and night, with low cloud concealing high ground, and often along routes easily predictable to the enemy, with the ever-present threat of being bounced by enemy fighters in daylight; most deadly of all being the turbo-prop Pucara which with its low speed was far more dangerous to a helicopter than a jet.

The story of the deeds of the junglies in the Falklands War is well overdue. I am delighted that it has been written at last.

Introduction

A great deal has been said and written about the Falklands War: the task force, the Sea Harriers, the Exocets, the Paras, the Marines, the amphibious landings. But what is so extraordinary is how little is known of the exploits of the young helicopter crews, my friends and colleagues the junglies who made much of the war happen. Junglies are Royal Navy commando pilots, a throwback to the 1960s when British helicopters flew over the jungles of Borneo. Days after the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands in April 1982, a British task force was deployed with junglie crews spread throughout the fleet. These squadrons, with their Sea King and Wessex helicopters, flew most of the land-based missions in the war. Yet almost nothing has been written about our exploits.

It wasnt until an informal reunion in June 2007 that I realised this. A bunch of us former junglies had arranged to meet in a pub in Whitehall the night before we were to parade down the Mall for the formal twenty-fifth anniversary celebrations. I hadnt seen many of these guys in years. Seeing old friends was an emotional moment at first. But then the beer did its work and we were off, armed with a licence to tell each other our war stories.

What was so amazing that evening was not just that there were so many fantastic stories, but that none of us knew what the others had done during the war. In many cases, the stories were coming out for the first time. I sat transfixed as I heard about the helicopter missile strike on Port Stanley. And although I knew about the helicopter crashes, I had never heard any of the detail first hand. I knew little of the dramatic rescues from burning ships and even less of the harrowing story of being on the wrong end of an Exocet strike. I had absolutely no idea that anybody had gone head to head with an Argentine A-4 Skyhawk or the dreaded Pucara, or been strafed by a Mirage and survived. None of us had spoken about it. Until now.

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