Dan Snow's History Hit - Falklands40: The Black Buck Raids

Episode Date: April 30, 2022

The Falkland Islands lie 8000 miles from Britain making the Falklands War a particularly tricky one to fight; it required some seriously innovative thinking. No story from the Falklands better tells the story of that innovation than Operation Blackbuck which ran from the 30th of April 1982 to the end of the war. British bombers flew 4000 miles from the Southern Atlantic base at Ascension Island to the Falklands to destroy the Argentine runaway at Port Stanley. But there was a huge hurdle; Vulcan bombers couldn't manage that distance on one tank of fuel. Thousands of feet above the Atlantic in complete radio silence, the RAF crews had to engage in mid-flight refuelling, a particularly delicate dangerous process in which one aircraft feeds fuel to another while maintaining the exact same high speed, altitude and bearings without crashing into one another.Join Dan on a trip to the Midlands Royal Airforce Museum at Cosford where he meets Dr Peter Johnston to tell the story of the Black Buck Raids- the longest bombing mission in history as well as stories of the RAF in the Falklands War from inside the famous Bravo November Chinook helicopter.You can visit RAF Cosford. Find more information here.Produced by Mariana Des ForgesMixed and Mastered by Dougal PatmoreIf you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everyone, welcome to Down to the Coast History. I am now sitting in one of the most important seats in British aviation history. I'm sitting in the pilot seat of Bravo November. It's the name given to the Chinook helicopter that served in the early 80s, 40 years ago, in the Falklands War. In the Falklands War, it was the only Chinook that survived the disastrous loss of the ship Atlantic Conveyor that was taking the Chinooks, these helicopters and much other equipment besides down to the Falklands Islands. That was sunk, destroyed by the Argentinians. But this one, rather than ever survive, it played a key role in the Falklands War. It then went on to serve in every other campaign and humanitarian mission virtually that Britain has performed since, and ended up ferrying people, supplies and casualties in Afghanistan. It is a huge excitement and honour to be in Brava November.

It's just been delivered to the brilliant RAF Cosford, the RAF museum in the Midlands, which you'll remember from previous visits that the podcast has made. For example, when we were looking at the Hamden bomber, which is being restored here, that's flown by John Watts's father. You can go back on History Hit TV and check out that remarkable episode. I'm here today because it's the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War at the moment. I'm meeting a friend of the podcast, legendary historian, curator and broadcaster, Dr Peter Johnston. You heard him before at the National Army Museum, but he's now Head of Collections and Research at RAF Cosford.

We're going to be talking about the RAF during the Falklands War. We've done podcasts focusing on the Navy, Submarine Service, Royal Marines during the Falklands War, the Army, of course, the Paras, Gurkhas and other units. But now we're going to talk about the boys in blue. And there's no better place to do it than the RAF Cosford which has got not just this Chinook, it's got the Harrier and it's also got the Vulcan bomber. And we're going to be talking about the Black Buck raids as well. It's got it all. Even if you don't care about aircraft for some crazy reason, you're not that interested in aviation history, this is one of the most extraordinary stories about human beings,

equipment, resilience, and what it's like to try and fight a war you're not expecting with the kit you're not expecting to use thousands and thousands of miles away. Don't forget, if you want to check out history documentaries, we've got them all on history at TV. We've got a big focus on the Falklands War at the moment, fantastic interviews of veterans and lots of archive from the war and shots of the Falklands today. Fascinating documentary drops on history at TV very soon. You just follow the link in the notes of this episode. It'll take you right there. You get two weeks free if you sign up today so you can add some viewing pleasure to your listening pleasure after you listen to this podcast. But let's get into into it the RAF and the Falklands enjoy

so I'm walking into this hangar now look at that listen to that wonderful echo and I'm surrounded by a bizarre collection of aircraft, wonderful different periods and I've got, oh look over there's a V2 and a V1! How exciting, from the German weapons towards the end of the war that Hitler hoped would prove war winning and weren't and there we got the Harrier, we got the Chinook, that's why we've got the Falklands over here so Peter will be somewhere over here, let's go have a look. Peter how's it going? Yeah it's really great thanks, thanks for coming down. Good to be back at the museum. Let's talk about Bravo November, this extraordinary Chinook here. Would you say

it's one of the most famous airframes in the UK? Absolutely, I'd say it's the most famous helicopter the RS ever flown. Obviously its connection to the Falklands is so well known, but it went on to serve another 40 years after that as well. The Chinook fleet is brand new in 1982, it's still really being worked up, but the Navy can't replicate the heavy lift capability of this. When you're going to advance across the islands, the plan is to move the troops, the guns, the ammunition, all in this fleet of Chinooks that are going down. But what happens to the Atlantic Conveyor, which is where they all are? The Atlantic Conveyor, it's a container ship that's been actually requisitioned. It's been taken up from trade. It's a stuffed ship, a ship taken up from trade, is the acronym,

and pressed into service, and it's bringing really vital stores and other equipment and other helicopters too to reinforce the task force to help this next stage of the land campaign. The Atlantic Conveyor burns up, as do the rest of the Chinooks, apart from Bravo November. It's hit by an Argentinian Exocet, a missile! All but her, yes, exactly. And she's only in the air because she's been tested for her airworthiness at the time.

And it's not just the other Chinooks that go down, obviously, it's all the spares, it's all the maintenance equipment. Now the ramp is open at the back. Are we allowed to go on board? Yeah, we are. Oh, brilliant, let's go. So we'll just hop over the security fence here, and we're standing at the ramp at the

back looking right up inside it. This is hallowed ground for you as an RAF aficionado, isn't it? Why is it? This is so significant for a huge number of reasons. One that the Chinook force has been so important to RAF operations in the last 40 years. But around all of that, the whole legend of the Chinook and its capability was proven in the Falklands and it was proven by this very helicopter. And since then, this is Bravo November, she's flown in every campaign the RAF's been involved in.

She's played a major role in not just British history, but global history. When we talk about what she's done and where she's been, it's easy to say where she hasn't been, really. And the RAF love her as well. What was really significant for us is when we brought her in, a million people watched the Facebook footage of her coming in, and the comments of people who served on her either in the Falklands or in the decades since,

who've got her registered in their log books. It's incredible, and really it shows that, whilst these are machines, they almost have a personality of their own, that people have actual personal relationships with them as well. There could have been Royal Marines and paras who were in and around this aircraft in the Falklands War

whose kids would then have been in and around this aircraft in Afghanistan. Exactly, exactly. There's a more generational thing. But also, more than that, the Chinook force and Bravo November as part of that, there are people alive today because of these helicopters. In Afghanistan, they played a really key role in medically evacuating people.

They're undoubtedly people who would not have survived their injuries if it wasn't for a Chinook able to get to them and pull them out. It's just wonderful and if you're, you know, please we can go inside. Let's go inside. It's like really the inside of what you might expect in a fixed wing aircraft. So it's a huge amount of space compared to a helicopter where you usually associate that with six or eight people sitting in it. Exactly. And these are designed to carry, you to carry a whole variety of things. It could carry freight, it could airdrop things out the back. You'd have benches nailed to the floor so people could sit down here. You'd have medical kits set up in here for the technicians there too.

It's incredibly adaptable to really whatever it needs to be. And of course, if anything doesn't fit inside, you can sling it underneath and you can carry it underneath and lift it and drop it and that sort of thing too. Like with anything, it's about moving supplies, it's moving men, it's moving ammunition first, always ammunition first, and then food. But after the war, she's moving POWs around as well. There's really important things and we're going to spend some time talking about Black Buck and these sorts of stuff. That's what people tend to focus on when they think

about the RAF contributions to the Falklands. But without this helicopter, that campaign was at severe risk of just not being successful. Just because winter would have set in, you know what the South Atlantic winter can be like. It doesn't matter how much superiority or skill at arms the British had. You're fighting against winter as well as an entrenched enemy. It's going to be extremely difficult. And then that might force the British back to the negotiating table with the Argentines who are in possession of Stanley, the centre of gravity. And history could have been very different.

Peter, it's such a treat to be sitting here. Thank you for letting us in. But let's go. Let's go and talk now about perhaps one of the more eye-catching episodes of the Falklands War that the RAF were involved in. Yeah, let's. I mean, that's the great thing about this museum. We've got so many witnesses to history here, and in particular looking at the Falklands. So if we go up to one of the other hangars, we can look at some Falklands veterans and we can really talk about Black Buck and that most famous and iconic of missions that the RAF makes and completes in the campaign. Let's go.

So we're walking to the other hangar, we're walking past the Harrier which is tactical, it's dropping munitions on groups of individuals, on vehicles, trying to make a difference on the battlefield. We'll leave him behind the wonderful Chinook which is doing kind of logistics and lift and stuff. That kind of does bring us to the RAF's other job isn't it which is strike. Exactly and that's actually the RAF's sort of first major contribution to the campaign which is that Black Buck mission that people know about this long-range bombing mission against Stanley Airport,

Stanley, the center of gravity for the Argentine defenders. That's going to be where they're concentrated. That's what the British are going to have to take. That's how the war is going to be won. The British are going to aim for that, strike for that straight away. And this is the RAF really setting out their stool about what they can do and how they can contribute to this campaign. That takes place on the 30th of April into the 1st of May,

the first of seven Black Buck missions. So this is that kind of second world war thing you think about, which is loading an aircraft up with bombs and trying to go and hit something that the enemy are going to be really annoyed about, like a dam or a factory. This is what, Port Stanley's airport basically? Essentially yes. So the British want to impose this sort of total exclusion zone around the islands. They want to limit the Argentine's ability to bring in reinforcements, but also more importantly bring in food, replacement ammunition. That's how they're going to wear them down, that's how they're going to help defeat them. The main archery by which that is coming in and being dispersed across the island defences is

through Stanley Airfield. There's also a wider fear at the time that perhaps the Argentines might look to extend the runway and therefore run fast jets off it as well and Argentine fast jets based on the islands could be a real game changer in British likelihood of success so therefore it's the thinking is well let's strike the airfield let's deny its use for resupply and also let's prevent any kind of attempts to extend it to bring fast jets from the Argentine and the South American mainland over here that could otherwise prove decisive in our campaign. This will allow us to begin to exert our dominance at a local level. But that is over 10,000 kilometres away from their nearest friendly base at Ascension. That's a bonkers idea to try and strike that far into enemy territory, isn't it?

It is, but at the same time, in the balance of forces that the British have got, that they're bringing down, the sea harriers are small in number and they're going to be very important in air combat, dogfighting. You're going back to your Second World War analogy there, you know the 1940s-esque Spitfires against Messerschmitts and that sort of stuff. So the Sea Harriers are going to be useful for that. They can't be risked in a strike raid such as this because the Argentine defences around Stanley is the centre of gravity and therefore that's where their defences are strongest. You know, they've got radar operated anti-aircraft systems. The risk to the Sea Harriers is considered too great, but it's still got to be struck and therefore how is it going to do it? Well, weight of munitions, the ability to strike and get in and get out again.

Really there's only one aircraft capable of doing that and that is the Vulcan. And the only way the Vulcan can do it is by launching from the Ascension Island and wide-awake airfield. Although there are a few problems with that. How you concentrate enough resources at what is a long runway but a small airfield on a volcanic island is one of them. The headwinds, how you get off the runway. The weather's got to be in your favour. You've got to ask the Americans permission because technically, while Ascension is a British island, a British overseas territory, the airfield is essentially run by the Americans,

so their permission has to be sorted. Their relationship with Argentina and the wider Cold War context is important as well. But once you navigate all of those problems, you find a solution, and then you can develop a plan. And it is an ambitious and audacious and, frankly, incredible plan. Well, speaking of plans,

we've actually got an interview with Air Commodore Simon Baldwin because he was put in charge of that plan. And I think he led on the training and planning for these top secret missions. When Argentina invaded the Falklands, I read the newspapers, watched the television. It didn't ever cross my mind that we would be involved one jot. It was a complete shock when we were. The station commander told me that the Vulcan

would deploy from Waddington to Ascension Island. I had no idea where Ascension was, but he did tell me it was in the South Pacific near the equator and we would mount the sorties from Ascension to fly down to the Falklands. I knew it was a long way, and I knew we would need in-flight refuelling to get there. I had no idea how far until after he'd gone,

I got my map out and had a look. It's not until a few, probably days or maybe a week later, that I also learned that the Vulcans' contribution to Operation Corporate would be called Black Buck, a code name for the Vulcan attacks. The first thing I had to do was start with the aeroplanes, because the aeroplanes weren't going to do the job unless we did things to them. The first things I had to do when I got to grips with the problem was get the aeroplanes from Ascension to the

Falklands carrying bombs. The air-to-air refueling was obviously going to be a priority. None of our pilots had ever done any in-flight refueling before. The day after I started to look at it, we'd chosen our crews, three crews to start with, then a fourth. We had air-to-air refuelling instructors arrive to teach them how to in-flight refuel. That was when I realised things were serious and we were probably going to have to go to war. The in-flight refuelling was quite a trick. This is the basket dangling from the Victor tanker

and the Vulcan pilot has got to fly his probe into the basket and then keep it there for quite a long time while the fuel goes in. And refueling an entire Vulcan probably took 20 minutes. So it's not an easy thing to do. But once they had picked up how to do it, and we started to transfer fuel from the Victor tanker aircraft to the Vulcan, we had problems. We had two sorts of problems. One was a huge gushing problem where the aircraft, the Vulcan, pulled back out of the basket, and the fuel kept flowing from the Victor all over the Vulcan.

That was not good. the Victor all over the Vulcan. That was not good. We also had a snapped probe at one stage where once the probe snapped off, the fuel kept flying. It went down two engines of the Vulcan and it was at night. And the pilot in the Vulcan that was also waiting for its turn on the Victor tanker described it as the Vulcan fell away down towards the ground. As he said, it's very like the videos of the American aeroplanes, bombers in the Second World War, being shot down in flames. Because what had happened was all the fuel had gone through the engine and it had caught

fire behind the aeroplane. Fortunately, it wasn't an engine fire, but we had two very shaken Vulcan crews back on the ground afterwards. The second problem we had was fuel would leak from the Victor along the top of the Vulcan's probe, up over the nose and up the windscreen. So you'd have two pilots sitting there, not being able able to see with a huge petrol station a few yards in front of them again not good we didn't have any maps to get us from ascension down to the Falklands and we didn't have electronic warfare equipment that could cope with the Argentinian radars I didn't know what the Argentinians had put onto the Falkland Islands

to provide air defenses. We knew they had artillery and we knew they had service to air missiles. When we started training, nobody had told us the target. So we looked at a map and assumed the only possible target for Vulcan was the airfield, specifically the runways at Stanley Airfield. So they're going to use a Vulcan bomber, which is a massive, huge, heavy aircraft that can take thousands of pounds worth of bombs, which you'd never be able to take off from an aircraft carrier. So that needs to be from the nearest base, which is thousands of miles

away. Yeah, it's a 12,000 kilometre round trip from Ascension to the Falklands. And this is where British Cold War strategic thinking has been exposed by operations in the South Atlantic. The idea has always been that any kind of RAF operation will be launched from an airfield or a friendly airfield anywhere in the world. Well, you can't go from South Africa, which is the other nearest one. You can't go from anywhere in South America so this is where you begin to fall down so ascension is your only real option of getting there and yet amongst that what you've also got to do is think about how you can actually get the Vulcan there because the Vulcan can't get there

and back on one tank of fuel so how are you going to keep it aloft how are you going to keep it in the sky you're going to have to bring your entire air-to-air refueling tanker fleet down as well so bring that down from the UK, park that at Ascension. Then you've got other aircraft as well. So you're operating Nimrods down there, and later on you're operating Hercules, air transport and air supply missions down south. So you've got to modify these aircraft,

you've got to plan these aircraft, you've got to logistically fit them on the ground. It's an amazing challenge that I think often when people look at Black Buck, they just think of, well, they just fly and they do a bit of air-to-air refueling and then they fly back. It's far more complicated than that. And so how many Black Buck, they just think of, well, they just fly and they do a bit of air-to-air refueling and then they fly back. It's far more complicated than that. So how many Black Buck missions are there?

There are seven planned in total. Five of them are delivered. And they're all against this airfield in Stanley? They're all against the airfield in Stanley or the surrounds. So they're designed to essentially continue to degrade what the Argentines are capable of doing and capable of moving through Stanley. So the first two are done with 21,000 pound bombs, very conventional bombing raid, the likes you've seen in the Second World War. The next two are scrubbed, one because the headwinds are too high to get off the runway, Ascension Island, and the other because there's a fault in the tankers

and also tankers are being called away to support the Nimrods, the RAF are flying in an anti-submarine warfare capability as the task force sails south. They also take on Shrike missiles designed to basically target the Argentine radar systems. The idea being if they can knock out some of the Argentine radar, then the Argentines aren't going to know when the Sea Harriers are coming in, and the Sea Harriers will therefore have more time and be more effective in combating and knocking the Argentine air forces out of the sky too. Those have sort of a mixed success, and in fact, on the second one of those,

one of those Vulcans is forced to divert to Brazil. It is impounded there for a week until some frantic negotiation goes on and gets it released. But these are operations that go on right throughout the war. And in fact, it's the 12th of June, so right at the end, where the last Black Buck mission takes place, targeting Argentine defences in and around the airfield area. Let's go and check out the planes.

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So here we are in the hangar now, this is one of the most amazing museum spaces in Britain, I absolutely love it, it's jammed with planes on every different level, layers and layers of aircraft and we've got school groups, it's all kicking off in here. Talk me through what we're looking at here, we've got these big sort of white pale coloured, what they look like transport aircraft almost don't they? These are important. These are, so this is the National Cold War exhibition here at the RF Midland site and this is the only place in the world you can see all three of the RS V bombers in one place. And we're really proud of that as you can see a lot of people coming through

to learn about the Cold War, this is recent history, but the Cold War overshadows everything the RAF does in the Falklands as well and these are the aircraft that they're going to call upon. Now this one here, this is the Valiant then we've got the Victor and of course we've got the Vulcan. And why are they called V bombers? They're called V bombers because it was part of the distinctive shape, it was part of course we've got the Vulcan too. And why are they called V-bombers? They're called V-bombers because it was part of their distinctive shape, it was part of the overall grouping of the development towards them. This grouping that they were given by the RAF to give them together. And they do have a kind of V shape, a particularly triangular aspect of looking at their wings, don't they?

So, okay, so we've got Victor, Valiant and Vulcan. People will know the Vulcan because it does look like one giant flying triangle, doesn't it? It's that delta wing. It's such an iconic shape. In the great tradition of British aircraft design, you think of the Spitfire in this iconic shape as well. The Vulcan is very much like that, that delta wing. And it was incredibly manoeuvrable. It was very fast. Designed to carry the nuclear deterrent when the RAF had that responsibility.

So all three of these are basically nuclear bombers. These are all weapons of mass destruction. Wow. And, you know, we can't really get away around that. That's what the Cold War was about. It was about basically staring over that line, and the whole point of deterrence was that you were capable and you were willing to step over it if you had to. And the Cold War is a triumph of deterrence for the West, of which all of the British

Armed Forces played an important part, but the RAF also played their role. Now, once nuclear deterrence, of course course moves to the Royal Navy with Polaris submarines and those sorts of things as well, a lot of these aircraft are reconfigured. The Valiant is actually essentially retired, but the Victor is converted from a bomber to an air-to-air refuelling tanker. So it's a giant flying fuel tank. Exactly. Spectral station. Spectral station in the sky. And likewise, the Vulcan was then converted to a low-level strategic bomber, a quicker, faster, ultimately trying to be a more destructive version of, you know,

a Lancaster of the Second World War, essentially. So conventional bombs on the ground and break things that are valuable to the enemy. In a strategic way, yes. So it would drop free-fall bombs, potentially small tactical nuclear weapons if it had to, anything like that, to essentially help in a war that for decades people assumed was a question of when not if. Scary resonance at the moment as we're recording this. All right well that's the Victor, let's go and have a look at the absolute icon, one of the great aviation icons, the Vulcan.

So here we go, giant delta-shaped wing, we're coming down right underneath it now. Look at the state of this and we're looking up at the open bomb bay doors and that's where the bombs were mounted for Black Buck, I guess, right? So initially it would carry the nuclear weapons, which you can see we've got parts alongside it here, blue steel and others. But when it comes to Black Buck and the development there, that capability is gone.

So actually what the Vulcan is going to carry down on this mission is 21,000-pound iron bombs. Navigation? The ocean has no discernible landmarks in the same way they'd navigate as they would across Europe. So they're gonna have to learn and pick that up as well. But you know, these aircraft, these are the B2s,

they don't even have, initially, air-to-air refueling probes. They've been taken off. So they're gonna have to find them off the older versions. And in fact, your listeners that know the RAF museum in Hendon know that we've got a Vulcan there as well. That Vulcan is in crates, in bits, in the car park park waiting to be rebuilt in our museum when the Falklands happens and the RAF actually send people down to take the air-to-air refuelling probes and equipment out of it so they can implement it here.

So a museum piece? They're raiding stores, they're raiding anything they can, wherever they can get it from so they can put it back on so they can train, so they can do it. So we're seeing that probe now. Yeah. So that's sticking out the nose of it. And we should say this aircraft itself, what's the history of this particular one?

So this was the reserve aircraft on Black Buck One. So that was that first mission that was going to go over on the night of 30th of April, 1st of May. The crew were all set up, they're ready to go. This was the primary aircraft. The way the missions were built is there were two Vulcans on each. There was a first aircraft and a reserve. This one, unfortunately,

again, and this points to this general age of them, they'd taken the best six down to Ascension Island to fly off Wide Awake Airfield and RAF Ascension there, but they still had problems. So this aircraft gets airborne for the first Black Buck and then one of the seals on the window has perished. They couldn't pressurise the cabin, couldn't get there, had to turn back. 607, the famous Vulcan 607, takes over and then makes the strike run. And this one returns to Ascension Island, and the crew then have to anxiously wait to see what the success of the mission is. Until they hear that code word, superfuse, nobody knows what's going to happen.

Because it was all being done in radio silence as well. So when I was talking about air-to-air refuelling, that's being done without talking. So you're doing air-to-air refuelling using something they've ripped out of a museum, with no particular training. How many times are they having to use that air-to-air refuelling capability? So it's seven times on the way down. Seven times? They're actually burning more fuel than they expect.

Because again, it's all plotted out, it's all planned, but then they're hitting problems and snags all the way. You've got, so on some of the Victors, for example, some of the air-to-air refuelling probes on the Victors break. So one of the Victors that was supposed to go the whole way has to turn back and actually top up another one. There's an electrical storm at one point. So the air-to-air refuelling aircraft are also air-to-air refuelling themselves? Yes. Okay, there's an electrical storm. There's an electrical storm they have to fly through as well. This is incredible skill, adaptability, and essentially just drive to make a success of the mission.

And if they're in radio silence, how do they tell each other they're running out of fuel? Basically, there's shortwave radios and this sort of thing that they can do, but they're very conscious. They don't want to get too close to Argentina before they pick it up. So it's all planned out. It's detailed. You will do this.

You will do this. You will do this. Off this beam, you will refuel them, et cetera. And we're looking at the pilots in the cockpit there, air crew. How many men on board? So you've got the pilot, you've got the co-pilot, you've got the weapons officer, you've got the navigator and you've got the electronic warfare officer as well. And you're packed in there, how long are they in the air for? They're in for 14 hours, so this is not only the longest in terms of duration bombing raid in history at this stage

but it's also the longest distance as well. Are they having little snoozes? Well, if you read the accounts, no. The tension is really high throughout this, of course, because it's demanding. The margin for error is low. Withers, who flies 607, you read his account, he talks about the tension had already been broken after they'd done it and after they'd done that final refuelling so they knew they could get home. And at that point, it became very tedious and boring. But the rest of the time, this is heightened tension.

This is heightened excitement. The adrenaline is basically carrying you through. And so they get to the Falkland Islands in some kind of miracle of logistics and bravery and impressive equipment. What about the final run-in? How do they target the air, find the runway itself? Which is basically not very wide. No, when we think about bombing, we do very much think of that old black and white footage, you know, the Bombay doors open, the bombs fall down. You know, when you're moving 200 miles an hour, more than that, the bombs fly forwards.

So you're charting your telemetry, how they're going to drop, how they're going to cut across the runway. All of that needs to be taken into account as well, particularly when you're popping up suddenly from below radar, when you can be tracked by Argentine defences, you've got to do this quickly. You only get one run. So they're below radar, so what else are they coming in to the Falklands on? Well, they pop up to launch the raid, but they're coming in really from about 500 feet is what they're descending to. So they're also flying at 500 feet above sea level? Yeah. So you can't make any mistakes at that point, are you? Not really. Right. Okay, so they

pop up. You've got to get it right. Jettison the bombs. Now, the geography of the Falklands means that they're quite fortunate because the airfield is not in a heavily built-up area, so the risk of collateral damage is relatively low. The idea is to crater the runway, to deny the runway to Argentine use, to basically stop the Argentines sustaining themselves through that. But also, that coming over you at speed, you can hear this. It's terrifying. Yeah, and it's about saying to the Argentines,

we're here and we're coming. The overarching context of all this stuff is there's been shuttle diplomacy going backwards and forwards, there's been the successful recapture of South Georgia but this is the first time the British are striking at the Argentines on the islands themselves. This marks a new stage in the war. They open the Bombay doors, they drop bombs the right place? They do, it's a textbook run across, they hit with one bomb in the center of the runway and then land the rest of them across in a direct motion it's not as successful as they would have liked but i think actually a lot of the pre-planning that goes into has underestimated all of the complexities that are actually in this you think so and you know as we found throughout the second world war strategic bombing is challenging it's

difficult to land things on target where you think it's going to be particularly when you're adding complex variables like argentine radars, Olicum guns, the speed at which you're doing it, general fatigue, stress, all of these things that come in as well. Were they under fire when they made that fire approach? No, so an Argentine radar had been trying to pick them up and they're jamming it.

And again, the jamming pod they've actually had to mount, that's another modification they've added at Ascension before they've gone. Because these things were designed for the Soviet capability at the time. Soviet capabilities have moved on, the more modern systems the argentines have moved on so they couldn't do it so they basically got new jamming pods they let on the americans for their support and use that as well to help them do it and that's what they fitted and that's what they wouldn't do

so it's the longest raid in history with semi-obsolete equipment it's a museum it's a relic it's a museum so it's a museum piece launching the longest raid in history against a very, very small bit of tarmac, thousands of miles away. Right. A speck in the ocean, you know, you've flown that. I would consider it a miracle if I found the Falkland Islands when I was navigating towards it,

let alone a small airstrip on the Falkland Islands. Yeah, exactly. And again, it's about striking at dawn, the idea being that you're getting before, you know, you can't come in at daylight, obviously, of course, because of, you know, contested airspace and all these sorts of things as well.

So they know the Argentines don't have much of a nighttime capability with fast jets. They're not going to be able to put up a fighter screen, for example, that they might otherwise be able to scramble in advance and get to you if you're coming in the daytime and they know you're coming. So is the airport denied to the Argentinians after that?

No. So when we look at Black Buck and we evaluate it, there's been some controversies around this. There have been some accounts that have challenged the legitimacy of this. They say, well, look, it's just a colossal waste of time. This is the RAF just trying to get in and show they can actually take part. This fear of things like the progressive defence cuts that have taken place, the idea being that if the RAF don't show their worth they'll be liable for next.

But at the same time they do strike the runway, they make the Argentines actually force them into an effort of actually going to repair it. Argentine Hercules aircraft are able to continue to supply the garrison right up until the end of the war, but that is also after there'd been some Sea Harrier raids as well. So the only actual aircraft that lands and craters the runway in the whole campaign, despite numerous raids, is Black Buck. They destroy some areas around it, so what that also means is the Argentines can't extend the runway.

There's this big fear that the Argentines would extend the runway for fast jets and then they'll base fast jets on it and that will make any kind of operation far far riskier and really push beyond the tolerance of risk at this stage as well. It also by striking the runway the British know they can which means that had the Argentines even if they'd wanted to that would then make them rethink and say well we can't base fast jets here because they will be then liable to be destroyed. It's also an important morale booster both for the islanders but also for the British I think the capability of doing this. This plays really well in the propaganda.

It's announced very quickly that this has taken place. And also it forces a reaction in Argentina, which is exactly what the British want. The Argentines, they pull air assets from southern Argentina up towards Buenos Aires. There is no real idea that the British will attack mainland targets. That would be a radical escalation of conflict. But there's no harm letting the Argentines think that. And so they pull Argentine air assets up there, which obviously denies them for the air campaign to come. And also it forces the Argentines to think that perhaps this is the prelude in the first strike and the main landing

that's going to take place on 21st of May is going to be in the Port Stanley area. So they're trying to soften it up for that as well. So in terms of material strike, it has a low impact. No one really can deny that. But if you look at these knock-on effects, these wider effects, things like morale, deception, winning that ongoing propaganda battle, it's really important. And therefore, I think, you know, it probably was worth the effort that went into it. Did they drop out of the cockpit when they landed back in Ascension Island? Pretty much. We have this amazing amateur footage in our collection, but we don't actually know who filmed it. So if you're listening to this and you were there and you were at Ascension and you filmed it, please do get in touch.

But yeah, you can see them. And this isn't jubilation, this job well done. You know, this is a triumph of professionalism. This is a professional military doing this. This is things for which people have trained and trained and trained but never got to do. The accomplishment, the ability to do that and say that, yeah, we've done the longest bombing raid in history, is sensational. And you could see that across the whole fleet. And it passes on and goes on into the other effects.

And had it not been successful, they wouldn't have replicated it. And there were seven Black Buck missions overall. I mean, two of them were scrubbed because of problems with refuelling or too strong headwinds to get off. But it really shows a triumph of the imagination in how you can strike. But also it's about that impressing of an overarching, overbearing dominance of arms that the British are going to apply to the Argentines throughout the conflict, basically from this point onwards. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for talking us through it all today. No worries at all. It's great to be able to talk about the RF and the Falklands, but also, you know, give people an idea about what they can expect when they come and see us here at the RF Museum Midlands.

Come and visit this museum. It's on the way to everyone. Don't forget, everyone, History Here is the place to get all your Falklands 40 podcasts. Tomorrow, we have got an episode on the anniversary about the dramatic sinking of the General Belgrano, the big Argentinian surface ship that was sunk by a British submarine. I speak to historians and the man who was second in command on HMS Conqueror, that nuclear submarine which sank the Argentine cruiser.

So he's going to tell me the story of the chase and of the seconds leading up to the attack. You've been listening to Downstone's History. Bye bye. you