Dragon Fire (The Battle for the Falklands Book 2) Read online

  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

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to my teachers: Jonathan E.; Bruce H.; Paul M.; Karen S.; and, Panayiotis Z.

  And, a special thanks to: Robert N. (UK).

  DEDICATION

  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.’

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  DEDICATION

  CHARACTERS

  NOTES

  BRIEFING

  PROLOGUE: FLYING FISH

  1: NAVIS

  2: ABISMO

  3: DUKES UP

  4: SHIPWRECK

  5: CAT AND MOUSE

  6: ABRAZO

  7: JOUST

  8: CALOR

  9: VIEW HOLLOA

  10: EL PARTIDO

  EPILOGUE: WARIAN

  CHARACTERS

  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.

  NOTES

  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.

  BRIEFING

  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…

  PROLOGUE: FLYING FISH

  “Who hears the fishes when they cry?”—Henry David Thoreau

  4 May 1982

  Her 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.

  He had seen the hole in Sheffield’
s freeboard, and determined it to be about four by 15 feet. Its jagged edges glowed white hot and hissed steam every time the cold sea sloshed against it. In that moment, Fryatt concluded the Exocet had not detonated. He retreated and exhaled his held breath before gasping for cooler air.

  “Damn,” he said, and considered that, if the ship’s company was able to control and extinguish the fires, Sheffield might just be saved. He turned, reached a hand out, and hesitantly tested the temperature of a hatch’s latch. It was warm and tolerable. He clasped his hand about it and opened the portal. Inside, he found only heat and thick, choking smoke. He pushed on into the blackened passageway. It was just several meters before his lungs demanded air. He tried to take a breath. The bite on his airway was harshly acrid and hot. His throat closed and he grabbed at it, trying again to breathe. His body denied his effort, and instead it folded over and slid down a wall. A fellow sailor wearing a respirator grabbed and pulled Fryatt back outside and into the open air. Fryatt immediately coughed and sucked in great breaths of air.

  When his greedy breathing slowed again, and he was able to look up and concentrate, Fryatt saw a great grey wall beside Sheffield. It was the frigate Yarmouth. She had come alongside. Her hoses provided boundary cooling, and her sailors and small boats provided rescue. Though Fryatt repeatedly coughed and continued struggling to breathe, he managed to return a salute thrown from a sailor on Yarmouth’s deck.

  Five hours later, Sheffield was abandoned to the fire. Her surviving crew had been transferred, and the proud warship’s smoking, steaming hulk was left to roll and pitch on the cold, frothy sea. Two hours after that, flame roared from every one of Sheffield’s openings, and her steel bent and turned black with char. Sheffield fought her last battle there, upon the South Atlantic, and resisted the rot of flame for some six days. Then, with all the dignity she could muster, Sheffield succumbed, rolled onto her side, and went down. An hour later, she rested on the bottom being inspected by fish. Nineteen of her dead remained with her.