Flight Lieutenant Dick Russell woke on his birthday with a hangover. Nearby, on another of the metal camp beds in the Two Boats accommodation, Bob Wright was also awake. He really could have done without being shaken from his slumber, only to be told he needed to go back to sleep: Get some rest. Along with Russell and the rest of the men from the two Vulcan crews, he closed his eyes and tried to get back to sleep.
Tonight was the night.
At ten to nine, down at Wideawake, Jerry Price received the Air Tasking message for Operation BLACK BUCK, the codename given to the mission to bomb Stanley airfield. The message added detail to the Op Order of the previous day, but it was still only a statement of intent, not yet an order to go. All being well, that would follow. Between now and then, Price had to make sure that there was nothing that would prevent them carrying out their orders. Half an hour later, two more Victors arrived from the UK, turning off the long runway towards the crowded pan to complete the force he needed for BLACK BUCK. Fourteen. More than half of the RAF’s entire tanker fleet. He was going to need every one of them.
Seated on canvas-backed chairs around folding wood and metal tables, the Victor Ops team, Trevor Sitch, Barry Ireland, David Davenall and Colin Haigh, laboured with Jerry Price over the refuelling plan. The first draft of the previous day provided the template. Now they needed to make it as accurate and predictable as it could be. It was a fiendishly complicated task that relied on pens, paper, performance tables and slide rules. Their only digital assistance was from a £3.99 pocket calculator bought from Swaffham market.
Using tried and tested procedures evolved over many years at Marham, recently enhanced by the experience of the reconnaissance missions to South Georgia, they constructed an elaborate plan with one simple goaclass="underline" to move as much fuel as far south as possible.
Eleven Victors and two Vulcans would take off together, each jet part of a White, Red or Blue section. The White and Red sections were Victor four-ships; the Blue section, three Victors and two Vulcans. Two of the Victors and one of the Vulcans in the Blue section were airborne reserves. If anything went wrong with any of the other jets, the reserves would simply take their place in the formation. At designated lines of latitude along the route south known as brackets, fuel would be transferred from those returning to Ascension to those continuing south. At the first bracket, four Victors, having passed on their fuel, would return, along with the two airborne reserve Victors and the reserve Vulcan. A short while later, another Victor would again top up the Vulcan before returning to Wideawake. At the next bracket two more Victors would turn back after filling the tanks of the three remaining aircraft: two Victors and the Vulcan. There would be one further Victor–Victor transfer before just one Victor and the Vulcan were left flying south together. Less than a thousand miles from the Falklands, that long-slot Victor would refuel the Vulcan then turn north. After the bomb-run, at a rendezvous about 300 miles east of Rio de Janeiro, the returning Vulcan would be met by two waiting Victors that would transfer enough fuel for the bomber to make it back to Ascension. One of these Victors was, again, an airborne reserve in case for any reason the primary Victor couldn’t refuel the Vulcan. Given the frequency with which the HDU equipment failed, it was a necessary precaution.
Thought was given to the composition of each section. Working with the head of the Victor detachment, Alan Bowman, the Ops Team spread age and experience throughout the formation. The longer-range slots were allocated to those with experience on the maritime radar reconnaissance missions and White, Red and Blue were each assigned a section leader: a squadron Flight Commander or CO. It was their responsibility to make decisions once the jets were out of effective radio range of Red Rag Control, the name adopted by the Ops Team. It hadn’t been the tag they’d wanted. Marham’s station crest featured a black bull and that had been their first choice. Discovering the mission was codenamed BLACK BUCK put paid to that. So, with a satisfying display of lateral thinking, Black Bull became Red Rag.
Over three hours, they had produced what was, on paper, a masterpiece of elegant, detailed planning that meant the Vulcan, as it ran in on its target, would be burning fuel that had already passed through five other aircraft. The amount of fuel transferred at each of fourteen planned contacts was calculated precisely. But, as Waddington had discovered two days earlier, the plan was only as good as the figures on which those calculations were based.
At one o’clock, Tux and his crew gathered with another fifty Victor pilots, Navigators and AEOs to be briefed on the refuelling plan. Jerry Price joined them alongside Air Vice-Marshal Chesworth. As Trevor Sitch spoke, using an overhead projector sitting on a large cardboard box to illustrate his words, Tux took copious notes – the first to confess that he’d never been blessed with the best of memories, this wasn’t unusual for him. But he was struck by the complexity of the operation. He knew it was uncharted territory. Others ate from packed lunch boxes while they listened. At the end of the forty-minute briefing, they took down the details from sheets of A1 paper pinned to wooden boards then suspended from the frame of the tent by white rope. They learnt which section they’d be flying as part of and where they fitted in within that. Each crew had a specific role: long-slot, short-out, long-out, first reserve, second reserve, standby crew.
They filled their notebooks, each man trying to illustrate the mass of detail in the way that best made sense of it. The safety of the whole formation depended on them recording it faithfully, then being able to interpret their own notes without confusion. While Tux scribbled, his AEO, Mick Beer, took down radio frequencies and call signs. Each jet had two: one to communicate with other aircraft in formation, one for Red Rag Control.
The one, vital missing ingredient was the weather. So that it was as up to date as it could be, the Met report wouldn’t arrive until as late in the day as possible. But without accurate information on wind speed and direction a final flight plan was impossible. Until they had that, they couldn’t lock it down.
For the rest of the day the Victor crews tried to prepare for the night that would follow: looking over the detail of the BLACK BUCK plan; checking their equipment; eating; sleeping.
At 14.42, an hour after the Victor briefing had broken up, George Chesworth received a message from Sir John Curtiss at Northwood: Take-off to be 2300 hours Zulu tonight, subject to refined timing with receipt of updated weather forecasting. Execute will be sent flash. Half an hour later the order came through.
From Air Commander
Operation BLACK BUCK
Execute op BLACK BUCK 1 AW HQ 18Gp
AAAA/19F/KAA 300853Z APR 82
Time on target 010700Z May repeat 010700Z May.
Delays in mission launch are acceptable providing that TOT is not later than 010900Z May 1982
The mission to bomb the runway at Port Stanley airfield was on. A fleet of V-bombers would launch from Ascension late that night to deliver a Vulcan over East Falkland inside the window specified by Curtiss: 0700 to 0900 Zulu, or GMT. BAM Malvinas was going to be hit before dawn, between 0400 and 0600 local time.
The metal skins of the Vulcans and Victors were hot to the touch. Their dull green and grey camouflage, useless against the scorched brown and rust of Ascension’s landscape, soaked up the heat of the equatorial sun. Throughout the afternoon, ground crew in khaki shorts and desert boots swarmed around them, checking and rechecking the airframes. When the temperature dropped later in the day, all of the jets had their tanks filled. Those of them parked on the Tarmac side of the pan were towed forward out of their ruts ready to be checked by reserve flight crews.