But if the crews displayed big appetites for life on the ground, it was only because the enormous pressure of operating in the crowded, hostile skies out of Nellis demanded that kind of pressure valve. During the weeks at RED FLAG the Vulcan crews put themselves through the most challenging flying of their careers. By the time they took off from the long Nellis runway for the last time – their bomb bays stuffed with teddy bears and cuddly toys won in the Vegas arcades – all were holding their heads a little higher. Fuelled by that self-confidence, Withers and his crew were unable to resist a final flourish as they headed for home. But as they descended again towards the Grand Canyon, none of them imagined for a moment that they would soon be asked to draw on all they had learnt, or that self-confidence was about to become an extremely valuable commodity.
Martin Withers began his journey home from RED FLAG on 15 February 1982. As his Vulcan flew east across America, the final draft of Vice-Admiral Lombardo’s plan to recover Las Islas Malvinas was passed to the Argentine junta. Reassured that ALPHA, the South Georgia operation, had been scrubbed and his work on BLUE approved, Lombardo went on holiday to an exclusive Uruguayan resort with his family.
The whole of Stanley – the world’s most southerly capital – faced north, lining the south side of a large natural harbour. Whatever sun its remote latitude afforded it, it captured. There were a few trees – almost entirely absent outside town – but most of them were hunched like old women, because of the strong prevailing winds. Many of the houses were wooden and painted white. There were a few more permanent-looking constructions, but all seemed to share the same corrugated-iron roofs. Despite its small size and highlands and islands feel, though, Stanley had the infrastructure of a much larger settlement. So far from Britain and even the South American mainland, the little town needed its own power station, hospital, primary and secondary schools, and government buildings to support its population of barely 1,000 people.
Joe King’s house, surrounded by immaculately manicured hedges, looked down the hill towards the waterfront. King had enjoyed drawing cartoons for the local paper until realizing that every time he lampooned the events of the day – usually another crashed Land-Rover – someone would take it personally. In an island community which, in and out of Stanley, totalled just 1,800 people, he knew he’d end up offending everyone. A laugh and a joke over a drink seemed safer, he’d decided. In the first months of 1982, though, his easy good humour was coming under threat from another source: Argentina. Something was up – he could smell it. Successive British government ministers had visited, suggesting compromise and accommodation with Argentina, but for King and many others, it was simple: they were British and wanted to remain so. And they wanted to get on with their lives without concerns over Britain’s commitment and Argentina’s ambition hanging over them.
On 6 March 1982 an Argentine C-130 Hercules approached Stanley airfield. On board was the local agent – an Argentine Air Force officer – for Lineas Aéreas del Estado (LADE). Since the new airport had opened five years earlier, this quasi-civilian Argentine transport airline had operated the air link between Comodoro Rivadavia on the mainland and the islands. In the tower, Gerald Cheek, the bearded, red-haired Director of Civil Aviation on the islands, manned the radio. All appeared normal until the crew of the big turboprop radioed to say they couldn’t lower the landing gear and were aborting the landing. They flew straight down the length of the runway then simply continued west in the direction of Argentina. As the Hercules flew overhead, HMS Endurance, the Royal Navy’s ice patrol ship, steamed off Cape Pembroke, to the east of the islands. For many years she had been the only British warship permanently stationed in the South Atlantic and, militarily at least, she was of limited value. But she was a visible presence and signalled Britain’s continuing interest in the region. This was to be her final season, however, before being decommissioned without replacement.
The announcement, made in June 1981, that Endurance was to be withdrawn had been opposed by the British Foreign Office for fear that it would send the wrong message to Argentina. It did. Along with the decision to withhold full British citizenship to nearly half the Falklands population and the imminent closure of the British Antarctic Survey base on South Georgia, it sent a very clear message to Argentina: Britain does not really care about the South Atlantic.
The Hercules returned to Stanley later the same day. This time there were no problems with the landing gear. Gerald Cheek watched from the side of the apron as the camouflaged transport plane taxied to the terminal and drew to a quick stop without shutting down the engines. The stairs at the front of the plane swung down and the LADE agent stepped down to the concrete. Then before any of the airport ground crew could get near, the door was closed and the Hercules was taxiing back to the end of the runway for an immediate departure. There’s something not right about this, thought Cheek.
Then the Chief Engineer of FIGAS – the Falkland Islands Government Air Service – turned to him and told him that the Hercules had a camera pod attached to the wing.
There were other causes for concern. In a separate incident, another Argentine Hercules had declared an emergency and landed unexpectedly at Stanley airport, where she’d been surrounded by armed Royal Marines from Naval Party 8901. This tiny detachment of lightly armed marines who, on Guy Fawkes night, would fire flares into the sky in lieu of fireworks, were in effect the only defence provided by Britain for the Falklands. The British government simply didn’t take the Argentine threat seriously.
Bilateral talks held at the UN in early March between the two countries ended inconclusively. The British delegation offered nothing beyond further talks and a restatement of the principle that the wishes of the islanders were paramount and that sovereignty was not up for negotiation. The idea that there was no timeline nor any prospect of something more tangible than an agreement to talk again was rejected out of hand in Buenos Aires.
The two-man delegation from the Falklands that attended the talks returned from New York to Stanley sworn to secrecy, but making it quite clear that the situation was grave.
Joe King felt as if a noose was slowly tightening.
An Argentine entrepreneur, Constantino Davidoff, thought South Georgia would be his ticket to big money. At 105 miles long, but just eighteen and a half miles across at its widest point, the island’s dramatic, mountainous landscape rises from sea level to nearly 10,000 feet. Reputed to endure the worst weather in the world, South Georgia was most well known for providing the daunting setting for the final act of Shackleton’s epic journey to save his stranded men. It was the island’s defunct whaling industry that attracted Davidoff. Between 1904 and 1965, when whaling operations finally ceased, over 175,000 of the million and a half whales taken from Antarctica were processed on the island. Such was the efficiency of the operation there that a ninety-foot blue whale weighing 150 tons could be flensed and processed in barely an hour. Davidoff’s interest was in the derelict plant machinery, littering Leith, Stromness and Grytviken, that the whaling industry had left behind. He estimated that it was worth £7.5 million and could cost him £3 million to remove.
In 1978 Davidoff agreed a contract with the Scottish firm Christian Salvesen, who still owned the South Georgian leases. And then he tried to raise the money to pursue his grand scheme. While Davidoff kept the British embassy informed of his plans, little more was heard from him until December 1981, when he set sail for his El Dorado for the first time aboard the Argentine Navy icebreaker Almirante Irizar.