8 Bells Lecture | Rear Adm. Chris Parry: Falklands War and the Importance of Naval Corporate Memory 

Don't forget......you guys across the Atlantic are and always will be brothers and sisters to us, the British people! 👍🇬🇧🇺🇸🇬🇧🇺🇸

@@weedyp Right ON! We don't forget. CHEERS

Hello Micky, yeah, I did SMAC 19/233 for my defence watch on Antrim in '82. We must have been on opposite watches. Did you ever get round to reading Parry's book? Interesting enough read but he spends a lot of time bigging himself up and dissing the Skipper. My question has always been, if this was a war diary, why did he wait so long to publish? Was he advised to wait until Captain Young had died, to prevent any challenges to his comments? Seem to remember it came out a couple of years after Young passed on. Cheers, Buster Brown ex 3P mess.

@@xjack2312 Hi Buster. I have not read his book. I have read a couple of others, they do tend to elevate their own contributions (no names, no pack drill). Hey, do you remember those electric suits we wore? Couldn't move in them. Then their was the 'interesting' journey along the port or starboard sides to the cross passage to get back below deck. Always fun in a South Atlantic storm 😳

Hey, just saying as a former Canadian soldier, all very interesting, but what's a SMAC team? Defence watch? Maybe you guys can elaborate and give us more details? I've read all sorts of stuff on the Falklands. This is one part of the story that most people are probably not very familiar with. Thanks!

@@alainrouleau Hi Alain. Basically Defence Watches was when the ship moved to a state of readiness which was one step down from Action Stations. Essentially the ships company was split into two groups. These two groups maintained this readiness over the full 24 hour period. Once the ships 'Flight' (The aircrew and maintainers who operated the ships aircraft) went into Defence Watches their numbers required supplementing for basic tasks such as helicopter handling. Volunteers were trained (in advance) from other ships company members to facilitate this role. I do not recall what SMAC actually stood for. During the devastating air attacks of 21 May 1982, the Flights Senior Maintenance Rating, Chief Petty Officer Terry Bullingham received life changing injuries and was taken off the ship. This obviously impacted the rest of the Flight, meaning everyone had to adapt and take on more tasks. The SMAC teams were no exception to this and experienced what I would describe as highly supervised 'mission creep' For my part I found myself quickly trained in some basic maintenance which was obviously inspected by the Aircraft Engineering Mechanics for approval on completion. There were other examples of this as well. The entire Task Force will have experienced this one way or another. It's probably common to all theatres of conflict.

They sure did. Brave men

Malvinas no! Falklands.

@@SaturnV100 Falklands and don`t lie about the history on your trash video.

@@georgesteven9644 And how did the people actually living there vote again? Oh right, British.

@@georgesteven9644 People living in the Falklands voted to remain with Britain. By 99.80%. With only 3 votes against and 2 blank/invalid. With a turnout of 92%. Accept it dude, the people don't want you there.

Hahaha 'nary' 😂

🤣🤣🤣 My thoughts exactly

And the same is happening again!!!

The Phantoms went long before Nott came on the scene...

Our MP should have been charged with Treason during time of war…

I served onboard HMS Glamorgan during the conflict, a sister ship to Antrim and we used to say about the Seaslug that it needed 2 weeks notice to fire,it was that bad LOL

That is generally the case, truth is often stranger than fiction in the military! Speaking from 35 years experience in 2 different navies.

Argebtinians challenged on may 1st 1982 the harriers for dogfigths with mirage 5s, tested every angle of figth. Harriers stayed down waiting, mirage in high altitude. The mirage, with less fuel minutes, left the high altitudes performance advantage, and attacked, but the sidewinder missle was decisive. There was no way argetinian air force could contested the harriers in air to air combat when was armed with that missile. Anyway, the real objective were the ships and ground troops, so the aim was to avoid the PACs or to fool them with fake sorties. Like they did when sir galahad and sir Tristan were attacked, for example.

@@agustinithurralde2741 a very good analysis of the overall event... the royal navy deliberately placed itself on what we called " picket duty" (the term used by trades union members on strike and place themselves deliberately in front of the factory gates to try to stop non striking workers from getting passed) the object was to give the vulnerable troops and equipment more time to get ashore....... one of the harrier squadron leaders Lt Cdr Ward wrote several books and revealed that the biggest problem for the Argentine pilots was the order not to engage with the harriers in open dog fights unless absolutely necessary....." Sharky Ward said that RN had no idea that was the reason why the Argentine air force moved out of the area if the radar picked up a harrier....... it's obvious by the courage shown popping up over San Carlos waters on a bombing run when everyone from land and sea was trying to blow them out of the sky, they were very brave and skillful and so effective that we called it bomb ally and they called it death valley The only reason Snarky could think of as to why that was in the rules of engagement, was possibly the results of the harriers going up against the USAF aggressor squadron of top gun pilots who teach good pilots to be better pilots....... the harrier beat the USAF with their far superior fighters in several exercise senareos, and,as the aviation world is watching each other, it's possible the air force high command thought that a lot of aircraft not coming back from a mission would not be good for moral and therefore denied the pilots permission to engage.....as for the sidewinder it was indeed a great asset especially when you don't have to be pointing in the direction of the target....... The sinking of the Atlantic conveyor by the Argentine air force and the loss of so much equipment and supplies especially helicopters that were the transport for the troops.... almost finished the campaign in its tracks........ The one thing that could have stopped the British was the ability of the Argentine air force,if they had lost 3 or 4 aircraft for every one harrier they would have dominated the sky and things could have been very different..... The British admiralty had very little faith in the harrier ( the last aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal with her buccaneers strick aircraft and the F4 phantom jet fighters had been paid off in 79 And replaced by slower smaller untested in battle,) and the suggestion that 4 out of 6 would probably not come home didn't do anything for the wives left at home.....on hearing the comments Sharky told TV and radio interviews that the harrier was fantastic and agile and could do things no other aircraft on earth can do and he couldn't wait to show the world......it was all for the sake of the pilots wives and children....... but it could also have been something taken seriously by the Argentine military leaders... The royal navy commander didn't want lots of harriers lost to bigger faster fighter jets so ordered the blue fox radar system to be turned off, so,in effect this gave no indication that Harrier's were in the area and the Argentine carried on with the bombing runs,if they had detected the radar they would have followed orders and left the area....... one one successful run the Sir Galahad was hit with devastating results and horrific blast and burn wounds..... One of the very badly burned soldiers ( Welsh guards regiment) met the pilot that did so much damage...... just doing his job nothing was personal One tormented by pain and disfigurement and the other tormented by the effects of doing his duty....... they hugged each other and cried.........

I bought Sharky Ward's marvelous tome, "Sea Harrier" at the book store in 1993 when I was a student at the Naval War College. It is one of the very best war memoirs I have ever read! I enthusiastically commend it to anyone interested in military history, particularly to aviators.

@@bearowen5480 A great book.

Starter for 10 - Which PM declared war on Nazi Germany?

@@cacambo589 Chamberlain, of course. What of it??

William Gruff No need to fight? Neo fucking Nazi are we? Of course we needed to fight!

Akula971 “Mein Kampf” by the sound of it!

Why insult Chamberlin by doing that?

Indeed it was and that bastard Blair rewarded the twat with a CBE for his troubles. Parliamentary privilege should be suspended if UK citizens safety could be put at risk as a result of gobshitery.

I suppose the Admiral doesn't name him as he is a fellow Welshman.

@@MrDavidht Speaking as a Welshman myself, Admiral Parry is more likely to declare a blood feud against the entire Rowlands clan which could last centuries. He probably already has.

@MichaelKingsfordGray Hi Ted

@MichaelKingsfordGray well Mr Angry my name is Howard. There does that make you better..

I don't think it was meant as an insult, but just as a way for a Navy guy to differentiate between the Merchant Navy, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and the Royal Navy. The skipper of the Atlantic Conveyor, 'Captain Birdseye' as he was nicknamed, was a very brave man and a sad loss.

@@stevebarlow3154 i think captain/master is a far more appropriate term in the case of the atlantic convayer, its not a yacht or barge.

@@jankaas4504 No disrespect was intended to the Captain of the 'Atlantic Conveyor', who was a very brave man. English as a language is less formal than some other European languages, so it is common practice to refer to the captain or master of a vessel as "skipper". Even the captain of a large warship is referred to by the crew as "the Skipper".

@@stevebarlow3154On a British Merchant Navy vessel the term is Master, respect please for the dead.

my dad sevrd in the MM for 50 years including ww2 Je always called the captain 'skipper' its a term if affection rather than insult

I suspect their decision to use the glacial approach against the RN's advice and nearly getting himself and his crewmates killed needlessly would likely colour his opinion.

When you actually look at what the SAS did in the Falklands conflict it raises serious questions about their use (or misuse) and their own sense of importance that verges on hubris. Their reconnaissance of Goose Green seriously underestimated the Argentine numbers; they managed to shoot and kill several members of a SBS patrol (admittedly in the SAS area of operations but a SAS sergeant ignored his officer and opened fire); they did take out an Argentine airfield at Pebble Island but it could have easily been done by naval gunfire. They invited themselves to the battle because their CO wanted to get involved and then used their political clout with Thatcher to assign themselves to actions they wanted to do, such as South Georgia.

@@peterlovett5841 Bravo Two Zero is an other example. However some of the other SAS teams deployed that night landed, took one look at the lay of that land and thought there is no way that we can operate here at all, so the got back in the Chinook and went home

To be honest, I have spent two summers on King Edwards Point as part of the British Antarctic Survey..... I will say that in that case the SAS guys had absolutely no idea of the terrain they were landing on, and worse, did not listen to the people who might know, or to their Helicopter crews who had to both get them there and get them off. I have the greatest respect for the SAS, my father was an IO for them for many years, but on that Op, they done fucked up. However, what Adm Parry did not mention is that in a cross decking operation ordered by the RN 20 SAS lads had been killed when the helicopter carrying them had ditched, SAS confidence in the helicopter crews had thus been dealt a fairly significant blow. After all, if you just saw 20 of your lads killed in a mere transfer between ships, what use the pilots carrying you into the AO? Fortunately both the aircrews and the SAS have learned the lessons the Falklands taught them.... but there are two sides to every tale. The Helicopter crash on that cross decking operation still is one of the greatest single loss of life incidents the SAS has suffered since the end of WWII...... Adm Parry might not want to recognise that those guys probably did not have a great deal of trust in the pilots after that incident... regrettable, and wrong, but such is human nature.....

It wasn’t just the SAS on the Glacier, it was also SBS and Royal Marine Arctic and Mountain Warfare Cadre.

Submarines are an active threat to shipping, transport planes arent (even if they used civilian planes to spy on british positions)

Because the submarines can attack you, but the Hercules was just a recon aircraft. Politically you couldn't attack an unarmed plane flying in international airspace, but you could attack a fully armed submarine that had just dropped a platoon of Marines off on South Georgia.

The SAS guy who talked about south Georgia on the RCMI history channel told a different story about the glacier debacle...it's all about perspective.

It is a great harbour if you need to take damaged ships during the fight in the Falklands. If you don't have a good harbour you have nowhere to take your ships.

QE2 transhipped its troops to other vessels there, tugs were also there so that battle damaged ships could be taken there and prepared for the long voyage north if necessary.

Is it comical to take out a colony of seals with a Moran anti-tank missile ? You must have a warped mind.

Especially when its a Milan AT missile.

Think you will find that all the TV Networks employed "Experts'" including the USA, to give the watchers something to see. I can see that had you been President of Argentina you would have listened to the BBC.

It's called Down south: a Falklands war diary. By Lt Chris Parry.

I read it a couple of years ago, very good especially considering he wrote it at the time.

I took that statement as a matter of scale, ie there was relatively little communication to poach given the scale of operations.

somos argentinos no argie y ustedes son piratas

Kim Wilson He is not alone by any means ,you meet these beauty queens are every where praying for world peace even though history of every civilisation know to man has gone to war bar none, nations are born from war forged consolidated, and advanced in ever activity known to man. Why do they don't educate these morons is beyond me for it is an indisputable fact no war ,no civilisation

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

This is very well said.

Robert Graffham, I was really pleased to see your comment because I visited ANTRIM in 1980 and was sure Humphrey was a Wessex III....

Ian Stanley along with the pilots who ended up in Chile performed the most impressive flying in the whole conflict. Some boy

EVERYBODY in the South Atlantic was warning Mrs Thatcher. Silly cow wanted to save money at all costs.

@@SvenTviking Better, that silly cow in No.10...If it had been Lady Blair, the bluudy islands would have been chimichurried. Blair was even attempting to get rid of Gibraltar, even though 98.97% voted to remain.

@@rpm1796 Except this silly cow knew about the Argentinian plans a year before, did nothing. She was scraping HMS Endurance. Selling HMS Invincible to the Australians. She was also selling HMS Albion to the Argentinian's.

I believe "Run away" was tongue-in-cheek. "He who turns and runs away lives to fight another day". No disrespect was meant.

A man who worked as a shepherd was up about a month before and he was sitting next to me at dinner. "The argies are just waiting till the Endeavour has to leave the station, then they move in." I had to ask him what he meant and he explained it. He had to go back to his sheep station.

I'm pretty sure the Argies will have been expecting that we were intercepting their communications, or at least attempting to. Hardly a great surprise really.

@@loungejay8555 They would have, but Parry confirmed the Argies switched cyphers as a result of the MP's frankly shocking comments.

SOUND LIKE THE PERSON SUPPLYING WAS AS WELL!

Hissy fits most usually came from the QM who resented the idea of you drawing equipment off his neatly stacked shelves and actually using it as intended.

@@davidhoward8270 Two things can be true. QMs hating their Q Store being played with and SF acting like drama queens when their demands aren't met immediately.

You need that supreme self belief to do what they do. But they can come a cropper when it's nature itself and the weather that they are up against, not a human enemy.

Ted Rowlands, Labour. It wasn't alleged. It's on Hansard.

GeraLd Hanrahan BBC reporter on one of the ship reported that the fuses on the Argentinian's bombs weren't exploding because they were being dropped from ro low a height, which was quickly rectified, resulting in damage to our ships and casualties amongst our personel. Good old BBC.

@@jjwatcher No surprises there, Labour and the BBC both hate Britain and the British people.

I was at school (just) during the Falklands and we - my mates and I - had worked this out. It's obvious that you read your enemy's signals during a war, the Argies weren't idiots, they had worked it out for themselves, it didn't matter what the BBC and MPs said - it's the fact we have a free press and political parties who can say what they want which gives us a moral superiority over people like the Argentinian regime of the time..

@@jjwatcher Nope. It was Brian Hanrahan and he didn't. The only way to get copy or TV reports out was through the military, which censored everything. Hence the famous "I counted them all out and counted them all back in again" quote. Brian Hanrahan, who died of cancer in 2010, was invited to cover the last flight of the Harriers at RAF Cottesmore at the express request of the crews. He was too ill to go, but the squadron recorded a special "get well" message with their best wishes. In any case, the Argentinians knew about the bomb problem - they had the bombs, but not the instruction manuals.

The more things change, the more they stay the same Roy. CHEERS Brother!

strikes back

Yes. If im not mistaken the SBS back then were not yet integrated into the UK Special Forces Directorate, unlike the SAS. I believe the SBS were placed under the direct Command of the 3 Commando brigade. Whilst the SAS were basically just allowed to do their own thing.

@@Nomadicmillennial92 True.

Mate, the South Georgia operation was an appalling balls up. Basically, walking 4.5 inch shells up the beach made the Argentines surrender after the SAS operation failed.

SvenTviking what failure?

@@dickensdickens3025 Their attempt to attack from the Fortuna Glacier, the SAS guys were very lucky not to die in the appalling weather conditions there.

Steve Barlow Steve the SAS were not crossing fortuna glacier to attack anybody. They were tasked to put an observation and surveillance post in . They didn’t make it, because of appalling weather but incidentally, neither did the two SBS patrols have any any better luck either abandoning their mission and had to be recovered by helicopter. The only people who got into an observation and surveillance post were the SAS boat troop who were tasked to surveil, report and contain the RGs at Leith and Stromness. Which they did succsefully .

SvenTviking Really? That bad? . Remind me how many dead and wounded the Brits suffered in retaking South Georgia because of this appalling cock up?

This is not true.

It was well understood that the US had a default support of Right Wing military regimes in S.America. The CIA sided with Galteiri but the Pentagon/NATO sided with UK

@@MrRugbylane Caspar Weinberger was a hero. The Cold War would be won on the Central Front (Western Europe) and Britain was a "key pillar" in the NATO Alliance. Had Op. Corporate been a disaster, Thatcher would've fallen, Labour would've returned to power (lead by Michael Foot - a pacifist!) and Cruise missiles would not have deployed in the UK; indeed, the USAF, in Britain, may have deployed elsewhere. Weinberger knew this and had to contend with some "misguided" characters, in the State Dept. and the dreadful Jean Kirkpatrick, at the UN!

@@danielw5850 Hence Caspar's honorary knighthood from a grateful UK! Those AIM-9Ls and tonnes of aviation fuel made life a lot easier.

@@xjack2312 Indeed! Look at our inter-operability in 2021: British pilots, operating off US flight decks and Vice-versa.

I agree he is derisive -check out Parry with other accounts - he doesn't get a mention - especially RCMI Toronto speaker SAS operative Bell.

SBS had been around since WW2, they'd fought in ops all over the place...they did all of the really useful work in the Falklands. Without Pebble Island the SAS involvement would have been a disaster all round. The Guards didn't tab or Yomp. Like the rest of 5 Brigade they were lifted by ship to Fitzroy and had a much shorter march to the hills around Stanley, this was after the Welsh Guards had to turn around on a forced march as they weren't up to it.

You're wrong about the SBS, used before the Falklands. SAS at that time thought they walked on water post embassy siege, turns out they needed to wind their necks in a bit. Yep 5th infantry Bde were massively unfit - part of the lessons learned from that conflict is that infantry soldiers needed to be tested physically to a higher standard. In fact nearly all the guards units came straight off ceremonial duties, so they were even more 'unfit'. They TAB tumbledown, they attacked it. They had to TAB to get there. Not disgraceful comments at all, here's a tip for you - don't be complicit in destructive consent, be part of constructive criticism - its how good militaries move forward. I am sure if you have served you know all this.

@@MrLechambre The biggest mistake was that the actual unit that should have gone was the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. They were next in rotation. They were fit and fully trained. The speculation is that some chinless wonder in MoD wanted the Guards to have a greater role....which meant a lot got killed...

You want a lecture on the Anglo Russian War of 1807-12 or the Crimean War ? .

You know the Argentinian Army had at least equal, and often better kit than the British right? They were using the same rifle, the FN-FAL, the Argentinians actually had better night vision equipment, they were dug in, had better armoured and artillery support, and knew the British were coming. To make it worse for the British, they did not have air superiority though had contested airspace. They were fighting an enemy in the defence who outnumbered them and who were dug in. They were fighting an enemy at the end of an EIGHT THOUSAND mile logistics chain, compared to less than 400 for the Argentinians... The Argentinians were NOT the plains Indians... who I may add handed more than one defeat to the US Army during the various Indian wars. Reading you trying to be clever was also... an unbearable situation....

Not many nations could have mounted an 8,000 mile amphibious operation in the South Atlantic winter at such short notice. Badly equipped, heavily outnumbered in air power and against a numerically superior, and better equipped, dug in force with a defensive mind set. Rather a miraculous result, mainly due to the professional commitment of those involved.

TECHNICS1 - The United Kingdom was not ready for this conflict. They had to get ready in a hurry and improvise in many ways. They suffered many significant losses due to the deficiencies in their kit, but they perservered and ultimately prevailed. The performance of the UK armed forces under the circumstances was phenomenal.

This is a professional military man speaking to other military professionals, about what lessons where learnt by the British armed forces in the Falklands and what lessons more generally could be learnt from this conflict by all militaries.

Tulaenelorto wasn't a military base until you knuckleheads tried to invade.

@JohnB Wright the Chilean fuckwit you are

you reap what you sow hombre. instead of blaming others, point your water pistol at the military junta who mislead the Argentinean people, whilst murdering 1000's of your compatriots. The Falklands Islands nor the UK will ever give in to your bullying bullshit. Mind you, if you what to take another crack at it, vamos !

I would love to read your take on the French in French Guyana.