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channel 4 at 8 tonight vulcan raid on port stanley


griff66

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Haven't seen it yet, got it recorded. I've read the book. The question is....was it of great strategic importance, or was it the RAF wanting to get in on the act? After all they only hit the runway once. What it did show was that we were in range of Argentina, which was a great concern to them, and thereby helped us win the war.

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Thought it was very interesting indeed and was good tosee a program covering this era in a little more detail.

 

Certainly some hardy decisions taken at points during the mission and it showedArgentina that we weren't to be messed with.

 

Look forward to a number of other program's of this kind in the coming months, with it being 30 years since the conflict.

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brillant only the brits could pull a stunt off like that,i fear its a never to be repeated mission. if the falklands are ever atacked again weve got no carriers or planes to re take them and any spare cash has been given away in foreign aid lol

Edited by Marmite!!
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Amazing , all those tanker aircraft just to get 1 bomber to Falklands and back.

 

not meaning to be in any derogatory at all....

..but...I guess you should have said.....

"all those tankers etc ..... to get .......1 bomb...... on the runway......"

I reckon the crew probably felt a bit sick to see afterwards that they'd only got one direct 'hit'....

...but ...(quite rightly as someone has already said)...

....it was more of a very intentionally public 'drawing of the sword' to show our intentions and commitment to the 'job in hand' to the Argentinians and I also suspect..... the USA.....:cool2:

A pretty amazing achievement however you choose to look at it I reckons.....

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  • 2 weeks later...
Haven't seen it yet, got it recorded. I've read the book. The question is....was it of great strategic importance, or was it the RAF wanting to get in on the act? After all they only hit the runway once. What it did show was that we were in range of Argentina, which was a great concern to them, and thereby helped us win the war.

 

Last night I finished reviewing a book Storming The Falklands by Tony Banks, ex 2 Para for Arrse. His Falklands War is only half the story. Gets fed up, leaves, makes a good living for himself. Realises that PTSD is a real problem for most of the Falklands veterans on both sides and decides to do something about it. His Falklands loot consists of a regimental trumpet lifted from a POW in Stanley. He manages to track down the original owner and a meeting is arranged to return it.

 

Whilst in Argentina, he discovers that his host was manning a triple-A battery at the end of the runway when XM607 appears out of nowhere and disgorges 21 buckets of death on the runway. No it didn't stop the Argies from repairing the runway sufficiently to allow C130s to fly in with ordnance, but they didn't sleep again for fear that another Vulcan would appear out of the darkness.

 

I was also surprised how how true my joking description of how we won the war turned out to be true. I have always maintained that the Argies just kept running away from the Gurkhas and their kukris. According to this book, the Argies were indeed even more scared of the Gurkhas than the Paras and the Guards. Falklanders recall how they only had to mention Gurkhas to get the Argies trembling. Horror stories of Gurkhas slaughtering an entire platoon of Argy regulars silently in their sleep seem to have become lore both in the Falklands and Argentina.

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Oh and for what it's worth.

 

If you have read Vulcan 607, this may be familiar:

 

http://www.neam.co.uk/wingate.html

 

It describes in far greater detail the events covered in the prologue of that book (Flt.Lt Jim Vinale was Nav plotter on XM610 on 7 January 1971 and also crewed the designated bomber on Black Buck 1 which had to abort shortly after take-off due to a failed cockpit seal rubber, leaving XM607 to fly the mission).

 

The story of XM610 is exceedingly familiar to me, as I was in school in Seaham on 7 January 1971 and walked into a classroom at end of lesson to see a pillar of smoke where it had ploughed into a field in the 200 yards between the village of Wingate and its primary school. The previous class were all sat dumbstruck, having watched the parachutes descend.

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I finally got round to watching my recording of the programme last night. It admits in the end credits that it's based on Rowland White's book and I think it's not a bad adaptation.

 

The business of the "one bomb on the runway" and the apparently strange angle of the crater line is fully explained in the book. It still amazes me they managed to get anything on the runway at all!

 

Andy

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