H.M.S. Illustrious

By James Barrington

A riveting true life account of a Royal Navy serviceman on board an aircraft carrier.

14th June, 1982: The Argentine government officially surrenders to the British, ending the Falklands War. Six British ships were lost in the conflict, along with 255 British servicemen. Victory was won, but at a cost.

Having emerged from his first experience of combat alive and well, we follow our author while serving on the British Navy aircraft carrier, the HMS Illustrious.

The rhythms and highs of Navy life are laid bare in this fascinating insight into the everyday life of military procedure, grounded in one man’s extraordinary experiences.

Fans of military non-fiction must read HMS Illustrious, a gripping depiction of life in the Navy from bestselling thriller writer James Barrington, in the same mold as The Longest Kill, First Man In, and Battle Scars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canelo Action
• Release date: Feb 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781788633253

James Barrington

James Barrington is a trained military pilot who has worked in covert operations and espionage. He has subsequently built a reputation as a writer of high-class, authentic and action-packed thrillers. He lives in Andorra, but travels widely. He also writes conspiracy thrillers under the pseudonym James Becker.

Book preview

1983

Tuesday 3rd May 1983

Departure day dawned fine and clear, or so the Met man informed me, as I didn’t rise until relatively late, at about seven thirty, after a fairly late night on Monday – the journey from Hastings to Portsmouth had taken over three hours, and so I didn’t get to bed until after midnight. The ship sailed at 1100, in Procedure Alpha, which meant everyone up on the upper deck in best bib and tucker. Or rather almost everyone. Personally, I felt as rough as old boots, for some so far unexplained reason, and so I stayed in my cabin, trying to do a bit more of the Report of Proceedings for the Captain. I still felt bad at lunchtime, but by about 1400 it had passed and I was once again functioning on all cylinders, to my relief.

We had a briefing to give to the embarked aircrew at 1500 (the squadrons – 845, 846 and 824 ‘D’ Flt – had flown on board during the morning), which proved quite interesting, as all the procedures had changed on 1st of May, so we were all fumbling around in the dark to some extent. These changes come out periodically, and often make good sense, but this one certainly leaves a certain amount to be desired. Among the sweeping alterations is the abolition of the PVA (Poor Visibility Approach) – an expression well known to every maritime pilot – to be replaced by ELVA (Emergency Low Visibility Approach), a mouthful which will take some getting used to.

No doubt some wheel at FOF3 (Flag Officer Third Flotilla) will get promoted on the strength of ELVA, which is the really sad thing. Anyway, apart from our slight uncertainties over the revised procedures, the briefing went well, and most of the aircrew are more or less familiar with carrier operations anyway, so there shouldn’t be too many difficulties.

With the embarked squadrons we now have Wessex 5 aircraft (845 NAS), ASW Sea Kings (846 NAS), and AEW Sea Kings (824 ‘D’ Flight). The Wessex are used for general fetching and carrying duties; the ASW Sea Kings (Anti-Submarine Warfare) to protect us against the undersea threat, while the AEW (Airborne Early Warning) aircraft provide us with advance warning of any raids by low-flying aircraft and surface search capability. Of course, unless the Newcastle natives are particularly hostile, it is unlikely that we will need to use any of them in anger…

I was Air Officer of the Day (AOOD), just to add a little spice to my life. AOOD is not what can be described as a particularly onerous duty – it just keeps me out of bed for rather longer than I would like, as I have to carry out Air Department rounds after midnight and before 0730 in the morning, so the night tends to be a bit on the short side.

The evening entertainment was Charles Bronson in Death Wish – a very good film, but one I have seen before – and I resisted the temptation to descend to the TV room, and instead occupied myself in my cabin sorting out some of the inevitable paperwork.

My AOOD rounds in the hangar revealed two wheeled trolleys which were not lashed down as they should have been, and which I subsequently reported. That may seem a small thing to worry about, particularly as the sea is giving a fairly convincing impression that it is totally flat, but if we did encounter any waves, the trolleys would certainly have moved, and it is quite amazing just how much damage something like that can cause. By the time I did my midnight rounds, they had been secured.

Wednesday 4th May 1983

A rather murky and mucky day, on the whole, with frequent rain and very poor visibility for the various flying exercises. I spent most of the afternoon up in Flyco, getting into the swing of controlling flight deck operations again, in between hosting a seemingly endless stream of visitors round the ship. I got lumbered with a clump (or whatever the appropriate collective noun is) of Grenadier Guards, who struck me as being tough, but not too bright, though certainly interested in the ship and its operations.

Just recently, we have had literally dozens of different groups going round the ship, and today, as a fairly typical example, we had five groups visiting the Air Department itself – a mite tricky to handle, bearing in mind that about the only person able to act as host is me. There are definite limits to my ability, and being in five places at once is quite beyond me!

The afternoon ended with an interesting little jaunt into Dover Harbour, in line astern with Naiad (a missile-fitted frigate) behind us. Captain Slater was driving, of course, and he made it, as ever, look easy, as he banged the ship, which is rather larger than most of the vessels which use Dover, in at one end and out at the other. Those people who were about the place to watch gave us friendly waves, so we did our best to impress them with a full-power take-off as we cleared the exit. Makes Sealink look a bit sick. But then, so do a lot of things.

Our Number Two Air Director, John Griffin, fell head over heels today, and is confined to the Sick Bay until further notice, so it looks as if I might be spending rather more time in the Operations Room than I had been intending for the next few days. Fortunately, we are not all that far out of Newcastle, and hopefully by the time we leave there he will have recovered.

Thursday 5th May 1983

A rather better and brighter day than yesterday, with reasonable visibility and a fairly full flying programme as the ship made its way up the east coast of Britain. As John Lamb (Lieutenant Commander (Flying)) was nipping off home (he lives a mile or three from Topcliffe, the HDS helicopter’s destination) I had to stay in Flyco for most of the day, starting at about nine and finally leaving just before five. I did get nearly twenty minutes off for lunch though. A slightly bizarre sight as John Lamb got into the aircraft was a set of golf clubs, carried out to the helicopter by a very large maintainer. With John going home for what can only be described as a ‘leg-over and chips’, one might well wonder what the golf

clubs were for. The reason was simple – in the golf bag was a 4.5-inch shell case which he wanted to get off the ship without attracting too much attention from Commander (Air), and the clubs merely added to the camouflage.

As well as our own rotary wing operations, we were also ‘visited’ by a large number of fast jets – F-111 and Lightning, with the odd Canberra for a bit of variety – that were involved in a series of radar tracking trials for the ship, and all of which came down for low passes to pay their respects. Great fun. One or two were so close I’m surprised that the paint on the upper deck wasn’t blistered by their after-burners…

The F-111 aircraft were also involved in a number of runs on a splash target towed by Naiad, which remained in company with us until midway through the afternoon, when she detached. Despite the slightly hazy weather at the time of the runs, it was interesting to watch the runs, some of which were very accurate indeed.

I finally managed to get the Report of Proceedings drafted out for the Captain last night, so that is one of the bigger jobs off my hands. All I have left to do now is the Padre’s ‘Illustrious Chat’ – ostensibly a simple typing job, but unfortunately his English is almost as bad as Commander (Air)’s, so there will be a fair amount of re-writing to do.

Friday 6th May 1983

A very nasty day. The ship entered Newcastle in thick fog and driving rain and was moored in the Walker Yard (where she was fitted out in 1981/82, and where I had joined her in May 1982) by about 1000. However, I was a good deal worse than the weather, and spent the whole day in bed, feeling about half a step ahead of the old man with the hourglass and sickle/scythe. Talk about terminal ‘flu. As a result, I also missed the cocktail party in the evening, which didn’t exactly break my heart, though it was quite a good one, by all accounts.

Saturday 7th May 1983

I’m not right, but I’m better, as the old saying goes. I have forced a variety of medications down my throat, and I suspect that one or two of them (or perhaps the whole lot in combination) did the trick, as I was able to do more or less a normal day’s work, and catch up on some of the backlog which had accumulated through my enforced absence yesterday.

During the morning, I hosted a party of twelve air traffic controllers from Newcastle Airport round the ship, which seemed to go down quite well – it was supposed to last from 1000 to 1100, but I finally ushered the last of them off the ship at about 1245, so I think they enjoyed it. As usual, the ship is a focal point of attention, and was open to visitors during the afternoon. Every time I looked out at the gangway, there was a fairly considerable tailback of people waiting to come on board, despite the very inclement weather – a much better response than we received in America, in fact.

Sunday 8th May 1983

The ship was again open to visitors for most of the day, and we were again almost overwhelmed by the response from the population of this city.

By our best estimates, yesterday, which was (relatively speaking) quiet, we had about 8,000 people on board in all. Today, the number hosted was between 12,000 and 15,000. Quite amazing. One of our Land Rover drivers who took a trip out of the dockyard said that the queue to get in was a mile long, and eight deep. That can only be described as enthusiastic.

Other than the visitors, and there were quite a lot of people in the Wardroom as well, as officers brought guests on board, it was a very quiet day, and I spent most of it in my cabin, getting up to date with letters and things – Commander (Air) and Lieutenant Commander (Flying), predictably enough, had both thinned out on the weekend.

Monday 9th May 1983

We sailed from Newcastle as we had intended to arrive, in Procedure Alpha, the decks and flight deck ringed with the ship’s company in best bib and tucker. In this case, it was best bib and tucker under foul-weather gear, as the rain came again as soon as we prepared to slip and proceed, but I suppose it’s the thought that really counts. I didn’t go up, as I am still more than a touch fluey (if that word actually exists), and I thought that exposing myself to the rain and cold would be moderately stupid.

Once out of the Tyne (we cleared the river entrance at about 1400), we went to Flying Stations to accept two Sea Harriers from 899 Squadron on board, one of them flown by Charles Cantan, who I had met on Invincible last year. I was also selected (?) from a host of applicants to conduct two of the Captain’s VIP guests round the relevant Air Department bits of the ship immediately prior to the Harriers arriving. Actually, I rather enjoy that kind of thing, and especially in this case, as one of the two men was a Fleet Air Arm pilot (809 Squadron, in fact), from way back, and it was interesting to hear him talk of the contrasts between the way we operate the ship and things in his day. I duly delivered them to Flyco in time to watch the Harrier recovery, which certainly seemed to impress them, as it invariably impresses anyone who hasn’t seen it before.

Once the Harrier pilots had put their steeds to bed, we had the usual Air Department briefing to give, in which I usually brief simply the air traffic side of things, but in this case, as Lieutenant Commander (Flying), John Lamb, was stuck up in Flyco, and Dick Brunwin, the AC1 (Aircraft Controller 1) was in the Operations Room, I had to do their bits as well, which made things a wee bit more interesting for me.

The good news of the afternoon was that the Captain likes my draft ROP (Report of Proceedings), and the bad news was that I will very soon have to write the ship’s contribution to Flight Deck magazine, which will mean even more burning of the midnight oil, I suppose.

I went up to Flyco to control the circuit for a couple of hours in the evening, to relieve John Lamb so that he could go away and eat. The more time I spend up there the better I like it, which I suppose is just as well, really, as in the future there will only be he and I able to work up there, and if we start flying with normal exercise intensity, I can look forward to six to ten hours a day up there (in addition, of course, to working watch and watch about with Paul Harvey in the Operations Room, recovering the Sea Harriers – he and I are the only people able to do that job – and running the Air Office. If I get any spare time, I’ll try to sleep, I think).

Tuesday 10th May 1983

Another busy day, both for me and the ship. One of the odd duties which comes my way at intervals is that of organising a training or visits programme for people who are on the ship as visitors from outside the Navy, or for OUTs (Officers Under Training). This morning I spent all my time with three Midshipmen who recently joined the ship, and who will be with us until the beginning of next year or thereabouts. I had drafted their training programme, but started it with a relatively detailed description of the Air Department and the way it works, followed by a tour of the various compartments and spaces that they will be spending some time in over the next few days. I think that an introduction of that kind can only help.

The ship was busy too, with a full flying programme both for the organic aircraft and various fixed-wing aircraft sent out to us to assist in our various radar tracking exercises. One interesting snippet was that we are now the proud possessors of several pounds of fresh fish, following a radio message from a trawler in the area that she was running pretty low on fuel. We delivered a couple of drums of diesel fuel to her by our Wessex 5 helicopter, and in return they filled a cargo net with fish for us. Guess what’s on the menu for dinner?

I went up into Flyco immediately after lunch to relieve John Lamb, and while there I was fascinated to watch the making of a film on the flight deck. We have a team from one of the naval film-making organisations on board at the moment, and they are knocking together a sort of ‘Boy’s Own’ story about a Harrier pilot who is shot down over the Falklands, and then rescued by his best friend in a Sea King Mark 4, assisted by a bunch of Marines. All a bit tacky, really, but I suppose it does give us a certain amount of innocent amusement, and it will probably be a very successful recruiting film in due course.

Today’s little episode was just a shot of the Harrier ‘pilot’ climbing into his aircraft and getting strapped in (the ‘pilot’ is an actor, of course), and a rather longer sequence showing the Marines arriving on the flight deck via the after aircraft lift, and then getting into the Sea King, followed by the aircraft rapidly heading towards the horizon. As he disappeared I asked him if he wanted pigeons (direction to steer and range) to Port Stanley, which amused the pilot, if not Commander (Air).

The film crew have a habit of shooting little bits of film at odd intervals, and it is quite common to get stopped halfway down a ladder somewhere by a whole mare’s nest of wires and cables while they film the Harrier pilot having a pee or something. The ‘pilot’ of the Sea King has a slight problem, too, as he is apparently very short-sighted, wearing glasses with lenses like the bottoms of beer bottles, so quite how he is going to find the right aircraft on deck when they do that bit I don’t know. Perhaps they’ll run a sort of handrail out to it for him. It’s a good job he won’t actually have to fly the thing as well, or we would probably have had to mark the controls in braille…

The evening film was National Lampoon’s Animal House, a comedy about an American college, and which I had seen years ago, when I must confess to being profoundly unimpressed. I don’t know whether I’ve changed, or whether I just saw the film at a bad time, but tonight I thought it was absolutely hysterical, and well worth watching. Great fun.

Wednesday 11th May 1983

The day kicked off with a dental appointment, which I will freely confess is not invariably the best beginning to any day, but fortunately all I need is a scale and polish and a tidy-up of a filling. I then had a brace of Crabs to conduct round the ship – we are off Edinburgh, more or less, and have been since shortly after leaving Newcastle, working with strike aircraft from RAF bases in the area, and the two Fighter Controllers were ostensibly visiting the ship for liaison purposes. This, in the best traditions of the British armed forces, was inevitably translated as being borne for drinking duties only. Tomorrow there are two more to be hosted, so I will no doubt be propping the bar up again. Fortunately, as they are mess guests, I don’t have to buy the booze for them.

I relieved John Lamb in Flyco a couple of times, and also visited the Operations Room to do a couple of CCAs (Carrier Controlled Approaches) – the first since March – just to prove that I still could. There was supposed to be night flying, which I was confidently expecting to get lumbered with, but fortunately the aircraft went duff, so I was able to watch the evening film – Fistful of Dollars, which I have seen literally dozens of times so far, but still enjoy.

Thursday 12th May 1982

It seems that we rather underestimated the number of visitors to the ship over our weekend in Newcastle. The latest figure suggests that upwards of 30,000 people toured the ship over the twelve hours that we were open to visitors on the Saturday and Sunday. That’s 2,500 an hour, on average. Or, to put it rather more into perspective, every hour, slightly more than four times the entire ship’s company (excluding the Air Group) went round the vessel. Quite staggering.

The mixture as before for today; we are still sailing round the same bit of sea, and the only things that seem to change are the seagulls and the weather (and the latter not a great deal). I did a short stint in Flyco at lunchtime, and almost got to launch my very first Harrier (John Lamb prefers to do the fixed wing aircraft himself, which is why I only get to go up to Flyco when the boring old helicopters are flying), but the take-off was scrubbed at the last minute, as the weather turned rather nasty and the pilot was very inexperienced.

The evening film was a rather nasty little number called It’s Alive, and which is well worth a miss if you get the chance. The plot, such as it was, was that a woman gave birth to a creature all teeth and claws which then proceeded to kill everyone in sight before getting terminated itself. The best actor in the film was a cat, and that didn’t seem all that familiar with the script. Mind you, after sitting through most of it, I can quite see why it didn’t want to get too familiar…

Friday 13th May 1983

After an initial burst of enthusiasm first thing in the morning, this turned into a fairly quiet day, all things considered. The initial energy was principally devoted to getting rid of most of our aircraft, and after the successful launches we are now left with only 845 NAS (Wessex 5) and 846 (Sea King Mk 4), the AEW Sea Kings of 824 ‘D’ and the Sea Harriers of 899 having departed for home. We will now be stuck with just these two squadrons until we leave Plymouth next week and embark 820 ASW Squadron (with Prince Andrew) and 801 Sea Harriers for Exercise Ocean Safari.

And, talking of Prince Andrew, which we sort of were, the Captain went on the box last night to give us a chat about him and how we had to behave – normally, of course – and also to acquaint us with some rather more interesting and important news about our pay rise. Basically, as a Lieutenant on the maximum rate, my salary has gone up by a little over £1,000, which is better than a poke in the eye with the well-known sharp stick, representing a percentage pay rise of a bit over 9 per cent – better than any of us had been expecting: forecasts had run at the 3 per cent to 4 per cent level.

If Maggie thinks she can buy my vote by giving me a pay rise like that, I have to say that she is absolutely right. Actually, it’s just as well that the announcement has been made now, as if it hadn’t happened before Parliament broke up (or should that be dissolved?) we would have had to wait until about July before getting the cash.

As an interesting little diversion, we had a pre-wetting trial this evening (the idea is to get all the upper deck surfaces awash with water, so that nuclear fall-out or chemical or biological contaminants will be unable to adhere), the principal result of which was a considerable amount of water on 2 deck (though fortunately not in my cabin), where there should have been no water at all. And then, while the great mopping-up operation was under way, we had smoke observed near one of the weapon storage areas in the hangar, which produced a certain amount of brow-mopping and general nervousness until it was discovered to be errant exhaust fumes from one of our Gemini (powerboat) engines which had been sucked into the ventilation system and then regurgitated. Quite exciting while it lasted, though.

The evening movie was Lemon Popsicle, a badly-dubbed Italian teenage love story, with a fairly sad ending, when the trusting, faithful boy finally discovers that the girl he has idolised has in fact all the normal human frailties, and has been bonking her way round most of the available males – all of them, in fact, except him. Not a terribly exciting film, in fact, but what made it really worth watching was that it was very funny indeed in places, and had a superb music soundtrack, with all the hits from the middle to late fifties. Great stuff, and there were a few of us in the back row, as it were, who remembered the tracks, and who considerably annoyed the rest of the viewing audience by humming or singing along with the songs. Must be my age showing…

Saturday 14th May 1983

HMS Illustrious entered Scapa Flow just after 0700 this morning, in bright sunshine, and came to anchor a little way off the jetty at about 0800. We spent the whole day there, the weather alternately good and not so good, running a boat service ashore, ferrying various guests of the Captain to and from the ship. Rumour has it that he owns most of the Orkneys which aren’t the property of other private individuals or people whose titles start with ‘HRH’, and he certainly knows a lot of Islanders. After the morning, I knew a good few as well, because I had volunteered to act as a guide for one of the several groups on board.

Charming, if slightly taciturn people – the Captain briefed us beforehand, saying that while the Islanders might well not say very much, and might well seem rather unimpressed with the whole thing, they would nevertheless be talking about their visit for years to come. I think he was probably right, as with the group I had, they waxed very lyrical indeed about the ship, and I actually had to take them down to the NAAFI shop to buy some souvenirs of the vessel – the eight I had spent about £50 in all, which is, I suppose, one measure of their enthusiasm for the ship and our visit here, as I believe that Orkney Islanders (I often can’t spell Orkadians) are reputed to be very attached indeed to their money.

We stayed at anchor in Scapa Flow for most of the day, in very changeable weather – alternately rain and sunshine – before finally getting under way at about 1650. Throughout the night the ship made ground to the west towards Cape Wrath, before turning south into the North Minch channel en route to the Isle of Man, our destination for Sunday afternoon. I treated myself to the evening film in the Wardroom (chances of such pleasures in the future might not be all that frequent), which was that all-time classic horror/comedy An American Werewolf In London, with positively sizzling special effects. A superb film, and despite having seen it several times before, I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sunday 15th May 1983

The day