The Falklands

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Interesting letter in the paper today. It was written by a naval officer who at the time was responsible for the Seawolf Testing programme. There was concern that the air launched version of the Exocet used different frequencies to the sea launched versions. He asked the French for details of the frequencies used and had a reply within four hours.
This showed that the frequencies could in 50% of the cases distrupt the Seawolf missile. The next night an amended version of an amended version of the printed circuit board was tested at HMS Collingwood and corrected circuit boards were immediately flown from Brize Norton and parachuted to the ships at sea.

The key was the swift response of the French with the required details.
 
Pilot who shot down Argentinian fighter jet in Falklands war comes face to face with the man he thought he had killed

For 25 years, Neil Wilkinson, a Royal Navy Gunner from Leeds, lived with the guilt of shooting down an Argentinian pilot during the Falklands War.

Day after day, images of the Douglas A4 Skyhawk jet bursting into a plume of smoke and plunging into the Falklands hills, played on his troubled mind.

When the war began in April 1982, Neil was a 22-year-old able seaman living in Portsmouth.

'I really just joined the navy to see the world and to get paid for it,' Neil, now 52, says, 'I never envisaged going to war. I'd only been in the navy three years.'

Only weeks later, on May 27th, Neil was on the deck of HMS Intrepid in San Carlos Bay, standing next to his 40mm gun. His job was to defend the British ships in the bay from air attack, and guard the crucial beachhead, where our troops were landed.

'We were relaxing, stood down from our weapons,' he remembers, 'It was a nice, sunny day – like an English summer's day, but a bit colder, and the visibility was quite good.'

At that same moment, First Lieutenant Mariano Velasco, 33, one of Argentina's most highly-skilled combat pilots, was speeding towards San Carlos Bay from Rio Gallegos on the Argentinian coast.

He was piloting one of four planes, charged with sinking the British ships in what had become known as 'Bomb Alley'. Only two days earlier, Velasco led the attack on the destroyer, HMS Coventry, killing 19 British servicemen and injuring 30.

'Everyday the ships were out in position and we took a pounding,' says Neil.

As Velasco's jet came screaming towards San Carlos Bay, the alarm went off on HMS Intrepid, and Neil rushed to his gun. Two of the Argentinian jets dropped their bombs and turned for home. Velasco wasn't so lucky.

'I never used to stray far from the gun,' Neil says, 'I only had six or seven feet to get there. Someone later worked out that I got there in eight seconds. I was only 22, like a gazelle then – these days, I might take 80 seconds!'

'And when I got into the gun, there was an Argentine jet, flying down the barrel.'

'I was the only weapon that fired that today. I ranged in on the plane and opened fire. To pull the trigger didn't take much doing. It became second nature that you know what to do, to protect your ship.'

'I fired off the six rounds at him and hit the aircraft. I saw a trail of smoke coming out of the plane, as it went down over the hill. I thought he was dead – there was no way anyone could get out of that aircraft.'

But unbeknown to Neil, the Argentinian pilot bailed out and survived - and today, he remembers vividly the moment he was hit: 'We were flying quite low, then suddenly I felt something hit the left wing,' he says on a BBC documentary to be broadcast tonight. 'It came from below. The wing was on fire. I looked in the mirror and I saw the smoke coming from underneath.

'A pilot can feel quite a strong bond with his aircraft but, when the moment comes, there is no choice; you have to think about trying to save yourself.'

Mariano had to slow down the battered plane – it's impossible to eject out of one going too fast. With time desperately running out, he slowed enough to fire himself out of the Skyhawk.

When Velasco's Skyhawk was blown up he had to fire himself out of the jet and walk in sub-zero temperatures to get help.

Eight miles from the spot where Neil shot him down, Mariano came hurtling towards the Falklands' West Island, smashing his legs as he landed.

Over the next days, he walked more than 10 miles with those badly-injured legs, in below-zero temperatures, before he came across an abandoned shepherd's lodge, stocked with food and fuel. There he lingered for several more days.

'I looked out of the window and I saw three locals,' Mariano says today, 'As they came closer, I went out of the cabin. They told me not to worry, that they would go and let the Argentinian base [the Falklands were under Argentinian control at the time] know I was there.'

Neil remained in the dark over Mariano's rescue for 25 years. He served in the Navy until 1989, and now works in Tesco's. Married twice, he has four children. But always the Falklands played on his mind.

'I saw that aircraft every day of my life,' he says, 'With traumatic experiences like that, dreams happen - you don't know what they're about. At the time you're doing it, you're on adrenaline, and you just do your job.'

'But all the training in the world doesn't prepare you for what's coming your way. I saw the plane being blown up - you don't know who's been killed and it all has an effect on you. I couldn't cope with the pressure.'

Neil has gone through years of therapy since, working with self-help groups in Leeds and doing a counselling course. But the best therapy came in 2007, when a programme on the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War was shown on television.

'I didn't really go in for watching things about the Falklands,' he says, 'But this programme was on, and I happened to catch it. This guy came on, with crutches, with his legs bandaged up. And they showed old footage of him being taken back to his airbase.'

'I couldn't believe it. I said to my wife, 'I've just seen the guy I shot down.' She said, 'You're joking.''

'They gave his name and the day he was shot down. I knew that only one aircraft had been shot down that day. So I looked through the internet, and discovered he was the pilot that shot the Coventry. I thought to myself, 'This isn't happening.''

'I'd never really checked on it all before. I didn't see the point of going back. But then it became a bit of an obsession.'

For eight months, Neil tried contacting Mariano through the Argentinian Airforce, before turning to the Argentinian Embassy in London. The embassy put Neil in touch with an Argentinian airforce colleague and, days later, Mariano himself got in touch.

'I was in floods of tears when the email came through,' says Neil, 'I was so happy that he was still alive. I had thought for years that his mum would be grieving for him, in the same way that my mum would have for me.'

Only last November, the two men finally met, thanks to the BBC documentary about the two men. Neil flew first 8,000 miles from Yorkshire, to the Falklands, to see San Carlos Bay and the spot where Mariano's plane crash-landed.

The impact crater survives and, around it, are scattered the fragments of Mariano's Skyhawk, still brightly painted in Argentinian colours.

'It was a brilliant feeling - not to gloat over the crash site - but because I was so pleased that he got out,' Neil says.

Neil then flew to Cordoba Province in Argentina, where Mariano and his family now live. From the moment they were first in touch, Mariano said his house was open to Neil. Still, Neil remained extremely apprehensive as he approached the man he'd last seen in the sights of his anti-aircraft gun.

Therapy: Neil, pictured at the front of this picture in 1982, spent years trying to come to terms with the traumatic moment he shot down the plane
Click to expand...

Read more:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb0OHA8m_ak

malvinas-1484110.jpg
 
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I saw one of the ships coming back into Portsmouth after the war,i was on a ferry coming back from the Isle of Wight,it had a large flag draped over the side of the ship and when the wind lifted it the largest hole i have ever seen in a ship,it was a wonder the ship made it back,i don't know what it was but it was a warship
 
woljags said:
I saw one of the ships coming back into Portsmouth after the war,i was on a ferry coming back from the Isle of Wight,it had a large flag draped over the side of the ship and when the wind lifted it the largest hole i have ever seen in a ship,it was a wonder the ship made it back,i don't know what it was but it was a warship
Click to expand...

If you post this in an argentine forum the people would inmediatly to tell "that was the HMS Invincible" :smoker:
 
I want to know "why" the British Empire did not encourage to do this "Slapstick" (that is making today) with the CHINESE GOVERMENT, when they had to RETURN the HONG KONG Island...in this case, they accepted the terms imposed by the Chinese "friendly"...
COULD SOME BRITISH CITIZEN EXPLAIN THIS TO THIS ARGENTINE?

Suppose I say to the people of USA "Forget the December 7, it happened a lot of years ago!" "Why to remember every year?"
 
Dear vikingBerserker: I like the Zeppelin Ztaaken too...recently I buyed in Powell Books (by $9.90!!!) a 1919 Jane's that have the Staaken!!! I want to make a 1:72 scale model of this bomber. I know I can find it in Roden, but I want to make from zero, with my hands!!!
 
Certinly. Hong Kong was always going to be handed back to China after an agreement signed with China in 1898 gave the UK the land for 99 years. After that period the UK carried out the terms of the agreement and gave the land back to China.

No such agreement exists regarding the Falklands.

The position is and always will be if the people on the Falklands want to join Argentina then they will be allowed to. Its worth noting that some partys in Scotland want to split from the UK and the Government have proposed that the People in Scotland have a vote for or against a split . If the vote is yes, then Scotland will leave the UK and be a nation on it own.

The rules are being applied in a consistant manner.
 
ALE777 said:
I want to know "why" the British Empire did not encourage to do this "Slapstick" (that is making today) with the CHINESE GOVERMENT, when they had to RETURN the HONG KONG Island...in this case, they accepted the terms imposed by the Chinese "friendly"...
COULD SOME BRITISH CITIZEN EXPLAIN THIS TO THIS ARGENTINE?

Suppose I say to the people of USA "Forget the December 7, it happened a lot of years ago!" "Why to remember every year?"
Click to expand...

Ale, we do not discuss politics here. Be very careful what you post.
 
ALE777 said:
I want to know "why" the British Empire did not encourage to do this "Slapstick" (that is making today) with the CHINESE GOVERMENT, when they had to RETURN the HONG KONG Island...in this case, they accepted the terms imposed by the Chinese "friendly"...
COULD SOME BRITISH CITIZEN EXPLAIN THIS TO THIS ARGENTINE?

Suppose I say to the people of USA "Forget the December 7, it happened a lot of years ago!" "Why to remember every year?"
Click to expand...


Dear Ale

I am not a British citizen, and I am very mindful of the ban on political debates, so I am going to be very careful in my reply and very reluctant to reply further.

There is not much camparable to the falklands/malvinas and Hong Kong. Hong kong was a leased territory that was always understood to be Chinese territory. That meant the land always had to be returned to its owner the Chinese eventually. In the case of the mavinas, no such lease eists, and the people of the islands are clear that they want to remain part of the British Isles. The argentine claim for the islands is mostly based on their proximity to Argentina, and their long past historical links. its a difficult delicate situation, I admit, but it is not at all comparable to Hong Kong.

Perhaps a different point of view to your own, .......
 
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