In April 1982, aiming to distract the Argentinian populous from the civil unrest aimed at the military junta that was fuelled by an economic crisis and human rights abuses, acting President General Leopoldo Galtieri launched an invasion of the British Territories of The Falkland Islands and South Georgia. He had gambled that the Government of Margret Thatcher, itself unpopular in The United Kingdom, would not respond militarily to this attack on a few small islands thousands of miles from London. Aside from a small patrol ship the British had no military assets in the South Atlantic, and no invasion had ever been carried out so far from a land base. Strategically, the chances of a successful British military action looked limited especially for a country that had been licking its wounds since the Suez Crisis ended its status as a major global power.

Thatcher saw this as a time to not only show British military power to the world, but cement her powerbase with the patriotic fervour that a successfully returning the islands to British would bring. A task force consisting of Royal Navy ships, merchant ships and converted cruise liners was sent South on the long trip to the South Atlantic. The fleet was headed by the carriers Invincible and Hermes and also included the QEII and Canberra, two of the most famous liners in the world.

While the carriers had Harrier Jump Jets, the Argentinians could launch fighters not only from the mainland, but from the airstrip at the Island’s capital Port Stanley, that could attack the convoy with ship killing Exocet missiles from well beyond the range that the task force could hit back.

The RAF

From the 1950s, Britain’s nuclear deterrent was in the hands of the RAF's V-Force: The Vickers Valiant, Avro Vulcan and Handley Page Victor. When they came into service, they were some of the world's most advanced high level bombers. By the early 1980s, the Valiant had been retired, the Victor was converted to a tanker and only the Vulcan remained in use as a bomber, and its days were numbered.

The nuclear deterrent had been handed to the Royal Navy. Their submarines could launch a devastating counter-strike from hidden positions under the waves, whereas the V-Force could be put out of action by taking out their bases in the first wave of attacks.

The RAF’s priorities were changing, and the future was in the hands of strike aircraft like the Jaguar, Buccaneer and Tornado, capable of precision attacks on targets but didn’t have the range or capacity of true bombers.

The V-Force’s finest hour came when their combat future looked bleakest. Months from retirement, the Vulcan was called upon for one final set of missions. It was to be backed up by the Victor in what was to be one of the legendary bombing raids.

The RAF Get Ready

It looked like the RAF would be out of this fight; its more modern planes did not have the range to attack the Falklands. A round trip from the UK was 14,000 miles. Even operating from their nearest base, Ascension Island, the Falklands were 4000 miles away. Only the Victor had the range to reach the Falklands, but that was no longer able to act as a bomber. The Vulcan, however, could reach the Falklands; the only problem was that it would need to be refuelled in the air, something that experience had dismissed as too dangerous.

Military leaders were pessimistic of the chances of the Task Force succeeding in its mission, amongst their worries was that the fleet’s air defences would not be able to stop wave after wave of attacks from the Argentinian Air Force based on Stanley. The RAF had a plan, they could send a Vulcan to take out the runway.

However, to support the Vulcan on the longest bombing mission ever attempted, they would need a fleet of Victors filled with fuel. While the complexity of such a mission would stretch conventional military logistics to breaking point, it was typical of a war that the best military minds thought Britain had little chance of winning.

Ascension Island

Ascension Island is a small volcanic island just south of the equator roughly midway between Africa and South America. It’s part of the British Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, although the main island of the territory, Saint Helena was 800 miles away. While it is isolated, its position in the middle of the Atlantic makes it a strategic asset. Although it was a British Island, the base on the island was run by the Americans. They’d set up Wideawake¹ airfield in 1943, although it went out of use after World War II, it was put back into use in 1956 and was used by both the US Air Force and by NASA.

The United States were worried that the Argentinians would get Soviet Support, and while they publically tried to negotiate a settlement, they allowed the RAF to use Wideawake and arranged for a tanker to moor up by the island to supply the RAF with fuel.

By late April and May, Wideawake was one of the busiest airfields in the world. Not only were the Vulcans and Victors of the bombing mission based there, but so were the RAF’s reconnaissance and support aircraft.

Preping the Vulcan

The Vulcan was the only RAF plane that had the range and payload to make an attack, but it would need refuelling. A lot of refuelling. And if one thing was known about Vulcans, you don’t refuel them in mid-air. Most of the equipment in the surviving aircraft for refuelling had been removed. Military scrap yards were searched to find missing pieces, one vital piece turned up being used as an ashtray in one of the mess halls. Then the crews had to practise, not only refuelling but low-level precision bombing.

To train in air-to-air refuelling  takes months normally, but the crews only had a few weeks while the task force was sailing south. Tanker pilots who were used to refuelling flew on board to pilot the Vulcans during refuelling, however they were used to their Victor which had a refuelling probe directly above the cockpit, the probe on the Vulcan was at the end of the nose. Everything that had become second nature to the pilots was now working against them.

Vulcans never really had to deal with accurate bombing, especially against a small target. They were nuclear bombers, all you needed to do was drop their bomb within a few miles of the target. They had a bombing computer, used to calculate the moment to drop the bombs, but it was driven by gears and cogs and would have been familiar to Lancaster crews from the Second World War.

The First Attack

The logistics of mounting the attack were huge, the base in Ascension, which although British owned was actually leased to the US, became one of the busiest airfields in the word. As well as the bombing Vulcan, the attack formation needed to include a reserve Vulcan and 11 Victors.

The Victors refuelled each other and also the Vulcan, returning to base when they’d used up their fuel. The first Black Buck mission at the end of April 1982, didn’t go without flaws. The main Vulcan developed a leak, and so the cabin couldn’t pressurise, faced with a choice of turning back or freezing to death, the Vulcan crew returned home, presumably to drink the drinks that had awaited the return of the reserve crew, who were only meant to travel to the first refuelling point.

When the first of the Victors returned, it was discovered that the fuels calculations had underestimated the thirst of the Vulcan, there wasn’t enough fuel in the air for the Vulcan to complete its mission.

When the crew of the Vulcan engaged with the last Victor for their final refuelling, they were unaware of their fuel consumption. When the Victor, itself short on fuel pulled away early, the Vulcan crew were angry, thinking they’d been left high and dry by the tanker. The tanker itself didn’t have enough reserves to make Ascension, and they were fortunate that another tanker had been launched to look for returning aircraft.

It had been decided that the Vulcan couldn’t attack from low level, the bombs wouldn’t penetrate the runway. The attack level had to be higher, but that put the Vulcan into the sights of Argentinean anti-aircraft radar. This was of course, if they found the island. Long before the age of GPS, the Vulcan was relying on navigational aids taken from an airliner, for flying thousands of miles over the ocean. They didn’t even have a map of the South Atlantic, just using a Map of the North Atlantic turned upside down. Visability was limited as they were having to come it at low level to avoid radar, both navigation aids were giving contradictory positions, so the navigator split the difference. As it turned out, when they found the island, they were only a mile from where they thought they were.

The Vulcan popped up over the island, climbing to the release height and dropping 21 bombs. The first hit the runway and put the airfield out of action for fast jets. It also meant that the Argentinian Government were so worried that the mainland was also going to be targeted (attacking the mainland would have needed more Victors than were available) so they withdrew their air cover from the Falklands. The Vulcan crew, well aware that they didn’t have enough fuel to return to base headed back north, hoping that a Victor tanker would be looking for them. One was.

There were another 6 Black Buck missions planned, one didn’t take off and another had to be scrapped mid-mission. These were the longest bombing raids ever undertaken, until the American B-52s attacked Iraq from their US bases during the Gulf War.