Ghost Force

two conflicts in the Gulf. And there was much to recommend the operations in Bosnia. But they were all comparatively low-tech campaigns.

But by the year 2011, Great Britain had not gone into battle alone for almost thirty years, when they last fought for the Falkland Islands. And that was a close-run thing. A look at Admiral Woodward's private diary revealed a somewhat disturbing sentence. 'On the night of June 13, 1982,' he wrote, 'I do not have one ship without a major operational defect. I am afraid if the Argentinians breathe on us tomorrow, we might be finished.'

As it happened, the Argentinians surrendered the next day, and Britain celebrated a hard-won victory. But it may prove to have been her last, unless Westminster governments began to rectify the problems they have created.

In any event, assailed by problems, the Task Force struggling to take shape in Portsmouth in the freezing winter of 2011 was the antithesis of rapid deployment. The shortages made everything take twice as long.

And two more weeks went by until the troops were able to show up in significant numbers. The first to arrive were members of the Royal Marine Brigade, plus their artillery support, the engineer squadron, their Logistic Support Regiment and the Air Squadron. Altogether 5,000 men from Forty Commando, Forty-two Commando, and Forty-five Commando began to embark the ships.

They were followed by a second 5,000-strong formation, the Sixteenth Air Assault Brigade, including 1 and 2 Para, and a battalion from the Royal Green Jackets. This was part of the Army's rapid-response force, equipped with Chinooks and Apache attack helicopters. It was a specialist force, trained specifically for this type of mobile operation.

They personally supervised the loading of their beloved Apache helicopters, which bristled with guns and rockets, and would provide valuable air support against Argentinian armor and ground troops.

The Artillery Regiment had their eighteen light field guns, which hopefully could be deployed all over the combat area…If they could make a landing.

On March 4, a declaration signed by the Prime Minister informed Buenos Aires if the Argentinian armed forces had not vacated the Falkland Islands completely in five days, the British Task Force would sail from Portsmouth to the South Atlantic, where they would wage war upon the Republic of Argentina until the islands were cleared of this foreign invasion.

Suitably warned, the Argentinians made no response, despite much urging from the American State Department, which was doing everything in its power to persuade Buenos Aires to back down and then negotiate. The U.S. government even offered to broker the talks, which could be held in Washington, until some satisfactory agreement was reached.

But Argentina was not about to negotiate. And the British Prime Minister was essentially in the hands of his own Navy and military High Command. All the Admirals and Generals were making it clear that once the Task Force sailed, it had either to fight or return home. They simply were not sufficiently strong to reach the South Atlantic and then hang around indefinitely while politicians and diplomats argued.

The problems of food, fuel, and supply lines were colossal, and many of the ships were old and likely to have serious malfunctions. They could fight perhaps once, fiercely, for maybe a month, but they could not waste time. Britain's naval and military leaders made it clear…You may not leave us down there in bad weather and high seas, falling apart in the middle of the ocean: once we arrive, we either fight or leave. There's no halfway ground.

General Sir Robin Brenchley in person told the Prime Minister an 8,000-mile journey down the Atlantic, and perhaps a four-week battle for the islands, was the maximum stress this Task Force could take.

'Prime Minister,' he said, 'to leave us down there for several weeks, fighting the weather, waiting for your clearance for battle, would be suicide for us, and perfect for our land-based opponents. So you'd better get used to it. When we clear Portsmouth Dockyard we're going to fight, and if you can't cope with that, you'd better call the whole thing off. Because if we get there and you put us in a holding pattern, we'll probably lose half of this aging fleet before we even start.

'Try to remember,' he added, as if talking to a child, 'all engineering problems, great and small, which would normally be carried out in a dockyard, will have to be completed at sea. I cannot condone any delay.

'And if you try to achieve one, you'll have the immediate resignations of both myself and the First Sea Lord, plus a dozen of the highest ranked commanders. Our reasons will be unanimous: the total incompetence of your government.'

The Prime Minister was beaten and he knew it. 'Very well, General,' he said. 'I must agree. When the Task Force sails there will be no further delay. Your rules of engagement will be set out and not subject to change.'

Which essentially boxed everyone into an even tighter corner. The days were running out, the American diplomats were making no progress whatsoever, and Argentina had nothing to say to anyone.

At 0800, March 17, 2011, the Task Force sailed. The dockyard was packed with well-wishers. Families of the men on board the Royal Navy flotilla lined the jetties, many of them in tears. The band of the Royal Marines played 'Rule Britannia' over and over as the warships cast their lines and headed out into the Solent, line astern.

Great crowds lined the seafront at Southsea, watching the ships sail slowly out into the English Channel and then toward great waters, where devastating battles had been fought and won for centuries.

Admiral Alan Holbrook's flag flew from the mast of the Ark Royal, and the route they took was close to the shore, enabling the carrier to pass close to the naval stations along the south coast, Lee-on-Solent, Devonport, and Culdrose. And as they passed, a constant stream of helicopter deliveries were made from the shore. There were also stores and ammunitions being unloaded for other ships that had not been prepared in Portsmouth itself, but which were heading out later in the day.

And all along the historic coastline the crowds were out watching the warships on their way, clapping and cheering them in the gusty offshore breeze that carried their hopes and best wishes out into the Channel.

In the sprawling naval base in Devonport, where HMS Daring was preparing to depart, a naval chaplain was present to conduct a short service of hope and prayer for relatives of the ship's company. And as the big Type-45 destroyer pushed out through the harbor, a Navy band played, poignantly, the hymn 'Abide With Me,' a fragile shard from the past, the last sounds of England heard by Admiral Woodward off Gibraltar all those years ago.

0900, MARCH 17, 71.00N 28.47E

DEPTH 300, COURSE 225, SPEED 22

She slipped swiftly through the cold deep waters off the most northerly coast of Norway: Viper K-157, the 7,500-ton pride of Russia's ever-dwindling attack submarine fleet. The old Soviet Navy was probably in terminal decline, but no expense had been spared in building this sleek, black underwater warrior, completed a dozen years earlier, lightly used and now 'worked up' to its maximum efficiency.

They built her right across the wide estuary of the Severnaya Dvina, opposite the port of Archangel, on the often hard-frozen shores of the near-landlocked White Sea. This is the location of that cradle of Russian maritime engineering, the shipyards of Severodvinsk, where even the attack submarines built in faraway Nizhniy Novgorod on the Volga are transported for their nuclear engineering.

The Viper took four years to build, constructed with the meticulous care of the Severodvinsk nuclear engineers, many from the same families as the men who had built the enormous old Soviet Typhoon-class 26,000-ton ballistic missile submarines back in the 1980s.

By general consensus Viper K-157 was the finest submarine ever built in Severodvinsk. She was nuclear-powered by a VM5 Pressurized Water Reactor, which thrust 47,600 horsepower into her two GT3A turbines. A member of the excellent Akula-class ships, she was 14 feet longer than the old Akula Is, and, at 360 feet overall, was the first of a new class of Akula IIs. The standard of engineering around her extra-long fin was unprecedented in Russian submarine building. She was comfortable dived to a remarkable 1,500 feet, where she would make a good twenty-five knots.

Every possible radiated noise level had been notably reduced. She was virtually silent at seven knots and under. Her sonar system was the latest improved Shark Gill (SKAT MGK 53) passive/active search and attack. It functioned on low-medium frequency, hull-mounted.

And she packed a serious wallop, with her batteries of submerged-launch cruise missiles, the Raduga SS-N- 21s, which were also surface-to-surface weapons. She also carried Sampson (GRANAT) missiles, also fired from twenty-one-inch tubes, making Mach 0.7 for 1,600 miles, flying two hundred meters above the ground, carrying a