South Georgia Wessex

Trust me they fall over quite easily, I watched one beat itself to death…

The link I gave earlier was written by Jimmy, he was 3 para and wounded at the time, I was on Chinooks and a lot of my mates were on the conveyor.

if they pushed it over they must have been VERY strong as they managed to wrap a MRB under the fuselage even tho it was still attached to the head,had look at a few phots i took in 1997 so im sure it rolled over on landing.

Well, that would seem to be the clincher; as I said I couldn’t really see any possible reason for the Argentines to deliberately push-over an Argentine helicopter that was on an island that Argentina had just captured!

This Puma was also fitted with skis on the landing gear which makes the track wider I think.

I like to read first-hand accounts of conflict (or as close to first-hand as I can get) and I have to say it is frustrating reading about events where it is difficult to understand how anybody could have been mistaken; the conclusion has to be that the accounts are untrue and after reading such accounts it is difficult to know what to believe of any other account.

W/O in 2009:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK—Air/Westland-SA-330E-Puma/1207679/L/&sid=0adb3521e893d19acb02150b6373cce9
http://www.demobbed.org.uk/image_view.php?a=26406&s=ze449.jpg

The one at the Governors house wasn’t complete, was missing a few bits.

Yes, I should have said almost complete. This (Coast Guard?) Puma was unserviceable before the British got anywhere near it (one of the reasons it survived) and had already been robbed of spares for the other Argentine Pumas on the Falklands.

It eventually entered RAF service as ZE449 in 2001; not sure if it is still flying?

Most were reskinned if memory serves me

Skin condition of the Wessex is good – are these are a type of mag alloy like the Whirlwinds?? I was expecting a lot of corrosion but can see hardly anything.

Cant say much about the airframe condition though – lots of Glacial action on them, even see the scrape marks on the roundel

if they pushed it over they must have been VERY strong as they managed to wrap a MRB under the fuselage even tho it was still attached to the head,had look at a few phots i took in 1997 so im sure it rolled over on landing.

Creaking, Pumas fall over quite easily as they are narrow tracked with a lot of weight up top.. One doubts it was deliberate..

The one at the Governors house wasn’t complete, was missing a few bits.

Idle curiosity but does anyone know if the two Wessex 5 on South Georgia where recovered post war or are they in/on the Glacier still?

And the Argentine Puma??

[ATTACH=CONFIG]219688[/ATTACH]

Taken from this website http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/72dc5/

[ATTACH=CONFIG]219689[/ATTACH]

But that still wouldn’t explain why it was deliberately turned-over by the Argentines.

I should point-out that other accounts state that the Puma turned-over as it was crash-landed after receiving the fire from the Royal Marines; personally, I think that is the more likely scenario but there is little doubt that the pilot showed remarkable skill in landing it at all after being hit by so much enemy fire. This Puma could so easily have crashed into the sea with the probable loss of all aboard.

Interestingly this account also states that this Puma received ‘around 600 hits’ from the rifles and machine-guns of the Royal Marines defending South Georgia.

… which may explain why they didn’t hope to recover it later?

I cannot remember which book I read the original account of the Puma engine removal but there is an interesting account in ‘Wings of the Malvinas’ by Santiago Rivas (who I am sure used to post on this forum):

“The Puma was seriously damaged and, after the recovery of as much equipment as possible, it was turned onto its left side and abandoned. The recovered items, including an engine, were later taken to the Malvinas as spares for the deployed Pumas.”

I cannot think of any reason why the Argentines would turn this helicopter over after they had recovered spares from it; South Georgia was then in Argentine hands after all. Even if it was possible to turn it over by manpower alone (which I doubt) why would they; wouldn’t they hope to recover it later?

Interestingly this account also states that this Puma received ‘around 600 hits’ from the rifles and machine-guns of the Royal Marines defending South Georgia.

The ‘Government House’ Puma was recovered complete and (I think) still serves with the RAF; no the story definitely refers to this South Georgia Puma.

Well if it was this one

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8230/8423968127_07e0212c06_b.jpg

They are both there, the upper engine has the oil tank removed and the intake bullet, it appears to have the shaft from the rear power turbine gearbox to the FCU missing as well, lousy description, but it basically senses NR drop as the rotors slow when power is applied and via the shaft and a couple of bobweight chuck more fuel in to speed the whole kit and caboodle up again.. I am suprised it wasn’t recovered though…
Perhaps the engine came out of the one at the Governors house, a lot of other stuff did… 😉

The intakes are missing and it looks like they gutted the avionics bay in the early shot.

Removing a Puma Engine would take about 30 minutes. Though they are both in…

So the ‘engine-removal’ story is another of those Falklands myths then?

Removing a Puma Engine would take about 30 minutes.. Though they are both in, it the oil tanks have gone on the later views, surprised the UK never recovered it.
If you want to read a good book, try

Three Days in June ( on Kindle )

This book is an account of the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment during the last three days of the Falklands war, it has been put together with the goodwill of the members of 3 Para and their attachments. When I asked Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Pike KCB, DSO, MBE if he would do a read through, to make sure he had no objections to the content and if he would be kind enough to write the foreword, this was his reply, it sums up what the book is all about.

Jimmy, I have spent last night having a good read of the book, before I go away today, and really must congratulate you. Particularly strong is the overall picture of the awful nature of the fighting, the teamwork, the comradeship, and the courage in supporting others, the humour- I could go on. Also very strong are the descriptions of casevac and the backup side of the battle.
I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that you change a single word.
It is a marvellous tribute to the courage and tenacity of the men of 3 PARA and you should be very proud of what you have achieved for them all.
Of course I will do a Foreword for your book, it would be a privilege

All good wishes
Hew Pike

I’ve just started reading ‘Down South’ too. It is fairly entertaining, partly because of the inter-ship / inter-service squabbling, but I have a feeling that the author has added-in a lot of information to his basic ‘diary’ written at the time; he seems remarkably accurate (too accurate) about details that weren’t known for many months after the conflict. This is no bad thing as it paints a rather more complete picture of the conflict that would otherwise have been possible with only information that was ‘known’ at the time; it is also far more preferable that publishing incorrect information many years after the conflict and perpetuating some of the more stubborn myths.

Some items were recovered from the glacier from the crash-sites of the two Wessex helicopters including some weapons ‘carelessly’ left behind by the SAS!

I remember reading that after the Argentine capture of South Georgia the crew / ground-crew of the Puma were given a limited time (half-an-hour?) by the Captain of their transport ship (forgotten its name) to recover components from their downed aircraft. Apparently they had time to remove one of the engines!

However the photographs linked above, taken later presumably, seem to show both engines still in place.

I’ve also recently been reading a book published by an Argentine author who puts a slightly different slant on events (and I hope I’ve remembered this correctly); apparently the Puma was landed as a precaution, not shot-down, and the Argentine crew / ground-crew turned it over in order to recover the engine!

Many thanks for the responses.

I suppose the Wessies will appear in due cause either as a pancake or complete airframes for some future archaelologist to wonder what it was all about!

The Puma, im surprised to see so many “useable” bits on it in the earlier photos – but the sea air and the time frame between when it was lost to any potential recovery wont of helped.

Just started reading Down South (at Ascension at the moment) – thats where the idle curiosity come about. He seems to have a typical Naval Officers attitude to the seamen under his chain of command (to be not seen and not heard).

June 18th, 1982: “It took us a while to find the two cabs. The glacier was drawing them inexorably into its core and they were becoming parts of the landscape. …YA was almost totally covered by a thick pall of snow whereas YF was iced into the glacier.”

Chris Parry, “Down South” (includes one very small picture of YA taken on that day)

Theoretically, being in a glacier, the wrecks should also move with it downwards … like those B-17s/P-38s in Greenland.