What are the most embarrassing British military blunders?
Fortuna Glacier, 1982.
The SAS were deployed on the South Georgia glacier during the Falklands War, believing they could traverse it. They couldn’t, and if they’d listened to the Marines and SBS, they wouldn’t have tried. They didn’t listen, and so hubris and a general cowboy attitude meant that they were on a mission that was doomed to fail. It was only the sheer cojones of the Fleet Air Arm’s Wessex pilots that saved their bacon. Two helicopters were lost, along with a lorra lorra SAS pride.
The Channel Dash, 1942.
The German warships Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen left Brest and slipped along the English Channel, to escape British aircraft and naval forces and arrive safely in German ports. It was very embarrassing for the British forces, and also resulted in a lot of British aircraft losses. It was mission impossible for the Germans, but they did it.
Torrey Canyon, 1967.
This huge oil tanker ran aground and broke up just off the south west coast of England, threatening massive pollution. The plan was to bomb the wreck and burn off the oil. How hard could it be for modern British attack aircraft to take out an enormous, stationary target? Pretty difficult, as it turned out. Of the 42 bombs aimed at the wreck, about a quarter missed, and some didn’t explode. Coming from a nation whose aviators had burst dams and sunk the Tirpitz, but they made a right pig’s ear of taking out a tanker that was already wrecked.
Sometimes, us Brits aren’t the legends we make ourselves out to be, and a little humility would go a long way.
Comments
Post a Comment