Fullbore Friday
a leader
A decade ago the Anglosphere lost one of its best wartime leaders, so a decided to reach back to my post from 2013 and share it again.
When I heard the news this week, I went over to a corner of The Salamander Library and pulled out three books from my Falkland Islands War corner; Admiral Sandy Woodward's One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander, Commander Sharkey Ward's Sea Harrier over the Falklands, and Michael Clapp's Amphibious Assault Falklands: The Battle of San Carlos Water - and gave the lot a quick once over during cocktail hour.
No need to go in to a lot of background here; hopefully everyone here has read at least one of these books. If not, shame on you - that war is still the template to think about the next naval war.
But again, no. Today, let's just take a moment to reflect of the kind of leader at sea we should all aspire to;
Admiral Sir John ('Sandy') Woodward, who has died aged 81, commanded the carrier battle group Task Force 317.8 during the Falklands conflict.
A life well lived. Served to the end as best he could. Bravo Zulu, Admiral.
As a final note - you have to like his leadership style;
On the passage south Woodward visited as many ships as he could, though his message to the various ships’ companies of the destroyers and frigates was uncompromising: “You’ve taken the Queen’s shilling. Now you’re going to have to bloody earn it. And your best way of getting back alive is to do your absolute utmost. So go and do it.”
Pithy.
Spent a lovely spring at Southwick as an instructor for the NATO course, which had command-select officers heading to their ship/squadron/sub. This was about 10 years after the "Free the Malvinas" dust up. Incidentally, White House at Southwick was Ike's D-Day headquarters and the parlor still has all the original maps, charts, message traffic, weather reports, etc, and during "tea" you could peruse at your leisure.
The staff was top notch and about 70% were Falklands vets, and generally they all agreed that if the A-4s had dropped the bombs with enough time to arm, or had more attacks on multiple vectors, the game might have been different. Then got to play golf with a nice elderly man and his son was the Navigator on the HMS Conqueror which sank the Belgrano. Over the desk in his home office was the photo of the Belgrano with decks awash. Living history is fun to listen to, re-hash, and provides a degree of authenticity that just can't be handed down.
“You’ve taken the Queen’s shilling. Now you’re going to have to bloody earn it. And your best way of getting back alive is to do your absolute utmost. So go and do it.”
Simply put. And that's the kind of straight talk sailors appreciate.