Vulcan fans set for film screening commemorating daring Falklands raid

The pioneering Operation Black Buck bombing raids during the 1982 conflict with Argentina saw the RAF launch a series of long-distance raids on Port Stanley airport by Vulcan bombers.

The operation was so complicated that 11 tanker planes were needed for refuelling, and it was all put together in two weeks with an aircraft due for retirement.

On July 27, Retford Little Theatre will be the venue for a screening of the Falklands’ Most Daring Raid.

The overnight attack which began on 30 April 1982 was the first of seven raids on the airfield which had been held by Argentine forces after their invasion on 2 April.

The bomber crew had to fly 3,700 miles (6,900 km) from RAF Waddington near Lincoln to Ascension Island in the South Atlantic and then another 3,300 miles (6,100 km) to the Falkland Islands.

Retired Flight Lieutenant Martin Withers, who took part in the raids and who was also responsible for piloting Doncaster’s last remaining Vulcan XH558 before its retirement from the skies, said the crew did not know if the raid had been successful after releasing the bombs.

"We weren't very confident that we had hit the target but we knew we had done a good attack and we were safe and on our way home," he said.

"It wasn't more than 24 hours later that we actually got a film that showed that we had put one big crater in the runway."

Following several weeks of fighting on land, sea and in the air, Argentina surrended on June 14, 1982. The war saw 255 British casualties, 649 Argentine deaths and three civilian Falkland Islander deaths.

While the XH558 housed at Doncaster Sheffield Airport was not involved in the raids on Port Stanley Airport, crew involved in its upkeep and flying the aircraft until it was eventually grounded are based in the town as part of the Vulcan To The Sky Trust.

The screening will include a guest appearance from Falklands veteran Group Captain Barry Smith on the remarkable story of Vulcan XM597’s diversion to Rio de Janeiro.

The film tells the humorous yet heroic story of how a crumbling, Cold-War era Vulcan flew the then longest range bombing mission in history and how a WW2 vintage bomb changed the outcome of the Falklands War.From start to finish, the seemingly impossible mission was a comedy of errors, held together by sheer British pluck and ingenuity.

On the brink of being scrapped, only three of the ageing nuclear bombers could be fitted out for war, one to fly the mission and two in reserve.

Crucial spare parts were scavenged from museums and scrap yards – one vital piece found as an ashtray in the Officer’s Mess.

In just three weeks, the Vulcan crews had to learn air-to-air refuelling, which they hadn’t done for twenty years and conventional bombing, which they hadn’t done for ten.

The RAF scoured the country for old WW2 iron bombs and complex refuelling calculations were done the night before on a £5 pocket calculator.With a plan stretched to the limit and the RAF’s hopes riding on just one Vulcan, the mission was flown on a knife-edge; fraught with mechanical failures, unreliable navigation, electrical storms and ultimately not enough fuel.

Of the Vulcan’s twenty-one bombs dropped, only one found its target. But that was enough to change the outcome of the war.

Tickets for the screening are priced at £20 and are available from the Vulcan To The Sky Trust.