Читать книгу The Paras - The Inside Story of Britain's Toughest Regiment - John Parker - Страница 8

H, as he was universally known because he hated the name Herbert, was at the Army’s United Kingdom Land Forces HQ in Wilton, Wiltshire, when he learned that he was to command 2 Para: the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment, with its renowned history, including the famous Second World War exploits at Arnhem portrayed in the film A Bridge Too Far. As the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina in April 1982, H – Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Jones – learned that it was unlikely his battalion would be sent. He lobbied furiously, and at home his wife and the mother of his two sons, Sara, watched as he burned the phone lines to anyone who could help get his unit included in the Task Force bound for the South Atlantic. H was hell-bent on going to war. He eventually made it and never came back.

Today H is one of the revered heroes of the Parachute Regiment, and as with anything that stands out in that regiment, he became, posthumously, a controversial figure. Sara herself – so close to him in those ambitious days that she could read his thoughts – stood up for him and his Regiment. Unusual though it may be for a woman’s words to lead into a story which delves into the innermost thoughts and recollections of some of the world’s toughest soldiers, there is no doubt that those who knew him will appreciate the reasons.

Any realistic Army wife knows that is what her husband trains for. The reality of war is never very pleasant but if somebody is trained to do the job he wants to go off to see if he can do it and what it will be like for him. Although you mightn’t like it in your heart, you have to accept it and recognize that is the type of man you are married to. It is what he wants to do. And I always knew it as far as H was concerned. We first met when I was 15 and married when I was 23 and he was 24. He was on operational service in places like Northern Ireland and had been decorated for his work there. Worry about him? Well, I suppose you worry less about him as the colonel than you would if he was a platoon commander. You pretend to yourself that as he is the CO he is likely to be safer. But you don’t sit down and imagine things, see in lurid Technicolor what is going on. And the other thing is that most of us are optimists anyway.

When H went off to the Falklands it was a funny situation because we didn’t know what was going to happen, if anything. There was all sorts of political toing and froing and it might have all turned into a damp squib with them all going off to sea then turning round and coming back again. Being optimistic I told myself: ‘Well, it won’t come to a landing…’ When it got to the stage when they were getting closer – they were in the South Atlantic and it was getting rougher and they were on a North Sea ferry – then I did begin to worry. In the early stages he had flown to Ascension Island for the planning meetings and I thought he would be coming back before finally leaving but he rejoined the battalion at Ascension. So I never saw him again. He was pretty good at writing letters but they were very slow in getting through to us. I got quite a lot of his letters after he died.

But what was really sad was that all ours were returned, too, unopened. It is sad to think that all those letters were written by the boys and me and they never got to him. When H was killed, Graham Farrell, the regimental colonel, came to tell me. When I saw him I thought he was coming to take me off to see someone else to give them bad news, but he was coming to see me. We knew the night before that Goose Green was to happen and it was all in the newspapers and on the news that there had been a battle. The boys were home for half-term. I had collected David from the train from Sherborne. Rupert was with me and when we got back we were talking about it. H’s name was in the newspapers as the commanding officer, but we did not know he had been killed. We knew the regiment had been victorious but we also knew there had been casualties. We did not know who the casualties were.

I remember ringing one of the officers at the Para Depot and saying that it was great that we had been victorious or something similar, and he said: ‘We must guard against over-optimism.’ I didn’t realize at the time what he was saying. He knew there had been casualties and he must have known the names and was awaiting confirmation before breaking the news. At that time we had a set-up within the battalion, a wives’ club and various other things which involved both the officers’ and soldiers’ wives. We also had a very good families officer. I was 40 at the time, probably one of the oldest women ‘in the regiment’, so to speak. Some people saw me as the Mother of the Battalion. Everybody was worried, but there was not a lot of crying on my shoulder. The Parachute Regiment produces a higher quality of soldier, a better-educated soldier in the ways of the world, a more independent type of person, and that quality is reflected in their wives and they are more able to cope. An independent soldier tends to marry an independent wife. The wives of 2 Para were used to coping with things because of the time the men spent away on exercises or Northern Ireland tours.

About 24 hours after H was killed I was told. And it was then I realized why they had said we must guard against over-optimism. I couldn’t believe it even though I knew I had to. I don’t think anybody who is given a shock like that actually appreciates what they have been told at the time. It is like a sort of bad dream and it isn’t for weeks, months, that you actually accept that it is for real, that it is true. We were lucky in a way because it was half-term and the boys and I were together. They told me first and I told the boys. In a way, it was easier because we were together and my mother was there and the wife of the commanding officer of another Para battalion. About a week afterwards we had a families day. And I remember going to that. I don’t know why I felt I should go but I just knew I had to go. I suppose I felt that as I was the colonel’s wife I had a duty to the battalion he commanded. I was very proud of the regiment and with that comes all sorts of attachments and duty is one of those attachments.

The wives of the senior officers and senior NCOs had a fair weight of responsibility in looking after the younger ones. You have to remember we were just wives – we were not trained social workers or anything like that. I had to go to the families day because I thought that the sooner I got back to doing things that were everyday and normal the sooner things might get better. There was no point in digging a big hole and climbing into it. Although at times I was there as a shoulder to cry on, I myself was lucky because I have always had a very supportive family. I remember sitting in Geraldine Chaundler’s sitting room after her husband, David, flew off to replace H as CO of 2 Para. He was parachuted in [see Chapter 16] and I remember sitting with Geraldine and watching the television film of H and the others who were killed at Goose Green being buried in the temporary graves at Ajax Bay.

H is still there, buried in the War Cemetery at San Carlos. We assumed that everyone who died would be buried where they fell. I have a brother-in-law in the Navy and their dead are traditionally buried at sea. It was quite a time afterwards that Maggie [Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher] decided that those who died could be repatriated. I didn’t like the idea of him being dug up and transported all that way back again. To me it seemed more dignified to have him buried where he fell. Even after all these years I sometimes have dreams that he did not die, that he was badly wounded and that he is coming home again. I suppose it is part of the inbuilt defence mechanism. I was never bitter about him being killed, but I suppose in a way I was a little angry with him at one stage for dying and leaving the boys and me.

But you marry a man, the person you love, and you have to accept the nature of the beast. I wished he had done something else, but if he did what he felt was right then I have to accept that. We can all look at the if onlys in life… If only he had commanded another battalion… If only the Falklands hadn’t happened… You could go on and on. But the reality is that he did what he thought to be right at that moment and that is all that matters. I do not believe his life was lost in vain. We were right to support the Falkland Islanders, who are fiercely British, against the might of Argentina. Maggie was right to go in, to send the troops there and we won a great victory – which I don’t suppose we could nowadays because we wouldn’t have the ships to get there.

Since the campaign, as always happens, people have been examining the way it was conducted and H’s role in it. There have been some stinging things said about him. You don’t like the criticism and I think you would be pretty unfeeling if you did, but if you have faith and believe in the person, then that is what is important. You don’t like it being said, so you try to rise above that. In this country it is inevitable that anybody who is held up as a hero or held in high esteem will be targeted by people looking to see if they have feet of clay, looking to bring them down. I think it is a shame because I think people in this country wish to have people to look up to, and always looking for a downside, a bad side, is a shame. Most of the criticism has come from people who were not there, the armchair strategists who sat safely at home and from the comfort of their armchairs began to analyse H’s strategy, to find fault with it. But unless you were on the ground and in the throes of war, which is a pretty disorganized business, how can you say what people were doing was wrong?

The criticism made the boys cross but it did not shake their faith in what H did. They believe he did what he felt he had to do at the time. They had reached a difficult point in the battle and H would not make somebody else do something he wouldn’t have done himself. He led from the front. There is an argument that a CO should not be doing that, but when it got to that point of the battle where he felt things were becoming bogged down he felt that if nobody else was going to do it he would have to. He did it and, I would argue, that was the turning point. There had been many rumours that he was going to be awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. When it happened we were all very proud, terribly proud, but he would not have been impressed with himself; he would have been impressed with his battalion and what they had achieved. Even though the boys were proud they also had to live with it. It is quite tough having a famous father who, on the one hand, is a national hero and on the other is criticized from time to time. It is all very difficult to take on board. It is then even more difficult when you follow your father into a career, which they both did: both joined the Army.

Luckily, with a name like Jones, people don’t always know who they are. It is very difficult living up to your father’s reputation and people’s expectations based on his reputation. Then there is the criticism. They either have to stand up for him or take it on the chin or whatever. It is not easy. It was no surprise to me that they were going to go into the Army. It was not because of what H did. It was always destined. Before H died David was going in. The only thing I didn’t know was what regiment they were going to join. I thought David might join the Parachute Regiment and Rupert the Devon and Dorsets. In the end they both joined the D and Ds. I never tried to stop them. You support your children in whatever they want to do and as far as joining the Army is concerned, I think it is a marvellous tradition and a marvellous occupation for those who want to do it. I always loved the spirit of the Army, I loved everything it stood for. I still do. It gives me a buzz, but I think I have an old-fashioned vision of it now. The Army has moved on.

When David graduated from Sandhurst there was a great feeling of pride and one of regret that H was not there to see it. I shed a tear, but I think H could well have been there in spirit. Rupert toyed with the idea of going into the Paras but then decided against it. David, in his uniform, was the spitting image of his father and terribly like him in a hundred and one ways. All the ways he acts and behaves are H all over again. They served together in Northern Ireland and that was a little worrying, but I was more worried when Rupert went to Bosnia. I was worried more then, I don’t know why, but I was. He was terribly involved in what was happening around Mount Igman and I remember being dreadfully worried then. I got myself in a real state about him. It was probably because it was always on the news and they kept saying that they were going in to do this, that and the other, and I thought: ‘I’ve been here before… I don’t think I can take it again.’ As far as Northern Ireland is concerned I had been there before, I had lived there during one of H’s tours of duty and I could understand it more. Bosnia I couldn’t understand and I didn’t enjoy him being there at all. By this stage I was no longer an Army wife, but just an ordinary Army mum.

I got involved with the Falklands Families Association about two years after it was formed. A group of relatives formed it on the Cunard Countess on their way back from visiting the graves in the Falklands the year after the fighting. Sadly we are now a much smaller band than we used to be: some people have died, others’ lives have moved on and they don’t want to know any more. But I think it has given a lot of people support and friendship and for all of us – particularly myself – it has shown that there are other people out there who have the same experiences, the same emotions, the same problems you have, and you know that you are a band of people with a common understanding, a comradeship, and that is very important. The vast majority of those who joined were parents because the vast majority of those killed were young people who were not married. Some have never recovered from the loss of their children. It is very hard for women and children to be widowed and left without a father, but I think it is toughest of all on parents because you never get over the loss of a child. I always feel that your child is your investment in the future. It is a little bit of you you leave behind and to lose one is a shattering blow.

H’s VC is at the National Army Museum in Chelsea on what they call permanent loan. It still belongs to the family and we can get it back any time we want. The reality of it is, what is the point of me having it here in the house or having it in a bank? There is no point. It is much better having it somewhere where people can see it, and there aren’t many places where it can be properly looked after. I go to see it occasionally, but it doesn’t bring back any particular memories of H as it came to us after he died. He never held it, it was never part of him. We are proud of the ethos and all that goes with being a Victoria Cross holder.