MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Glory days of the Harrier
“Hostile Skies: My Falklands Air War” by David Morgan.
Morgan flew in the first British air strike against Port Stanley and shot down Argentinian fighters over Bluff Cove. He was awarded the DSC in 1982.
THE Harrier is the only aircraft to have flown in combat for Britain since 1945 to approach the legendary status of the Spitfire and the Hurricane.
Both of these Second World War' planes have lodged themselves in the collective psyche as icons of Britishness. The Harrier ? the hero-jet of the 1982 Falklands War ? may yet join them.
With its vertical take off and landing capability, the fighter was revolutionary when it came into service. It remains an object of wonder today, as anyone who has seen one bow to the crowd at an air show will testify. But the Sea Harrier version ? which, in Navy hands, did more than any other aircraft to win the Falklands War ? has taken its last bow. Navy carriers will continue to operate the RAF's ground attack Harriers, but air protection will be covered, for the time being, by aircraft of the RAF, the US or even other nations.
So the publication of this account of one Sea Harrier pilot's experience in the Falklands War is timely. It is not the first such account, but it is probably the most vivid and honest.
David Morgan, who now flies commercial jets, describes horribly intense, kill-or-be-killed dogfights with Argentine pilots who threw their inferior fighter-bombers into combat with truly remarkable bravery.
The accounts do not make easy reading. The author opens his soul, describing the dry-mouthed fear of knowing a missile is tracking in, and the dreadful ecstasy of blowing apart an enemy pilot and aircraft.
No wonder post-traumatic stress disorder blighted his life when he returned from the war, as it has done to so many Falklands veterans.
This is essential reading for those who would like to understand a classic naval fighter, the men who took them into battle and their role in the Falklands War.
"Hostile Skies: My Falklands Air War" by David Morgan. Publisher: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, £16.99
Book review by Graham Bound (Mercopress) London
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