Max Hastings: A cowardly Navy, a cautious SAS and Britain's humiliation by a pirate rabble
On February 16, 1940, the destroyer Cossack, acting on Churchill's personal orders, steamed headlong into neutral Norwegian territorial waters in defiance of international law, boarded the German freighter Altmark and freed 299 captive British merchant seamen.
Legend held that the first the prisoners knew of their deliverance was a shout down a hatchway from a sailor on deck: 'The Navy's here!' The episode passed into folklore, exemplifying the Royal Navy's centuries-old tradition of triumphant boldness.
On October 28, 2009, the armed Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker Wave Knight met Somali pirates transferring the British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler from their yacht Lynn Rival to a hijacked Singaporean container vessel....
...If one thing could be worse than seeing the unfortunate Chandlers in pirate hands, it would be a British military disaster in the middle of Africa.
Remember President Jimmy Carter's disastrously bungled rescue of America's hostages in Iran back in 1980.
The SAS were incredibly lucky to escape uncaptured after their helicopter crash in Argentina during the 1982 Falklands War. It will be the best possible Christmas surprise for the British nation if an operation to rescue the Chandlers proves feasible. But we should not lie awake waiting for it.
No, the best chance of saving the British couple was while they were still at sea, and it rightly sticks in the nation's craw that nothing was attempted. We understand the legal difficulties and tactical issues.
Maybe the wind was blowing the wrong way as well, and the ship's cat was off its food. But the upshot was wretchedly unheroic, a million miles remote from the Royal Navy's historic tradition. Nobody made the smallest show of being bold or brave in the face of dramatic wrongdoing.
Whatever excuses and explanations are offered, it is hard to escape a conclusion that the Navy - in contrast to the British Army - no longer performs like a fighting service...
... Of course, comparisons with the 1940 boarding of the Altmark are fanciful. We are not at war, and as a result there are vastly greater constraints on risktaking. But it remains a tragic humiliation for a once-proud service, to show itself impotent before a rabble of pirates.
If the Royal Navy cannot act more effectively to defend British interests and citizens on the high seas, then it becomes hard to see what it exists for.
Read entire article at Mail Online (UK)
Legend held that the first the prisoners knew of their deliverance was a shout down a hatchway from a sailor on deck: 'The Navy's here!' The episode passed into folklore, exemplifying the Royal Navy's centuries-old tradition of triumphant boldness.
On October 28, 2009, the armed Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker Wave Knight met Somali pirates transferring the British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler from their yacht Lynn Rival to a hijacked Singaporean container vessel....
...If one thing could be worse than seeing the unfortunate Chandlers in pirate hands, it would be a British military disaster in the middle of Africa.
Remember President Jimmy Carter's disastrously bungled rescue of America's hostages in Iran back in 1980.
The SAS were incredibly lucky to escape uncaptured after their helicopter crash in Argentina during the 1982 Falklands War. It will be the best possible Christmas surprise for the British nation if an operation to rescue the Chandlers proves feasible. But we should not lie awake waiting for it.
No, the best chance of saving the British couple was while they were still at sea, and it rightly sticks in the nation's craw that nothing was attempted. We understand the legal difficulties and tactical issues.
Maybe the wind was blowing the wrong way as well, and the ship's cat was off its food. But the upshot was wretchedly unheroic, a million miles remote from the Royal Navy's historic tradition. Nobody made the smallest show of being bold or brave in the face of dramatic wrongdoing.
Whatever excuses and explanations are offered, it is hard to escape a conclusion that the Navy - in contrast to the British Army - no longer performs like a fighting service...
... Of course, comparisons with the 1940 boarding of the Altmark are fanciful. We are not at war, and as a result there are vastly greater constraints on risktaking. But it remains a tragic humiliation for a once-proud service, to show itself impotent before a rabble of pirates.
If the Royal Navy cannot act more effectively to defend British interests and citizens on the high seas, then it becomes hard to see what it exists for.