Maritime Strike - The Untold Story of the Royal Navy Task Group off Libya in 2011

‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’ goes the song and this is entirely true of the author of this account which centres on the little publicised Royal Navy Operation Ellamy off the coast of Libya in 2011. John Kingwell’s personal story is a commendable triumph of meritocracy in the class-conscious climate of 1980s Britain. Clearly his talents were recognised early as he rose quickly through the ranks becoming a Commander at the young age of 32, being, in the words of former First Sea Lord Sir Mark Stanhope, ‘one of the most talented officers in the Royal Navy’. Kingwell gained valuable knowledge and experience from working within the MoD in the noughties, a period culminating in the disastrous cutbacks emanating from the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. The deeply regrettable inter-service rivalry between the RN and the RAF also dogged Kingwell’s time in the MoD and then crucially when he was actually leading the Task Group. The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ erupted across the Mediterranean and the Middle East during 2010 and by June of the following year the RN’s newly created Response Force Task Group (RFTG) was ‘poised’ to respond on behalf of NATO. The core narrative of this book describes the Navy’s contribution: a series of strikes by Army Air Corps Apache helicopters flown from HMS Ocean against key targets in Libya, designed to disrupt the repressive regime of President Gaddafi. This was warfare but not as Kingwell’s famous Mediterranean commander forebears Admirals Nelson and Cunningham would have known it. He was answerable both to his superiors at home and to NATO with all the complications involved in what is described as ‘chopping’ in the chain of command. Only 22 out of 47 planned air strikes were actually sanctioned. In a ‘sanitised’ form of warfare, the accent was on avoiding collateral damage, including the chance of hitting the ‘allied’ rebel forces. Even Gaddafi’s men had the chance to run for cover before a selected target was actually hit. Before each mission was launched, a risk assessment exercise was undertaken; if any of those involved had doubts, it was cancelled. The Commodore, quite apart from despatching the aircrews into imminent danger, particularly from Gaddafi’s modern and sophisticated surface to air missiles, was also from quite early on, under threat of being sacked! Back in the UK the Chief of Joint Operations had been briefed by an RAF officer that the media coverage engendered by the Apache helicopter strikes had undermined the work of the fast jets and consequently Kingwell was to hand over command to the CO of HMS Ocean. This order was never executed although it was only much later that the author learnt that it had been rescinded. He is suitably diplomatic but clearly there is a story to tell which will emerge in due course. Maritime Strike provides a marvellous insight into the complications and intricacies of leading a modern naval operation and one is introduced to a plethora of jargon and acronyms in the process. Nevertheless, the core values of camaraderie, of building personal relationships and trust in the face of extreme risk are constants as well as the loneliness inherent in being in ultimate control of the lives of fellow human beings.