Themes

Commander Iain Henderson on the restrictions of fighting in the Persian Gulf. Gulf War 1991. (RNM)

Transcript: “One of the strange things about being up there was that the Navy was used to fighting in open ocean and of course we now found ourselves very constrained by the fact that we were now operating within a swept channel i.e. just like a sort of road way you could say. And it would have been perilous to have gone outside that because the water hadn’t been swept. And normally when ships are protecting themselves from missiles and aircraft they use the freedom of the sea to dash around and go down wind and fire things and up wind and shoot things. And of course we literally were dribbling around at a few knots. So, one had to think terribly carefully the sort of tactics we might employ. And indeed, such things as firing decoys with a number of ships crammed into the same space; you might fire a decoy and it would be alright for you, but it wouldn’t be for your neighbour next door where in fact a missile that had been seduced away from you could then impact on them. So it really could be a matter of standing still and fighting on the spot.”

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