Orders, Decorations and Medals

The rare and emotive South Atlantic pair awarded to Squadron Leader J. W. Glover, Royal Air Force, who was badly injured when his Harrier was downed by enemy fire over Port Howard on 21 May 1982: the only serviceman to be held as a prisoner of war by the Argentinians, he was moved to the mainland for medical treatment, and was finally released into the care of H.M’s Consul in Montevideo on 8 July 1982 - three years later, after making a remarkable recovery from his injuries, he was awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Services in the Air, and went on to fly for the famous Red Arrows

South Atlantic 1982, with rosette (Flt. Lt. J. W. Glover, R.A.F.), in its original card box of issue; N.A.T.O. Medal 1994, 1 clasp, Former Yugoslavia, in its box of issue, extremely fine (2) £6000-8000

Jeffrey William Glover was born at St. Helens, Lancashire in April 1954, where he attended Cowley School before winning a scholarship to St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. It was here that he became an enthusiastic member of the University Air Squadron, his tutor describing him as a ‘mad keen pilot ... and a chap who knew exactly what he wanted to do and how he was going to go about it.’ And so it proved, for in 1976 he entered the R.A.F. College, Cranwell, where he won the Battle of Britain Trophy for the best aerobatics pilot. Passing out top of his course in Advanced Flying Training on Hawk jets at R.A.F. Valley in 1978, he added the distinction of becoming the first ever “first-tourist” pilot to be trained as a Qualified Flying Instructor on the Hawk at the C.F.S. course at R.A.F. Leeming, in addition to capturing the Aerobatics Trophy. He then served as a Hawk instructor at R.A.F. Valley before attending the Harrier Operational Conversion Unit in 1981 - where he won all but one of the course prizes. Shortly afterwards, Glover joined No. 1 Squadron at R.A.F. Wittering as a Flight Lieutenant.

Of his subsequent experiences in the South Atlantic, no better summary may be quoted than his own account published in Speaking Out, Untold Stories of the Falklands War, by Michael Bilton and Peter Kosminsky (Andre Deutsch, 1989):

‘At the time the crisis in the South Atlantic arose I was in Germany on a flying course. I suddenly had a recall to fetch myself and my Harrier back to the squadron. When I landed I was greeted by my flight commander, who said that all the happenings in the Falklands might involve No. 1 Squadron and that it was preparing itself for war. It took me by surprise somewhat because the Islands were so far away. I didn’t actually think we would fly in earnest in that way. We were trained for aggression by the Warsaw Pact. That’s the theatre of war for which we prepared, so something like the Falklands took me, and I’m sure the rest of the guys, completely by surprise. To be honest I had never really thought I’d be likely to go to war.

I flew my Harrier from St Mawgan in Cornwall down to Ascension Island. It took about nine hours and I refuelled from Victor tankers. From Ascension I embarked on the Norland* which took us down to the Falkland Islands en route to (the aircraft carrier) Hermes. We were in company with Atlantic Conveyor, on which the RAF Harriers were embarked. The journey took a fortnight, it was really slow.

2 Para were also on Norland. We attended their briefings and gave some of our own. Watching them train on the ship was quite an insight. They were off land, completely out of their normal theatre, and were racing up and down the decks with packs on their backs, drilling quite hard. At one briefing I came to a deal with a platoon and promised I wouldn’t bomb them if they promised not to shoot me down. They seemed to think that was a fair agreement. Otherwise all we did was play cards and drink a bit. I wasn’t nervous because we were still a long way from the action. It was only when we were two or three days out from the Falklands that I started to get a little more apprehensive, but I knew I was part of a good team and was quite confident.

For my first sortie I was briefed after breakfast by the boss, Pete Squire. It was the second squadron sortie of the day. It was to be a two-ship, close air-support for the amphibious forces which were doing the landings that day. We went on deck and waited for quite a while before we actually launched. After we took off the boss’s aircraft went U.S. (unserviceable), so he sent me on by myself. I spoke to our people on board HMS Antrim who were co-ordinating the air support. Initially they hadn’t any targets for me in the area of amphibious operations so I held off at about 20,000 feet to see if anything came up.

Eventually they gave me some targets down in the Port Howard area. It wasn’t on my map but I knew approximately where it was. From my height I could pick out Port Howard settlement because it was a really glorious day with amazing visibility and no cloud. Instead of plotting a route on a map, I was able to eyeball it from 20,000 feet. I let down about twenty miles away, navigated my way and then rushed in over the targets at low level and quite a high speed. They gave me a range and bearing of my target from a small jetty and as I overflew I realised that the targets were going to be very close to the edge of town. I wasn’t going to start dropping my bombs close to town, so I flew through without dropping a bomb, climbed again and spoke to Antrim.

I suggested I go through once more and use the Harrier’s recce camera to take pictures of the target area so that a subsequent mission would know what they were looking for when they went in to attack. Antrim had no other trade for me and seemed to think this was a good idea.

About fifteen minutes after the first run I found myself in the Port Howard area again. I rushed in low and fast, having picked a different direction of attack. Just as I was about to start taking pictures there were three loud bangs and the aircraft went out of control. It rolled very rapidly to the right, almost through 360 degrees. I looked down, saw my right hand and pulled the ejection seat handle. I heard the bang of the canopy exploding above my head, which is the normal way of ejecting. You get rid of the canopy and then out goes the seat. At that point I blacked out and was unconscious. Later on I spoke to a chap from Port Howard who had seen it. He said half or three-quarters of the right wing came off. The plane must have rolled very rapidly, yet somehow it seemed to be in slow time; it was having no effect. I remember being upside-down, seeing the sea very close and thinking: You’ve got to time it correctly otherwise you won’t go out vertically. It must have been very rapid but at the same time all those thoughts went through my mind.

I came to a little while later. I was under water and sort of drowning. I realised that it was light that way up, so I swam to the surface and everything got better again. It was a nice day, except that I was in a certain amount of pain. I couldn’t see properly out of one eye and was generally feeling pretty groggy.

I saw the coast and started to swim towards it, which was absolutely stupid really because I was dragging the parachute. I was also dragging the dinghy which was beneath me and I was getting nowhere fast. I think I was in shock. Then I started to get my act together, got rid of the parachute and started to think about inflating the dinghy. I heard voices, turned round and there was a rowing boat full of Argentine soldiers coming towards me. So I thought: What’s the point? They were pointing rifles at me. Eventually they dragged me on board and rowed me ashore. Most of my safety equipment was removed and I was taken to their medical centre, which was somewhat makeshift and sited at the Port Howard social club. There were a few beds already occupied by some of their blokes.

My major problem was my left shoulder. Because I had to eject so quickly, instead of using two hands I still had my left hand on the throttle. I pulled the handle with one hand and got what is called a flail injury. I had effectively jumped out in a 600-mph wind up in to the free airstream with my left arm still out. It flailed backwards and pretty well broke my arm, my left shoulder-blade in two places and my collarbone.

My face was badly bruised through wind blast and possibly the speed at which I had hit the water. I don’t know how long the parachute had been deployed before I hit the water because I was unconscious. I was put on a camp bed and a doctor/medico came up and looked me over. I gave him my Geneva Convention ID card and took the rest of my immersion suit off. He gave me a quick look-over, put my arm in a makeshift sling, gave me an injection and put me to sleep for about eight to ten hours, which was fine by me. Basically I was in a state of shock. I was just being led by the nose; I didn’t think about the fact that the people who had almost killed me were now being nice to me. On reflection they were pretty decent and certainly I’m thankful for that.

When I subsequently left Port Howard by helicopter I was introduced to the platoon Blowpipe (hand-held surface-to-air missile) operator. They obviously credited him with having shot me down. I shook him by the hand and said: ‘Well done mate.’ At the same time I was not necessarily convinced it was a Blowpipe which hit me – it could well have been a triple ‘A’ they had at Port Howard, a radar-controlled 20 mm Oerlikon. But they seemed to think it was a Blowpipe, so fair enough.

I was not interrogated at all. When I got back to the Argentine mainland after a period of four or five days an air force major came to my bedside and started trying to chat me up. He bought the conversation round to war and military matters, at which point I said: ‘I don’t wish to continue the conversation.’ But I was amazed there wasn’t a tactical interrogation, an immediate interrogation. Someone who has just ejected and is in stress, maybe injured, is probably an ideal candidate to interrogate, but fortunately that didn’t happen. If they had done I would have tried to stick to the basic four: name, rank, number and date of birth.

I spent about thirty-six hours in Port Howard. Then I was moved by helicopter to Goose Green, where I spent a night, I’m not quite sure why. The following evening we went on to Port Stanley, where I spent a couple of nights in a large medical centre. I was then put on board a Hercules on one of the night missions they were running in and out of the Islands. I was flown to Comodoro Rivadavia. They took me to a large hospital which was part of the air base and I spent a couple of nights locked up under guard in their officers’ mess. Then I was flown a long way, for about four hours, and ended up in a place 1,000 miles north-west of Buenos Aires where I was to spend the next five weeks. It was well out of the way.

Medically they did a reasonable job on me. The doctors in Port Howard and Stanley had fitted me with a loose sling to support my shoulder. And at Comodoro Rivadavia the doctor thought it would be a good idea to put on a heavy plaster cast, a big body cast which encased my arm, shoulder and body, just keeping my right arm free. At the time I didn’t think it was such a good idea because it really immobilised me. I had the impression that maybe it was the immobility they quite liked. They had me under close guard all the time but their attitude towards me and the food was quite reasonable. There was certainly no aggro. When I was in the officers’ mess I was visited by ten or twelve Argentine pilots who would come in and say hello and ask me how I was feeling. One chap came in and gave me a bottle of wine. Another said he would shake me by the hand because I was a pilot but he didn’t agree with what I was doing. I said: ‘Fair enough,’ and that was it.

At the time I didn’t realise I was their only PoW. They claimed they had several dotted around the base, which I didn’t somehow believe but it could have been true. It wasn’t until I got to Uraguay that I realised I was the only one.

I was quite depressed to have been shot down, when I was first held prisoner. I felt I had let the squadron down, let the boss down. It was my first sortie, we’d only taken six planes with us. I lost one of them almost immediately so I was pretty fed up. The number of times that I relived that sortie…trying to work out what I had done wrong.

I was worried about my family and whether anyone might not have realised I had survived. When I first got to the place north of Buenos Aires I had a visit by an International Red Cross man, but that was ten days after I was shot down. He said that he would inform my relatives that he had seen me and that I was all right.

I was in virtual solitary confinement for five weeks. I had not done the escape-and-evasion and combat survival courses which most pilots do in their time, certainly within the first year on an operational squadron. I had attended briefings, so I knew roughly the right sort of things to be doing. But then once you’re stuck in a room on your own for five weeks I’m not sure what training can necessarily prepare you for. By the end of five weeks I’d got a routine going and I think that was the key; to pass the time, to have some kind of routine, no matter how boring or tedious it was. The Red Cross man had left me a certain number of books, but he said he wouldn’t see me for two or three weeks. So I used to allow myself about three-quarters of an hour a day reading the book, because I didn’t have a watch. He left me some paper, pen and envelopes, and so every other day I would write a letter to my wife using one piece of paper. The next day I would give them to the Argentinian blokes to post. This was a mistake because on the last day, when I was released, they handed me ten of the letters which I thought had been sent off.

In the mornings, just before lunch, I would have three-quarters of an hour to an hour outside in a small courtyard, to wander around. The rest of the time it was just very boring, with nothing to do. I couldn’t exercise because I still had on this stupid plaster cast. I’d lie down or sit and watch the room go by, performing mental exercises. I’d try and pick out a day, say 1 March 1961, and try and work out what I had been doing on that day. I’d try and work out whether it was a weekday, which school I was at and who the teacher was, and so on.

On my last visit by the Red Cross man, about a week before I was eventually released, he said there were no real signs of being released and that I could be there for some while. I was adjusting already to the thought. I managed to see the odd snippet of an Argentine magazine or newspaper, in which they were really thrashing the Brits with overwhelming victories. I remember a glossy magazine had a line-up of Argentine versus British forces. Almost half the British ships had red crosses through them and three-quarters of the Harriers too. I thought: No way. That is a joke.

Eventually I was flown to Buenos Aires, where I spent another three or four days in hospital and had the big plaster cast taken off. I was given some nice meals and was quite well looked after. Then I was flown to Montevideo, where I was met by the military attaché and some of the embassy staff and driven to the ambassador’s residence, where I had a nice lunch.

Flying home I was excited. Looking back on it all, I felt cheated at missing out on the war, not staying with the rest of the squadron on Hermes and continuing the operations, and at having to sit it out in Argentina. It was very disappointing.’

On 31 December 1985, the London Gazette announced the award of Glover’s Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Services in the Air, the Group Captain, R.A.F. Wittering having written a few days earlier, ‘This is a most fitting recognition of the efforts you have made to regain and improve your professional skills following your experiences in the South Atlantic, and the splendid manner in which you subsequently supported your Squadron.’ Advanced to Squadron Leader in the New Year, Glover joined the famous Red Arrows display team in 1988, evidence indeed of the remarkable recovery he had made from his injuries. And having transferred to transport duties and served with N.A.T.O. on operations in the Former Yugoslavia, October 1993 to November 1995, he was placed on the Retired List in December 1996.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Services in the Air certificate, dated 31 December 1985, and related congratulatory letters from Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Harding, K.C.B., and the Group Captain, R.A.F. Wittering, both dated in December 1985; certificate of award for his N.A.T.O. Medal, Former Yugoslavia, for services ‘during the period 18 October 1993 to 27 November 1995’; his Flying Log Book, covering the period October 1972 (training flights in Chipmunks) to November 1982 (Harriers, No. 1 Squadron); his Harrier GR. Mark 3 and T. Mark 4 “Pilot’s Notes” (Emergency Procedures, etc.), as carried by him on 21 May 1982, the reverse of one page bearing a handwritten message for the attention of ‘Comodoro Mendiberry’, as written by one of his captors, signs of water damage; two fascinating and informative scrap books covering his Falklands experiences, comprising a mass of newspaper cuttings, a photocopy of his “Handover Certificate”, dated 8 July 1982, on International Red Cross notepaper, and signed by H.M’s Consul in Montevideo at Carrasco Airport, and the relevant Argentinian authority, together with a covering letter of authenticity bearing the seal of H.M’s Consul in Montevideo, signed and dated 8 July 1982; his Emergency Passport for departure from Montevideo on 9 July 1982, ‘Accompanied by Mr. Christopher Wyndham Osborne, a Member of H.M. Diplomatic Service’, and a restricted message from the C.O., No. 1 Squadron reporting on his release; his official letter of retirement from Air Vice-Marshal D. A. Hurrell, A.F.C., dated 15 December 1996; and an Aircrew Association banquet programme and folder, dated 4 September 1982, the latter signed by Cheshire, V.C., and Douglas Bader (who, sadly, died later that evening); together with his identity discs, embroidered uniform patches (6), including Red Arrows and No. 1 Squadron examples, and a metalled component taken from his Harrier’s ejection seat on 21 May 1982.