Originally, we were told that we would be going into San Carlos. ie bomb alley. There was even a Royal Marine Major, "Mad Mike" whose job was to plan the off load of the troops. That was cancelled, I was told, by same "Mad Mike", because the Brit public would stand the loss of Canberra, but not the QE2. There was also the replacement cost to consider as well. Mike was terribly disappointed. He was going to go and be "beachmaster". Remember Kenneth Moore in The Longest Day?
Then other info reached the powers that be in the MOD that Galterieri had said get the QE2 at all costs. They even sent a "bomber" to attack us, if you could call a C-130 Herculese a bomber, and rolling the bombs down the cargo ramp bombing? So it was decided that QE2 would up stakes and go. We were in the middle of a boiler clean when we got the word to go.
