Recollections of Ex. Batten Bolt October 1975 by Lt.Col. (Ret) W.P. Conn MBE

At the time, I was commanding A Company 3 PARA and we had a busy year already. Having returned from the jungles of West Malaysia in the March with the rest of the battalion, the company had raced off to Stanford PTA to provide enemy for Ex Main Spring. We then tried to get some adventure training in with the company heading off in all directions; climbing in Scotland, canoeing, hill-walking and similar, however I had other issues to grip.

Earlier that year command had changed, Keith Spacie handing over to Peter Morton who’s prime focus was preparing for a foreign office sponsored , but self-supported Exercise Jowar, in Sudan in November followed by a rural deployment to Armagh in Northern Ireland early in 1976 with all the pre-training with NITAT to be coordinated. I was summoned to see him, told to get on and sort out Exercise Batten Bolt in Norway with 16 PARA Bde directly because the battalion was truly stretched Apparently 45 Cdo Group in Arbroath (RM Condor) needed a parachute force of a company group, and I was it. I rocked in to see the BM, then Mike Rose, who told me that the exercise was a Norwegian national exercise which was a training test for a Norwegian Regimental Combat Team and other national resources and would run from 3^rd-7^th October 1975, but I would need a longer period of preparation time because of the involvement with the amphibious bit…and that was it! He authorised me to deal directly with 45 Cdo CO, Leslie Hudson, and the Commander of 16 Para Brigade (Geoffrey Howlett I recall) who was very interested, but could offer minimal support because of other commitments, thus he had authorised me as a Company Group Commander to deal directly with his SO2 Air (cannot recall name) for air assets. In other words, get on with it yourself.

I flew up to 45 Cdo courtesy of the Royal Marines to meet with the CO and he briefed me. He told me that this Norwegian National Exercise had been notified under the CSCE Final Act (Helsinki Accords) but no Warsaw Pact country would be attending because the number of troops involved was well below the 25,000 threshold, in fact nearer to 10,000 including the UK Contingent. The key aim was to test both Norwegian defence and also rapid deployment, but also it was an opportunity to test the STUFT principle (Ships Taken Up From Trade) in amphibious warfare and logistic support. In this case the Fred Olsen Ro-Ro ferry would be a part of his amphibious force. His Cdo Group would involve about 800 troops including `Whiskey Company’. He explained that the Dutch Marines (KMARS) provided Whiskey Infantry Company, which was fully integrated into 45 Commando Group RM, forming his fourth rifle company, and was earmarked to be deployed as such to Northern Norway in wartime as part of UK/NL LF.

This exercise was to take part in Southern Norway in the Østfold county and Rygge Air Base was my initial target. After that I would link up with his Cdo under his command. He gave me a poor air photo of the objective and the appropriate mapping. The Air Base was vital for the defence of the area of Southern Norway including the Skagerrak and the Baltic Approaches, and also featured in being a base for Allied joint reinforcement reception operations. Often it was reinforced fighters from Gardermoen and defended by Norwegian Home Defence Forces in addition to regular forces. He wanted me to attack the base, to penetrate it if possible, and disable jet fighters and other aircraft found, to distract from his amphibious landings until he had secured a beachhead. As far as he knew there was no obvious DZ around. He also told me that shortly he would be visiting the Exercise Commander (General Strande) for three days and I should accompany him to do my recce in civilian clothes. I said that I would take my RAFLO with me to find a DZ. He said the `Enemy Troops’ were unidentified but were a lot and that Rygge Air Base was well defended with AA guns…so with not a lot to go on, I returned to Aldershot and started researching.

Rygge Air Force Base as it is now known, or Rygge flystasjon, is located in the municipalities of Moss and Råde in Østfold county. The amphibious force needed to transit Oslo Fjord and land on the eastern coast of the fjord, hence the need to occupy the forces in Rygge, both air and ground. I met General Strande and we agreed that dropping close would be a huge task. He told me that there were clearings, usually under crops, all around the forestry and the airfield was well defended with AA guns. I was heartened to see that he wore his Brit parachute wings above his medal ribbons and he said that he had earned them with the SOE during WW ll, and incidentally, Rygge had been built by the Germans as a temporary airfield. He was determined that secrecy should be maintained and that all signal traffic should be classified and for him only as Exercise Director. I asked him if I could use a ruse which had been introduced to me by Colonel Joe Starling when he commanded 15 PARA, (I had been his Adjutant) and we were exercising constantly with sub-units of 1 (BR) Corps commanded by General `Tubby’ Butler, who was our then Colonel Commandant. That ruse was to clear with NOTAM (Notice to Air Men) actions for numerous DZs to hide our actual DZ. It was, and still is I guess, mandatory to issue NOTAMs prior to parachuting exercises or training. General Strande readily agreed.

I was then able to hire a car and drive around the area with my RAFLO (if I recall, it may have been Flt Lt Dave Hutchins or perhaps Dave Gibbons) searching for a usable DZ close to the objective and also spoof DZs. The latter were easier to find that the actual one selected which was to the North of the target, A main road ran to the south (now a motorway I believe) and there were hangars but no sign of NATO-standard hardened dispersal points. It had a single runway with taxiways but there were also prepared defensive hardened fighting positions for infantry scattered around. The air defence worried me because I knew that Norway possessed the US Nike Air Defence Missile system, but I found no sign of launcher sites. On return to UK my research discovered that the bulk of the missile coverage was around Oslo and Gardermoen and that Rygge was outside the range of the system. I also researched the gun positions I had seen. I knew that these we 40mm Bofors L70s, and certainly at least one of them was radar controlled. These were usually deployed as a four-gun battery, and I had seen at least two such positions.

The DZ selected was the farmland to the North East of the Air Base and it was to be a superimposed DZ with heavy drop of four platforms coming in after the troops had dropped. One platform would hold my command Land Rover and its vehicle radio fit, the other would be a mortar ammunition re-supply vehicle and the other platforms would carry two anti-tank vehicles with 120 Wombat L6 mounted on long-wheelbase Land Rovers), We had not been issued with Milan at that stage. The 81mm mortars would parachute in as manpack, but that meant that we had very limited ammunition if the vehicles were unavailable. With that in mind, extra ammunition would be jumped in with the rest of the company. A word about the DZ, it was soft, so the likelihood of getting my vehicle loads were remote, and although there was a Bofors position at each end, once landed, troops would be protected by the forestry from direct fire from them. I had to attack with a minimum of firepower first to try and take out at least one (radar) controlled gun position coincident with the breaching of the perimeter and taking on ground forces and I must use my two patrols attached from 3 PARA Patrol Company to try and take out parked aircraft. Above all the aircraft must fly a nap-of-the earth profile, pop up for the drop, and get down low again for exit. It was going to be tricky, but do-able. I outline my thoughts to the General and he was thrilled at the prospect, perhaps more so than the amphibious part of the exercise. My real concern was persuading the system to allow us to drop on an unproven DZ at night, and which was just inside in the minimum limits allowed in peacetime. Also an unheralded stealth approach was required.

I talked over some of the parachuting problems with my RAFLO and we decided that we needed Special Forces aircraft for the troops, we should dispense with the CARP (Calculated Air Release Point) based on flares on the ground, and go for ground-release using three torches only. The one at the impact point flashing a morse code letter, one at least 100 metres to port and steady with the third one in line with the run-in at the far end of the DZ. Hence the need for SF crews. The heavy drop aircraft would be also SF crewed if possible, but they would have to run-in at a greater height. I knew that I would have trouble selling the air plan. None of this was disclosed to the Leslie Hudson, I just told him that I would confirm a `P’ hr later. He was not best pleased but accepted it. Fortunately I knew his Adjutant, Mark Gosling, because we had been on a Joint Warfare Course together, and I explained to him that security was paramount and I knew how details could leak if known by many…sorry and all that, but please mollify his boss!

To cut a long story a little shorter, with the help of Mike Rose and a belligerent Geoffrey Howlett, I got my aircraft, crews, and much to my surprise agreement on the DZ. I found myself for the first time truly involved with the air planning. I learnt a huge amount and I just felt that it would happen with the crews who were definitely up for it. The flight paths would be virtually at sea level to remain in sea and ground clutter even up the fjords, then pop up, drop, and make low level exits. There would be no top cover and it would be a `middle of the night’ `P’ hr. Much to my amazement my spoof DZs also got the OK for NOTAM action in Norway from the MoD bosses which the air staff thought was a great idea. They obviously had not served within BAOR and had not come up against this wheeze before.

With the outline plan in place I was able to think about the attack. My Company Group consisted of the normal rifle company with two anti-tank crews, two mortar crews and my signals detachment all from Support Company, three extra medics from the RAP in case of `Noduff’ casualties from the drop and my RAFLO party of three from HQ Company. In addition I had two patrols of four men each from Patrol Company suitably armed with a selection of `bomb’ stickers for any air targets once they had penetrated. That meant two packed C-130s for the troops and two more for the heavy drop. I was so excited at the prospect that I almost forgot about getting everyone back to UK. I was told quite firmly that the airlift out would be from Gardermoen and not Rygge at `Endex’. That story continues at the end, because that also was fun at the highest levels.

I paid one more surreptitious visit to see General Strande in Norway, giving him an outline of the plan and where he should RV with me. He confirmed that some fighter aircraft were being dispersed from Gardermoen as per Norwegian war plans in the run-up to the exercise as there could be some Huey helicopters and possibly one or two Sea King helicopters. The Air Base would be reinforced by that time with ground troops, and yes there was a Norwegian Regimental Combat team available to take on the amphibious force, but he did not tell me where it was based. I thought that the bulk of the Norwegian Armed forces were in the North and Finnmark so therefore whatever was available would be from Terningmoen, North of Oslo which would give us some time to make a clean break to link up with 45 Cdo Gp. My ground party, (RAFLO +2) would move in to the area on a `walking holiday’ in civilian clothes two days before having crossed by ferry from Newcastle in a civilian car, we would be working to a careful timetable with a `P’ hr of around 2300 hrs (it may have been an hour either way) on the 3^rd October 1975. They would pass an agreed codeword from a public phone to me in Aldershot to let me know that they were in position. It worked.

We mounted from RAF Lyneham, the platforms with the vehicles having been installed earlier in the day by 16 Parachute Heavy Drop Company RAOC with a team ready to stand by to travel to recover them. The troops although excited were not looking forwards to the flight, very low level once over the North Sea, blacked out with no navigation lights with the roller-coaster ride of a bumpy flight. Once emplaned, they did what good paratroopers always do, make themselves as comfortable as possible, and sleep! I was not so lucky I was on the intercom to the pilots on the flight deck to make a go/no go decision with the abort airfield at Gardermoen North of Oslo. That would have made Phase 1 meaningless and we would have joined Phase ll as infantry with 45 Cdo Gp. There was an air safety net with an RAF SF team at Gardermoen, and it looked as though we would have to abort because it was low cloud and it was lashing down with rain. My decision was we prepare to jump, and follow the plan, and if the visibility rises above 500ft AGL we go, but abort the heavy drop to Gardermoen. So that is exactly what we did. It was hairy but fun! As we approached there was a small lift in the cloud cover but the heavy rain continued, but we jumped because the pilots could see the ground release torched and identified one flashing morse code `Alpha’; di-dah.

The drop was hugely successful. Ground release worked, the aircraft were throttled back and in clutter so air gunners could hear engine noise but not see the aircraft, the pop up was accurate, and the C-130s as soon as `troops clear’ was given were back down low. My RAFLO team later told me that it was eerie in the pouring rain (they were in military kit by then). They could hear the aircraft, and they knew that they were low, could barely make them out as they flew overhead, then suddenly they saw paratroopers landing in a ploughed field all around them. Apart from a couple of sprained ankles, we had no injuries. In retrospect, I would never have got the vehicles off the DZ because the sodden ploughed fields would have prevented that, so that was a good call. The company rallied to the sound of guns including AA guns firing blindly, and got on with their tasks. Suddenly I found General Strande standing next to me gleeful at the successful insertion. It probably had brought back memories.

The company cracked on with its tasks. Patrols penetrated the perimeter wire and got inside and found some fighter jets. From their description they sounded like Lockheed F-104 Starfighters and they received `bomb sticker calling cards. Amazingly at this time there had been little reaction apart from the AA guns and sentries firing blindly. The platoons all had their diversionary tasks and the 81mm mortars with their limited ammunition were set up ready for fire missions to help with the disengage. It happened, it worked, and we make a clean break after about an hour and a half. We exfiltrated to an arranged RV in some woods on the southern side of the air base, and then set off to link up with 45 Cdo.

It was weird because I had little idea of the progress of the beachhead actions because I was having to use man-pack radio sets only having been deprived of my command rover. We had a couple of brief contacts with home defence individuals who stupidly took on something with rather greater firepower, and then as I was reaching what I thought could be the outer limits of the beachhead, my radio suddenly picked up the Marines net. I gave a brief sitrep and was told to go firm where I was because Whiskey Company was on that axis and should be there soon. Of course it was daylight by now, so it was time for brews and some food. I was still waiting  for the link up when my driver got on the radio and asked for an RV. They had de-rigged everything at Gardermoen and set off to the exercise area. The vehicle de-rigging crews had been in one of the diverted aircraft to tail-gate jump after the loads had gone. All my vehicles arrived having driven without any stops from anyone, even in the exercise area. Eventually the link up with Whiskey Company was made, we then went into reserve, and did not have much to do afterwards. The Royals kindly gave us some trucks for the troops and we moved off in comfort compared with our usual method of movement. At the end of the exercise, at the de-brief, General Strande was effusive to the point of embarrassment about Phase 1. It had demonstrated huge holes in defence planning and reactions and also the Norwegian Air Force was embarrassed to have lost several Starfighters to stealthy `bombs’. I returned to Gardermoen to discover that we would not be getting any airlift for our return, for reasons I was never told.

Plans were in place anyway for the return of parachutes and platforms with 45 Cdo but now I have the blokes plus four weaponised Land Rovers to get back to Aldershot. Getting back to Newcastle was no problem because we simply piled aboard the Fred Olsen ferry. I spent some interesting conversations on the ferry trying to sort out transport, but in the end HQ UKLF sent a team from York to meet the ferry. On arrival in Newcastle I was told that there was no special train to get my soldiers to London/Aldershot, so we would have to travel on public trains…no problem I thought but what about all our (unloaded) weapons. I arranged for our vehicles to be unloaded first and for them to drive at best speed directly to Aldershot. The 81mm mortars, the Company 84mm Carl Gustavs and GPMG Sustained Fire kits would be loaded on the Land Rovers and trailers. This left A Company Group to travel only with personal weapons. Carry them with you I was told. I asked that the police in London and en route be warned that we were travelling through, but when we arrived at Kings Cross no arrangements had been made for us to get across London or get to Aldershot.

Company Sergeant Major 'Tug'  Wilson to the fore! He formed up the company, gave one of his many nominal rolls to a very worried young Captain from London District, told him to fix it with British Rail and others to pay the bills, and then delivered a good old Sergeant Major `chat’ to the assembled troops. ABI, or Airborne Initiative  featured a lot in it I recall, but no stealing of cars or threatening people with personal weapons. Just cross London in small packets, get to Waterloo, catch a train and get back to A Company within three and a half hours…GO!!

I arrived back around 1500 hrs, and all the weapons were back in the armoury by 1730 hrs with the vehicles arrive around 1600 hrs. Next day I de-briefed with Peter Morton on what had been an epic exercise, and I never heard anymore about armed paratroopers rampaging across London, apart from the local paper some time later trying to get the story. Now you have it…Exercise Batten Bolt 1975. Goodbye Norway, bring on Exercise Jowar, in Sudan in the next month.