ii FALKLANDS 25TH ANNIVERSARY SUPPLEMENT, MAY 2007
marina Continued from page i
● Filled with terrible resolve... (l-r) The fi nal moments of the General Belgrano, her bow blown off; HMS Sheffi eld burns after being struck by an Exocet; HMS Ardent blazes in ‘Bomb Alle
M
ORE than 250 miles west
of Sandy Woodward’s
task force, Capitán de
It was the fire and smoke which in
Navio (Captain) Hector
killed HMS Sheffield. The Exocet an
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Bonzo lead his small task force
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sluggishly eastwards.
for firefighting. Determined to save w
Throughout Saturday May
their ship, men dangled buckets m
1 and into the small hours of
over the destroyer’s side, raised of
Sunday May 2, Bonzo’s flagship
Woodward sought approval from Pozzo had just returned to his few muffled explosions beneath the than 120ft above the waves. The
them full of water and tried to
General Belgrano – the pre-WW2
Fleet Headquarters in Northwood bunk, his duties at the damage waves marked her passing. She had pilots switched on the Exocet’s
dowse the flames. In
cruiser USS Phoenix – and his
for permission to sink the Belgrano. control centre over until midnight. taken 321 souls down with her. Agave radar which made three
It was a futile gesture, but it was di
more modern, and more potent,
Northwood sought approval from As he closed his eyes he was brief sweeps. Blips appeared on
typical of the actions of Sheffield’s be
destroyers Hiplito Bouchard
the War Cabinet. The War Cabinet hurled against the bunk above by The men in Conqueror had cheered the screens. The two jets dropped
crew that fateful afternoon. w
and Piedra Buena steamed to
approved. a tremendous force. A tornado of when the Belgrano was hit; it was a down again.
HMS Arrow and Yarmouth came D
the southwest and south of the
hot air raced through his mess, natural reaction. But that night
alongside the blazing hulk. Their kn
Falklands.
HMS Conqueror was seven miles then vanished. And then there was many of her crew found it difficult The cry Agave, radar was
fire hoses were dragged across
The Belgrano group was the
astern of Hector Bonzo’s task force silence, pierced sporadically by the to sleep, wondering how many men unmistakable in the operations
and carried down the smoke-filled ou
weaker arm of an Argentine ‘pincer’;
when she received a terse signal cries of men. had perished in the stormy Atlantic. room of HMS Glasgow.
passages by Sheffield’s firefighters. m
to the north of the Falklands, the
late on the afternoon of the second: Pozzo climbed out of a hatch and Christopher Wreford-Brown knew Sister ships Glasgow, Sheffield
carrier Veinticinco de Mayo (at one
Attack Belgrano group. found sailors moving calmly along his actions had ended men’s lives, and Coventry were slung in a wide
So long had the hoses become th
time HMS Venerable) bore down
The cruiser was blithely sailing a passageway heading for the upper but he had no regrets. “If you want arc, 15 miles apart, 25 miles west
by the time the men reached the D
on the British task force.
along with her escorts at 13 knots, deck. He grabbed a shipmate, to go to war, you must expect of the task force flagship, with
flames, the water barely dribbled fo
That Sunday morning, the carrier
almost as if in peacetime. No wild desperate to know what was going losses.” Sheffield furthest south at the
out.
was to launch an air strike on
evasive manoeuvres, violent zig- on. “Nos torpedearon, boludo...” the Aboard the task force flagship, bottom of the arc.
And yet, as Sam Salt recalled Fa
Woodward’s ships. But the weather
zagging. The ships did not even sailor told him. We were torpedoed, Sandy Woodward wrote home The sisters were the first line
proudly, “at no time did anybody at
was against it. The flat-top turned
bother to switch on their sonars. you arsehole. to his wife: “We are fully at war of defence, the anti-air destroyers
give up. We had a super ship’s an
around; Belgrano too was ordered
Had they done, perhaps they It was only now the young Pozzo and I am having to harden my whose raison d’être was to find and
company – the sailors did everything
to change course, turning west to
might have picked up Conqueror realised he was injured. The heat heart. I do not enjoy consigning destroy incoming enemy aircraft
I expected of them, and more.” w
await further orders.
closing on them. waved had simply vaporised his some Argentinians to their graves. and missiles.
of
Hector Bonzo didn’t know it but
For two hours the submarine socks. His legs beneath the knees However, it has to be faced up to. And now Glasgow was convinced
Aboard HMS Hermes the first ta
his task force had been followed for
worked her way into a firing were torn to shreds, his right arm The Argentinians would do the she had picked up such a threat, a
helicopter bearing a Sheffield
more than 36 hours.
position. It wasn’t particularly was covered in burns. And yet, same to me given the small half of little more than 40 miles away. The
casualty put down on the flight G
tense in the control room. “No oddly, he felt no pain. a chance.” warning was flashed to Invincible
deck. Fa
The General Belgrano was old and
excitement – tedious rather than All power had failed in the They would have their “small – and dismissed. It was another
The sailor was hideously burned, ai
noisy. Both factors contributed to
operationally difficult,” Wreford- Belgrano. Water was pouring half of a chance” sooner than false ‘sighting’ by the radar – a
all black, plastic bags protecting his en
her impending downfall, but it was
Brown observed. unchecked into the aft machinery anyone expected. ‘ghost’.
arms. “I had never seen anything pl
like it before. Horrific,” recalled
the noise of her engines which the
To Lt Narendra Sethia, HMS space and now into the forward one
sonar of HMS Conqueror picked
Conqueror’s supply officer, the too. The Belgrano was doomed. The ghosts were real. Augusto
Andrew Wroot, one of Hermes’ G
up on April 30 in the excellent
moment seemed unreal. The Hector Bonzo gave the order: Bedacarratz and Armando Mayora
deck party. he
acoustic conditions to the southwest
torpedoes were loaded into their Abandonen el barco. Abandon ship. raced through squalls which dogged
Even so Wroot and his shipmates O
of the Falklands.
tubes as if it were a drill. The men Marcelo Pozzo made his way I
T was a little before 10am on
a cloudy Tuesday morning as
two Super Étendard jets, an
Exocet anti-ship missile fixed the waters south of the Falklands.
convinced themselves Shiny Sheff fin
For a day the submarine
were calm, professional – exactly as along the starboard side of the to a pylon on each starboard wing, The Étendards were now hugging
would return to battle. A single tw
closed on the contact, until Cdr
they had been trained to be. cruiser. With the Belgrano listing roared down the runway at Rio the waves at more than 500mph.
missile couldn’t sink a modern pl
Christopher Wreford-Brown raised
“Until the moment of firing, it increasingly heavily to port, he Grande airbase on the Tierra del The pilots began activating their
warship, could it? ac
his periscope late on the morning
was as if everything in our lives faced a difficult jump into a life Fuego, more than 400 miles to the Exocet missiles, now well within
But that evening, as Hermes’
of May 1.
had been a dress rehearsal for a raft, which reared and sank as southwest of the Falklands. range of their targets. Bedacarratz
junior ratings relaxed in their re
In the cross-hairs were the
performance that would never be much as 50ft in the heavy Atlantic Capitan de Corbeta (Lieutenant flicked the release button. Nothing.
dining hall, the broadcast system sy
Argentine cruiser, her two escorts
given.” The rehearsal was over. The swell. “I calculated the trajectory, Commander) Augusto Bedacarratz But then, four seconds later, a
announced that Shiny Sheff had en
and a tanker.
performance had begun. committed my life to God and and Teniente de Navio (Lieutenant) missile dropped from a wing pylon
been abandoned. The sailors fell on
Wreford-Brown could not
At three minutes before 4pm on jumped,” he recalled. The seaman Armando Mayora rendezvoused and raced eastwards, disappearing
silent. They refused to believe it. w
attack. The ships were outside
that Sunday afternoon a spread bounced off the roof of the raft and with a tanker 260 miles from where into a cloud. Armando Mayora
hu
the exclusion zone, the imaginary
of three Mark 8 torpedos hurtled landed inside it. a reconnaissance aircraft had watched Bedacarratz’s Exocet roar
Sam Salt had not taken the decision an
line drawn around the Falklands.
towards the unsuspecting Belgrano, Many shipmates plunged into the reported four contacts – the outer off, then fired his own.
to abandon Sheffield lightly. She re
Conqueror dived and continued
just 1,400 yards away. icy waters and struggled to clamber screen of the British task force. The two jets turned about and
was more than just a warship. She be
her “uneventful trail” shadowing
Through his periscope, Wreford- into their rafts, their ability to grasp Their fuel tanks brimming raced for home before the Royal
was Shiny Sheff, the best damn op
the aged cruiser.
Brown watched an orange ball of impeded by the numbing cold and once more, the French-made jets Navy could retaliate.
ship with the best damn crew in th
fire erupt beneath Belgrano’s main oil lining the surface of the water dropped to just 300 feet and raced “We didn’t stop to think of
the Navy.
Sandy Woodward didn’t especially
mast and a huge spout of water from the stricken cruiser. through the squalls and Atlantic the deaths we would cause,” said
He had no choice. The flames bo
fear the Belgrano’s 15 6in guns,
rise into the air forward of her It was all over very quickly. Lying mist to the northeast. Bedacarratz. “We were just trying
were just one compartment away its
more her escorts armed with ship-
superstructure. 90˚ on her side, the guns of her to complete a mission. It wasn’t
from the Sea Dart magazine. And ex
to-ship Exocet missiles.
One torpedo had struck turrets pointing forlornly skywards, In HMS Sheffield, Capt Sam Salt anything personal.”
if that went up... al
“You could feel the heat through th
If they made a dash towards
Belgrano’s bow, blowing it off, ARA General Belgrano began to had retired to his cabin for a brief
his task force and the Argentine
but it was the second ‘fish’ which slip beneath the South Atlantic rest, leaving his team in charge. It On the radar screens in Glasgow,
the deck, see the paint blistering on he
carrier launched a simultaneous air
delivered the killer blow. It smashed stern first. seemed like a quiet moment. No two small dots just 12 miles from
the deck,” he recalled. up
strike, Britain’s task force would be
through the hull, exploding in the In the rafts, the men fell silent. noticeable enemy activity. Sheffield the destroyer flickered sporadically.
His men had given their all. The
gravely imperilled.
aft machinery space. The heat, Some cried. Some prayed. Most used the apparent lull to The ship was firing chaff
flames had won. w
Which threat to eliminate, the
flames and pressure sought a were numb. Aboard Marcelo send a flurry of decoys for all she was worth and
de
admiral and his staff pondered. The
way out of the confined space, Pozzo’s raft a shipmate shouted: reports and messages manoeuvring sharply. In those
It was long after dark in Britain en
carrier or the cruiser?
punching upwards through the Viva la patria! Viva el Belgrano! via her SCOT satellite eternal seconds, men prepared for
when news of Sheffield’s loss began on
They chose the cruiser – and
decks, incinerating and obliterating Long live our Fatherland! Long communications the inevitable. But the inevitable
to filter through to the media. They w
time was against them, for there
two galleys and a mess. live the Belgrano! system. never came.
reacted instantly. Predictably. an
A camera team from ITN began fu
was a good chance Conqueror
Marinero (Seaman) Marcelo And then she was gone. A
might lose contact with the
Some 45 miles south of On the bridge of HMS Sheffield,
banging on the doors of homes
Belgrano.
the Falklands, duty officers Lts Peter Walpole and
on one of Portsmouth’s many Se
Bedacarratz Brian Layshon scanned the horizon
naval estates. Is your husband on w
broke radio as they had done throughout their
the Sheffield? the reporter asked je
silence. It watch.
insensitively as each door was w
was time to attack. Her use of the communications
opened – and promptly slammed.
The two Étendards satellite prevented her radar picking
The Naval Provost sent a patrol; fa
climbed to 2,000 feet, up the two Étendards. Glasgow’s
the journalists were quickly ejected –
switched on their radars warnings had not been acted upon.
from the estate. qu
for three seconds, then dropped Her last line of defence would be
da
down again. the Mark 1 Eyeball.
Bedacarratz and Mayora And so it was that at three
knew there were British Type 42 minutes after 11am – 2.03pm back
destroyers out there, their radars in the UK – the officers saw a trail
I
F there had been jubilation and
satisfaction after the battles of av
May 1 and the sinking of the an
BRITISH AEROSPACE SEA HARRIER FRS1
Belgrano, there was widespread
scouring the South Atlantic skies of smoke roaring over the waves
demoralisation across the British W
for any contact. at almost 700mph. One of the task force as HMS Sheffield burned be
ON FEBRUARY 8 1963 a Hawker P1127 prototype jet touched down Specifi cations The Argentinian naval aviators men grabbed a microphone: Missile fiercely. at
on the fl ight deck of HMS Ark Royal – the fi rst step along the long road knew the strengths of the Type 42 attack! Hit the deck! “Morale in the vicinity of me has ba
to Sea Harrier. Length: 47ft 7in – their navy had two of their own, dropped a mile,” observed PO Keith m
It would be another dozen years before the Admiralty ordered 24 Height: 12ft 2in Hercules and Santissima Trinidad, The Exocet smashed through Balston in HMS Glamorgan. bo
Sea Harriers, the successor to the P1127, from Hawker Siddeley (later Wing span: 25ft 3in And because they knew the Type Sheffield’s hull, across the starboard “No more jubilant faces. This
British Aerospace, today BAE Systems). Wing area: 202.1 sq ft 42’s strengths, they also knew walkway. Its mangled remains came is for real! We have lost comrades sh
The Harrier was developed principally for the RAF to support Powerplant: 1 x Rolls-Royce its weaknesses... and popping up to a halt in the galley. Its warhead in the Sheffield. She is finished, en
the British Army of the Rhine. But the Navy saw the value of this Pegasus Mk 104 vectored-thrust momentarily to scan for a target did not explode, but its fuel tank a burning wreck – done by that of
revolutionary ‘jump jet’ to operate from its ‘through-deck cruisers’ turbofan of 21,500lb thrust before dropping to almost sea level did, incinerating every man in the Exocet. The very word brings fear nu
– which would become HMS Invincible, Illustrious and Ark Royal. Weight: 13,444lb (empty), again was one way for the attacker galley – 11 lives obliterated in an to us.” W
The first variant of the Sea Harrier, the FRS1 (Fighter, Reconnaissance, 26,200lb (maximum at take-off) to avoid detection. instant. Morale would soon lift, but it
Strike) was delivered to the Fleet Air Arm in 1978. Speed: 736mph (at sea level); But at 60 or so miles out from Sheffield’s survivors tend to would be like this until the war’s
By the time conflict engulfed the Falklands, 28 Sea Harriers had 528mph (cruising speed) the task force, nothing appeared on agree. There was no bang, no loud end. That constant gnawing away
reached the three Naval Air Squadrons operating it: 899 (training Range: 460 miles the aviators’ radar screens. explosion. Some speak of a thud, at your nerves, the inability to ever
squadron), 800 and 801 (operational squadrons). Twenty-five FRS1s, Ceiling: 51,000ft They flew on for a few more others a vibration. All speak of relax, the constant threat of enemy W
including five from the training squadron, were sent south with Armament: 2 x 30mm gun pods; seconds across another 20 miles of fires and acrid black smoke filling aircraft, a submarine psychosis. de
the Falklands task force, plus 10 RAF GR3 bomber variants of the 2 x AIM 9L Sidewinder air-to-air the grey Atlantic, then ‘popped up’ the once proud passageways and “We are all closed down now,” at
aircraft. missiles, or 3 x 1,000lb bombs again, this time perhaps no more compartments of Shiny Sheff. Keith Balston recorded in his diary ai
FFalklands2.indd 2alklands2.indd 2 113/4/07 15:21:243/4/07 15:21:24
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