iv FALKLANDS 25TH ANNIVERSARY SUPPLEMENT, MAY 2007
● The Navy’s here... Landing craft from HMS Fearless ferry troops ashore at San Carlos as the fi ght to re-take the Falklands begins in earnest blew it out. Still drawing fire from marina Continued from page iii
“Bien, señor,” said his wingman
and (below) the fi nal moments of HMS Coventry, sinking off Pebble Island on May 25 the ships, the two aviators turned
approvingly. Good job, sir. Two
for home screaming “Viva la
more Skyhawks attacked Ardent. on the upper deck in their orange early afternoon of Sunday May The explosion which ensued Falkland, preparing to attack San
Patria!” over the radio. Long live
At least seven bombs in all struck survival suits,” he recalled. “I 23, once again concentrating their that Sunday evening provided Carlos. “Take it with Sea Dart,”
the Fatherland.
the ship. thought: Lord, we’ve lost her, we’ve efforts not on the merchant and one of the most terrifying, yet ordered Capt David Hart-Dyke,
“The noise of each explosion lost her.” assault ships but their escorts. enduring images of the conflict the destroyer’s tall, youthful
Thick black smoke billowed
was incredible – the whip effect Cdr Alan West had reluctantly HMS Antelope had been spared – “a majestically awful sight”, captain.
through Coventry’s operations
enormous,” recalled West. Ardent’s reached the same conclusion. Bomb Alley on May 21. Now she wrote Ewen Southby-Tailyour, The view from the ship’s bridge
room. As Capt David Hart-Dyke
deckplates were lifted – and the Barely ten minutes after Philippi’s took her place in the line. “We watching from the bridge of HMS was obliterated by a white-orange-
came round, the scene which
men lying on them too. formation had attacked his frigate, knew exactly what we were in Fearless. Flames flared and died red flash as the missile’s booster
confronted him was one of horror.
The succession of blasts had West ordered his men to abandon for,” recalled CPO Alan Baker. down. Spotlights from helicopters rocket sent Sea Dart hurtling
Men stumbled around, their clothes
knocked Ken Enticknap out. ship. The Aldis lamp on the bridge Let them come, thought Baker. This drifted across the water. Landing skywards before the main engine
on fire. Ladders and doors were
The world he knew was gone. wing flickered at HMS Yarmouth was the ship’s chance to avenge craft buzzed about, ferrying kicked in, sending the projectile
merely tangled, distorted, jagged
All he could see as he regained in Morse. T A K E O F F M Y the Ardent. Antelope’s crew to safety; all but racing through the South Atlantic
scraps of metal.
consciousness was thick, pungent M E N. She did. The last to Now enemy Skyhawks “came one frigateman survived the day’s sky at twice the speed on sound.
Hart-Dyke prepared himself
black smoke. One of his fingers on be taken off was Alan West. At screaming straight at Antelope”; carnage. Within a minute, it reached its
for the inevitable until he found
his left hand was hanging off, a 6in dusk he stepped across on to one clipped the frigate’s aft mast, The ship did not survive. She target: a Skyhawk came apart in
one exit still open. Eventually, via
piece of formica had embedded Yarmouth in tears. Twenty-two of another broke apart in “a sheet of still smouldered the following mid-air as Sea Dart smashed into
broken and twisted ladders, he
itself in his head. Blood poured his comrades had been killed. flame” thanks to fire from a 20mm day, her back broken, her bow it. At least one more enemy jet fell
made his way to the bridge wing.
from the back of his neck. His Oerlikon – or perhaps an RAF and stern pointing in opposite victim to Coventry’s missiles that
“Get the ship going fast to the east,”
shipmates cried in agony. Antrim had suffered nine Rapier missile. But Antelope was directions at sharp angles before Tuesday before the hunter became
he ordered, desperate to reach the
casualties, two of them seriously wounded. Two bombs careered finally slipping beneath the waters the hunted.
safety of the task force. He didn’t
Alberto Philippi and two comrades wounded. But given the fate of into the ship; both failed to of Falkland Sound for good. Late in the afternoon, five
realise it yet, but Coventry was
were making a run for home. other ships that day, the destroyer explode. Skyhawks took off from Rio
listing 50˚ to port.
Suddenly there was a shout in had “got off lightly”. If the bomb It fell to two Royal Engineers,
There was no order to abandon
Philippi’s headphones. had exploded. If it had taken a Staff Sgt Jim Prescott and WO
“Harrier! Harrier!” different path. “We all know just John Phillips, to attempt to
A Sidewinder from Lt Clive how lucky Antrim was,” wrote defuse the unexploded warheads, I
T could not go on like this. Gallegos airbase with a singular
Britain could not afford to mission: get that Type 42.
ship. There was no need to give it.
lose one ship after another They dropped down to barely
The men knew the ‘lucky’ Coventry
in Bomb Alley. The enemy two dozen feet as they reached
was doomed. On the destroyer’s
Morrell of 800 NAS struck the Rowdy Yates. It wasn’t just Antrim, beginning in the air conditioning had to be intercepted before he West Falkland, hugging the terrain
starboard side, they calmly helped
Skyhawk. it was the entire invasion force compartment where one on the reached Falkland Sound. That for cover, splitting into two groups
each other into bright orange ‘once
“The whole plane shuddered,” which was lucky. The Argentinians bombs was lodged. Antelope’s meant sending HMS Coventry to divide the defenders’ attention.
only’ suits, donned lifejackets and
wrote Philippi. “I looked around concentrated on the warships. crew gathered on the foc’s’le as and HMS Broadsword far to the As the Skyhawks emerged from
stepped off the ever-listing ship into
and the Harrier appeared on my They should have attacked the the soldiers thrice attempted to northwest of the invasion force. the cover of Pebble Island, neither
inflatable rafts.
right side. I think he was coming amphibious force, the landing render the explosive safe – to no There the pair would pick up Coventry nor Broadsword could
David Hart-Dyke walked down
in for the kill.” ships, the Canberra – “the great avail. enemy jets sooner on their radar. get a ‘lock’ from their missiles.
his ship’s side, jumped into the icy
Philippi pulled the ejection white whale” so prominent and yet Now the engineers fitted a There they could take them out Two jets made for the frigate, four
Atlantic and made for the nearest
handle and was catapulted out of not subjected to serious attacks. small charge to the fuse in a with their Sea Darts and Seawolfs 1,000lb bombs tumbling from
raft. Later aboard HMS Broadsword
his crippled aircraft. He drifted bid to dislodge it. They listened – or vector Sea Harriers in for their pylons. One richocheted off
he mulled over the day’s events.
down by parachute into Falkland It had been a day of supreme efforts from a safe distance as the charge the kill. And there they would be the water, bounced up through
Nineteen of his men had been
Sound and swam to the beach. by both sides. The Argentinians went off, then moved cautiously exposed to the full force of the Broadsword’s hull, through her
killed, their bodies entombed 300ft
The two Skyhawks had mounted more than 60 sorties forward to inspect the bomb then... Fuerza Aerea Argentina. flight deck, wrecked the Lynx
beneath the sea in the upturned
accompanying him never made against the task force. Forty-five “the loudest bang I ever heard,” The men of Coventry and helicopter, then continued its
wreck of Coventry. “You don’t
it home. The Black Death saw aircraft had reached Falkland recalled CPO Robert Shadbolt, Broadsword knew the odds journey into the Atlantic.
get over that,” he recalled. But
to that. Sound – ‘Death Valley’ to the standing by the hangar door. were probably stacked against The two other Skyhawks flew
he took solace and pride in the
Argentinian pilots, ‘Bomb Alley’ Prescott had been killed instantly them as they took up station a past the ships and manoeuvred
achievements of his crew. “They did
In the burning, smoke-filled to British sailors – and made their by the blast, his bomb disposal dozen miles off Pebble Island on for an attack on Coventry, while
more than their best continuously
passageways of HMS Ardent attacks; ten never returned home, comrade lost an arm (see page 27 Tuesday May 25. Yet there was computer experts in Broadsword
for at least four weeks,” the captain
Ken Enticknap and shipmate AB all prey to the Sea Harrier. of the main paper). Antelope herself a calm professionalism about re-set Seawolf to finally bring it
continued. “It was an unforgettable
John Dillon were trying to find was mortally wounded. Shadbolt Coventry which emanated from to bear. Now, with the enemy
privilege to have led such brave men
a way out. The galley was gone. Nine thousand miles away, peered over the ship’s side – it was her commanding officer, Capt jets racing in, the satisfying cry of
in action.”
Aviation fuel was burning. Fires Commander-in-Chief Fleet as if someone had gone along her David Hart-Dyke. “Don’t worry, ‘Seawolf locked on’ reverberated
were raging. It seemed hopeless. Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse tried hull with a tin opener. “The most we’ll get through it,” he assured around the operations room.
As the men of HMS Coventry were
Exhausted, Enticknap sat down to make sense of the flurry of mes- horrendous fire was raging,” he his men repeatedly. And perhaps And now luck ran out for the
plucked out the water, two Super
and began to cry. He would never sages and signals from the South recalled. Electric cables flapped Hart-Dyke’s calmness radiated lucky ship.
Étendards armed with Exocet
see his family again, his wife and Atlantic. It looked encouraging. about, arcing. Fire-fighters tried from his confidence in his men. Coventry was taking evasive
missiles raced across the South
the baby she carried. And then British casualties were “much less to tackle the blaze – but as with They were now as honed as any action to avoid the incoming
Atlantic bound for the British task
through the smoke and flames, a than they might have been”. He Sheffield three weeks earlier, the ship’s company would ever be jets. In doing so she cut across
force.
gust of fresh air. Fresh air gave the continued: The Argentine losses blast had knocked out the fire for battle. And, after all, HMS Broadsword – and Seawolf’s
Black Tuesday was about to
men hope. We can get out of here. have been severe and you have estab- mains. Coventry was a ‘lucky ship’. line of fire. The frigate was
become even blacker.
They could and they did, lished a moral ascendancy. Well done. As Alan West had done before It was Argentina’s national day powerless. The men of Coventry
through the tangled remains Keep your guard up. him, Ardent’s captain Cdr Nick – and the task force expected a poured a hail of small-arms fire
A bibliography will appear in the final
of a once-proud warship, Tobin now ordered his men to supreme effort from the enemy. It at the Skyhawks, but it was not
instalment
Enticknap and Dillon reached the was not to be disappointed. enough to deter pilots Mariano
quarterdeck, then jumped into As the first Argentine attack Velasco and Jorge Barrionuevo.
marina Next month: The tragedy of
Falkland Sound. In the water, B
AD weather spared the abandon ship. The fires raged
invasion force air attacks on uncontrolled, reaching the Sea
the twenty-second; troops Cat missile magazine – mercifully of the day brewed shortly after Barrionuevo’s bombs missed the Foxtrot Four, Glamorgan’s luck
Ken Enticknap turned to look and material continued to pour after the last sailor had left the dawn, Coventry’s radar picked destroyer, but not Velasco’s; three
runs out, yomp to victory, the
back at his ship. “Everybody was ashore. The enemy returned in the frigate. up Skyhawks mustering off West struck Coventry’s port side and
legacy of war
FFalklands2.indd 4alklands2.indd 4 113/4/07 15:23:153/4/07 15:23:15
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57