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By Scott Longman
Losing a major naval ship—or any ship—to enemy fire is the dread of every captain and crew. Sometimes, such loss is tragically unavoidable. But other times, it’s the consequence of multiple, needless failures. That happened to the Royal Navy on May 4, 1982. As Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward would comment upon learning of the loss, but before all the details came in: “I suspect someone’s been bloody careless.” It was beyond careless: it was a masterclass in failure.
For background: In April of 1982, Argentina invaded and claimed the Falkland Islands, which sit about 400 miles off their east coast. The problem was that those islands were part of the British empire, and the iron-willed Margaret Thatcher was then Prime Minister. They should have known better. Maggie promptly dispatched a task force to explain to the Argies the error of their ways.
With the exception of some ultra-long-range Vulcan bomber sorties from Ascension Island, Britain’s combat power was concentrated in that naval force. And they knew they were vulnerable to air attack. So, among other methods of defense, they put three Type 42 anti-air destroyers 20 miles out front as a protective barrier, with the primary if not sole mission of derailing Argie air aspirations. They were the HMS Glasgow, the HMS Coventry and the HMS Sheffield. They carried advanced radar systems and the Sea Dart surface-to-air missile system.
Although the Argentinians would ultimately lose the war, there is no question that they had some good leadership, and they had some serious warriors in their ranks. They knew that, both strategically and politically, if they could sink a few ships, it might turn the course of the war. So, they went for it.
Taking on the Brits
On May 4, an Argie Neptune ISR aircraft spotted the British task force southeast of the islands. They launched a pair of French Super Etendard (which means “battle flag”) fighters, equipped with French AM-39 Exocet anti-ship missiles. In contrast to the limitless munitions of the U.S. or U.S.S.R, they only had five such missiles. Each one had to count. The planes were piloted by Lt. Cmdr. Augusto Bedacarratz and Lt. Armando Mayora.
Their base was on the mainland, 450 miles away. Ordinarily, those aircraft would not have the range to reach the task force, but unbeknownst to the Brits, the Argies had in-air refueling capability. The two jets spent most of the run wave-skimming at 50 feet to stay beneath the radar horizon, covering distance at 500 kilometers. At certain points, they popped up to do a quick radar ping.
That’s where Sheffield started its masterclass. They were using satcomms at the time of the first ping, which blocked certain radar frequencies. Aboard the Glasgow, the skipper had banned the use of the satcom system for exactly that reason, but the Sheffield’s skipper hadn’t. Glasgow recognized the ping and immediately notified the task force.
Shortly later, Glasgow made direct radar contact with the incoming threat, and immediately reported it. But the air controller aboard one of the carriers thought it was a false alarm, so he didn’t vector the Combat Air Patrol Sea Harriers to intercept.
Glasgow then urgently radioed Sheffield, but they got no response. The reason? Sheffield’s anti-air officer and its radio operator had both stepped out of the Operations Room, one to get coffee and one to hit the head. There was nobody home.
Next, Sheffield still had no radar contact, because it was looking in the wrong place. With that, the Argies launched two Exocets, closing at 700 mph. Glasgow, as ever, saw what’s up and did a massive protective chaff launch. Sheffield did not.
Then, the Sheffield’s air-ops officer finally returned, but immediately mis-identified the nature of the threat, thinking the attack was by Mirage 3s, not the Exocet-carrying Super Etendards, because he was unaware of the enemy’s refueling capabilities, so he thought they were beyond range.
Final Failures of the H.M.S. Sheffield
Seconds later, spotters actually saw the inbound missiles, but, inexplicably, no message was relayed to the captain or crew, so no chaff was fired, and the crew was unaware that they were under attack. Glasgow, at distance, tried to lock onto the missiles, but the Sea Dart system had been designed to engage high-flying targets, and couldn’t lock on to the sea-skimming Exocets.
That combined tragicomedy of errors could have only one conclusion, and it did, at 10:03 local. One missile hit the starboard side, at the auxiliary machine room, blowing a hole four feet by fifteen, and penetrating as far as the galley, killing eight cooks instantly. That strike knocked out comms and critical missile defense computer systems and started a huge fire. A team of five steel-hearted sailors stayed to try to bring the defensive systems back up. They succeeded, but it cost them their lives.
Sheffield battled the fire for four hours. But the failure cascade wasn’t over yet: a major pipe and multiple pumps failed, and the firefighting effort was uncoordinated. Finally, concerned that the fire would reach the Sea Dart magazines, the abandon ship order was given. Sheffield’s hulk was taken under tow, but she continued to founder from the Exocet breach and sank six days later. Only one of the 20 dead were recovered before the sinking. It was the first Royal Navy ship to sink since WWII.
In all, it cost the Brits 20 dead, 26 wounded and one-third of their anti-aircraft ships. There was a formal Board of Inquiry that found all these issues, but it remained largely classified until 2017. Not wishing to dampen the public jubilation over winning the war against long odds, Brit authorities decided against any court martial proceedings.
The event leaves us all with the continuing lesson to never become bloody careless.
The post Don’t Ever Become Bloody Careless: The H.M.S. Sheffield appeared first on Field Ethos.
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