On the morning of May 4th 1982, just two Argentine Super Etendard strike fighters launched an
attack on the British task force near the Falkland Islands all by themselves.
They were armed with lethal Exocet anti-ship missile, and in this video we’ll see how
just one of these inflicted Britain’s most serious naval loss since the end of the Second
World War.
- After the sinking of General Belgrano by HMS
Conqueror on May 2nd 1982, the Argentinian navy returned its major surface warships to
port, unwilling now to run the gauntlet of British nuclear submarines.
This gave the British naval supremacy, and meant that any counter attack on the task
force would have to come from shore based aircraft operating from Argentina’s mainland,
several hundred miles away.
Argentina in 1982 had a large fleet of powerful western-built aircraft, including American-made
Skyhawks and Israeli-produced Daggers.
The latest addition to this armada of more than 300 planes was the French Super Etendard
strike fighter, which was designed to operate Exocet anti ship missiles.
Capable of delivering a 165 kilogram warhead at over 700 miles an hour, the Exocet was
a modern, highly dangerous missile, and the British knew it would be the single biggest
threat to their ships during the Falklands war.
As a key part of their naval strikeforce, Argentina had ordered fourteen super etendards
and 15 exocet missiles, but only five of each had been received before France suspended
deliveries in the wake of the invasion of the Falklands.
With such a limited stock, it was decided that the Etendards would only deploy from
their base at Rio Grande in pairs, when opportune moments to strike the British carriers arose.
On the morning of May 4th, one such opportunity was presented when a Neptune reconnaissance
aircraft detected the British task force south east of the Falklands.
Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward had his flagship HMS Hermes about 75 miles south of Stanley.
He was keeping his ships relatively close to the coast in order to support shore bombardment
and reconnaissance operations being mounted against Argentine land positions.
May 4th was expected to be a relatively quiet day, with a single air raid against Goose
Green the only planned operation.
450 miles away, a pair of Super Etendards had other ideas as they took off from Rio
Grande at 8.45 am.
Piloted by Lieutenant Commander Augusto Bedacarratz and Sub Lieutenant Armando Mayora, the super
etendards flew east without escort, relying on surprise and the long range of their missiles
to mount a successful raid.
They would ordinarily not have the range to reach the reported British ships, but they
were able to refuel in mid air from a Hercules tanker.
120 miles out from the reported contacts, the two aircraft descended to fly at just
50 feet above the sea so that the curvature of the earth would hide them from British
radar screens.
Flying on in poor visibility, at 9:56am Bedacarratz and Mayora popped up and briefly switched
on their radars, looking for the British ships.
They found nothing, so dropped down to sea level once more, pressing on at more than
500 knots towards where their targets should be.
Less than 50 miles away, the British fleet was sailing south westwards.
The ships of the task force were strung out in an anti-air formation, and had dealt with
repeated false alarms over incoming hostile aircraft that morning.
Furthest east were the most important ships- the carriers Hermes and Invincible, each accompanied
by a ‘goalkeeper’ ship armed with the short range sea wolf missile, positioned as
the last line of defence.
In front of these were layers of protection, the most important of which were the three
type 42 anti air destroyers, positioned 20 miles ahead of the main task force.
Coventry, Glasgow and Sheffield were charged with intercepting any hostile air attacks
before they could reach the carriers.
There were also Sea Harriers in the air running combat air patrol to the north west, but due
to the low cloud base on May 4th their ability to respond to threats was limited.
At 9:56 and 30 seconds, HMS Glasgow picked up the radar emissions from the etendards
first attempt to establish contact with the task force.
Its operations room snapped into gear, correctly identifying the source as a Super Etendard
and broadcasting a warning to the rest of the task force.
But HMS Sheffield, who was closer to the approaching aircraft than Glasgow, was silent.
At that moment the southernmost type 42 was using her satellite communication system,
which blocked out certain radar frequencies and meant that Sheffield could not hear the
same contacts Glasgow could.
Captain Paul Hoddinott of Glasgow had previously banned the use of this system on his ship
during daylight hours, but Captain Sam Salt on Sheffield had not done the same.
At 9:58 Beddacarratz and Mayora again popped up for a radar sweep, now just 20 miles away
from the task force.
This time they could make out two radar contacts, one smaller than the other.
Believing the larger ship to be an aircraft carrier, they pressed their attack, and prepared
to launch their missiles.
By now, Glasgow had direct radar contact with the approaching strike aircraft.
The ships anti air warfare officer, Lieutenant Commander Nick Hawkyard quickly reported the
incoming raid.
But he was frustrated with the response of HMS Invincible, which was not convinced that
this latest alarm wasn’t as spurious as others had been that morning.
The Sea Harriers on their patrol route were not diverted to intercept the incoming contacts.
At 10am, now somewhat frantic, Glasgow radioed a warning of the incoming attack to Sheffield-
but again, there was no response.
At this critical juncture, both the ships anti air warfare officer and one of the radio
operators had stepped out of the operations room, leaving it rudderless.
Sheffield had also still not made radar contact with the Argentinian jets.
This was now partly because Glasgow had given the bearing of the contacts as being 235 degrees,
but from Sheffield the aircraft would have shown up on a bearing of around 300.
This confusion led to Sheffields radar operators looking in the wrong place, and seeing nothing.
The Super Etendards were now just 12 miles out.
They turned sharply to starboard, lining themselves up firmly on HMS Sheffield.
Ten seconds later, Sheffields Anti Air officer was urgently called back to the ops room over
the ships intercom.
This was the first indication to almost all of sheffield’s crew that something was wrong.
Before he could get there though, at 10:02 exactly, Bedacarratz and Mayora launched their
Exocet missiles and turned away hard, to begin their sprint back to Argentina.
With an Exocet travelling at more than seven hundred miles an hour, Britains ships now
had just seconds to react.
Glasgow quickly fired chaff- clouds of small metal filaments designed to confuse the exocets
radar into missing the ship.
Onboard Sheffield, the anti air officer returned to the ops room but misidentified the raid
as a pair of Mirage III’s, as he believed the fleet was beyond the range of the Exocet
carrying Super Etendards.
Seconds later, the ships bridge crew caught sight of the missile trails heading their
way, but no message was relayed to the ops room, the captain, or to the crew.
No chaff was fired.
Aboard Glasgow, Captain Hoddinott ordered his ships Sea Dart missile system to engage
the onrushing exocets, but the system was designed to engage high altitude missiles
and struggled to lock on to the low flying and fast moving projectiles.
Sheffield’s Sea Dart meanwhile could not even see the exocets on radar.
Most of her crew was not even aware there was anything to be worried about.
And then, at 10:03 exactly, time ran out for HMS Sheffield.
The first Exocet smashed into the ships starboard side amidships, causing a huge fire in the
auxiliary machine room.
The ship immediately lost half its power and its communications.
Thick black smoke forced the evacuation of the bridge and the ops room, and a ruptured
fire main crippled firefighting efforts.
To make matters worse, the computer systems for the ships missiles failed, leaving Sheffield
defenseless in the face of any subsequent attacks.
In the computer room a team of five under Lieutenant Commander John Woodhead remained
at their post, trying desperately to restore the ships defences even as choking smoke filled
the air and the blazing fire crept closer.
They were eventually successful, but all five men perished in the process.
Not long after the Exocet hit, the frigates Yarmouth and Arrow arrived to offer assistance,
providing hoses and pumps to try and beat back the fire rapidly engulfing the centre
of HMS Sheffield.
Helicopters began to evacuate casualties to HMS Hermes, where their arrival was captured
by the news cameras of the broadcast media.
For four hours firefighters battled valiantly against the fire in an attempt to save Sheffield,
but it was a battle they were steadily losing.
By 1.50pm, Captain Sam Salt judged that the combat value of the ship was essentially nil,
and keeping the crew onboard was not worth the risk that the fire might reach and detonate
the sea dart magazine.
He ordered abandon ship.
The crew went across to Yarmouth and Arrow, while Captain salt and some of his officers
were flown by lynx to Hermes to report to Rear Admiral Woodward.
Woodward, grappling with the implications of that mornings events, told Captain Salt
“I suspect someones been bloody careless”.
20 men had died, and Britain had lost 1/3rd of its specialist anti air ships, leaving
the task force dangerously exposed until reinforcements in the shape of ships like HMS Exeter and
HMS Cardiff could arrive.
As the task force digested a serious blow, several hundred miles away Bedacarrutz and
Mayora were returning to base, having fired 40% of Argentina’s Exocet stocks.
When news reports of sheffields sinking emerged, it was seen by some as revenge for the sinking
of the Belgrano two days before, but that wasn’t how Sub Lieutenant Mayora saw it:
“We didn’t feel that it was a retaliation for the Belgrano – the operation was never
for that – but we felt that we had proved that we had the ability to sink one of theirs
too.”
The burning hulk of HMS Sheffield remained afloat for several days after she was hit.
Once the fire had burnt itself out, the ship was taken under tow by Yarmouth.
She reached the edge of the exclusion zone but began to take water on through the hole
the Exocet had created.
Eventually Sheffield foundered and capsized, sinking into the Atlantic where she rests
today.
The loss of Sheffield was a brutal shock to Britain.
It was the Royal Navy’s first warship loss by enemy action since the end of the second
world war, and very sudden reminder to the British government and public of the realities
of fighting a war.
Militarily, it forced the Royal Navy to be more cautious with its task force- keeping
further east and away from the Etendards base at Rio Grande.
But it also hardened their resolve to see the campaign through to a victorious conclusion.
After days of fighting at sea and in the air, attention would now turn to the plans for
a full scale amphibious landing on the Falklands, and some of the most tense days of the entire
war.