8. The sinking of HMS Coventry and Atlantic Conveyor
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Hello and welcome to the Battleground podcast. I'm Saul David and today Patrick Bishop and I will be talking about one of the most tragic days of the Falklands campaign for the British.

25 May 1982, when the Type 42 destroyer HMS Coventry and the supply ship Atlantic Conveyor were sunk by Argentinian bombs and Exocet missiles respectively. Now, just to recap, four days earlier, as we've heard in previous episodes, troops were successfully landed at San Carlos water. Everyone got ashore without incident. And so there they are, they're waiting for the next step to move on. They desperately need help.

the supplies which are on board the 15,000 ton container ship Atlantic conveyor and what they really need are the heavy lift Chinook helicopters and the Wessex helicopters and also on board of course are tons of ammunition

Equipment to build an airfield, C Harriers and RAF GR3 Harriers, which will massively augment the defensive air power we'll have, which of course is an absolutely key element in the success of the operation. And also very important, tents for thousands of troops. At the moment, they're out in the open and ready.

The longer the campaign goes on, the worse their physical condition is going to get. So the tents are often forgotten, very important. Now, the 25th of May has huge significance for the Argentinians. It's their national day.

that marked the start of their revolution in 1810, which led ultimately to independence from Spain. It's a big day. These things have great symbolic importance. And indeed, on some of the ships, people were pointing this out and saying, look, they're going to have to do something today. You know, national pride will demand it. So we've got to be extra alert. The Air Force were setting their sights on this day to avoid

avenge the sinking of the Belgrano and also to have a huge boost to national morale by sinking one and hopefully two of the aircraft carriers, the Hermes and the Invincible. They are absolutely the core of the air defenses. And they are, of course, at the center of the carrier battle group, which was then destroyed.

to the northeast of the Falkland Islands. Now, a series of airstrikes from the Argentinian mainland were planned, but the initial raids were not successful. Two Mirage III jets being chased from Falkland Sound by sea harriers were actually shot down by sea dart missiles fired from the anti-aircraft destroyer HMS Coventry.

Now, the significant thing about the commentary, it's getting a lot of work at this point because it's the only survivor of the original three anti-aircraft destroyers. Sheffield, we heard about, was sunk on the 4th of May and Glasgow since then has been badly damaged. So the commentary is getting a lot of work. And on the 25th of May, it's acting as forward picket with the frigate HMS Broadsword. And they are based roughly 10 miles north of Pebble Island, which is just to the north of West Falkland.

Now, after this initial success, Coventry later shot down a third aircraft. Rapier batteries, much maligned, also claimed one and the frigate HMS Yarmouth another. It seemed at this stage as if the worst was over. Well, then at about two o'clock, having decided against moving position to avoid any retaliatory attacks,

The air raid warning suddenly went off on board Coventry. Now, skipper David Hart Dyke, very popular with his men, sent the crew to action stations and ordered the ship to increase speed. And suddenly, from the direction of Pebble Island came two Skyhawks attacking at almost wave height, becoming very, very low to keep under the radar.

And they veered from Coventry's anti-aircraft cannon fire. They're sending out this, they hope, sort of impenetrable curtain of cannon fire and headed for its escort ship, the Broadsword, which was armed with the modern Seawolf short-range ship-to-air missile system. So the Sea Dart, you've got to remember, is the long-range missile system. The Seawolf is the close-in short-range missile.

Unfortunately, the computer, which is basically the targeting tool, it was unable to distinguish between the two targets so close to coming so close together. And it was unable to get a lock, as they call it.

So a single bomb tumbled out of the aircraft, hit the starboard side of the ship and bounced out astonishingly, it seems to us laymen, through the flight deck, destroying the Lynx helicopter, which was sitting there, but it failed to explode. The Seawolf now actually managed to get a lock on the second pair of Skyhawks closing in.

But to the aimer's dismay, as he prepared to fire, Coventry swung across Broadsword's bow. David Hartdyke had ordered a ship starboard turn, i.e. that's a turn to the right, to present the smallest possible target to the incoming aircraft. And he was expecting Broadsword to kind of maneuver in order to avoid him. The Seawolf was unable to fire and

And watching all this was Abel Seaman, Martin Buster Brown, Buster's his nickname, a radio operator who was serving as a lookout on the bridge. And he told us what happened next. My primary role was in the ops room. I used to liaise with the warfare officer and the fighter controller. We were a group of guys who compiled the air picture for the command and

On the day in question, the 25th of May, we were stationed along with the Type 22 frigate HMS Broadsword about 10 to 13 miles north of Pebble Island. And we were acting as a deterrent, basically. Any aircraft which would appear, we would engage and hopefully shoot down. And on the 25th of May, which happened to be the Argentine National Day, we'd been quite successful during the day. We shot down two or three aircraft there.

But unfortunately, they targeted us at the end of the day. Now, the afternoon watch, which I kept, I think we engaged with one aircraft. We went off watch. I went back down to the mess. I was listening to music. And the last track I listened to was Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, a track called Souvenir.

We went to action stations. I went to the bridge, which was my off-watch action station, and we just then waited. We didn't have to wait very long. The first wave of aircraft, a pair, came in from the starboard side. They opened fire with their 20mm cannon. We engaged them with 4.5-inch gun and small arms fire. They directed their attack towards HMS Broadsword.

delivering one aircraft delivering its payload, simply damaging the Lynx helicopter, which was ranged on Broadsword's flight deck. Another bomb missing and exploding in the sea. Seconds or minutes later, I was looking towards the island and noticed two other aircraft closing rapidly. I heard the ops room call out for alarm aircraft. The lead pilot, I believe, opened fire with his cannons and hitting us down the port side.

they flew overhead i could see the bellies of the aircraft as they flew over it was a deathly silence and there was a third as the uh as the bombs exploded

From down below, the bridge was filled with smoke and the captain appeared and he had a flash burn to his face. He went to the corner of the bridge and went down on his knees. He was assisted by members of the crew. The ship began to list quite quickly. I then decided it was time to get off the ship. I went down the ship's side and as I was going down the ship's side, I heard...

I could see one of the guys in trouble, so I swam out to him and happened to be one of the guys from down the mess. So I grabbed hold of him, swam with him to the life raft, helped to recover him. And later on, in fact, it was October 82, I received a commendation for bravery from the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, for my actions. Yes, sadly, we lost 19 that day.

with another guy dying of his injuries 12 months later. Well, that was able seaman Martin Brown describing the dramatic moment that Coventry was attacked by seahawks. What I find particularly chilling about that story actually is the sort of cold-blooded way in which he tells it. His heart must have been thumping and it must have been an utterly terrifying experience to realise, you know, as he puts it, that

the ship is crippled and you know it's almost certainly going to go down yeah and very flat and you know people respond to these things in different ways some people when they're reliving the memory see it in very vivid colors other are more analytical and trying to look at what actually happened in what sequence all of them of course would have gone over it over and over again in their heads wondering what

might have happened, what might have gone differently, what they might have done to avoid fate. But I think you get a feeling here that once that bomb hits, the first bomb hits, that's it. It's kind of game over. Yeah. And also very, very self-effacing, I think, that account because, you know, he's telling you

He describes getting in the water. And the first thing he's doing is actually thinking about helping someone else, not saving his own life. And, you know, we often hear this is a reaction to extreme danger. But it's, you know, it's really instructive to hear it's not just a question of every man for himself. And I suppose that's all about the teamwork that gets developed when you're part of a crew that gets on well with each other. Yeah, that was rather touching the way that he said,

He just described an act of great heroism in this completely sort of modest way. But that's, you know, that's very much the kind of spirit of the Navy, I think. OK, so we've heard from an able seaman, but let's actually hear from commentary skipper David Hartdyke, who was in the operations room when the attack occurred. The next pair turned up from different directions.

and came straight for me and got through despite all our defences. We thought we had contact on our sea dart, long range, but I mean it just wasn't coping with low level and the first missile went straight into the shore, North Falkland. We used the 4 or 5 inch gun, both as machine guns even, anyway the pair got through and three bombs went inside the ship and travelled deep down inside the ship. They came in

just above the water level, or a bit higher perhaps, and then went right down inside the ship. And of course, flying at low level, they then go up at the last minute and sort of lob the bomb, such that it does fall from a height and goes through the deck.

So it does maximum damage between decks. One bomb didn't go off, but two did. And so it really took out the senior elements of the ship. The ops room team, senior people, including me, we were disabled really for doing anything. And the after section damage control also were taken out.

So there we were with the ship sort of turning over. I mean, internally, you know, thick smoke and fire, flooding, everything. No communication, nothing. And you were in the ops room, David, and knocked out for a while or unconscious for a short time? I never moved from my chair. But when I came round, you know, I could sense the devastation of the whole compartment. And people were actually on fire and a lot of thick smoke everywhere.

And I personally couldn't see any way out because the ladder behind me, my traditional route, was destroyed. And to the left, that's where the bombs came in, really. Impassable. And I therefore didn't know how I could get out. But anyway, somehow I found myself out in clearer air on the starboard side. That door was free. And then I climbed up, saw twisted ladders and got onto the flag deck, then to the side of the bridge. But the bridge by that time was full of smoke.

And I just saw the ship's company abandon the ship. And it was a young element of the ship, such as the training and the discipline, morale and all the rest of it. They just got on. Hardly word was spoken. And I saw this happening. I never gave the order to abandon ship. Very orderly and calm. Hardly word was spoken. By this time, the ship was beginning to turn over. And so we could only get the life rafts out on one side of the ship. So immediately there was a shortage of space.

In fact, it is a miracle to me, just thinking of it now, that 280 of us got out of the ship and most of the others killed by the blast of the bombs. So it was remarkable, really, and we filled the life raft to overfull with the sufficient space. So we were all

pretty quickly floating in life rafts around the ship as we saw it turn over. David, how did you yourself get down to the life rafts? Well, I watched this abandoned ship and everybody diving in and going to the life rafts. And although shortly before, a sailor came up to me from nowhere and helped me put on my survival suit, you know, to protect me from the freezing sea. It's a very brave act.

And I told him to get off because he should have gone. But anyway, there I was. He kindly helped me. And then I just walked down the ship's side, the starboard side, which by then was nearing towards the horizontal, and stepped in the water and swam a short distance to the life raft. So I was the last one in of one life raft. And therefore, when the helicopters came to rescue us all, I was the first out, winched up by a helicopter and taken to HMS Broadsword. So that was my escape from...

But it was an extraordinary thing that the life rafts on the starboard side eventually ended up on the port side of the ship and were caught underneath the ship that was coming out down on top of them. And my life raft, which I just exited, was actually sunk and got spiked by the missile launcher. There's a missile still on the launcher, a sea dock. And they ended up in the water again. And one sailor even climbed back on board, which actually was probably about to blow up. Anyway, he survived.

So our nightmare didn't stop, or at least for the ship's company and their life rafts. They were not safe. They were being trapped underneath the ship coming on top of them. But anyway, they all escaped and were picked out of the water by boats or by helicopter. So I had a hot bath and built Canning's cabin and then went and had a brief word on the bridge. And all he could say was, I'm very sorry, David. I couldn't say anything. And then I got winched off and went to an RFA in Falklandsand.

and thence eventually to another RV, and then eventually the QV2 in South Georgia. Presumably one of your biggest concerns, David, quite apart from the loss of some of your crew, was what was happening at home, because one of the problems is when these ships get sunk is that there's a sort of general thing goes out, a ship's been sunk, but they don't actually specify who's been sunk, and certainly nobody knows who are the casualties. So presumably your main concern was getting information back to your family. Well, it was. I have to admit...

The whole point of me going to speak to Bill Cunningham on the bridge was at least to show my face as alive, because I knew that would get back to Sandy Woodward and into your home. But yes, it was unfortunate in hindsight that the name of Coventry was not mentioned, because our wives and families back home had no idea which ship it was. And in fact, when I was taken to this RFA in Falkland Sound, I sat with the master of this RFA, having a brandy with him,

We heard the 10 o'clock news, BBC World Service, saying the destroyer had been sunk. And actually, I didn't believe it was my ship at that time. Search for the state housing. Anyway, so the families back home suffered somewhat. Yeah. How did your family actually find out, get the news? Well, a friend of mine was actually on the staff at Northwood and did actually ring up my wife and say that he knew I'd survived.

But then my wife had all the pressure from the wives of my ship's company ringing her up saying, what's the news? What's the news? Is it Coventry? Has my husband survived, et cetera? So then on, D, my wife, was very much central to trying to provide information. And she was fed it eventually from the likes of our friend in Northwood and elsewhere. I mean, that's a rather more dramatic account. Lots of very powerful details in there. The idea of people being on fire,

And he himself, of course, is kind of looking at all his instruments and all the rest of it. He's down in the control room. He's actually slightly at one remove until the bomb hits. And then there's this feeling that you often get from such accounts of kind of miraculous moments when everything seems fine.

terrible, there's no way out. And then suddenly, there is a way out, something happens, and you're breathing clean air again. But I also was really struck by that description of walking down the deck and into the sea. I mean, it's a real, I don't know, people will perhaps remember the great wartime movie In Which We Serve, which was made by Noel Coward, and it was based on the

on the experiences of Louis Mountbatten on his ship HMS Kelly in the Mediterranean. But it's very much like those sequences of people splashing around in the water and climbing on board, being hauled on board a life raft. And also, of course, you've got to, I've forgotten about the survival suit detail. In those South Atlantic waters, you're not going to survive more than a couple of minutes. They are incredibly cold. And so that obviously was a

a great lifesaver. Yeah, and again, a great act of generosity and heroism, which he acknowledges. A crew member who clearly might have just thought about himself and got into a seat actually stopped to help him. And one of the details he didn't mention there, but I know about having read his book, is that his hands were very badly burned from the explosion next to the operations room. And he was struggling as a result of that to use his hands to get on his survival suit. So

You know, I don't think it's going too far to say that that sailor's generosity and heroism might have helped save his life. The other thing that struck me, Patrick, is this slightly mad idea they had at the time at the MOD to announce that a ship had been sunk, but not say which one. So you've got the double whammy here. Not only does every, you know...

Every civilian who's got a serving member of the family in the Royal Navy in the South Atlantic not know if they're involved in that sinking. You also don't know which of the casualties, if you're Coventry, which of the casualties actually refer to you. And of course, it was the job, as we know, both in infantry units and also in naval ships of the senior officer's wife to effectively look after Coventry.

the family members of the rest of the battalion or the rest of the crew. And in this case, she was the one who had to tell some of those crew members when she found out the bad news that their loved ones wouldn't be coming back. Yeah, that's just something else that perhaps we will look at later on. But the role of those back home, I mean, I think it is a kind of time-honoured thing.

of the unit commander's wife to actually deal with all her fellow wives who were sitting nervously at home listening to the news, wondering what the hell's happening to their menfolk. And Dee obviously did a great job here. So it's good that she's been given...

proper place in the story. There is one other little aspect that I think it might be worth mentioning, Patrick. I'm not sure David will appreciate this, but I'm going to anyway. And that is his daughter is Miranda Hart, the sort of comedian and TV writer and actress. And it's fascinating. She was about 10 years old when this happened and at school and she

one of the teachers comes up to her and says, "Listen, Miranda, how are you feeling today?" Assuming that she's heard from her mum that the Coventry has been sunk. Well, actually she hasn't been told anything. And her response is, because apparently she was always very sort of, a child who was always slightly concerned about her health. She said, "Well, actually I'm feeling very well, apart from a minor sniffle."

And she was delighted that the teacher had actually made the effort to ask her how she was doing. Great little story. OK, so let's get back to, you know, the consequences and the consequences were horrific. A total of 19 members of Coventry's crew were killed that day and many more badly wounded, many more badly burned, including, of course, Hartdyke, not seriously injured, but injured by the by the flash fires.

It might, interestingly enough, all have ended very differently if the sea harriers that were overhead at the time, on the cap overhead, had been allowed to engage enemy planes over the ships, as Lieutenant Commander Tim Gedge told us. A few days later, when HMS Coventry was attacked and, as it were, as it happened, sunk, she was attacked by Skyhawk aircraft, and I was leading one of two pairs of aircraft there.

on combat air patrol, we were called in by one of the ship's radars to try and chase the attacking Skyhawks. But we were quite a long way away. And although we were significantly faster than the Skyhawk aircraft, particularly coming down from medium or high level,

I think we would have probably got Sidewinder missiles off and in amongst the Skyhawks before they dropped their bombs, but we would have been well inside the missile engagement zone. And so our doctrine at the time was, if the ship could, was never to enter that zone. The expression was, take it with birds. And that was the signal that the ship would engage with its own missiles.

In the event, the Seawolf missiles weren't able to lock onto the aircraft, so the bombs actually were dropped and exploded and Coventry was sunk.

So that was Lieutenant Commander Tim Gedge explaining why he couldn't interfere when he'd spotted the Skyhawks attacking Coventry. What makes it particularly poignant is the fact that David Hartdyke was asked by his fighter controller on board when the Skyhawk attack was underway, if he wanted a Harrier to intervene. This is what he told us.

We were controlling two Harriers most of the time and directed them to, obviously, the threat coming towards them. Close the range, they're on their own with their sidewinder missiles, very effective too. So I had these two aeroplanes which were closing in as fast as they could to the threat coming to me. And my fighter controller was extremely sharp and I just saw him two or three days ago and we both reminded ourselves of that instant. He stood up.

to be conspicuous and talk direct to me across, you know, the table, as it were, the plotting table, and said, what do you do with these Harriers? And, of course, by that time, the missile controller said, you've got luck on. I don't think he had, actually. And, of course, a low target was a very long shot indeed. So I had that split-second decision, the aircraft controller and me, as to what we'd do with the Harriers. And then we thought they wouldn't quite get there on time,

And then we were fearful of shooting them down and getting in the way of our missiles or what we might be tempted to do. So I said, call them off and hope that broadsword might be our sort of last ditch defence. And that was those awful decisions you make in seconds. You've got to make that reminder.

And actually, in hindsight, I think, without anybody influencing me in what I think, my thought was afterwards was that actually the sea harriers alone would have put the fear up the Argentinians' minds because they were being lethal and so effective. I think that would have been enough, actually, to deter probably the threat coming in. But that's hindsight.

It's one of those classic split-second decisions, Patrick, isn't it? He acknowledges now, incredibly honestly, I think, with the benefit of hindsight, that he probably should have called the Harriers in and they might have saved the ships. I mean, it's quite an admission. But, of course, he was operating under the pressure of the moment. And who's to say that his decision might have turned out differently if the Sea Dart had actually taken out one of those planes? Yeah, well, we will never know. But it's interesting that he...

He thought that the deterrent effect of the sea harriers would be enough for the attackers to veer away. And I can see that because they realize now that if it's a contest between them and the sea harriers, they're probably going to come off worse. I mean, even though numerically we're at a huge disadvantage, we are definitely in, when there's actually a confrontation, we're going to win.

overpower them all and um so that that may be the case it might have been the case but uh we'll never know the answer to that one i mean we realized from the uh from the comments by david hart dyke how shaken he was even at the end of the day he didn't actually realize he was so out of it he didn't actually realize that it was his ship that had been hit and of course the shock felt by all the survivors of these sinkings is really quite extreme and we get a sense of this uh from the uh

Comments made to us by Dave Watkins, the coxswain of the landing craft Foxtrot 3, which helped to ferry some of the survivors from Broadsword to a fleet auxiliary ship that day. So we disappeared out dead at night again, rendezvoused with Broadsword and took all these guys again coming down nets and God knows where else in states of undress and so on and so on and so forth back onto our boat.

And I can it's a memory that sticks with me because my the mechanical engineer I had on my boat was scanning these people coming down the ladders and down the ropes to see if there's anybody he knew. Because obviously the Navy in the mechanical engineering branch, quite a small branch. So he's looking around to see if there's anybody he knew. But these guys are coming down. You could see in their faces the absolute horror of what they'd experienced and all this sort of stuff.

And we took them from there to one of the RFAs for them to be looked after properly. So all these little things all kind of meld into one big experience, you know, and so some of it good and some of it bad. Now, the drama of that day, unfortunately, was far from over. In part two, we're going to discuss the extraordinary possibility that the supply ship Atlantic Conveyor was sacrificed to save the carrier Hermes.

The content of part two is based on detailed research conducted by Dr Gordon Brooks, originally Conveyor's doctor, but latterly a respected research scientist. We have also incorporated anonymised extracts from his personal story.

By modelling the actions of the British vessels, Dr Brooks conclusively demonstrates that Conveyor was sailing in close company with Hermes during the Argentine Exocet attack of 25 May 1982, rather than being on her way into San Carlos water to offload her helicopters, as is often assumed.

He has also shown the Argentine exocets were heading for Hermes until the last moment when they veered towards Conveyor, which had been turned the wrong way by Hermes and became the larger target. Dr. Brooks's conclusion, supported by the decision-makers of the day, expert witnesses and reviewers of his research, is that Conveyor's turn was the result of a low-level misunderstanding occurring in the heat of the moment rather than any deliberate action.

As you'll hear in part two, I come to a different conclusion. If you want to decide for yourself, you can find a link to Dr. Brooks's research in the episode notes. Welcome back. In part one, we heard about the grim fate of HMS Coventry on the 25th of May, 1982. Now we're going to discuss the controversial circumstances that led to the sinking of the container ship Atlantic Conveyor. So at 7.36 on May the 25th,

Michael Williams, the principal warfare officer on the frigate HMS Ambuscade, which was acting as the final line of air defence for Sandy Woodward's carrier battle group, which was 70 miles northeast of the Falkland Islands,

detected the approach of two Argentine aircraft coming from the northwest at an estimated range of only 35 miles. He immediately told Woodward's flagship, the carrier Hermes, which was sailing on a slightly divergent course two miles to the east. And aware of the danger, the skipper of Hermes ordered full power that kept on the same southerly course.

Now, the aircraft were two French-built Super Etendard strike fighters armed with Exocet missiles that had taken off from Rio Grande on the Argentinian mainland two hours earlier.

Woodward had been informed of their departure by British Special Forces team observing the airfield from the mainland. But as soon as the maximum flight time of the jets had passed, he assumed the danger of an attack was over. In fact, unbeknown to the British at that time, the Argentinians had developed an in-flight refuelling capability that could extend the range of the attacking aircraft.

Having flown a lengthy dogleg to the north of the Falklands at extremely low altitude and maintaining radio silence, the planes then popped up, as they call it. That's immediately...

Going into a steep ascent to activate the radars and they were now in a perfect position to attack Hermes the pilots both experienced Veterans one was called Robert Kirillovich and the other Hector Barraza They could see three targets on their radar two of them large and one smaller naturally They selected the largest Hermes. That's that's their target for the day and

and launched their rocket propelled anti-ship Exocet missiles. They're French designed, they're armed with 165 kilogram warheads, and they can be launched from the area of distance, so quite long distances. At this point, they're only 30 miles away from the ship. And the missiles then skim the waves just 50 feet above the water at a speed of more than 700 miles an hour. So it would only take them less than three minutes to get on target.

Aware that the exocets were coming, Michael Williams ordered the Amberskade to fire chaff, that is small strips of metal designed to disorientate the exocets by presenting them with alternative targets to lock onto.

Captain Linley Middleton, the skipper of Hermes, did exactly the same. And at the same time, he ordered a tight turn to starboard so that its bow faced the incoming missiles and presented as small a target as possible. Now, this is a chilling moment for Middleton. He's got 2,000 people on board, roughly. And he knew what had happened to the destroyer HMS Sheffield, which had been crippled by a single Exocet missile earlier in the conflict.

And the loss of Hermes, along with half the task force air power of 40 or so Sea Harriers, might be fatal for the campaign. Now, the third vessel noticed by the Argentinian pilots was the 15,000-ton container ship SS Atlantic Conveyor, which had also been sailing south a mile behind Hermes. We heard in an earlier episode about how the conveyor had offloaded the Sea Harriers it had brought south a few days earlier.

The plan for the 25th was for the conveyor to head to San Carlos water after dark and offload the rest of its vital equipment and stores, which included, of course, the heavy lift, Chinook helicopters, aviation fuel, ammunition and tents. But unlike Ambuscade and Hermes, it had no military radar capability and no chaff. Its ability to avoid incoming missiles was entirely dependent on instructions from Hermes.

Now what happens next is the subject of heated debate. The conventional story that we've always heard up till now is that the Atlantic conveyor was hit by exocets because it was a defenseless merchant ship in the wrong place at the wrong time and heading for the Falkland Islands. There'd be much talk on the journey south about what the chaffless conveyor might do to avoid the dreaded exocets.

Eventually, it was agreed with Woodward's approval, I might add, that, and I quote here, she should turn her stern to the missiles to make her a smaller target.

This would have the added benefit of using her heavy stern ramp to act like armour plating. The conveyor's skipper, Ian North, who was nicknamed Captain Birdseye on account of his beard, was having a beer with some off-duty helicopter pilots when the crisis unfolded. He raced back to the bridge, expecting Hermes to confirm the direction of the attack so he could then change course as per instructions.

But unbeknownst to him, Kempfea was at this point almost stern on to the incoming missiles and already in the best defensive posture that it could take. But an order came through from Hermes over the tactical channel saying,

saying, immediate execute, turn port to 040 degrees. Now, that's a direct order to turn the ship onto a course that instead of making the conveyor a smaller target, would present not her stern to the incoming missiles, but rather her entire port side.

So what happens next? Well, having passed through Amberscape's chaff, the missiles appeared to angle to their left towards Woodward's flagship. I mean, we have eyewitness accounts that indicate this. On Hermes Bridge at the time, a lookout remembered, and this is a significant quote,

I saw a white hot glow on the horizon. I shouted a warning to the bridge. Although I'd never seen an Exocet, I knew what it was. The missile was coming towards Hermes. Suddenly, it bore to the right and hit Atlantic Conveyor. She went up in a big pool of smoke.

So it appears that after losing their lock in Ambrose Gade's chaff, the Exocets searched for a new target, which left them with a choice between Hermes, bow on, trailing chaff, and conveyor to their left, exposing her port side, Ambrose.

which was, of course, a result of following those instructions. They picked the conveyor as the larger target and moved towards her. Recent research leads me to conclude that the conveyor was deliberately sacrificed to save Hermes. The exocets had hit the conveyor's port quarter, stopping our engines and spilling burning propellant through the open cargo decks that ignited everything in its path.

The ship quickly filled with acrid black smoke, which was sucked into the ventilation system and spread around the ship and onto the decks, hampering the work of the damage control parties. The crew fought a heroic but ultimately futile battle to save the ship, while Conveyor's escort, the frigate HMS Alacrity, came alongside to use hoses to fight the fire. But the flames continued to spread, and Conveyor's upper deck was soon cut in two by a pall of thick black smoke.

Two officers, one wearing breathing apparatus, tried to rescue a badly wounded mechanic who was trapped in the engine room and screaming in pain. But they were driven back by the heat and smoke, and any thoughts of trying again were ended by an order from the bridge to seal all hatches to the cargo decks.

By the time the order to abandon ship was given, the decks were so hot that soles of crew members' shoes were starting to melt and the hull was glowing red and filled with jagged holes where exploding munitions had shot debris through. Some of the crew were rescued by helicopters from Invincible, one of which was co-piloted by HRH Prince Andrew.

Many climbed down a rope ladder and jumped the last few feet into the ICC, only to discover that their once-only survival suits were rapidly filling with water. Most were saved by their inflatable vests and eventually got into life rafts and were picked up by HMS Alacrity. Yeah, but for all that, they were the lucky ones. 12 of the crew didn't survive the attack, including the skipper Ian North, who was last seen in the water trying to reach a life raft.

A few days later, the conveyors burnt out, HULK split in two and sank. That was the first British merchant ship to be destroyed by enemy action since the Second World War. Now, of course, the news is met with complete dismay on the Falkland Islands themselves, by the commanders, by everyone. Everyone knew that there was not nearly enough helicopter lift to move troops forward in an easy fashion.

And Jeremy Moore, Major General Jeremy Moore, who by now has arrived to take command of the whole land operation, will come on to that later on. But he described it as the most serious loss of the war. No doubt about that. But it was not a fatal blow, as it might have been if one of the two carriers had been sunk instead.

So the question we need to ask Patrick is, we've already alluded to it, was Conveyor sacrificed to save Hermes and win the war? Now, Gordon Brooks, although he presents some very important evidence, as we've already explained, what he thinks now is that the order, the 040-0 order that was given to Conveyor was actually a mistake and that what they were actually intending to do is to say, turn Conveyor

zero four to port, not quite the same as zero four zero, but turn zero four to port. And that actually would have brought if that had been the intention, that would have brought the conveyor onto the correct bearing with its stern two. But that was not the order that was given. We know from the court of inquiry that it was zero four zero. And more importantly, Patrick, the order was turn port immediately to port.

And the two is important because it means when you put two in an order like this, you're going to move on to a bearing and not a number of degrees for which you are expected to turn. This is long and involved, I know, but it's a very important distinction. So my conclusion, having looked at all of the evidence, is that actually...

either Woodward or Middleton or the two of them between them having agreed beforehand in such an emergency that they were prepared to sacrifice the conveyor. And there are two revealing comments Woodward makes after this event that would back up that theory. The first was in his post-battle war diary. That's written straight after this engagement. And he writes, and I quote, using merchant vessels as spare targets against

Probably not such a good idea unless they have chaff. It's not a direct admission, but it's an allusion to what he might just have done. And the second comment, and I think this is just as significant, was actually an admission in his war memoir, 100 Days, that if the occasion had demanded it, he would have been prepared to sacrifice any ship for Hermes. He writes, in the most brutal terms,

I could afford to lose a big merchant ship or even a tanker a whole lot more than I could afford to lose a carrier. So there's the evidence for the prosecution. Patrick, what's your feeling about all of this? And also, you know, let's talk a little bit about how serious was the loss of the conveyor. As we've already said, this is a very serious thing indeed. The logistical strain on the operation is already enormous because you've got five

have landed. It turns out they're not going to just be sitting in the rear areas. They're going to take part in the attack. That's a big subject we'll be coming on to later.

And all this movement, movement of men, movement of guns, movement of ammunition and movement of also all military supplies is very dependent on helicopters. Now, this godsend of the arriving big lift helicopters, the Chinooks and the extra Wessex's has now gone. It's gone down to the bottom of the South Atlantic. So this is a real blow to how the operation proceeds.

But I think in terms of was this deliberate sacrifice of the Atlantic event, I don't think that's the case at all. I think it's typical fog of war. You've got millions of decisions being taken in very short spaces of time. Tiny decisions, big decisions. Big decisions can go just as wrong as any one of the tiny ones. And I think those quotes that you mentioned from Woodward don't really...

settle the thing one way or the other. Of course, it's not a good idea to have merchant vessels without chaff defences, but this is all very last minute. It's just thrown into the mix. We can bear scrabbling around looking for ships that can go south. So

stuff like that was bound to happen. I think a bigger question actually is why it was sailing in daylight, why it didn't sort of stay out of exocet range until darkness and come in. It may be that there just simply wasn't enough hours of darkness to get it in under cover of darkness. But I'm always a bit wary about these

The idea that you could formulate something that to an extent is a conspiracy in extreme circumstances when the unexpected is happening the whole time. So I think it's, as usual, cock up Trump's conspiracy on this one.

OK, so the jury is still out on this one. But what is not in doubt, and I think we need to stress this, Patrick, is that and the order was acknowledged, as I say, by the court of inquiry, that the order that was given to conveyor, whether it was deliberate or not, did lead almost certainly to conveyor making itself a bigger target. And therefore, was that the cause for the missiles diverting, as we've heard from the eyewitness account on Hermes at the last minute investigation?

Just leaving that speculation out there. Okay, one other aspect we need to consider. We talked last episode about the revelation recently, or at least the accusation, that the French had had this defeat device, which if they'd given to us, might have allowed us to not use chaff or any of the other methods we tried to use to defend against the Exocet. We literally would have had a box, a piece of equipment to press a button and the Exocets would have been

dived harmlessly into the sea. Now, we've got a bit more evidence for this now because in the last week or so, there's been a revelation by a man called Pierre Razou, who's a former French defense official who claims that in 1982, this electronic countermeasure, as I've just outlined, did exist.

why didn't they give us the information? His response to that was, President Mitterrand was unwilling to share the technology with Britain because it would be like, and this is his quote, giving the keys to your safe to your neighbor, it's not done. Rizou expanded on that and said, it is because we were and still are competitors in the arms industry. And Francois Mitterrand knew that if he had handed over the plans in full, then the British would have let it be known the world over.

Again, Patrick, what's your feeling about that? Because lives were lost to exocets. Could they have been saved? Yeah, well, I think we've got to look at the broader picture of Anglo-French military relations going back centuries. The fact that we were allies in the first world

world war and and for the first bit of the second world war i think um is is a bit of a kind of aberration normally we're at each other's throats of course there was another occasion uh the crimean war where we were allies but uh normally we're a kind of um when it comes to wars we're we're either fighting each other or we're on different sides and i think this the falklands sort of um

It put the French in a bit of a kind of conflicted position. They sort of know that we ought to be the good guys, but somehow they find it quite hard to treat us like that. So I think in terms of the possibility of that happening, yeah, it is possible.

But on the other hand, I mean, there's some completely contradictory story emerged about in 2005, I think it was, when this is a bit strange, but Mitterrand was in the habit of going to a psychoanalyst twice a week. And the psychoanalyst, as far as I can see, breaking his professional code, wrote a book 10 years after Mitterrand's death.

describing how Mitterrand came to him just after meeting Margaret Thatcher in May, at a date in May, just after the Sheffield had been sunk, actually, and said that Mitterrand unburdened himself to the psychoanalyst, saying, this woman, you know, this extraordinary woman, I really can't be doing with her. She's telling me now that she's going to nuke Buenos Aires, you know,

unless we hand over the codes for the exocets. And he said, well, what could I do in the circumstances? There's some various colorful phrases about her being this exocet.

with a kind of manic island mentality who would rather provoke a nuclear war than give up a few islands which are inhabited by three hairy sheep. He had a great turn of phrase, old Mieter, when it came to Margaret Thatcher. Everyone remembers his brilliant description of her as having the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe. I think he actually quite fancied her in a strange way, old Mieter. LAUGHTER

Anyway, so who knows? But yeah, I think it's within the bounds of possibility. I think it is distinctly plausible that they wouldn't have handed over the codes for the stated reasons.

Yeah, it's poignant, isn't it? Of course, for, you know, we must stress the stories we're telling today, an awful lot of sailors, both civilian and military, lost their lives that day. So it's a poignant story, I think, and well worth us covering. Now, I think it's also worth mentioning that you mentioned Margaret Thatcher. Well, she wrote about this day and actually described the evening afterwards as a consequence of the losses reported to her

that day as one of the worst nights of the war. She was actually concerned. She'd heard reports that Invincible had been sunk as well. So it was only when she finally knew that one of the aircraft carriers had not been sunk that she cheered up a little bit. The following morning, she also realized that the vast majority of both crews had survived.

David Hart Dyke talked about 280 of his crew getting out and he was inordinately proud of the calm professional way that they'd managed that. And actually without even orders from him, normally it's the skipper who says abandoned ship. Actually, they're taking it upon themselves or at least some of the junior officers had. But,

In Margaret Thatcher's mind, she's often portrayed, as you say, the Iron Lady, this really tough, heartless character. Not a bit of it. You get a real sense of how powerfully she was affected by the loss of life in these two sinkings. She tells the House of Commons the next day, and I think genuinely, our hearts go out to all the families who had men in these ships.

We in Britain know the reality of war. We know its hazards and dangers. We know the task which faces our fighting men. They are now established on the Falkland Islands with all the necessary supplies. And although they are faced with formidable problems in difficult terrain with a hostile climate, their morale is high.

Well, we'll find out what happens next in the next episode when things take an unexpected turn. This is the hugely controversial Battle of Goose Green. We'll discuss whether or not it needed to be fought and what happened in the battle itself. So join us next week. Goodbye.