11. Disaster on the Sir Galahad
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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 the chain of events that led to the tragic loss of life among the Welsh Guards on the Sir Galahad at Fitzroy on the 8th of June 1982, the bombing of the landing craft Foxtrot 4, and the revenge meted out by two Sea Harrier pilots, David Mog Morgan and Dave Smith, who shot down three of the four attacking Argentinian Skyhawks.

Just to put you in the picture, three Commando Brigade, who landed way back on the 21st of May, have now pushed out from the beachhead and are established on top of Mount Kent and on the approaches to the Ring of Mountains that protect the capital, Port Stanley. However, they are having to stay put, freezing cold, soaked to the skin and often going hungry while they wait for five Brigade to get into position to join them for the final assault.

Was 5 Brigade's presence really required for the final show? Well, that's a question that we've debated already and no doubt will go on being debated wherever and whenever two veterans are gathered together. But it was now a done deal and the operations massively overloaded logistics. They now had to take account of the needs of 5 Brigade as well as those of the spearhead force. It

in the absence, of course, of heavy-lift Chinook helicopters, which were now lying in the hold of the Atlantic conveyor at the bottom of the sea. And given the inability of the two Guards battalions to get to their positions on the southern approach to Stanley on foot,

The only way to shift the new arrivals into position was by ship. That brought huge risks and challenges. We ended the last episode with the arrival of the wet and cold Scots Guards of Bluff Cove on the morning of the 6th of June, after they'd been dropped off earlier than planned by HMS Intrepid and had to endure a horrendous seven-hour journey in four landing craft. That still left the Welsh Guards at St Carlos Water,

Now, during the afternoon of the 6th, they were embarked on HMS Fearless, the second of the two assault ships. The plan was to rendezvous late that night off Fitzroy with the four landing craft from Intrepid that had taken the Scots Guards ashore and which would be brought out from the shore by Ewan South Butalia, who we've spoken to before. Now, the skipper of Fearless was Jeremy Larkin, and he's going to tell us what happened next.

We then tried, as you know, from the loss of the Atlantic conveyor, we were grievously short of helicopter lift and it was necessary for the paras and the Royal Marines to cross country on foot, yomping as the Marines called it and tabbing as the paras called it.

which is pretty tough stuff, which Patrick, I'm sure, would be familiar with some of all that on the ground, carrying huge loads. I mean, this was really the extremity of what the best trained light infantry can possibly achieve, and to the astonishment of the Argentines. Well, we tried that, of course, with the Welsh Guards, the Scots Guards, and to be absolutely frank, they went up for it.

So we then had to think of ways of getting them round to the southern flank. And the obvious way to do that, which is to use Intrepid and Fearless, which were built for this purpose. And Antipas' operations are all about surprise moves round the flank of the enemy. That's certainly one aspect of Antipas' operations. And you can move

substantial troops by sea very much more quickly than you do by land. It could just be done with the hours of light and darkness being what they were to get the ships leaving just at last light and back before first light.

And Intrepid, the first round of the Scots Guards, which is pretty well recorded, and the captain of Intrepid decided that he was under attack at some stage, which I think was a slightly questionable view to take, but it meant landing the Scots Guards very well short of their intended landing area.

and Ewen Southby Taylor, an officer who became very senior in the Scots Guards, Cubs and Cure and the Army subsequently, had a very, very difficult night in four of Intrepid's landing craft getting to the Fitzroy Bluff Cove area, which they had succeeded in doing. It was decided that Fearless would do the same thing the next night. I think it should have been decided that once was enough, and I said, well, let's do it in Fearless.

which was slightly questionable in its own right from a command point of view, because here we were taking the central communication of the whole enterprise on a fairly hazardous forward operation. But it was agreed that we should do that, so we did. And I took the Welsh Guards around and took them right forward as far as I possibly could off Lydda Island.

with a good jumping off point for quite a short passage by landing craft. The arrangement was that Intrepid's four landing craft should come out and I only had two, I had to leave two behind in St Carlos for a reason. And Intrepid's landing craft would come out, I would ship two of them, take them back to St Carlos and send out two of my own and two of Intrepid's to go back with the Welsh guards.

Well, I waited and waited and no landing craft. So eventually I launched half the Welsh Guards in two of my landing craft and rather later than I should, being very careful to keep outside what I thought was the exocet envelope for some land-based exocet with Jonathan Tyne's head.

make my way back and we had a fairly scary time coming out Falklands Island in the next morning and fortunately were not attacked. What had transpired was that 5th Infantry Brigade had sent their headquarters forward and by one means or another decided to take charge of Intrepid's landing craft and overall the Colour Sargeants in charge of the landing craft by means of seniority and other means of persuasion and induced them to engage in tasks which

were outside the overall strategic plan and were not authorized and were highly unadvisable. As a consequence of that, we had no option because Fearless had other things to do the next night and decided it wasn't a good idea really to expose for the second time the command ship, send them forward into Galahad with

all sorts of consequences which I should go into, but that was why half the Welsh guards were in Sir Galahad and indeed trapped in Sir Galahad because when she got round there in the morning of the disaster, there was a serious disagreement as to who should embark first, so no one disembarked. That's a slightly different story.

story and you'll have other sources who can give you that from the first 10 points of view. Well, that was Jeremy Larkin giving a brutally honest account of the failings of both the skipper of Intrepid and the HQ of 5 Brigade to get both the Scots and Welsh Guards to Bluff Cove safely. He mentioned other sources. We're now going to hear from one of them, Ewan Sudby-Taylor, on the reason the Intrepid's landing craft never made the rendezvous with Fearless on the night of the 6th and 7th of June.

First, he explains that he tried to stop the Welsh Guards being sent by sea in the first place. Well, I was so appalled at the length of journey that we'd had to make. And the Scots Guards certainly went into fit state to fight for a day or two. And I knew that the overall plan, I wasn't privy to the details, was to bring the Welsh Guards forward by the same method the next night.

And I was determined to see Mike Clap face to face and tell him that that was not a good idea, at least not, unless they can be brought close to Bluff Cove to Fitzroy itself. But to land on the other side of Lide Island was not a good thing. Mike agreed, and I flew back to Bluff Cove, where I had told the four landing craft to wait.

because I knew that that night we were going to have to go and meet one of the LPDs, Faelis or Intrepid, I didn't know, of course, with the landing craft to then load them out at sea and take them to Bluff Cove, the Welsh Guards. And when I got there, the weather, as I said at the beginning, it was so appalling that there was only one landing craft sheltering underneath the Bluff Cove, and then the three others had disappeared. So I went ashore, landed, went ashore to the Scots Guards and hoped I could get a signal through to Mike Clapp.

I was going to take the landing craft out and meet the ship at Dustorf Elephant Island. That was the plan. The pilot wouldn't lower me onto the one landing craft that was sheltering because the wind was too gusty and he couldn't keep his helicopter hovering properly. So anyway, I went and sent the message, which of course inevitably didn't get through to Mike. Anyway, I did eventually get on board the landing craft because I must have got it to come into the beach to collect me. I can't remember how. I suppose I just stood on the beach waving my hands. I can't remember how.

I said, where are the other buggers? He said, oh, the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment pinched them and took them off to Fitzroy. I said, well, my orders have been to wait here because we've got a job to do tonight to go and connect the Welsh Guards. Oh, well, that's where they are, sir.

I have nothing to do with Paul Coxon. And how that happened is perhaps another story, but it was not a good move by Tupere to pinch Llandewcraft or pinch anything which is already under orders from another operation. But that's a slightly different story on its own. I suppose I'd have done the same thing if I wanted to move my men, but it didn't help. So when I should have been meeting the Welsh guards out at sea with the Llandewcraft, of course,

HMS Veles of the Welsh Guards in Bath got to the launching point of Elephant Island, no landing craft. So they had two landing craft on board, which could only take half the Welsh Guards, obviously.

And that wasn't there, but I know there was a lot of discussion about which half. But of course, they'd already been pre-loaded. You didn't just arrive at the launching point and then say, oh, who are we going to put in what landing ground? It's all done in advance. So anyway, that's how only half the world's guards were offered to Fitzroy, not to Bluff Covert, where they wanted to go. And the first thing I was aware of, I was actually shivering myself to sleep. I didn't have a sleeping bag.

on the beach somewhere and next thing I knew was a Welsh guardsman on a motorcycle came and said are you the Rory Major who's running this end I said well sort of

because I had no official task. And I said, Christ, the world's cards, how did we get here? Well, he said, well, only half of us are here. The other half have had to go back to St Carlos because we couldn't, there were only two landing craft. And that was that at that stage. Well, that was you and Southby Taylor explaining that a combination of bad weather and two para, borrowing three of the intrepid's landing craft without permission, were the reason why he was unable to make the rendezvous.

Now, a couple of interesting points I'd like to raise here, Saul. Now, the two paras, chutzpah, in nicking the two landing craft, as Ewan says himself, is something he might have considered if he'd been in their situation. This, again, this is something that I found when I was down there, is that there's a very free and easy attitude to other people's property. There's a word for it, razzing.

And it's meant to be, again, one of these kind of surveys. Where does it come from, this word? RAS, R-A-S, Replenishment at Sea. And so this goes into, which is kind of when you get supplied, you know, in mid-ocean or something. And this is sort of morphed into this word, RASing, which basically means picking up anything that's lying around that isn't nailed down. I found that to my own cost when I had some rather wonderful binoculars, which I bought just before I went on board Canberra.

And I had them slung around my neck Rommel style for a lot of things. Of course, I put them down, went off to have a pee or something, came back, they'd gone. And everyone said, oh, they've been res, mate, they've been res'd.

And I did actually, luckily, about 15 minutes later, I saw some guy, I think he was a Marine, with him stung around his neck, so I think they were mine. He said, all right, mate, you know, no hard feelings. He said it wasn't. It was all just part of the culture. Anyway, that was a light-hearted aside, but very, very serious matters at hand here. The result from all this is that only half the Welsh guards were taken ashore on the two landing craft during the night of the 6th and 7th of June,

Philip Dimmock was then commanding the Welsh Guards mortar platoon and he had to make the difficult decision to leave most of his men behind. The decision was taken to take the first lot out, let them go. And I remember turning to the commanding officer and saying...

But my platoon, the mortar lines are still here. And he said, well, but my platoon headquarters was with the battalion headquarters on the boats, ready to go. All my kit was obviously, because I climbed off it, with the boats ready to go.

So he said, well, you have a choice, go or stay. And I said, well, I've got to go to my kid. And the doors were coming up. And I said, right, I've got to go. I've got to get back to my kid. They're coming. They will be following us in two hours time. They were only an hour, two hours behind. So it didn't matter.

So I went and disappeared. And we then obviously landed at Bluff Cove, disembarked and set up after the small walk round. But the other two companies and the mortar line weren't there. Now, we didn't really know. We were just waiting for them to arrive behind us. I mean, we knew they were coming behind us. That's what I was told. But they didn't.

And then we realised that they had gone back around and then got on. When they'd gone back round, they then disembarked from HMS Fearless and got on, in their case, the Sagala had. Well, that was Philip Dimmock on his departure from Fearless on the night of 6th, 7th of June, leaving the bulk of his mortar platoon behind.

He seems to think they were due to follow just a couple of hours later. Of course, as we know, sadly, there weren't enough landing craft, as we already discussed, and they would be delayed at least 24 hours. So I think before we enter into the tragic phase of the story, we've got to reflect on a couple of things that set it into context.

War is a matter of luck. We both know that. And whoever's the luckiest wins. I think it's a bit of a generalisation, but there's a sort of truth at the heart of that. So far, the task force have had their share of bad luck. Atlantic Convert going down probably being the biggest setback they've faced. But they've had some good luck too. They've...

got into San Carlos water where they're very enclosed space. They should be sitting ducks for the Argentinian Air Force, but they, for one reason or another, they've managed to get away with it. And the air attacks have actually now eased off. And Saul, it's also true that the new arrivals, the fire brigade guys don't really know what the Argentine Air Force is capable

They haven't been in San Carlos water. Yeah, you almost needed to have been there certainly since the landings on the 21st of May. You know, the graphic accounts of both you and the other people who were there that day, Patrick, have given, would have left no one in any doubt that the danger of being caught in a relatively unprotected ship like one of these big LSLs by Argentinian aircraft was something you wanted to do everything you could to avoid. So the question is...

make sure that you use shipping, certainly with a lot of troops on board, as infrequently as possible. I mean, that's what makes this whole decision so confusing, I suppose, even when the benefit of hindsight, Patrick, because of the danger from the air. Having said that, as you point out, these attacks are

seem to be wearing off. You know, the caps, the C-Harris seem to have got the upper hand. And I think it wasn't just 5 Brigade. I think right across the board, people were beginning to get a sense of, actually, I think, you know, I think the worst of it as far as air attacks are over. Right. Well, the other element, of course, is that, as I've said before, if something goes right, a bold stroke, you take a decision, you take a gamble, it pays off.

and everyone says you're a genius, it doesn't, and everyone makes you the villain of the piece, so that's something to be borne in mind. After the break, we'll discuss the tragic events of the 8th of June, after the balance of the Welsh Guards had been transported to Bluff Cove in the landing ship Sir Galahad. Welcome back. In part one, we explain why only half the first Welsh Guards were dropped at Fitzroy on the 7th of June. The balance, that's two rifle companies, and the bulk of the mortar platoon

returned to San Carlos water on HMS Fearless, at which point the Navy decided it was too dangerous to expose an assault ship like Fearless without a large escort for a third time. So the decision was taken to send the guards that night, the 7th and the 8th of June, in the smaller 5,700-ton landing ship Sir Galahad.

That's an LSS, Landing Ship Logistics. It should be mentioned that these LSLs were actually part of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and were largely crewed by civilians. And the ship itself was virtually unarmed. It had only an old-fashioned World War II boat was on board. A separate LSL, Sir Tristram, had been sent on the same journey the night before with a huge load of artillery shells. It arrived unannounced.

on the 7th of June, much to Ewan Southby-Taylor's surprise. So I went on board the Christian, saw the captain, and the offloading of Christian was taking place. And the captain very kindly invited me to have a drink with him after dinner in his soap bed. And they spent a good meal, which is the first for a very, very long time.

And sitting in his cabin, we agreed that his ship was in grave danger. And the sooner we could unload it, the better. So the unloading went on obviously all night. Night is not a hindrance to military operations.

And I turned in in a rather comfortable bed for the first time for many nights. Well, that was you and Southby Taylor turning in on Sir Tristram. And at 4 a.m. that night, he's woken in his bunk by a staff officer from 5 Brigade with a request to send a landing craft urgently to Goose Green to bring back the vehicles and vital signals equipment of 5 Brigade's main headquarters.

Sudby Taylor orders Foxtrot 4, one of the two landing craft that had brought the Welsh Guards from Fearless under the command of Colour Sergeant Johnston of the Royal Marines, to sail at once to Goose Green and return under the cover of night. I mean, he stressed that, do not come back by day. There was now just one landing craft and a Mexifloke pontoon in the little bay.

Sudby Taylor, having carried out those instructions, goes back to sleep. But at 7am, he's woken a second time. Captain Roger Green came down to where I was sleeping and said, you and come up to the bridge. I don't think you're going to believe this. Went up to the bridge and there was RFAS at Galahad about three or four cables away at anchor.

And looking through the binoculars, it was clear that she was full of men, in addition to what I happened to know was the field ambulance and the rapier battery, both of which were needed ashore as soon as possible. But the men had to be got off, whoever they were, I didn't know at that stage, had to be got off quickly, because not only are they in the way, but if the ship is hit, you're going to lose a lot of men. And there was no doubt in my mind, or Captain Roger Green's mind, that these ships were in grave danger.

There was no anti-air defence at all. So I jumped into the Lennikov, which was unloading Kristram and was now half full of ammunition.

And we steamed across as fast as we could to Sir Callaghan. And there, her stern ramp was down, which is ideal for mooring alongside, because it's only about two or three feet up over the side of the landing craft to get on board. And on the stern were two Welsh Guards officers, majors. And I knew their names. I didn't then, but I know their names now. But I'm afraid I've never ever mentioned their names in public. I'm not really keen to do so now. They knew who they are, and they know I knew who they are.

And I've discussed them with their commanding officer since. Anyway, these two majors, I said, look, I can get you ashore right now to Fitzroy. They said, no, we want to go to Bluff Cove. Well, I explained that you can't get to Bluff Cove in daylight for a start. And B, you can't go to Bluff Cove in Sagalhan because she's a 6,000-ton ship traveling about 13 feet. And she simply doesn't fit.

but you can go ashore and I'll hide, do whatever you want, and I'll take you around there in the dark." And they weren't having that. They wanted to go to Bluff Cove in Sir Galahad and they could walk. There was a bridge across the creek which had been blown up by the Argentine cesspires, but it had been repaired so that it was going to cut their walk down from about 14 miles to seven miles. I think I'm rather stupid to say this on air, but don't quote me on that.

But they were pretty determined they were going to have to walk a very, very long way.

and they weren't up to it. And they just refused to get off. So I gave them a direct order, and I said, "Look, I'm acting on behalf of the Commodore," which was partially true, and my order is, "You get your men off." Then they said they wouldn't take an order from a Royal Marines major, which is a fucking stupid thing to say in the middle of a war when you get a specialist. Anyway, a major in the Marines then was a good Army Lieutenant Colonel, but let's go into that. I told them that that was their decision and anything that happens was entirely their responsibility.

I went ashore and found, I think his name was Barney Rothsmith. He was an officer, staff officer in 5th Brigade who were forming up in them, quarters forming up at Fitzroy. I said, Barney, it does come from Scallaght and half your, one of your battalions, Welsh Guards is still on board. And they went get off despite my pleading. He said, I didn't believe you. I said, well, that's your problem, but half of them are still on board Scallaght and they've got to get off. They really have got to get off.

And they said, right, leave it to me. And so I really felt I couldn't do any more. The offloading of Christian was going happily, the offloading of the field ambulance and the repair was about to happen. So I went off to the settlement where I met our own babysitter who had come out from standing when the war started called Janet. And I went up to the big house.

the Stuart family and I sat there having a beer overlooking the anchorage. I mean I had absolutely nothing to do. I failed to get the buggers off the ship and the offloading was taking place as planned of ammunition and stuff and we were having a beer there with the Stuart family and suddenly we saw the aircraft come in. I saw them bomb Tristram and Galahad. I thought oh fuck, those guys are still on board and of course the crews and everybody else

So I rushed onto the beach and casualties was by then coming ashore. I felt rather helpless, so I just took off my jacket and carried a stretcher for a couple of hours, bringing the wounded up from the beach to the helicopter landing zone. I think the buzz had got around. There must have been a helicopter who told the team back in St Carlos that we now had a really serious problem.

And that's it. Well, that was Ewan Southby Taylor being very blunt there in his testimony. It couldn't really be clearer about the sequence of events as he saw it.

I think, again, we've got to enter a bit of a caveat about the two Welsh Guards majors refusing to disembark. They thought they were doing the right thing. They were waiting for orders. They didn't want to subject their men who've already had, you know, ordeal after ordeal to yet another one with this proposed or expected yomp all the way around from Fitzroy to Bluff Cove.

So, and again, we've got to stress they didn't know what it was like to be under Argentinian air attack. The absence of first-hand experience, I think, probably, you know, was a huge handicap in their decision-making process.

Another point, what Southby Taylor may not have realised is that him having spoken to Barney Ross Smith, steps were now in hand to disembark the men from Sir Galahad. But another one of those things that you just can't budget for, the ramp of the landing craft jammed in the upright position, meaning the men would have to clamber down the side of the ship.

As this was about to happen, at 1.10pm, four jets, two Mirages and two Skyhawks streaked across the sky and bombed both Galahad and Tristram.

Within seconds of the first bomb hitting Galahad, petrol and ammunition ignited and the whole centre of the ship was burning furiously. I mean, absolutely horrific accounts from multiple sources. One account reads, men saw their own skin and flesh fry and melt before their eyes as if in slow motion.

watched others fighting to douse flames in their hair and to rip off their own burning clothing. Then they began to stagger towards the ship's side and help each other in a shocked stupor towards the life rafts. Helicopters now arrive and use their downdraft to push the survivors' boats away from the flames. And all that afternoon and evening, a procession of blackened, dazed and badly wounded men were ferried to Ajax Bay for medical treatment.

A total of 33 Welsh guardsmen, seven members of the Royal Navy and 11 other seamen and soldiers were killed on Sir Galahad and another hundred injured, many of them suffering severe burns.

The bulk of the dead Welsh guardsmen were in Philip Dimmock's mortar platoon, which, for some reason, had been left on the tank deck with their ammunition. They never stood a chance. They were supposed to be there in the morning, and there was nothing. And we waited. And we waited until the afternoon. And it was at that stage that the aircraft came in, obviously attacked the Galahad,

And the Sagala had. And then we could see the smoke coming up from behind the hill. Didn't have any idea. The one thing I did know was that we weren't there, that my platoon wasn't there because they had set off in the morning, if that makes sense.

Then those little aircraft came over us, just to, I suppose, sharpen us up a bit. Well, they certainly did. And they attacked the ground troops as I suppose they were flying around to go and do another attack at Fitzroy, but had no idea. And it was only later that afternoon, the battalion headquarters, well, we were informed what had happened. Numbers wise, we had no idea or who,

We had been informed they were getting off the Sir Galahad and they had been attacked. That's all I knew that evening. The detail came through the next morning. It was at that stage that I heard the mortar platoon would never meet up. They would not get there.

They were hit and I did not know the numbers but they were stuck in Fitzroy or going to the medical stations. The other three sections, the mortar lines, were on the Galahad in the tank deck. The tank deck had the ammunition. It was that that was hit or that that then subsequently exploded.

and caused such severe, well in that case, death and injury. And that's why the mortar platoon was hit. Many were killed and many were burnt, seriously injured. Actually, I had in my platoon 23 were killed and 8 were seriously injured.

It was quite a hard time. But, and I remember it very clearly, when we came back from being under Commander 3, Commander Brigade, I said, now I want to return to the battalion. I have to return to the battalion because I'd just been informed of the figures, the numbers, and I really felt I must get back to my platoon headquarters. And so, very kindly, I went back. They said, yes, OK. And they came under Commander 5 Brigade. The 5 Brigade assaults, the subsequent nights...

I discussed it in really brief form with my warrant officer and one or two others around in battalion headquarters. But I said, we've got to get to the end now. We've got to keep going. We've got the five brigade assault. We are supposed to be taking Sapper Hill.

And that is our task. We did the night move and night move up and all the things. And it was only at the end when we were on Sapper Hill on that first night that I said, I now want to discuss it with my warrant officer, actually. I want to now discuss because I, you know, it was not easy. But I knew up to that stage I had to keep going.

I wanted to know why the boats weren't there. What the heck was going on? But that's in hindsight, and I didn't want to know it at the time because we were trying to get to the end. Why did the aircraft, the Sidewinder incident, why did that happen? And so you're asking yourself, and I have asked myself all the way afterwards,

Why the Galahad? Why were they there? What was the cause of it? Why didn't they get off in time? I know all the answers, the exact answers as to why it all happened. But of course, that went on and on. And it did take a few years to all come together as to why it all happened and why they were on the Galahad and they hadn't got off. Why they were on the tank deck and why weren't they higher up?

I believe it might have been, and this is the one thing I have not answered. They didn't have an officer who would say, no, men and ammunition don't sit together. It goes through my mind every day. It probably made no difference. And the company commanders, the senior people would have told me, get knotted, and that's what it is. But I'm not convinced. I just always knew that

ammunition and men don't go together. Well, that was Philip Dimmock, the Welsh Guard's mortar officer speculating on whether or not the tragedy would have happened if he'd been present. Yes, I think it's important to stress, Patrick, that it wasn't just Philip Dimmock who wasn't there. It was also the senior NCO. In other words, the whole of the

The top, effectively, of the mortar platoon, that is the HQ, was on land. And the question Philip Dimmock is asking is if he or his senior NCOs had been there, would they actually have allowed the tragedy to unfold in quite the way it did?

So two elements to that one, get them off the tank deck because if there's an attack, they're going to be in mortal danger from being, as he puts it, you know, you never put men in the ammunition and in such close proximity. And two, could he as an officer, as a captain actually have influenced those two company commanders to get the men off quicker? We'll never know for sure, but what you can see so clearly in Philip Dimmock's testimony is, uh, you know, the emotion, you know, is really raw. Uh, when I spoke to him, uh,

you know, a sense of survivor's guilt, which you and I both know, having interviewed many, many veterans over many books, is absolutely typical. You almost can't win. You either die in war or if you survive, there's a kind of regret. Why me? Why me? And why did the others have to go? Yeah, I think it's very, very marked. You'll hear it in the testimony of

loads of guys that were in the Falklands. And of course, it's 99 times out of 100, it's not their fault. It's just events. So many things can go wrong. Often they don't. When they do, in war, you know, it tends to be catastrophic. So I have huge sympathy for everyone involved in this event. And, you know, as you say, the emotion, as we'll be hearing a bit later on, actually, is still very raw. Anyone who was there would never understand.

Forget it. Well, what's not in doubt is that the carnage that was caused on the tank deck by the fires and the exploding ammunition was pretty appalling. And someone who witnessed those apocalyptic scenes on the Galahad was coxswain Dave Watkins, who'd just arrived at Fitzroy with ammunition and supplies on his landing craft Foxtrot 3.

So then we got around to Bluff Cove and by which time the boats and that were on fire, the LSLs were on the Galahad and all that. It was just a terrible, terrible sight. So because we had all the ammunition on, we needed to get that offloaded quickly. So we got rid of that. And then instead of working out what we were going to do, the captain that was with me, the army guy on me, he was something to do with the LSLs and whatever.

And he ordered, well, I say ordered me, he didn't order me. He told me to take him towards the Galahad. And by the time we got to the Galahad, you have to try and understand that these boats have a ramp at the rear. So what he wanted to do was to land by the ramp and then we went to go on board the ship. And when we got there, he says, colour side, he said, I want you to come with me to bear witness to what we're going to watch and what we're going to see. So I left my second coxswain.

on the boat to make sure everything was okay, on the understanding that if anything happened, he was to disappear quickly and, if necessary, leave us on the boat. So we walked down the tank deck onto the Galahad and, with all due respect, I don't particularly want to tell you what it was like in there because I can feel it now. It's just the smell and the sights and the things in there were just...

It was complete, it was inhuman. It was inhuman what you were looking at. And it was just like a scene from hell. The fires were burning, there were bodies lying about everywhere, there were bits of bodies lying everywhere. You were under the impression that you didn't know whether the ship was going to blow up or not. It was just awful, absolutely awful. And that caused me an awful lot of problems.

And we got the word from him. He said, I've seen enough now. So we left. We got back on the boat, on my boat, the Landecraft, and we disappeared down the cove to a point where we could lie up alongside the bank as it was. But it was very, very...

exposed very very flat there was nowhere that you could be out of cover so to speak again this memory I might be playing tricks on me but that was where we were when we heard about Foxtrot 4 because they'd left this area to carry on down Chosle Sound towards Goose Green and everything else

and that's where they got attacked and hit badly and blown well that's where everybody died. Well that was Dave Watkins with an incredibly graphic and moving description of the carnage on board Sir Galahad he almost didn't want to go into the details did he how did he describe it it was a scene from hell you know fires burning and body parts all over the place I mean absolutely

Absolutely horrific. He also mentions the attack on the landing craft Foxtrot 4, which had been sent to Goose Green, as we already explained, to collect five brigades, HQ vehicles and signal equipment and told not to return until it was dark.

Unfortunately, Foxtrot 4's coxswain, Colour Sergeant Johnston, chose to return by daylight. I'd be shot up once by the Navy when we tried to move at night, he said. I'm not going to risk that again. It was early afternoon and Foxtrot 4 had just reached a point to the south of Johnson Island when it was attacked by two pairs of Skyhawks with bombs and cannon. One bomb struck the stern control position, killing Johnston and five of his crew.

The effect on Dave Watkins and the crews of the other landing craft was profound. Foxtrot 4 was colour-cited Johnson, Brian Johnson. OK. And at the time of the attack, they were en route down to the Goose Green area. On their particular boat, they had seven people, seven crewmen.

And on the attack, five died and they were never found. No, one was found, I beg your pardon. One died on the boat. The other ones were never found. Never. And I was under the impression it was a Pucara as opposed to an S&R airplane. But again, I might be wrong in that. But that was the kind of impression I was given at the time.

Because, again, when something like that happens, nothing makes any more sense. For my own benefit, I was completely numb about it because these guys were people that I'd lived with and worked with, and two of them I'd known for 10, 15 years. I served in 40 Commander with one of them. And so it wasn't just a case of knowing the people because they're on the fearless. It was a case I've known them for many, many, many years beforehand.

And I've met their families and I've met their wives. And in certain cases, I've met, you know, children and so on and so forth. So when this thing happened, literally, it's the most unbelievable, devastating thing that could possibly happen. And that remains with you. And it remains with me today.

And I make no secret of it, I will sit and I will look at the Fox.4 Remembrance website and I'll see a comment on it and it will bring tears to my eyes, even now, 40 years after. Well, you can still hear the emotion in Dave Watkins' voice there after all these years. It's really like a loss of family. And I think if it's happening in close proximity, it makes it all the more unforgettable. Guys I've spoken to 40 years on, they're

They're talking perfectly normally and then they come to recount some particular incident and they, you know, they well up and their voice breaks. It's a real testimony to the depth of those experiences, not just in the Falklands, but in any war. I think we've got to just finally, before we move on from this topic, Saul, say something about blame, finger pointing. Do we ever get to the bottom of these things? You know, I know that Tony Wilson, I suppose, has emerged as perhaps being the person that

most people, if they are inclined to attach blame, would mention simply by his insistence on Fire Brigade moving forward and taking part in the final assault. He's taken a lot of stick. There's no question about that, Patrick. There's even been a bit of pushback on Twitter this week with the odd commentator suggesting that too much blame has been given to him. I think one particular comment was, you know, people have heaped

abuse on him they know who they are but the problem I got with a comment like that is you and I have both spoken to an awful lot of people about these incidents leading up to the Sir Galahad I

I think both of us accept tragedies like this have multiple causes. It's not one. But there's often a chain reaction. And the chain reaction tends to start at the top. An ambitious, determined commander wants to get his guys into action, does so in a relatively irresponsible way, that is by not consulting with his superiors.

And the problem I've got with the comment of, I think he's been harshly done by, is that virtually everyone I've spoken to all thinks the same thing. In other words, there seems to be a consensus of opinion that Wilson was not a good idea to send to the South Atlantic. Yeah, there's a certain amount of kind of, you know, interunit, as always, rivalry in these things. I mean, Wilson was...

flamboyant figure. He was, many people commented on his habit of wearing green wellies, Hunter Wellington boots in battle, and the red beret, of course, which the parents, he was perfectly entitled to wear the red beret. He'd done his jumps in

He'd also won an MC in Northern Ireland, we mustn't forget. He'd shown soldierly qualities, but being a later rival didn't quite fit into the kind of rufty-tufty ethos of the Marines and the powers. I think all these things counted against him. And it must be remembered that if you're talking about where responsibility lies, it's really up to Jeremy Moore as the overall land commander to say, no, you're not going to do this. But he let him have his head. So,

let's not be too harsh on Tony Wilson. Good point. Just a quick point of the acceptability or not of wearing the green beret or the maroon beret. I think it should be pointed out that you can have done your jumps, you can be jump qualified, Patrick, and you can wear the wings, but the paras would say you don't wear the red beret unless you've actually been a para. So I just wanted to get that one in there because I suspect we may have the odd comment about that in the weeks to come.

Yeah, yeah, you'd have to be a brave man to cross the Peres on a matter of protocol like that. We're now going to move on to the attack on Foxtrot 4, which we heard about there from Dave Watkins, but it was being seen from the air by the Sea Harrier pilot David Morgan, known to all as Mog. We've heard from Mog before, but he's now going to give us a quite extraordinary description of what happened next.

I'd been briefed to do my first ever deck landing with another of the junior pilots on 800. They were trying to get us all night current, which I wasn't very keen on at all. There's no point in flying after dark. It's awful. The plan was to launch Dave Smith and myself about 30 minutes before dusk, go and do a sortie and then come back and land safely.

round about 30 minutes after dark, which would get us the tick in the box and meant we weren't allowed to drink any beer in the evening. We actually were launched slightly earlier than the plan because a raid had been picked up ashore and we got there around about 30 minutes before sundown, I suppose.

And the Tristram and Galahad had been hit by a formation of Skyhawks and were burning fiercely. You've all seen all the films. And we sat above it 10,000 feet, just doing a visual cap mainly and just sweeping with the radar when we were on the westerly headings and watching the rescue efforts. And I noticed a small landing craft about five miles, six miles south of there.

and called that in and was told that it was friendly so each time we were on the eastern end of the cap doing our rotate turning towards each other to clear each other's tail to go west again I looked down just to make sure this little landing craft was okay and I got to the stage where I checked my fuel and realized I had about two minutes fuel remaining before I had to go back

As I was turning onto the westerly heading, I'd made my mental plan that once we got to the western end of the patrol line, we'd climb back up and go back to the ship and do our dreaded night landing. And in that turn, I looked down and saw four aircraft running in to attack the landing craft.

And it was exactly the most inconvenient time because I'd just passed Dave Smith head-on in the turn when I'd seen them. So I just shoved the nose down, whipped the flap up, tripped the limiters and bunted to zero G to get the maximum acceleration I could and went downhill as fast as I possibly could to try and catch these guys. I don't to this day know how fast I was going, but I know that Dave Smith was behind me

And when he eventually saw me, I was leaving him behind. And he was doing 650 knots, which is 30 or 40 knots faster than the Sea Harrier is supposed to go. But I came steaming in, going like a train, watched one Skyhawk open fire with his guns and then drop a bomb which missed the landing craft. Then a second one attacked, which actually put a bomb right on the stern, which made me very, very angry.

And I decided I was going to take him out. And then I saw another aircraft to the left of me, which would have been in a position to threaten me if I'd gone for the number two. So I broke left, locked a sidewinder onto him and fired at minimum range, about 300 yard range, and watched the missile go straight up his jet pipe and just blew the aircraft to smithereens.

Unfortunately, I was going so fast that as the missile came off the rails, it went supersonic immediately. And I think the shockwave threw my aircraft almost on its back to the right. Bearing in mind I was below 50 feet at this stage over the sea, a few minutes after dark, so there wasn't very good visibility. Anyway, I rolled the aircraft back upright and realised I was pointing at the number two Skyhawk.

trying to lock my other missile, and it wouldn't lock initially. Then it did finally lock. I fired it. He went into a hard left-hand turn. The missile came swinging across my nose to chase him, and I think he'd saw the missile because he then reversed his turn to the right, and the missile came back across the nose and hit him just behind the cockpit at about 90 degrees off.

And I can remember seeing the cockpit yaw 90 degrees to the right and then go straight into the water because he was only about 20 feet above the water. And the next thing I saw was a parachute open right in front of my face. And I physically ducked as I went underneath. He was so close. And he was still slowing down horizontal in his parachute as I went past him. Unfortunately, when I fired my second missile, I lost the gun sight.

which was a known glitch in the software. But by the time I turned the gun side off and back on again, the other guy would have got away. So I just pulled him to the bottom of the windscreen, squeezed the gun's trigger and let him fly up through to the top of the windscreen and then pulled him to the bottom again and fired. And I didn't see any hits. But Dave Smith at this stage had seen me fire two missiles, so he knew roughly where I was.

And then he saw an aircraft flying very, very low with explosions all rounded on the water. And he called for me to pull up because he thought it was me being fired at. And as I pulled up, he realised that this aircraft must be an enemy. So he locked his missile and fired at very long range. And I looked back over my shoulder in the climb.

and saw his missile run out, the rocket motor stop burning about halfway to the target. And it must be right on maximum range because about three or four seconds after the motor stopped, there was a flash of the warhead.

And a huge secondary explosion as the aircraft hit the ground in Lofonia. Wow. Yes. All happened in less time than it takes to tell. Yes, that's a real interesting thought, that, isn't it? Those incredible speeds you're talking about. I mean, your thought processes must be superhuman to be able to kind of react in time to actually...

do all those things, not just to fly the aeroplane, but to lock on and to shoot and all the rest of it. It's the value of training. In peacetime, you can train reasonably well. The only thing you can't train for in peacetime is the fear factor when someone starts firing it back at you or when you actually see stuff coming off your aircraft and shooting people down.

but everything else you can train for. And we had trained quite hard. Now, when we spoke before, I remember you telling me that when you got back to Hermes, you were kind of surprised by your own reactions. Instead of feeling, as one might expect, sort of jubilant and on a high, if you like, you were actually struck by, I think you called it, a sudden attack of melancholy. Can you tell us a bit about that? Yes, obviously we were...

Initially, we were, I mean, a huge amount of adrenaline flowing. By the time we got up to high altitude, I said to Dave, just make your own way home, mate. You know, you're a few miles behind me. Don't bother to try and join up. And I looked at the fuel and the range and realised that I wasn't going to make it back.

which was a bit of a sobering thought when the sea temperature was about three degrees. But the ship turned towards us and for the 30, 40 minutes it took us to get home, they came towards us at 32 knots. So they just closed the range sufficiently. And I actually landed with 90 seconds worth of fuel left and Dave Smith had slightly less than that. And the ship, of course, had found one of the thunderstorms and was sitting underneath it, which didn't help.

So we were pretty much running on adrenaline by the time we got back. And huge jubilations, you know, when we walked into the engineer's office and then up to see Wings and then the captain and then the admiral. Luckily, they kept the bar open and had three pints lined up for each of us. After all the jubilation had died down and the adrenaline had started to wear off,

I realised that, you know, I'd just killed two guys who, if I had met in a pub somewhere, I would have been the best of pals with. And, in fact, the fourth guy in the formation, I am best of pals with. We email quite regularly. And, in fact, we went back to the islands together in 2019 and went back to the wreckage of the last guy that Dave Smith shot down and put up a little memorial. And...

You know, it struck me that it was a bloody silly thing shooting down guys you knew you'd be friends with. And they thought exactly the same. But we were where we were.

Well, that was David Morgan giving an unbelievably gripping account of the danger he faced and the courage he showed in engaging the Skyhawks that attacked Foxtrot 4. So close did he get to one of the planes that he narrowly misses the parachute from one of the ejected pilots that he shot down.

Now, his partner, Dave Smith, shot down one of the other two. Therefore, three out of those four attacking planes were brought down. And it's interesting that Morgan talks about the contrast, frankly, when he gets back to the aircraft carrier between his initial jubilation, you know, drinks at the bar, celebrating a bit like sort of Battle of Britain type style.

celebrations, but how quickly, Patrick, that turns to melancholy as he realised that he's actually killed two people. Yeah, I thought that was very kind of honest of him to say that. We'd spoken about this before and he told me he

He went into the ship's cinema and actually read a poem that he carried with him from the Second World War about precisely that, about whoever's dying in the air. There's someone like you. There's this sort of aviator's camaraderie. They both share this love of flying. And the same thing happened in the Second World War between Fighter Command and the Luftwaffe, opposite numbers. They felt that it was kind of awful that they were flying.

united in this love of flying and yet we're using it to try and kill each other. One point's worth mentioning actually is that this was, I think I'm right in saying the last time there was an actual dogfight when two fast jets went head to head at each other. I think there'd been no occasions which actually match an encounter like this, which is a kind of World War II sort of engagement.

But brilliantly clear, I love his pointing out that the actual thing took place

less time in reality than it did to recount it yeah and there's a nice codicil to the story actually if you believe in the end that uh war should end with some kind of reconciliation and that's the fact that he talks you know as we've already discussed about his regret at killing two pilots the third one was killed by dave smith but the uplifting end of the story is that as he told us he's now best of pals with the fourth argentinian pilot who got away

Well, that's all we've got time for this week. Next time, we're going to consider the endgame of the campaign as three Commando Brigade and five Brigade close in on Port Stanley and begin the battle for the mountains with attacks on Mount Longdon, Mount Harriet and Two Sisters on the night of the 11th of June, 1982. See you then.