HMS Sheffield Destroyer. Disruction 1982

Guided-missile destroyer

No contest, no chance... the destruction of HMS Sheffield

On 4 May 1982, the guided-missile destroyer Sheffield, part of Operation Corporate, sent to retake the Falkiand Islands, was hit square on by an Exocet sea-skimming missile, the first ever to have been used in anger.

THE SCENE IS SET

On 5 April 1982, a British fleet headed by the carriers Hermes and Invincible put to sea, bound for the South Atlantic. With the fleet was the modern Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield, leader of a class of ten anti-air craft ships armed with long-range Sea Dart area defence missiles. With her sisters Coventry and Glasgow, Sheffield was there to protect the carriers from the air attacks they knew would come as soon as they were within range of the Argentinian mainland. However, there was one weapon in the enemy air forces arsenal against which Sheffield was helpless the AM-39 Exocet missile.

MISSILES LOCKED ON

At around 0815hrs local time on 4 May, an elderly Argentinian Neptune maritime patrol aircraft picked up the distinctive signals from a Type 42 destroyers radar, and a little over 90 minutes later, two Super Etendards were airborne, each with an Exocet under its starboard wing. The three Type 42s were formed up in a loose arc, some 20 miles (37km) wide and about the same distance to the west of the flotilla they were screening. They thought themselves safe from the Super Etendards of the Escuadrilla de Caza 2, based at Rio Grande an far-off Tierra del Fuego, but they were wrong. Lieutenant-Commander Augusto Bedacarratz and Sub-Lieutenant Armando Mayora, at the controls of the attack aircraft, refuelled from a C-130 Hercules. As soon as they believed themselves to be in range, they climbed and were rewarded with blips on their radar screens. The coordinates of the biggest of the blips were downloaded to the missiles own computers, and the firing sequence initiated. Their missiles launched and their mission completed the two aircraft turned for home. It was 11.04 hrs.


DEATH OUT OF NOWHERE
Sheffield knew nothing of the missile flying towards her at just under the speed of sound and only metres above the waves. At 11.06hrs, just seconds before it struck her amidships, several people on the ships upperworks saw it, but there was nothing they could do. It hit less than two metres (6ft) above the waterline. Mercifully, its 165kg (365lb) warhead failed to explode. Nonetheless, the half-tonne missile buried itself deep within the ship and then disintegrated, its remaining fuel erupting into flame. Those who could, immediately turned to fight the fire, but it was no use. At 12.51hrs the Sheffields captain gave the order to abandon ship, and by 13.30hrs she was deserted. Just after dawn, six days later, Sheffield sank.

Most of the Sheffield complement of 286 officers and men were saved, but 20 crew perished with their ship in the South Atlantic.