Revealed, the deadly errors that helped sink HMS Sheffield
OFFICERS on the bridge of a Royal Navy destroyer were ‘mesmerised’ by the sight of incoming missiles and failed to act before the ship was hit, a report has revealed.
It was one of a litany of blunders that led to the sinking of HMS Sheffield during the Falklands conflict with the loss of 20 sailors.
A report by a board of inquiry that has been kept secret for 35 years found the ship was unprepared when it was hit by one of two Exocet missiles fired from Argentine fighter jets.
One of the Exocets slammed into HMS Sheffield’s starboard side about 8ft above the waterline. It reached the ship’s galley, killing eight cooks instantly. A further 12 men who died were thought to have been overcome by fumes.
Another 26 sailors were injured, including some with serious burns. The second missile missed.
The attack took place in May 1982 during the early days of the Falklands conflict. It was the first Royal Navy warship lost since the Second World War.
HMS Sheffield sank six days later as it was being towed. Only one body was recovered. A year after the attack, the board of inquiry concluded the ship’s principal warfare officer in the operations room had been negligent for failing to react in line with standard doctrine and training. It also found that the anti-air warfare officer, who was having a coffee at the time of the attack, was negligent because his ‘lengthy absence’ from the operations room meant an important air defence facility was not manned.
The report notes that 12 minutes after impact, this officer was still insisting the ship had not been struck by a missile.
The board also concluded it was ‘unfortunate’ that HMS Sheffield’s commander, Captain Sam Salt, a submariner, and his second-incommand, a helicopter officer, had ‘little or no relevant recent surface ship experience’.
In the event, nobody called the captain to warn him the ship was under attack.
Clive Ponting, then a senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, said the loss of HMS Sheffield was too great a catastrophe for the full facts to be made public.
And Admiral John Fieldhouse, then the navy’s commander in chief, decided there should be no courts martial, ‘to avoid… souring the general euphoria’ surrounding the victory over Argentina.
In 2006, the Ministry of Defence published a censored summary of the board’s findings, without the key conclusions. The full report was cleared for release in 2012, but the Ministry of Defence delayed its declassification until now.
‘Little relevant experience’