Roel Zuidhof retweetledi
44 years ago today, 4 May 1982, HMS Sheffield was struck.
She was on radar picket duty in the South Atlantic, the foremost ship of the task force, standing watch so others could rest. Two Argentine Super Étendards came in low under the radar horizon. A single Exocet found her starboard side amidships.
The missile may not have detonated. It didn't need to. The fuel from the rocket motor and the ship's own systems did the rest. Within seconds, choking black smoke filled the operations room and main passageway. Men fought fires in respirators until the bottles ran dry. Hoses melted. The pumps lost pressure. For nearly five hours, her crew, under Captain Sam Salt, battled to save her. When the order finally came to abandon ship, they left her in good order, not in panic. That was Sheffield.
Twenty men did not come home. Cooks and stewards, weapons engineers and radio operators. Men who that morning had been writing letters home, drinking tea, swapping rumours about when they'd see Portsmouth again.
She was the first Royal Navy ship lost in action since the Second World War. The shock of it ran through the whole country. People who had barely been able to find the Falklands on a map suddenly knew the name Sheffield.
And then there is the moment that says everything about the British sailor. As her survivors waited to be taken off by HMS Arrow alongside and by helicopter, smoke still pouring from their stricken ship, they began to sing. Not a hymn. Not an anthem. They sang Monty Python's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, whistling the tune across the freezing Atlantic air. Black humour, defiance, and grace under fire, all in one. It is one of the most extraordinary things ever recorded of men in war.
She burned for days. On 10 May, under tow in heavy seas, she rolled over and went down. Her ensign was still flying.
Today, somewhere in the cold dark of the South Atlantic, she rests. A war grave, undisturbed.
To the twenty: rest easy, lads. The watch is ours now.
Shiny Sheff. Lest we forget.
English
