21 May 1982, The fan starts to get inundated

Log Book entry:  Vectacs, Skutacs, HC training  2.00 hours (.30 minutes instrument flying)

More training work but this time the weather was getting worse hence the half an hour on instruments.  We also did eight practice approaches to the ship; four using our own radar and four under ship control.

Down south Operation 'Sutton' starts.  This was the amphibious landings in San Carlos and what a bloody day.  Ardent is sunk and  Argonaut and Antrim are hit but the bombs don't explode.  In the case of Argonaut it takes a week to get the bombs out.  One is lodged in her forward missile magazine.  The crew refuse to abandon her - how brave was that?  I knew her flight commander pretty well and talked to him about it afterwards, I never really got a feeling for what it must have been like even so.  We lose two aircraft the Argies lose fifteen.

I rather like this photo taken from our bridge.  May is winter in the southern hemisphere and the weather was often foul.  We were steaming pretty hard to join up with the Task Force.  I seem to remember the Marine Engineering Officer saying we had broken some form of record for steaming with our steam turbine throttles fully open.  It sometimes curtailed our flying as the wind was out of limits although the Lynx could cope with some pretty severe cross winds.  And yes we would be flying in these conditions - day and night.