HMS Coventry (D118)
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 HMS Coventry (D118) |
|
| Career (UK) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Coventry |
| Operator: | Royal Navy |
| Builder: | Cammell Laird |
| Laid down: | 29 January 1973 |
| Launched: | 21 June 1974 |
| Commissioned: | 10 November 1978 |
| Fate: | Sunk by Argentine aircraft, 25 May 1982 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 4,820 tonnes |
| Length: | 125 m (410 ft) |
| Beam: | 14.3 m (47 ft) |
| Draught: | 5.8 m (19 ft) |
| Propulsion: | COGOG (Combined Gas or Gas) turbines, 2 shafts producing 36 MW |
| Speed: | 30 knots (56 km/h) |
| Complement: | 287 |
| Armament: | Sea Dart missile 22 Carried 4.5 inch (114 mm) Mk.8 gun Two Oerlikon 20 mm cannons. Two STWS Mark 2 torpedo tubes, two chaff launchers. |
| Aircraft carried: | Westland Lynx HAS.Mk.1/2 |
HMS Coventry (D118) was a Type 42 (Sheffield Class) destroyer of the Royal Navy. Laid down by Cammell Laird and Company, Limited, at Birkenhead on 29 January 1973, she was launched on 21 June 1974 and accepted into service on 20 October 1978 at a cost of £37,900,000.
The principle role of these Ships is to provide the fleet with mid range anti-air warfare capability with secondary roles of anti-surface and anti-submarine. A total of sixteen "42's" were built between 1972 and 1985, in three batches, HMS Coventry was the last of the first batch to be commissioned. To cut costs, the first two batches had 47 feet removed from the bow and the beam-to-length ratio reduced. These early Type 42s performed poorly during trials and are notoriously poor sea-keepers.
Type 42 Destroyers were fitted with the Sea Dart surface-to-air missiles (SAM) designed in the 1960s to counter threats from manned aircraft. Sea Dart is constrained by limitations on its firing capacity and reaction time, but did prove its self during the Falklands War with seven kills, three of these attributed to Coventry.[1]
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[edit] Service history
[edit] Falklands Campaign
HMS Coventry was taking part in the Exercise Springtrain 82 near the British base of Gibraltar, during March 1982. Along with other vessels involved in the exercise she was detailed for service in the Falklands Campaign. She had a Union Flag painted on the roof of her bridge and a black line pained through her funnel to her waterline to aid recognition, as the Argentines also operated two Type 42 Destroyers.
On 27 April, Coventry, in the company of HMS Glamorgan, HMS Glasgow, HMS Arrow and HMS Sheffield, entered the Total Exclusion Zone, a 200 mile cordon around the Falkland Islands. Within 6 weeks, Sheffield and Coventry would be at the bottom of the South Atlantic, Glasgow would have a bomb pass straight through her and Glamorgan would be hit by a land-based Exocet Missile. In all, over fifty crew would be dead.
Coventry's contribution to the Falklands War was considerable. Her helicopter was the first to fire Sea Skua (Air-to-Surface) anti-ship missiles in action. Her Westland Lynx HAS.Mk.2 fired two Sea Skua missiles on 3 May at ARA Alferez Sobral, the former USS Salish. One missile missed and the other hit a small boat slightly injuring a crewman manning a 20 mm gun and knocking out the radio aerials. HMS Glasgow's Lynx fired two more Sea Skua, and the vessel retreated, with 8 crew killed, 8 wounded and heavy damage. Her damaged bridge is now on display at the Naval Museum in Tigre Partido, Argentina. This vessel remains in service in the Argentine Navy.
Coventry was the first warship to fire Sea Dart surface-to-air missiles in anger when the ship fired three on the 9th May at two Learjets of Escuadrón Fénix, just missing the aircraft. HMS Broadsword reported that her radar tracked the missiles merging with the pair of contacts (call signs Litro and Pepe), but they missed the Aircraft.
Coventry's captain, Hart-Dyke claims that two Skyhawks of Grupo 4 were shot down by the Sea Darts, but Aircraft (C-303 and C-313) were lost in bad weather, with both wrecks found on South Jason Island.[2] One on the Northwest side of the cliffs, the other in shallow waters on the SouthWest. Lt Casco and Lt Farias were both killed.[3]
The first confirmed kill made by "Coventry" was a Aérospatiale Puma helicopter of 601 Assault Helicopter Battalion with its three man crew was shot down by a Sea Dart over Choiseul Sound.
Coventry had been one of three Type 42 destroyers providing anti aircraft cover for the fleet. With the loss of HMS Sheffield and damage to HMS Glasgow on 12 May, forcing her to return to the UK, Coventry was left to carry out the role alone, until other ships could arrive from the UK.
[edit] 25 May 1982
On 25 May 1982 (one of Argentina's national days: el Día de la Revolución de Mayo Spanish: May Revolution Day), Coventry was ordered to take up position in Falkland Sound, accompanied by HMS Broadsword. There she would act as a decoy to draw Argentinian aircraft away from other ships at San Carlos Bay. In this position, close to land, with not enough open sea between her and the land, her Sea Dart missiles would be less effective.[4] Broadsword was armed with the Sea Wolf missile, which is for short range anti-aircraft and anti-missile use.
At first, the trap worked, with FAA A-4B Skyhawk C-244 of Grupo 5 shot down north of Pebble Island by a Sea Dart. Pilot Capitán Hugo Angel del Valle Palaver was killed. Later a FAA A-4C Skyhawk coded C-304 of Grupo 4 de Caza deployed to San Julian was shot down north east of Pebble Island by another Sea Dart while returning from a mission to San Carlos Water. Capitán Jorge Osvaldo García successfully ejected but was not recovered from the water. His body was washed ashore in a dinghy at Golding Island in 1983. Garcia's wingman was also shot down during the raid on San Carlos, by a Sea Cat from HMS Yarmouth (also claimed by various others in the area including a Rapier battery), but he was luckier, and ejected into captivity, in front of waiting news crews.[5]
The two ships then came under attack by two waves of two Argentine A-4 Skyhawks, with each aircraft carrying Three 1000lb bombs. This load was possible due to the Proximity of the two Royal Navy War Ships to the Argentine Mainland. The four Skyhawks flew so low that Coventry's targeting radar could not distinguish between them and the land and failed to lock on. Broadsword attempted to target the first pair of attackers (Capitán P. Marcos Carballo and Teniente Carlos Rinke) with her Sea Wolf missile system, but her own tracking system locked down during the attack and could not be reset before the aircraft released their bombs.[2] Of the bombs released, one bounce off the sea and struck Broadsword's flight deck and though it failed to explode, wrecked the ship's Lynx helicopter. Coventry claimed to have hit the second Skyhawk (Capitán P. Marcos Carballo) in the tail with small arms fire, although he did return safely to Argentina. In fact, Carballo's plane was hit under the right wing by a piece of shrapnel on his way in.
The second pair of Skyhawks (Primer Teniente Mariano A. Velasco and Alférez Leonardo Barrionuevo), headed for Coventry some 90 seconds later at a 20 degree angle to her port bow. Still unable to gain a missile lock, Coventry launched a Sea Dart in an attempt to distract them and turned hard to starboard to reduce her profile. On Broadsword the Sea Wolf system had been reset and successfully acquired the attacking aircraft, but was unable to fire as Coventry's turn took her directly into the line of fire.
Coventry used her 4.5 inch gun and small arms against the attacking aircraft. The port Oerlikon 20 mm cannon jammed, leaving the ship with only rifles and machine guns to defend herself. Coventry was struck by two bombs just above the water line on the port side. One of the bombs exploded beneath the computer room, destroying it and the nearby operations room, incapacitating almost all senior officers. The other entered the Forward Engine Room, exploding beneath the Junior Ratings Dining Room where the First Aid Party was stationed and the ship immediately began listing to port. The latter hit caused critical damage as it breached the bulkhead between the forward and aft engine rooms, exposing the largest open space in the ship to uncontrollable flooding.[2] Given the design of the ship, with multiple watertight compartments, two hits virtually anywhere else may have been just survivable.[2]
Within 20 minutes Coventry had been abandoned and had completely capsized. 19 of her crew were lost and a further 30 injured. Coventry sank shortly after.[6] After the ship was struck, her crew, waiting to be rescued, sang "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Monty Python's Life of Brian.[7] Marine Engineering Mechanic Paul Mills died on 29 March 1983 from a brain tumour caused by a skull fracture sustained during the attack.[8]
[edit] Tributes
Despite providing an effective anti-aircraft screen, shooting down three Argentine Aircraft and being placed in a position so the Argentine aircraft would attack her rather than the landing fleet, no member of Coventry received an award for bravery. CPO Aircrewman M J Tupper of No.846 NAS was awarded a Distinguished Service Order for his part in the rescue. After the war, a memorial cross was erected on Pebble Island to her Crew.
David Hart Dyke, Coventry's commanding officer during the Falklands War, wrote about the ship's tale in his book Four Weeks in May: The Loss of HMS Coventry.[2] This was adapted by the BBC into a documentary Sea of Fire, with dramatised sequences and shown in June 2007.[4]
The wreck site is a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act. About 8 months after Coventry sank, a RN Fleet Diving Team conducted an underwater survey of the wreck which they found lying on her side in a 100 meters of water. This survey was a prerequisite to a dive on the wreck, named "Operation Blackleg", to recover classified documentation and make the remaining weapons safe.[9] The dive team recovered several personal items belonging to Captain David Hart-Dyke and the ship's battle ensign, later presented to the new HMS Coventry (F98), a Type 22 frigate. The divers also recovered the Cross of Nails originally presented to the ship by Coventry Cathedral, and this was presented back to the Bishop of Coventry in March 1983.
[edit] References
- ^ "List of Argentine Aircraft Destroyed". http://www.naval-history.net/F64argaircraftlost.htm. Retrieved 22 June 2009.
- ^ a b c d e Hart Dyke, David (2007). Four Weeks in May: The Loss of "HMS Coventry". Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1843545903.
- ^ Falklands Air War, Chris Hobson / Historia Oficial de la Fuerza Aerea Argentina, Volume 6 / Air War in the Falklands, Christopher Chant
- ^ a b Leesa Rumley (1 June 2007). "Surviving a Falklands 'suicide' mission". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6705387.stm. Retrieved 13 April 2009.
- ^ Falklands the Air War. Arms & Armour Press. p. 112. ISBN 0-85368-842-7.
- ^ Parsons, Michael (2000). The Falklands War. Sutton. p. 70. ISBN 0750923547.
- ^ Cited in Sea of Fire BBC
- ^ "Swavesey St Andrew Roll of Honor". http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Cambridgeshire/SwaveseyStAndrew.html. Retrieved 13 April 2009.
- ^ "31 May 07 - Falklands 25 - The Forgotten Few (News Archive 18)". Minewarfare & Clearance Diving Officers' Association. http://www.mcdoa.org.uk/News_Archive_18.htm. Retrieved 14 November 2009.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: HMS Coventry (D118) |
- HMS Coventry D118
- HMS Broadsword 82 Coventry attack Pictorial
- Sinking the HMS Coventry by CGI and an Interview with Teniente Carlos Rinke
- Board of Inquiry into the loss of HMS Coventry published by the MoD in 2009
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