Friday 23 April 1982 was another sobering day for British forces which had been sent south to recapture the Falklands.
Although the focus was still on the retaking of South Georgia, occupied by an estimated 100 Argentine marines, ships were still leaving the UK for the South Atlantic, and ships already in that region were coming to terms with the severity of conditions as autumn in the Southern Hemisphere was turning distinctly wintry.
But 23 April was of particular note because the British task force suffered its first casualty of Operation Corporate.
PO Kevin ‘Ben’ Casey, aged 26, from Rugby, had joined the Royal Navy in October 1972 at the age of 16, training to become an air mechanic.
Posted to RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall, Ben met his future wife Elly, who was the duty Wren who issued his bedding.
By the time Ben joined 820 NAS on HMS Ark Royal he had proposed to Elly, and they were married within a month of his return to the West Country air station.
In early 1976 Ben began flying training for the role of helicopter aircrewman at HMS Daedalus at Lee-on-the-Solent, completing his training at HMS Osprey in Portland and back at Culdrose.
Having obtained his Wings, Ben joined destroyer HMS Nubian’s Wasp flight as a missile aimer in September 1977, and two months later he switched to frigate HMS Alacrity, sailing to the Falklands to fly the flag in the face of increasing Argentine activity.
Ben then flew search and rescue missions until completing his POACMN course in March 1980, joining 707 NAS for his Commando course then moving on to the Sea King Mk 4s of 846 NAS flying from aircraft carrier HMS Hermes.
Late on the night of 23 April Ben was flying with just a single pilot as the Sea King was shifting stores between ships of the Carrier Battle Group.
The group was in the area of the Rio Grande Gap, where the depth of the sea bed varies between four miles and less than a mile, adding to the turbulence caused by high winds and the poor visibility of driving rain and snow; on 23 April the wind was gusting to 70 knots and waves were approaching ten metres in height.
The Sea King was returning to Hermes to pick up a second pilot when it crashed into the sea, and although a thorough search was made, only the pilot could be found and PO Casey was lost to the sea.
Three ships were just starting their journey from the UK on this Friday – British Dart from Loch Striven on the Firth of Clyde, Anco Charger from Fawley on Southampton Water, and British Wye from Devonport.
Back on Operation Paraquet, the retaking of South Georgia from Argentine invaders, things were still going wrong.
Humphrey, HMS Antrim’s near-obsolete Wessex Mk 3 helicopter, was back on rescue duties as another party of SAS troops found themselves at the mercy of extreme weather.
County-class destroyer HMS Antrim had sailed into Stromness Bay on the night of 22-23 April, intending to insert a party of troops in five Gemini assault craft.
The engines of two of the boats failed to start, and they were swept out of the bay in gale-force winds that suddenly sprang up. The engine of one of these boats was finally started and the men made it ashore some distance from their target, but Humphrey had to return in the morning light to pick up the other, crippled Gemini at sea.
However, the day ended with SAS troops in position, watching Argentine activities at the old whaling station at Leith.
RFA tanker Brambleleaf reached South Georgia on 23 April, and shortly afterwards began refuelling the tanker Tidespring.
However, through signal intercepts, the British learned that an Argentine submarine was heading for South Georgia and alerted the South Georgia Group accordingly.
The vessel in question was the former American improved Guppy-class boat USS Catfish – a veteran of World War 2 – which had been sold to Argentina in 1971 and renamed ARA Santa Fe.
The submarine had supported the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands on 2 April, returning to her home base five days later before setting out once again, this time with a party of marines, weapons and stores on board.
She was indeed in the area, reaching South Georgia on 24 April, by which time most of the British South Georgia Group had put out to sea to try to avoid contact; only ice patrol ship HMS Endurance remained close to the island, partly obscured by ice floes.
In breaking away during the refuelling process RFA Brambleleaf had damaged some of her pumping gear, so the procedure – more than 3,500 tons of diesel and 1,200 tons of furnace fuel oil was transferred some 200 miles out to sea – was much slower than usual. he tanker returned to the UK via Ascension Island.
As it happened Santa Fe was also under orders to avoid contact with the enemy if at all possible, though that was very much up to chance – the old submarine’s sensors were limited, and her batteries were very much below par, a situation made all the more problematic because of the same storms that were battering the Carrier Battle Group, and which prevented Santa Fe from using her snorkel mast to recharge, requiring her to sail on the surface far more than her commander would have chosen.
Elsewhere store ship RFA Fort Austin sailed from Ascension to rejoin the main Carrier Battle Group, frigates HMS Ardent and HMS Argonaut carried out a RAS – a replenishment at sea – with tanker RFA Plumleaf in the North Atlantic while tanker RFA Olmeda had the all together trickier task of carrying out the same procedure in the stormy South Atlantic, refuelling aircraft carriers HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible as well three other ships.
Today’s image from the Imperial War Museum collection © IWM FKD 677) shows a Sea King helicopters of 826 Naval Air Squadron moving supplies on the flight deck of aircraft carrier HMS Hermes during Operation Corporate in 1982. The first British casualty of the Falklands Conflict occurred when one of the ship’s Sea Kings, belonging to 846 NAS, crashed into the Atlantic during a replenishment.
* These posts can only give a brief sense of what was a complex and fast-moving situation 40 years ago, and cannot cover the involvement of every ship, squadron and unit in detail – for a much more comprehensive account see naval-history.net at https://www.naval-history.net/NAVAL1982FALKLANDS.htm
