The relative calm of the day before did not last, and by the end of Sunday 23 May another Royal Navy ship had been shattered by an Argentine bomb.
The days began with frigate HMS Antelope escorting supply ships into San Carlos Water, unloading stores, ammunition and elements of a rudimentary airfield to allow forward operations by helicopters and Harriers.
Patrolling Sea Harriers stumbled across three Argentine army helicopters; one crashed while trying to get away while the other two were dumped down and abandoned before the Sea Harriers could bring their cannon to bear.
British Lynx helicopters finally put paid to an Argentine freighter, Rio Carcarana, which had been damaged by Sea Harriers the week before – Sea Skua missiles left the freighter sinking off Port King.
Another Lynx, investigating the freighter late afternoon, spotted a formation of Skyhawks flying towards Falkland Sound.
The jets split into two pairs, with the first attack coming from the north and targeting frigates HMS Broadsword and HMS Antelope; the former was not hit, but Antelope took a 1,000lb bomb just below the hangar, low on the waterline – the pilot had flown in so low that he clipped the ship’s mast on the way through.
Although the bomb failed to explode, it killed one sailor in Antelope – Std Mark Stephens, who was subsequently buried at sea.
The Argentine pilot did not have long to consider his success – the Skyhawk was hit by either a Seawolf or a Rapier missile (or possibly both), and exploded mid-air.
The second pair had attempted to fly in along San Carlos Water but the defences were too strong, so they followed the path of the first pair, and once again Antelope – which had only arrived in the area of operations two days beforehand – was hit by a bomb which failed to explode but started fires.
Another three Skyhawks attacked at around 1330, but their bombs missed HMS Broadsword and HMS Antelope, while the pilot targeting HMS Yarmouth failed to release his payload.
Four Daggers followed ten minutes later, with only two pressing home their attack on Broadsword, but both jets missed with their bombs.
Three more Daggers arrived some 20 minutes later, but turned back without threatening the warships. A Sea Harrier chased the trio across West Falkland, and at extreme range loosed off a Sidewinder which destroyed one of the fleeing jets.
The final attack was carried out by the aircraft that had hit HMS Sheffield almost three weeks earlier.
The pilots of the Super Etendards were confident they were about to strike a major blow for their country, as they believed their controllers knew the whereabouts of the two British carriers through analysis of Harrier flight patterns.
However, the Sea Harriers and Harriers had been careful to lay false trails when deploying from HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible, and the Argentine jets ended up surveying mile after mile of empty ocean before returning to base in Argentina.
But the enemy aviators had not yet done their damage to the British task force, even though they were either safely home or dead.
A bomb disposal team, which had just rendered the unexploded bomb in HMS Argonaut’s boiler room safe, was put on board Antelope, and while the ship’s company gathered in freezing, blustery conditions at either end of the ship, as far away from the bomb as possible.
The two-man team attempted to defuse the first bomb, which had lodged in an air-conditioning compartment and had been badly damaged in the impact – the second bomb was to all intents and purposes inaccessible because of its position.
Their initial efforts were fruitless, so they attempted to disarm the bomb using a small defusing charge, but as they prepared the charge the bomb suddenly detonated, killing Staff Sergeant James Prescott and seriously injuring Warrant Officer John Phillips, who later lost an arm as a result of being struck by a metal hatch door.
S/Sgt Prescott, of the Royal Engineers, was posthumously awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for his bravery in tackling the bombs in Argonaut and Antelope.
The explosion had started major fires, and with damage to the ship’s fire main making firefighting impossible the frigate was soon beyond saving.
Around an hour after the explosion the order was given to abandon ship as the risk of the second bomb going off was increasing rapidly. Within minutes of the last man leaving the ship her Seacat magazine exploded, followed by the torpedo magazine, leaving Antelope burning fiercely through the night.
She would be wracked by one last explosion the following day, which broke her back and sent her to the bottom of San Carlos Water.
There was one further British fatality that day.
A group of four Sea Harriers flew from HMS Hermes around 2200 that evening on a mission to bomb Stanley, but the third aircraft up, of 800 Naval Air Squadron, exploded shortly after leaving the flight deck, killing pilot Lt Cdr Gordon Batt.
The circumstances around the incident were unclear – one possibility is that one of the aircraft’s bombs detonated prematurely, or a mechanical problem caused the jet to fly into the sea. Despite an extensive search, neither the pilot nor his aircraft could be found.
Movements on the ground following the landings two days earlier were limited on 23 May, but 2 Para on Sussex Mountains were given notice of an imminent raid on Darwin and Goose Green, while 42 Cdo RM, who had gone after Argentine troops retreating to the east, were pulled back to the Port San Carlos area.
Today’s image from the Imperial War Museum collection (© IWM FKD 2322) shows frigate HMS Antelope wracked by an explosion on the evening of 23 May 1982.
* 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 the Falklands section of naval-history.net at https://www.naval-history.net/NAVAL1982FALKLANDS.htm
