The early days of April 1982 saw the British pursue a twin-track approach to the Falkland Islands – intense diplomatic activities were under way while military preparations rapidly took shape.
The fact that Exercise Spring Train 1982, a regular Royal Navy-led NATO programme, was in progress in the vicinity of Gibraltar handed the British an immediate advantage, providing a ready-made force of worked-up, well supplied ships that could be sent to the South Atlantic vis Ascension Island.
Supply ship RFA Fort Austin had been ordered to sail to support ice patrol ship HMS Endurance on Monday 29 March, but the first group of First Flotilla ships involved in Spring Train to head south – part of the so-called Advanced Group – left Gibraltar on Friday 2 April.
By Sunday April 4 a handy flotilla of ships (the Antrim group) was on its way to the troubled islands.
Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward was in flagship HMS Antrim a County-class destroyer, the other warships being sister-ship HMS Glamorgan, Type 42 destroyers HMS Sheffield, HMS Glasgow and HMS Coventry, Rothesay-class frigate HMS Plymouth, Type 21 frigate HMS Arrow and Type 22 frigate HMS Brilliant.
Hunter-killer submarines HMS Splendid and HMS Spartan were also on passage south, and the older Churchill-class Fleet submarine HMS Conqueror put to sea on Sunday 4 April to meet her date with destiny.
Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships also joined the deployment – tanker RFA Appleleaf (at the time on her way back to the UK from the Caribbean) put in at Gibraltar then turned to join the other tanker in the Advanced Group, RFA Tidespring, while Landing Ship Logistic RFA Sir Tristram sailed from Belize in Central America to rendezvous with the group at Ascension.
4 April also saw the departure of RMAS ocean tug Typhoon bound for Ascension, carrying members of Naval Party 1820 – the support ship would eventually continue on to South Georgia.
But it was not all one-way traffic to Ascension – Sunday 4 April also saw the arrival at RAF Brize Norton of the Governor of the Falklands, Rex Hunt, his wife Mavis and members of Naval Party 8901, greeted as heroes having initially resisted the Argentine invasion before being flown out of the islands to Montevideo via Argentina and on to the UK.
* These posts can only give a brief summary of what was a complex and fast-moving situation, 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
Today’s image, from the Imperial War Museum collection (© IWM MH 27570), shows County-class destroyer HMS Glamorgan, flagship of Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward in the Advanced Group en route to Ascension Island.
