RFA Sir Galahad

1982

Bluff Cove, Welsh Guards, forty-eight Location: Port Pleasant, Fitzroy, East Falkland · Coordinates: 51.82°S 58.74°W · Casualties: 48 · Survivors: ~180 · Depth: 90 m · Cause: aerial attack — Bombed by Argentine A-4 Skyhawks at Port Pleasant, Fitzroy, at 13:10 on 8 June 1982 while disembarking troops of the Welsh Guards and Royal Army Medical Corps. The bombs ignited her fuel and ammunition holds; she burned with soldiers still aboard. Scuttled ten days later in deep water as an official war grave. · Fate: scuttled · war grave · Type: landing ship logistic · LSL · Tonnage: 5,674 tons · Crew: 70 · Flag: United Kingdom · RFA · Launched: 1966 Royal Fleet Auxiliary landing ship, disembarking Welsh Guards and medical staff at Bluff Cove on the final push to Port Stanley. Bombed by Argentine A-4 Skyhawks at 13:10 on 8 June 1982. Her fuel and ammunition holds ignited; men were blown out of the landing craft alongside. 48 dead, mostly Welsh Guards, the single worst British loss of the war. Scuttled in deep water ten days later as an official war grave. The Vessel RFA Sir Galahad (L3005) was a Round Table-class Landing Ship Logistic (LSL) of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, commissioned at the Alexander Stephen yard at Linthouse, Glasgow, on 17 December 1966. She was 126 metres long, 5,674 tons fully loaded, and was designed as a general-purpose amphibious logistics ship rather than as a combat vessel. Her configuration included a flight deck aft (capable of operating medium helicopters), a tank deck forward of the superstructure (capable of carrying 20 main battle tanks or equivalent vehicles), and accommodation for 402 embarked troops. The Round Table class (six ships built between 1966 and 1968: Sir Bedivere, Sir Galahad, Sir Geraint, Sir Lancelot, Sir Percivale, Sir Tristram) was the principal British amphibious logistics class of the 1970s and early 1980s. The class was operated by the Royal Fleet Auxiliary on behalf of the Royal Marines and the British Army; her specific role in the 1982 Falklands campaign was the delivery of Welsh Guards troops and equipment to the San Carlos Water beachhead and subsequently to the Bluff Cove-Fitzroy area for the final assault on Port Stanley. Her master in June 1982 was Captain Philip Roberts, 51, a senior Royal Fleet Auxiliary officer with prior Falklands operational experience from the initial April 1982 deployment. The Disaster At 13:10 on 8 June 1982 a formation of five Argentine A-4 Skyhawks of Grupo 5 from Río Gallegos reached the Fitzroy area. The Argentine aircraft had been directed to the area by Argentine Army observers on Mount Harriet, who had seen the British ships from the mountain's vantage point and had radioed their position and apparent activity to the Argentine Southern Air Force command at Comodoro Rivadavia. The five Skyhawks approached RFA Sir Galahad at low altitude from the southwest. They released a total of six 500-kilogram bombs at approximately 13:12. Three bombs struck RFA Sir Galahad. The first penetrated her superstructure above the tank deck; the second entered through the same structural opening as the first and detonated on the tank deck among the Welsh Guards and their equipment; the third struck her port side aft and detonated in her after helicopter hangar. The bomb detonations on the tank deck and in the after hangar ignited the vehicles and ammunition that the Welsh Guards had been disembarking. The resulting fires spread rapidly. The tank deck contained the battalion's ammunition, vehicles (including Land Rovers and trailers loaded with ammunition and fuel), and much of the battalion's supply stores. The ignition of the ammunition and the subsequent explosion of the battalion vehicles produced the single worst ship-based casualty event of the Falklands War for British ground forces. 48 of the Welsh Guards aboard RFA Sir Galahad died, along with two Royal Fleet Au