Yates - Bomb Alley- Falkland Islands 1982 : aboard HMS Antrim at war

Aboard HMS Antrim at War

David Yates

First published in Great Britain in 2006 and
reprinted in this format in 2007, 2009 and 2013 by
PEN & SWORD MARITIME
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright David Yates, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2013

ISBN 978 1 84415 624 5

The right of David Yates to be identified as Author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library

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without permission from the Publisher in writing.

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I should like to express my sincerest thanks to all those people who knowingly or unknowingly inspired or helped me to write this book. To those closest to me: my children, Adam, Elizabeth and Daisy, my mother and Michael, my brother Martin and my sisters, Helen and Brenda, and my late father and grandparents. I should also like to offer my greatest thanks to all those who so painstakingly critiqued every word: Martha Bottrell, Mike Morgan, Mark Palethorpe, Brian Humphries, Andy Findlay, Eric Paterson, Eve Townsend and Jane Baker, and last but not least my publishers, Pen and Sword.

Finally, I wish to dedicate this book to the immortal memory of my old boss and dearest shipmate on HMS Antrim, Whisky Dave Osborne. Cheers to you all.

D avid Yates was born on the banks of the Thames at Taplow in September 1957 and was raised a son of Berkshire in the leafy village of Waltham St Lawrence, in the Thames Valley between Windsor, Ascot, Henley and Maidenhead.

Bored with country life and yearning for global travel, at eighteen, David joined the Royal Navy at HMS Ganges in March 1976. In a first stint of service, as Rowdy Yates he served on HMS Salisbury and then HMS Antrim, where he saw active service during the Falklands War of 1982. He left the Navy in March 1985 to pursue a career as a Catering Manager, but when invited to return, rejoined in 1987.

He again visited the Falklands on HMS Nottingham in 1988, and saw further active service on HMS Exeter in the Gulf War of 1991. Suffering from ill-health resultant from this conflict, he eventually left the Royal Navy for a second and final time in 2000.

Davids autobiographical account covers the period from his birth right up to his return from the Falklands War in 1982, where his earliest and last naval recollections were of fairground Laughing Sailors. The book draws heavily upon the diary he maintained before and at the time of the war, the letters he wrote home, and the three large scrapbooks he produced on his return.

Most of the characters described in this book have been granted anonymity through the use of the enormous range of traditional ancient and modern nicknames used in the Royal Navy, a loose index of which is included. However, not all names have been fictionalized. After all, who ever heard of a female British Prime Minister called Baggy Snatcher, or an American president named Ronnie Raygun?

Apologies to anyone I offend in this book, but I had to record our actual feelings and sayings at the time.

The strong language used between the men on the lower deck on board was discouraged when ashore, and certainly never used in the presence of women at least not in the Royal Navy in 1982. An extensive glossary is also included so that civvies can understand what we matelots were on about.

T hree nightmares disturbed my sweeter childhood dreams. The first two were based on the unknown fears of falling from a high-sided ship into the sea, and being buried alive in a dark metal coffin. My third however, was based on a real experience as a curly-haired three year old, when I had a terrifying confrontation with a coin-operated laughing sailor in an amusement arcade on the Isle of Wight. It did not make me laugh no sooner had I dropped my old blackened copper penny into the slot than the hideous puppet burst into a barrage of hideous laughter. I screamed in terror, wet myself and ran towards my mother. I was not to know then that one day I would become a laughing sailor myself and that in the Falklands War, my first two nightmares would almost come true.

I first heard of the place they called the Falkland Islands on Friday, 2 April 1982. I had climbed into bed as normal at 0815 after finishing my night watch in HMS Antrims main galley. I was so tired that I skipped my usual shower, and just stripped off my boots and my flour-encrusted chefs whites, grabbed hold of the thick overhead bar, and slung my tired carcass up into my pit. Hopefully I would sleep away the remaining daytime hours until my next shift. I felt much better now than I had on 29 March when we had sailed from Gibraltar. Then, my body had been full of booze from the weekend runs ashore. A terrible hangover racked my brain. In the choppy conditions that lay just outside the breakwater, my usual bout of first-day seasickness had soon followed.

Now I felt thankful the seasickness was behind me. After reading several pages of Sven Hassles March Battalion, I flicked off the yellow-glazed bunk light and drew the cotton sleeping-bag liner over my head. Thoughts of Jackie, the naughty hairdresser I had seen on my last night ashore in Portsmouth ran through my mind. I would see her again when we were back in our base port in six days time and I wondered if we would reach the same intimate climax together.

Suddenly my attempts to drift off were disturbed by the muffled sound of the commander making an announcement over the ships radio broadcast. Half asleep, and with my head nestled deep in my sleeping bag, I could not make out the content of the pipe, so I just yawned and buried my head even further. Then the door started repeatedly opening and shutting each time louder and noisier than before. Another pipe. This time I could just about make out the captains voice but my left ear was still too tightly clamped below my armpit to make out what he was saying, so again I tried hard to switch off. Then the lights were turned on, and a voice yelled out, Keep the bloody noise down. Get that fuckin light off.

No one responded. There was more opening and closing of doors and more clumping feet, the sound of steamy boots being hurled into the pile by the door, and people noisily wrenching open metal locker doors. I was about to call out myself, when the voice I could now recognize as Paddy Flynns, boomed out, KEEP THE BLOODY NOISE DOWN, AND GET THAT FUCKIN LIGHT OFF.