RFA Sir Galahad (1966)
 The RFA Sir Galahad in May 1982 |
|
| history | |
|---|---|
| Commissioned: | April 1964 |
| Keel laying: | February 22, 1965 |
| Launch: | April 19, 1966 |
| Commissioning: | 17th December 1966 |
| Decommissioning: | June 25, 1982 |
| fate | Sunk |
| Home port: | Marchwood , ( Hampshire ) |
| Data | |
| Displacement: | 5675 tons |
| Length: | 125.1 m |
| Width: | 19.6 m |
| Draft: | 4.3 m |
| Drive: | 2 × Mirrlees ALSSDM10 diesel engines, a total of 9,530 PS (7,010 kW) |
| Top speed: | 17 knots |
| Range: | 9,000 miles at 15 knots |
| Crew: | 68 + 340 soldiers (for a long time) 68 + 600 soldiers (for a short time) |
| Armament: | Two 40mm Bofors guns |
| Helicopter: | 1 Sea King or Sea Lynx |
The 1966 RFA Sir Galahad (L3005) was a landing ship of the Royal Navy . It was named after the knight Galahad , a member of the round table in the Arthurian legend . This first Sir Galahad with the ship identification L3005 was sunk in 1982 during the Falklands War and replaced in 1987 by the new RFA Sir Galahad with the same name and identification number.
Design and construction
The Sir Galahad was a 3,270 t landing ship. The ship could carry around 340 soldiers for a longer period or nearly 600 for a shorter period. In addition, 16 battle tanks , 34 other vehicles, 120 tons of fuel and 30 tons of ammunition could be transported. There were three cranes on the main deck to enable unloading even without port infrastructure.
history
Before the Falklands War
The Sir Galahad was the second ship with this name on December 17, 1966 as one of six logistic landing ships (LSL) of the round table class (German round table class ) in service with the Royal Navy . The first ship named Sir Galahad was a trawler the Royal Navy with the number T226, of the Second World War as a minesweeper was used.
In 1970 all DropShips were placed under the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. Together with the RFA Sir Tristram (L3505) it was used in the Pacific and Indian Ocean at that time. The first crisis operation took the ship to the coast of East Pakistan in November and December 1970 , where she provided disaster relief after a severe cyclone . In the mid-1970s, the ship was assigned to the Home Fleet and stationed in Devonport .
Falklands War
From there she set out on April 6, 1982 for the Falkland Islands , which had been occupied by Argentina . Together with her sister ships Sir Tristram and Sir Bedivere , she was involved in the landing operations in San Carlos Bay on May 21 (→ Falklands War ). There she was hit by a 1,000-pound bomb during an Argentine air raid on May 24th, but it did not explode and could not be defused.
On the night of June 8th, the Sir Galahad was supposed to bring supplies and troops from the British main landing site in San Carlos Bay in the northwest of East Falkland to the forward supply base of the 5th Brigade in Fitzroy (in the southwest of East Falkland). On board were two companies of the Welsh Guards , a field hospital and a third of a " Rapier " anti-aircraft missile battery. Due to a number of delays, the ship did not reach Fitzroy until shortly before 9:30 a.m. (local time) and anchored at an exposed point in Port Pleasant Bay. Since there were no port facilities in the bay, everything had to be brought ashore with the help of landing boats or Mexeflotes (motorized pontoons). There, to secure the bay, the anti-aircraft missiles were first unloaded with helicopters and flown to their new positions around the port, then the field hospital and ammunition were unloaded. Shortly after the ship's arrival, naval officers warned the guardsmen huddled below deck of the impending air threat posed by Argentine planes and asked them to leave the ship immediately. Nevertheless, they stayed on board on the grounds that they should not be taken to Fitzroy but to Bluff Cove and they did not want to part with their luggage and all their equipment. When a staff officer of the 5th Brigade finally ordered the two guard companies to wait ashore in order to be taken to Bluff Cove in a landing craft after the ship had been unloaded, the commanding officer of the field hospital (a lieutenant colonel and thus happened to be the highest-ranking army officer) revoked Bord) issued this order and insisted that the unloading of the field hospital had priority.
Argentine observation posts on the hills north of the bay sparked the last major Argentine air strike of the war. Five Douglas A-4 “Skyhawks” flew to Fitzroy, where shortly after 3 p.m. (local time) they bombed the poorly protected ships in the harbor. Two of the bombs dropped hit Sir Tristram , but did not detonate, while three bombs struck and detonated Sir Galahad , which was still fully occupied . The explosions and the rapidly spreading flames killed 47 men on the Sir Galahad (39 of them from the Welsh Guards alone) and two other men were killed on the Sir Tristram . Another 115 men were injured in the attack (75 only slightly). This was the largest single loss by the British Forces during the Falklands War.
In contrast to her sister ship Sir Tristram , which was also damaged in the attack, the Royal Navy decided not to have the ship repaired because it considered the damage to be too serious. On June 25, 1982, the burnt out but still buoyant Sir Galahad was towed out to sea and sunk there by the diesel-electric submarine HMS Onyx . Today it is an official war cemetery .
Commemoration
A memorial stone for the fallen soldiers of Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram was erected in Fitzroy . On June 8, 2007, a memorial service to Sir Galahad was held by Welsh Guards veterans of the Falklands War .
literature
- Raymond Blackman: Ships of the Royal Navy. Macdonald and Jane's, London 1973, English.
- Geoff Puddefoot: No Sea Too Rough. Chatham Publishing, London 2007, English.
Web links
- SI 2008/0950 Designation under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 (English)
Remarks
- ↑ Bicheno: Razor's Edge. 2007, pp. 198-207; Freedman: The Official History of the Falklands Campaign. 2007, Vol. II, pp. 597-610; Middlebrook: Task Force. The Falklands War, 1982. 1987, pp. 296-312
- ↑ 11:30 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
- ↑ The exact processes on board are controversial; after the war they could no longer be clearly reconstructed because of the contradicting statements made in later investigations (Freedman: The Official History of the Falklands Campaign. 2007, Vol. II, pp. 608–612).
- ↑ The officers of the Welsh Guards thought it was a 25-kilometer walk; they had not yet learned that the bridge over the bay south of Bluff Cove, which had been blown up by the Argentines, had meanwhile been restored (Freedman: The Official History of the Falklands Campaign. 2007, Vol. II, p. 609).
- ^ Clapp, Southby Daily Tour: Amphibious Assault Falklands. 2007, pp. 248-254
- ^ Ethell, Price: Air War South Atlantic. 1983, pp. 189-197; Freedman: The Official History of the Falklands Campaign. 2007, Vol. II, pp. 610-615
- ↑ A photographic collection of the Falkland Battle fields and Memorials ( Memento from January 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ The South Atlantic Medal to Mark Gibby ( Memento June 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6732047.stm