RFA Sir Galahad

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 Voyage

By 8 June 1982 the Falklands ground campaign had reached its decisive phase. British Army forces had advanced east across East Falkland from the San Carlos Water beachhead and were preparing for the final assault on the Argentine-held capital Port Stanley. The British plan required the movement of 3 Commando Brigade and 5 Infantry Brigade forward from the San Carlos area to the Bluff Cove-Fitzroy area, 60 kilometres east, for the final assault.

The movement of 5 Infantry Brigade required the transport of the Welsh Guards battalion group, approximately 500 troops with their equipment. The movement was originally planned for helicopter transport, but the loss of the Chinook helicopters aboard the Atlantic Conveyor on 25 May 1982 had left the British task force with inadequate heavy-lift helicopter capacity for the Welsh Guards move. Commodore Michael Clapp, the amphibious commander, ordered the move to be conducted by sea: the Welsh Guards would be embarked aboard RFA Sir Galahad and RFA Sir Tristram and sailed directly to the Bluff Cove-Fitzroy landing area.

RFA Sir Galahad embarked the first battalion of the Welsh Guards (1 WG) and the supporting Royal Army Medical Corps field hospital unit at San Carlos Water on 7 June 1982. She sailed at 20:00 on 7 June 1982 in company with RFA Sir Tristram (which carried the second Welsh Guards battalion group). The two ships arrived off Fitzroy at 06:00 on 8 June 1982. The disembarkation was delayed: the Welsh Guards had arrived at an unfamiliar beach, without the planned landing craft and beachmaster personnel being in place, and the British amphibious commander Commodore Clapp had been unable to communicate directly with the two LSLs during the night passage.

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 Auxiliary crewmen. Many of the dead had been killed instantly in the bomb detonations; others died in the fires. A large number of the Welsh Guards survivors were severely burned, including the battalion's second-in-command Major Simon Weston, whose survival and subsequent reconstructive surgery would make him one of the most publicly-recognised casualties of the 1982 war.

The Legacy

The RFA Sir Galahad attack of 8 June 1982 was the worst single British casualty event of the Falklands ground campaign and one of the most-scrutinised single events of the war. The British subsequent investigation identified multiple failures: the decision to sail the two LSLs directly to Fitzroy rather than to transfer the Welsh Guards in San Carlos to the existing LSL Sir Lancelot already at Fitzroy; the delays in disembarking the Welsh Guards once Sir Galahad had arrived; the inadequate anti-aircraft defences at Fitzroy; and the tactical error of leaving the Welsh Guards exposed on the tank deck in daylight conditions.

The investigation's findings were partially released in the 1982-83 British post-war review but were not fully declassified until 2012. The specific responsibility for the tactical failures has been contested for decades: Commodore Clapp and his staff have been criticised for inadequate communications with the LSLs; Colonel Johnny Rickett, the Welsh Guards battalion commander, has been criticised for delays in disembarking his troops; the Brigade commander Brigadier Anthony Wilson has been criticised for inadequate liaison with the amphibious command. No single individual was formally held responsible.

RFA Sir Galahad was abandoned at Fitzroy and burned for several days after the attack. She was formally declared a constructive total loss on 25 June 1982. Her hull was deliberately scuttled at sea on 25 June 1982 by the destroyer HMS Onyx to serve as a formal war grave. She lies at approximately 50 metres depth in the South Atlantic, approximately 20 kilometres southeast of the Bluff Cove anchorage. She is a protected war grave under the UK Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 and is, by Royal Navy designation, the principal war-grave memorial of the 1982 Falklands War.

The 50 dead of RFA Sir Galahad are commemorated at the Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel at Pangbourne College, at the Welsh Guards Memorial at Wellington Barracks in London, and at the Welsh Guards Regimental Museum at Cardiff Castle. Major Simon Weston, the most publicly-known survivor of the attack, has since become a prominent charity campaigner and public speaker in the United Kingdom; his book Walking Tall (1989) is a principal first-hand account of the 1982 war. A second RFA Sir Galahad (L3005, the same class designation) was commissioned in 1987 and served until 2006; her name and class number were transferred to a third Sir Galahad in 2006 as a gesture of continuity. The name of the ship whose burning at Fitzroy produced the worst single British casualty event of the war has, by Royal Navy convention, been maintained in continuous service since her loss.