” Sunset and evening star
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar. ”
– Lord Alfred Tennyson
LPT Gary Nelson served as the PTl onboard HMS ARDENT during the Falklands War. ARDENT’s key mission was to destroy or pin down the Argentine Pukara Group Attack aircraft at Goose Green, where the Argentines held their principle stores of napalm bombs. ARDENT was 100% successful with this Naval gunfire Support (NGS) mission.
On 21 May 1982, whilst living in Falkland Sound and supporting Operation Sutton, ARDENT bombarded the Argentine airstrip at Goose Green, Ardent was attacked by waves of Argentine aircraft.
The air strikes resulted in the sinking of ARDENT the next day and the loss of 22 shipmates (one of them being LPT Gary Nelson) from the 199 strong crew who abandoned ship onto HMS YARMOUTH.
*I must pay tribute, public tribute, as certainly the troops would wish us to, to the crew of ARDENT, the frigate that went down, sunk last night. They had gun line over the British landing troops. they had to stay in position, or else the troops were totally unprotected. ARDENT was in a totally vulnerable position in the sound, could not move, did not wish to move. Without ARDENT they could not have got ashore, had they got ashore without ARDENT they could not have stayed protected ashore.
So let’s just make that tribute very public”
ITN Reporter Michael Nicholson – 22 Mav 1982
During the Battle of Falkland Sound on 21 May 1982, HMS ARDENT was lost in action and 22 of the crew were left behind.
We will aways remember them
LPT Tony Partridge, 26, who lived in Scotland, was killed in the Falklands when the downwash from the blades of a hovering Chinook helicopter lifted a large metal storage container off the ground and blew it over on top of him.
LPT Partridge had been sheltering behind the container from the ferocious downwash from the helicopter immediately before the incident occurred.
He had been in the Falklands for only 10 days.
LPT Partridge was a member of the PED Fit at MPA, employed at Shag Cove as an AT Instructor.
Having completed a task at the climb site, LPT Partridge was awaiting extraction by the Chinook helicopter.
We will remember them.
Both LPT Gary Nelson and LPT Tony Partridge are remembered every year at our Remembrance Sunday Toast to Absent Friends.