During these flashbacks, he is once again trapped in the smoky corridors of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA), with wires and sparks hanging from the wall, providing emergency medical care to the dead and dying around him. Occasionally, it depicts the barn and ammunition depots detonated by one of three three-pound bombs dropped by an Argentine Skyhawk jet. Or he feels the icy waters of the South Atlantic, where he almost drowned trying to escape, closing in on him. Iddy Iddon, a Falkland War veteran, was at Sir Galahad, his home in Burnley, Lancashire. On the right, in his later years Credit: Asadour Guzelian / Guzelian “I see it all,” the 59-year-old now says quietly about the day he changed his life, sitting in the living room of his Burnley home. “Looking back at the photos, it’s all grainy – but in my head it’s crystal clear.” This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War. But in the midst of the festivities, there are, Iddon says, only two dates that remain in his mind: June 8, when the bombing of Sir Galahad and his RFA colleague Sir Tristram, while moored at Fitzroy Sound, led to the worst in Britain. loss of life during the Falkland campaign. and June 14, when the victory was finally declared. “We thought nothing could touch us” Michael ‘Iddy’ Iddon Falklands Veteran and philanthropist Simon Weston Credits: Clara Molden / The Telegraph More than 50 were killed and 150 wounded in the bombing of both ships, with victims, in particular, of horrific burns. Welsh guard Simon Weston was the most seriously injured survivor in Galahad, returning to Britain with 46 per cent burns so severely that even his own mother did not recognize him. Despite these scars, many of the survivors, including Iddon, have been seriously injured in the attack. According to the Royal British Legion, about 350 Falkland veterans committed suicide after the conflict and the aftermath of the June 8 bombing led to a wave of shock. For the young soldiers who sailed on a convoy across the Atlantic, cheered by crowds waving flags and surrounded by the concentrated strength of the British Armed Forces, it was a day that brought home the devastating reality of war. And almost 40 years later, questions remain about the decisions that led to leaving ships so vulnerable so close to enemy lines, which ultimately led to such a devastating loss of life. Landing Ship Logistic RFA Sir Galahad on fire after Argentine air raid Credits: Martin Cleaver / PA These are the stories of some of those involved and the questions that torment them even today. “This was the day I first realized I was not immortal,” Iddon recalls. “Suddenly I realized, out there I could die a very horrible death.” In April 1982, Lt. Brian Seggy was among the enthusiastic soldiers heading for the Falklands. The 23-year-old naval engineer, who served in the 17th Port and Naval Regiment, had just completed his army dive when he was called by his commander and told that he was heading to the Falklands with the RFA Sir Lancelot. Seggie at his home near New Forest Credit: Heathcliff O’Malley / The Telegraph Seggy, who grew up on the west coast of Scotland, was given two days to say goodbye and write a will before sailing from Southampton to Ascension Island, accompanied by 100 military and merchant ships. “We felt invincible, but then things started to get worse,” said the 63-year-old, speaking from his home near New Forest. Brian Seggie served with the 17 Port Regiment, the Royal Corps of Transport and was involved in rescuing survivors Credit: Heathcliff O’Malley / The Telegraph After a few days on the island of the Ascension, preparing the assembled ships for an amphibious attack, they sailed for the Falklands. On May 21, Seggie and his crew docked in San Carlos, Red Beach, East Falkland, in a section of water nicknamed “Bomb Alley” for their regular Argentine airstrikes. For more than two weeks, Seggie and his crew used a flat-bottomed raft known as the Mexeflote, carrying troops and ammunition ashore and bringing back the dead, wounded, and prisoners of war as they were bombed and slaughtered. On June 6, they were told they were being detached from Sir Lancelot to Sir Tristram to attack the beach at a place called Bluff Cove. They sailed through a minefield between East and West Falkland before meeting the anchored Sir Tristram in the early hours of June 7 and were tasked with dumping 1,500 tonnes of artillery shells from the ship on a nearby sloping beach, which was adjacent to a nearby beach. Although, says Seggie, they soon discovered that due to the tide and slope of the beach, they could successfully unload only four hours every 24 – which means the job would take much longer than originally thought. (A Department of Defense report then claimed that the beach could be used for 16 hours every 24 hours.) The ship Sir Tristram, a Royal Auxiliary Vessel Credit: PA Given the vulnerability of their position, in the early morning hours of June 8, they were shocked to see Sir Galahad traveling to the same berth, fully loaded with ammunition and men. The cloud was disappearing and this was the 18th day of Seggie’s enemy air strikes. In other words, he says, they understood that they were “sitting ducks”. On board the Sir Galahad was a large detachment of Welsh Guards, many of whom had just sailed from England on the redesigned QE2 cruise ship. “It got dark and I remember being picked up and thrown into the room.” Brian Seggy Soldier Iddy Iddon, then 19 years old in the Royal Army Medical Corps from Garstang in Lancashire, had also joined QE2 with members of the 16th Field Ambulance on Ascension Island, and he remembers a happy atmosphere. Contrary to reports that the Argentines may try to sink the cruise ship, he says that the soldiers aboard the ship would walk making fishy impressions. “We were all excited,” he says. “We thought nothing could touch us.” Sir Galahad burns after bombing in Argentina at Bluff Cove Credit: Rex Features / John W Jockel Eventually, the men were taken to Sir Galahad and said they would sail to Fitzroy. They arrived in the dark, but when the sun rose, Iddon says, they spotted Sir Tristram moored nearby. Unbeknownst to the troops waiting at Sir Galahad, Brian Seggie and his six-member crew on the landing gear had attempted to begin unloading them ashore at 5 a.m. as soon as the ship anchored. But, he says, the commanders on the ship told them to focus on unloading the ammunition first and return to the troops later. As engineers spent all morning carrying boxes of ammunition from sea to shore, Iddon and his fellow Sir Galahad wandered aboard the ship. Without doing anything better, the soldiers gathered in the canteen and began watching the pornographic videos they had smuggled into the ship. Iddon joined them for a while before going under the decks. “That was when I heard the alarm,” he says. Brian Seggy was standing on the cape just above the beach around 2 p.m. when the Argentine Skyhawks screamed inside. He watched in horror as the plane dropped its bombs and hit both ships. Almost immediately, he says, Sir Galahad’s ammunition and petrol stations “went up like hell”. Left: Sea King helicopters rescue men from the wounded landing ship. Right: Survivors arriving ashore at Bluff Cove Credit: PA He hurried to the landing raft and drove to the side of Sir Galahad Harbor to rescue anyone they could. “People were screaming and jumping into the water and others were shocked,” he says. The bombs had exploded on the deck of the tanks, the kitchen and the engine room, and as they loaded the survivors, the extent of the burn injuries began to become clear. Specifically, Seggie remembers a man being placed on a stretcher. “I looked at him and I could not even recognize that he was human, he had burned so badly,” he says. “I opened my sleeping bag and put it inside.” He does not know if he survived. They managed to unload about 100 victims from the burning ship, but in the chaos, the rafting machines were caught with a rope, so Segi borrowed a knife from a Royal Marine and jumped into the water to free them and evacuate them to shore. . “Knowing that there were still people on board was very difficult” Doctor Adrian Smith Others aboard the plane were airlifted to safety or jumped from the ship into lifeboats floating below. Iddon was trapped in a smoky corridor full of wounded and already dead men. Eventually, an escape door opened wide and he managed to get to the deck. “This was my first experience of a proper war,” he says. “I only remember people screaming and seeing lads in cropped uniforms, the smell of burning skin…” Doctors were among the last to leave Sir Galahad and were eventually evacuated with a landing plan. As he was being taken off the ship, Iddon fell into the sea and, because he could not swim, almost drowned before being rescued. As it got dark, the wounded were taken to nearby ships for treatment and the dead were slowly apologized. Brian Seggie and his crew, meanwhile, climbed to a nearby pier in Port Pleasant and were told to take a seat in a 5 foot deep trench full of water and make bayonets and …
