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At the time of the attack, the Sheffield, a modern, computerized ship commissioned in 1975, and known in the British fleet as "the shiny Sheff," was on radar patrol about 70 miles from the Falklands. Its main duty was to protect the vulnerable aircraft carrier Hermes from air attack. Instead, the destroyer fell victim. At least two, and possibly three, French-built fighters, including at least one Super-Etendard fighter-bomber, were about 550 miles from a mainland airbase, presumably at Rio Gallegos, and nearing the limit of their combat range when the radar on a Super-Etendard locked in on the Sheffield. About 20 miles from the ship, two of the pilots fired one Exocet each and then wheeled away without waiting to see the results. One missile went wide of the mark. The other hit the Sheffield square amidships, penetrating all the way into the destroyer's highly electronic fire-control room before its 360-lb. warhead exploded, igniting, among other things, the remainder of the missile's volatile propellant. The effect, recalled the ship's captain, James Salt, 42, was "devastating."
As Salt told British journalists later aboard the Hermes, "We had time only to say, 'Take cover.' Three or four seconds later the missile hit, traveling at hundreds of miles an hour. It came in at six feet above the water level, damaged two large compartments and when inside the ship, exploded outward and upward. It hit the center of the ship, the center of all operations—mechanical, detection, weaponry. Within 20 seconds, the whole working area of the ship was engulfed by black, acrid, pungent smoke."
The fire quickly spread through the Sheffield's electrical wiring and its paintwork. The explosion also knocked out the ship's lighting and destroyed the principal water main used for onboard fire fighting. Said Salt: "We couldn't get below decks near the seat of the damage. We knew there were men down there, but we didn't know how many." After hours of unsuccessful fire fighting, Salt made the agonizing decision to abandon ship. Later he returned to his command by helicopter to view the damage. The Sheffield had refused to sink, but it remained an inferno. Recalled Salt: "The whole of the working area of the ship was a roaring mass of flames. We could see right down into the engine room."
The pall of smoke from the Sheffield had been clearly visible from the Hermes, where it brought a personal sense of loss to Fleet Commander Woodward. He was captain of the Sheffield from 1976 to 1978. There was another irony. While the Sheffield was being built at Barrow-in-Furness, England, a part of her hull was damaged in an industrial explosion. An identical type of destroyer, the Hercules, was being constructed alongside the damaged vessel, and the prospective owners, the Argentine government, generously offered to give the hull section intended for their ship to the British. The Hercules and a sister ship, Santisima Trinidad, are now the most modern vessels in the Argentine fleet.