This year on 12 May 2022 it will be the 40th anniversary of me sailing on the Queen Elizabeth II to the Falklands War. A nice Birthday present. Also this year my 65th birthday present was to visit the ship again. (Thank you Meadow Walker).
The video clip of my visit is shown below. It is a juxtapose of 1982 and 2022. Most of the pictures of 1982 are scavenged online. You can see where my mind was when I was on the ship this year. I could feel to ghostly past on the ship.
The picture below is from the official war artist Linda Kitson. It shows my ship The MV Baltic, a ferry ship. She did a lot of work during the war. Here she is moored Stanley Harbour when the war was over and used as a base and accommodation.
10 Field Workshop was scattered over the island during the war. I had landed in San Carlos water aboard the bullet strafed MV Norland (after transferring from the QE II in South Georgia). And was based there for most of the war, initially with my small air portable container full of electronic test equipment. This provided a forward element of the workshop and when the main body arrived, we had full repair facilities.
After the war we all regrouped to Stanley. And began the after-war repairs of anything that we could, including civilian and captured Argentine equipment. I stayed based on the Baltic with my 3-tonne vehicle hosting the electronic repair facilities on the back and a 14Kva generator. I stayed as part of the rear party and finally flew home to UK in September 1982.
Our electronic repair vehicles were powered by the generators (14kva 1.5 tonne) that they towed. The army has rubber soled boots, and although the vehicles were earthed, we always jump to the first step, so there is no possible conduction between the ground and the steps to the container. Sailors wore conductive shoes, and they sometimes got a small shock as they went up our steps! That’s the first time I realised they had conductive shoes.
The first drawing above shows the Baltic anchored, and part of the land-based workshop. it captures the mood of the island at that time. It was the Falklands winter and there was snow on the ground.
This was the year I missed the summer and had 3 winters one after the other.
Shexit 