Chris Parry: Self - 'Wessex' Helicopter Crew, HMS Antrim

Quotes 

• [talking about Northwood Command and Control Centre] 

  Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rose : It was a good decision that the Royal Navy should be in the lead, but what Northwood didn't do was turn itself into an integrated *joint* headquarters - it had no military or air force input. It was inevitable that it was going to be a command and control muddle from the start.

  Lieutenant Chris Parry : The whole command chain was utterly dysfunctional. Throughout, there was this feeling of "who's in charge of this bit?". You were never sure at any one point who was driving bits of the campaign.

  Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rose : We very nearly lost the war because of some extraordinarily bad decisions that were taken by Northwood with regards to the land battle.

• Tom Hardy - Narrator : The advance to capture Mount Kent was about to stall, due to the biggest logistical disaster of the war.

  Lieutenant Chris Parry : I remember thinking and saying to all my fellow officers, "25th May is Argentina's national day. It is inconceivable that they won't conduct a big strike." And we were all thinking to ourselves "We've just got to get through until sunset and things will be fine."

  Tom Hardy - Narrator : The biggest British supply ship, Atlantic Conveyor, moved in with a naval escort to unload its cargo.

  Lieutenant Chris Parry : I have to say that I wasn't aware that Atlantic Conveyor was coming in in daylight.

  Tom Hardy - Narrator : Unlike the Royal Naval vessels, the civilian container ship had no anti-missile protection. When the convoy was attacked by Exocet missiles, the warships fired aluminium strips, known as chaff, to attract the projectiles away from their targets. But behind the curtain of chaff lay the Atlantic Conveyor.

  Lieutenant Chris Parry : And then we heard that the Atlantic Conveyor had been struck by one, maybe two, Exocets. At the time we thought it was criminal that the Atlantic Conveyor was brought in before sunset on that day. And even today, I don't know who made that decision.

  Tom Hardy - Narrator : The ship's supplies were essential to the land forces.

  Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rose : Four Chinooks, a lot of Wessex helicopters, all our combat supplies, rations, tents, had all gone down in the Atlantic Conveyor.

  Brigadier Julian Thompson : The whole game was changed hugely.

  Brigadier John Waters : I remember thinking "Oi, oi, this is all getting a bit serious."