Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Petty Officer Steward G. Holland, Royal Navy

South Atlantic 1982, with rosette (POSTD G. Holland D094636Q HMS Plymouth); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., E.II.R., 2nd issue (POSTD G. Holland D094636Q HMS Plymouth) good very fine (2) £500-£600

H.M.S. Plymouth was a ‘Rothesay’ Class type 12 anti-submarine frigate of 2,800 tons, launched at Devonport in 1959 and commissioned in 1961. Heavily involved in the Falklands War, she sailed with tanker R.F.A. Tidepool and destroyer H.M.S. Antrim to South Georgia with Royal Marines and S.A.S. aboard. She then provided cover for the aircraft carriers and amphibious vessels and was one of the first Royal Navy ships to enter San Carlos Water. On 21 May 1982 she went to the assistance of the frigate H.M.S. Argonaut that had suffered bomb damage. On 8 June she was attacked by five Mirage aircraft. In the ensuing action she managed to destroy two and damage two others but was hit by four bombs and numerous shells; five men were injured in the attack.

Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins give their account of these events in The Battle for the Falklands:
‘Even as the rescue operation was being mounted at Fitzroy, urgent efforts were being made to save the frigate Plymouth, which had been heavily attacked that afternoon. It is still uncertain whether the Argentine air force deliberately conceived the attack on the frigate as a diversion to distract attention from their imminent attack on Bluff Cove, but it undoubtedly had that effect on the British Harrier Combat Air Patrol. Plymouth was warned to break off her bombardment of Mount Rosalie on West Falkland before an imminent air attack, expected at 1.30 but it was some minutes short of that time when five Mirage Vs raced towards her up the Falkland Sound, turned and attacked from the port quarter. To the men on the ship’s bridge, Plymouth seemed agonisingly slow to answer the call for full speed. A Sea Cat struck the leading Mirage, and an oerlikon gunner hit the second, but the ship was hit by four 1000-pound bombs of the ten that were dropped. One hit a depth charge which exploded, caused major damage and started a fire. One passed through a funnel. The others passed two feet above the heads of a horrified group of men caught on the upper deck manning an anti-submarine mortar. Bleeding smoke, Plymouth limped into San Carlos Water and set about controlling her fires and patching her holes, in which she was eventually successful. The Harrier Combat Air Patrol which had been covering Fitzroy all that morning had been drawn off to meet the attack on Plymouth, only minutes before the Skyhawks struck Galahad.’

After emergency repairs she returned to the fleet and was able to provide gunfire support to the land forces. She returned home on 21 June. During the course of the Falklands War she had steamed 34,000 miles, fired 900+ 4.5 inch shells and destroyed five aircraft. H.M.S. Plymouth was decommissioned on 28 April 1988 and was preserved, being opened to the public at Birkenhead in 1992. By 2012, however, she was seen to be rusting in Victoria dock in Birkenhead, funds for her preservation being unforthcoming. In August 2014 she sailed from Birkenhead on her final voyage to an overseas breakers yard.