Four Weeks In May - David Hart Dyke
In March 1982 the guided-missile destroyer HMS Coventry was one of a small squadron of ships on exercise off Gibraltar. By the end of April that year she was sailing south in the vanguard of the Task Force towards the front line of the Falklands War.
On 25 May, Coventry was attacked by two Argentine Skyhawks, and hit by three bombs. The explosions tore out most of her port side and killed nineteen of the crew, leaving many others injured. Within twenty minutes she had capsized. In her final moments, after all the survivors had been evacuated, her Captain, David Hart Dyke, himself badly burned, climbed down her starboard side and into a life-raft. This is his compelling and moving story.
In March 1982 the guided-missile destroyer HMS Coventry was one of a small squadron of ships on exercise off Gibraltar. By the end of April that year she was sailing south in the vanguard of the Task Force towards the front line of the Falklands War.
On 25 May, Coventry was attacked by two Argentine Skyhawks, and hit by three bombs. The explosions tore out most of her port side and killed nineteen of the crew, leaving many others injured. Within twenty minutes she had capsized. In her final moments, after all the survivors had been evacuated, her Captain, David Hart Dyke, himself badly burned, climbed down her starboard side and into a life-raft. This is his compelling and moving story.
In March 1982 the guided-missile destroyer HMS Coventry was one of a small squadron of ships on exercise off Gibraltar. By the end of April that year she was sailing south in the vanguard of the Task Force towards the front line of the Falklands War.
On 25 May, Coventry was attacked by two Argentine Skyhawks, and hit by three bombs. The explosions tore out most of her port side and killed nineteen of the crew, leaving many others injured. Within twenty minutes she had capsized. In her final moments, after all the survivors had been evacuated, her Captain, David Hart Dyke, himself badly burned, climbed down her starboard side and into a life-raft. This is his compelling and moving story.
