page_title: HMS Cardiff (D108)
section_title: Falklands War (1982)
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Cardiff (D108) / Operational history / Falklands War (1982)
caption_attribution_description: English: A Canberra bomber of the Argentine Air Force
context_page_description: HMS Cardiff was a British Type 42 destroyer and the third ship of the Royal Navy to be named in honour of the Welsh capital city of Cardiff.
  Cardiff served in the Falklands War, where she shot down the last Argentine aircraft of the conflict and accepted the surrender of a 700-strong garrison in the settlement of Port Howard.
  During the 1991 Gulf War, her Lynx helicopter sank two Iraqi minesweepers. She later participated in the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq as part of the Royal Navy's constant Armilla patrol; Cardiff thwarted attempts to smuggle oil out of the country, but was not involved in the actual invasion.
  Cardiff was decommissioned in July 2005, and sent to Turkey for scrapping despite calls by former servicemen for her to be preserved as a museum ship and local tourist attraction in Cardiff.
context_section_description: On 2 April 1982, the disputed British overseas territory of the Falkland Islands was invaded by neighbouring Argentina. The United Kingdom, nearly 13,000 kilometres (8,000 mi) away, assembled and dispatched a naval task force of 28,000 troops to recapture the islands. The conflict ended that June with the surrender of the Argentine forces; the battles fought on land, at sea, and in the air had cost the lives of some 900 British and Argentine servicemen.
  Just over a month before the start of the war, Cardiff, under the command of Captain Michael Harris, had begun a six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf with the Armilla Patrol. Cardiff had relieved her sister ship and class lead Sheffield from this operational tasking, but was herself redeployed to the Falklands effort on 23 April. She sailed alone to Gibraltar and rendezvoused on 14 May with the Bristol group of British warships already heading south to the islands.
  During the journey, Cardiff's crew performed various training exercises, including defence against air attack (involving simulation runs by friendly Harrier and Jaguar aircraft), nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and Exocet anti-ship missiles. All British Type 42's involved in the war were instructed to paint two vertical black stripes down either side the middle of their ships. This would allow the Royal Navy submarines to distinguish them from the two Argentine Type 42's. On 22 May, an Argentine reconnaissance Boeing 707, no. TC-92 of the Argentine Air Force's Grupo 1, De Transporte Aereo Escuadron II (Spanish for "2nd Air Transport Squadron, Group 1"), was fired on by Cardiff. The aircraft was detected while shadowing the Bristol group, and Cardiff was ordered to drop back and engage. The ship fired two Sea Darts at the aircraft at 11:40 (local time) from maximum range; the first fell short and second missed due to evasive manoeuvres taken by the aircraft's crew. After the attack, TC-92 dropped below radar level and returned to El Palomar. On 25 May, Cardiff was tasked with the recovery of four Special Air Service (SAS) troopers, who had parachuted from a C-130 Hercules passing over the destroyer.
  The Bristol group met up with the main task force on 26 May. Cardiff's arrival allowed the damaged Glasgow to return to the United Kingdom for repairs. Cardiff's primary role was to form part of the anti-aircraft warfare picket, protecting British ships from air attack and attempting to ambush Argentine aircraft that were re-supplying Port Stanley Airport. She was also required to fire at enemy positions on the islands with her 4.5-inch gun. In one engagement she fired 277 high-explosive rounds.
  Shortly after arrival, she was involved in the final Exocet raid against the aircraft carrier Invincible. In the early hours of 6 June, Cardiff shot down a friendly Army Air Corps Gazelle helicopter (no. XX377 of 656 Squadron), in the belief it was a low flying enemy C-130 Hercules. All four on board were killed, the factors contributing to the accident were a poor level of communication between the army and navy, and the helicopter's "Identification Friend or Foe" transmitter had been turned off due to it interfering with other equipment. However a board of inquiry recommended that neither negligence nor blame should be attributed to any individual and that no action should be taken against any individual. The number "205" was later painted at the crash site (51.783600°S 58.467786°W) as a memorial, the significance being that two of the helicopter's passengers were from 205 Signal Squadron. Approximately an hour after the shoot down, Cardiff spotted four landing craft carrying troops from the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards. Having been told there were no other British forces in the area, Cardiff's crew assumed they were Argentine, and fired illuminating star shells over them in preparation to attack. When the Guards saw the star shells and realised Cardiff's intentions, the officer in charge of the landing craft, Major Ewen Southby-Tailyour, moved them to shallow water in an attempt to outrun her. Cardiff, still c
caption: Canberra bomber B-108 of Grupo de Bombardeo 2. This Argentine aircraft, the last to be lost during the Falklands War, was shot down by Cardiff.
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