Chris Wreford-Brown | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 1945 |
| Allegiance |  United Kingdom |
| Service/ |  Royal Navy |
| Years of service | 1965–1996 |
| Rank | Captain |
| Battles/wars | Falklands War |
| Awards | Distinguished Service Order |
Christopher Louis Wreford-Brown DSO RN (born August 1945) is a retired British Royal Navy officer.
Wreford-Brown was captain of HM Submarine Conqueror during the Falklands War, during which Conqueror attacked and destroyed the Argentine Navy's cruiser the ARA General Belgrano. For the Falklands patrol he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. He is currently the only naval officer to have commanded a nuclear submarine which has sunk a warship in war operations. When asked about the incident later, Wreford-Brown responded, "The Royal Navy spent thirteen years preparing me for such an occasion. It would have been regarded as extremely dreary if I had fouled it up." [1]
In July 1982 Wreford-Brown captained HMS Conqueror in an operation during the Cold War in the Barents Sea, where it carried out a successful clandestine sub-surface raid to capture Soviet Navy hydrophonic sonar equipment from Warsaw Pact vessels upon the high sea for technical analysis by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. [2]
Wreford-Brown became commanding officer of the frigate HMS Cornwall as well as Captain of 8th Frigate Squadron in 1988. His other commands include the diesel submarine HMS Opossum and the nuclear submarine HMS Valiant.
Wreford-Brown retired from the Royal Navy in 1995 with the rank of Captain, and was employed as a Director of Paignton Zoo in Devon until his retirement in 2010. [3]
Admiral Sir John Forster "Sandy" Woodward, was a senior Royal Navy officer who commanded the Task Force of the Falklands War.
ARAGeneral Belgrano (C-4) was an Argentine Navy light cruiser in service from 1951 until 1982. Originally commissioned by the U.S. Navy as USS Phoenix, she saw action in the Pacific theatre of World War II before being sold to Argentina. The vessel was the second to have been named after the Argentine founding father Manuel Belgrano (1770–1820). The first vessel was a 7,069-ton armoured cruiser completed in 1896.
HMS Conqueror was a British Churchill-class nuclear-powered fleet submarine which served in the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1990. She was the third submarine of her class, following the earlier Churchill and Courageous, that were all designed to face the Soviet threat at sea. She was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead.
This is a list of the naval forces from the United Kingdom that took part in the Falklands War, often referred to as "the Task Force" in the context of the war. For a list of naval forces from Argentina, see Argentine naval forces in the Falklands War.
HMS Cornwall was a Batch 3 Type 22 frigate of the Royal Navy. She was the first Batch 3 to be built, and the last to decommissioned. Cornwall was based at HMNB Devonport in Devon, England, part of the Devonport Flotilla.
HMS Battleaxe was a Type 22 frigate of the British Royal Navy. She was sold to the Brazilian Navy on 30 April 1997 and renamed Rademaker.
HMS Sheffield was a Type 42 guided missile destroyer and the second Royal Navy ship to be named after the city of Sheffield in Yorkshire. Commissioned on 16 February 1975 the Sheffield was part of the Task Force 317 sent to the Falkland Islands during the Falklands War. She was struck and heavily damaged by an Exocet air-launched anti-ship missile from an Argentine Super Étendard aircraft on 4 May 1982 and foundered while under tow on 10 May 1982.
The Argentine Navy is the navy of Argentina. It is one of the three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, together with the Army and the Air Force.
This article describes the composition and actions of the Argentine naval forces in the Falklands War. For a list of naval forces from the United Kingdom, see British naval forces in the Falklands War.
ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (V-2) was an aircraft carrier in the Argentine Navy from 1969 to 1997. The English translation of the name is Twenty-fifth of May, which is the date of Argentina's May Revolution in 1810.
ARA San Luis (S-32) was a Type 209 diesel-powered submarine of the Argentine Navy. Built in Germany, San Luis has a displacement of 1,285 tonnes and was commissioned in 1974. The submarine operated against the Royal Navy during the Falklands War without any noticeable success, but survived a number of anti-submarine sweeps carried out by British frigates. San Luis was struck in 1997 after an incomplete overhaul; as of 2020, its hull remained stored at Domecq Garcia Shipyard (Tandanor).
The three Churchill class, sometimes known as the Repeat Valiant-class submarines were nuclear-powered fleet submarines which served with the Royal Navy from the 1970s until the early 1990s. The Churchill class was based on the older Valiant class, but featured many internal improvements.
Admiral of the Fleet John David Elliott Fieldhouse, Baron Fieldhouse, was a Royal Navy officer. He commanded five submarines and a frigate before achieving higher command from the 1970s. Following the invasion of the Falkland Islands by Argentine forces in April 1982, Fieldhouse was appointed Commander of the Task Force given responsibility for "Operation Corporate", the mission to recover the Falkland Islands. The campaign ended in the surrender of Argentine forces in June 1982. He became First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff in December that year and, in that role, persuaded the British Government to fund the replacement of ships lost in the Falklands War. He went on to be Chief of the Defence Staff from 1985 until his retirement in 1988.
Naval tactics and doctrine is the collective name for methods of engaging and defeating an enemy ship or fleet in battle at sea during naval warfare, the naval equivalent of military tactics on land.
The Royal Navy Submarine Service is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy. It is sometimes known as the Silent Service, as submarines are generally required to operate undetected.
HMNZS Waikato (F55) was a Leander Batch 2TA frigate of the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN). She was one of two Leanders built for the RNZN, the other being the Batch 3 HMNZS Canterbury. These two New Zealand ships relieved British ships of the Armilla patrol during the Falklands conflict, freeing British ships for deployment.
Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Pentreath McClement, is a former Royal Navy officer who served as Deputy Commander-in-Chief Fleet from 2004 to 2006.
An exchange on 24 May 1983 between Diana Gould, an English schoolteacher and former Women's Royal Naval Service meteorological officer, and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher was voted in 1999 as one of Britain's most memorable television spots. Appearing as a member of the public on BBC Nationwide's On the Spot live election special, Gould confronted Thatcher over the sinking of the Belgrano, an Argentine warship, during the 1982 Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina.
Exercise Spring Train was an annual Royal Navy-led NATO maritime exercise conducted in the Eastern Atlantic. It is most notable for the 1982 exercise which involved seven warships that were subsequently sent to the South Atlantic after the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands. Because the vessels involved already had full crews and were able to crossdeck supplies from other ships in the exercise the British response was more rapid than would have otherwise been possible. Two of the vessels involved in the exercise, the Type 42 destroyers Sheffield and Coventry, were sunk during the war. There has been speculation that some of the ships sent to the Falklands from Exercise Spring Train were carrying tactical nuclear weapons, which were routinely carried when on NATO deployments. The 1983 edition of the exercise was criticised by the Spanish and Soviet government who considered it provocative.
The South Devon man who sunk the Argentine navy cruiser General Belgrano with the loss of 323 lives in the 1982 Falklands War is to retire as Paignton Zoo's manager and administrator.
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