HMS Brilliant (F90)

Royal Navy service

Falklands War

Brilliant was part of the task force that took part in the Falklands War, with Captain John Coward in command. She sailed south with two WE.177A nuclear depth charges on board, to avoid complications arising from the Treaty of Tlatelolco, these were transferred to on 16 April 1982.

;Operation Paraquet – 25 April 1982 Brilliant was assigned to Operation Paraquet, the effort to retake the island of South Georgia. On 25 April at 08:55, the submarine Santa Fe was located by s Wessex helicopter and engaged with depth charges. One charge bounced off the boat's deck and exploded alongside, rupturing the port ballast tank and piercing an external fuel tank. Now unable to dive Santa Fe reversed course towards Grytviken.

Brilliant launched her Lynx, which dropped a Mk 46 torpedo, but as the weapon was configured for a submerged submarine it passed underneath its target, the Lynx then strafed the submarine with its pintle-mounted 7.62mm Machine Gun.

Wasp helicopters from and fired AS-12 air-to-surface missiles, and Santa Fe retreated back to Grytviken and was abandoned.

;Engagement with Argentine A‑4 Skyhawks – 12 May 1982 During the afternoon of 12 May 1982,* Brilliant* (Type 22 frigate) escorted (Type 42 destroyer) in a “Type 64” pairing, a tactic designed to lure Argentine aircraft within range of Glasgow’s Sea Dart and Brilliant’s short‑range Sea Wolf defence system.

At around 14:00, four A‑4B Skyhawks from FAA Grupo 5 attacked at low altitude. Glasgow’s Sea Dart failed, leaving Brilliant’s Sea Wolf as the sole operational defence. Brilliant fired three Sea Wolf missiles: two hit and destroyed aircraft C‑206 and C‑208, piloted by Lt Mario Nivoli and Lt Jorge Ibarlucea; a third missile caused Lt Oscar Bustos in C‑246 to crash while jinking. All three were killed. The fourth aircraft, C‑228, flown by Lt Alfredo Vázquez, evaded but later crash‑landed on return due to a salt‑crusted canopy.

Minutes later, a second wave of Grupo 5 Skyhawks attacked. Brilliants Sea Wolf failed and a bomb from Skyhawk C-248, flown by Lt Fausto Gavazzi, passed through Glasgows aft engine room without exploding, but disabling both Tyne cruising engines. Damage control plugged the entry hole, but the exit hole was harder to reach and only patched. Limited to 10 knots, Glasgow returned to Portsmouth for repair. Lt Gavazzi was killed by friendly fire over Goose Green on the flight home.

;21 May 1982

During the British amphibious landings at San Carlos, Brilliant was strafed by an Argentine Air Force Mirage V "Dagger", one of four Daggers from Grupo 6 de Caza tasked with attacking British warships. As the formation approached, three of the aircraft were shot down by Sea Harriers using AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles. The surviving aircraft pressed on and carried out a strafing run with its 30 mm DEFA cannons, scoring several hits (image of the damage) One shell penetrated the wall of the Operations room, while splinters from others damaged the Sea Wolf launcher and several live missiles. The damaged Sea Wolf nose cone and hull plate are on display at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, located in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard section of HMNB Portsmouth, Hampshire, England.

;23 May 1982 Brilliant joined HMS Yarmouth in the chase of the Argentinian supply ship ARA Monsunen.

;25 May 1982 Brilliant rescued 24 survivors from the burning , which had been hit by two Argentine Exocet anti-ship missiles. Brilliant, operating nearby, responded quickly, launching boats to recover crew from the water and providing medical support.

1983–1996

In 1987 she became leader of the 2nd Frigate Squadron. On 14 May 1989, the ship's helicopter, Lynx XZ244, crashed near Mombasa, Kenya, while en route to the city's airport for a period of shore leave. A door had detached when opened inflight and collided with the tail rotor, resulting in the aircraft splitting in half and the death of all nine personnel on board.

In October 1990 she saw the first members of the Women's Royal Naval Service to serve officially on an operational warship. In January 1991, Brilliant deployed to the Persian Gulf as part of the Operation Granby Task Force, in the First Gulf War. Brilliant starred in a BBC documentary series called HMS Brilliant – In a Ship's Company by the journalist Chris Terrill in 1994, while she was undertaking an operational tour off the coast of former Yugoslavia enforcing a United Nations arms embargo in the Adriatic sea.

Brazilian Navy service

She was decommissioned from Royal Navy service in 1996 and sold to the Brazilian Navy on 31 August 1996 and renamed Dodsworth.

F47 Dodsworth was sold for scrap and broken up at Aliağa, Turkey, during July 2012.

The silhouette of HMS Brilliant is painted, with the date 21 May, on the side of Argentine Air Force IAI Finger serial number C-412. Also painted on C-412 is the silhouette of HMS Arrow and the date 1 May. These kill markings (without crossing) have to do with damage to both ships in the Falklands War, HMS Arrow being slightly damaged by cannon fire 1 May 1982 and HMS Brilliant also being slightly damaged by cannon fire on 21 May. C-412's markings were painted soon after the war; they were seen during the November 2005 multi-national Exercise Ceibo in Argentina.

Citations

References

• AirForces Monthly Magazine February 2006, page 61.

References

1. Friedman, Norman. "British Destroyers & Frigates".
2. Brown, David. "Cold War Frigates".
3. (1981). "Jane's Fighting Ships 1981–82".
4. "HMS Brilliant Transfers to Brazil".
5. (2012-07-15). "Brazilian Navy Sells F47". MarineLog.
6. Woodward, Sandy. (1992). "One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander". Naval Institute Press.
7. Frredman, Lawrence. (2005). "The Official History of the Falklands Campaign". Routledge.
8. [http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/4625B8A4-C533-4DAD-9FA5-0BFEE58F8D69/0/op_corporate1982_nuclear_weapons.pdf Ministry of Defence] Page 8. Retrieved 10 March 2009
9. https://seaforces.org/wpnsys/SURFACE/Sea-Wolf-SAM.htm Type 22 frigates paired with a Type 42 (area air defence) destroyer, unofficially termed "Type 64", the sum of both classes numbers.
10. "Argentine aircraft lost 3 April – 15 June 1982".
11. "Fascinating first hand accounts and even a tape recording of operational communications on Glasgow during and after the A-4 air attack.".
12. "British Ships sunk and damaged – Falklands War 1982".
13. "Official damage report signal transcript – HMS Glasgow 12/05/82".
14. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-61151181 Falklands War doctor recalls ship's missile attack
15. [http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/duke-s-friend-one-of-nine-kenyan-crash-victims-1.628242 "Duke's friend one of nine Kenyan crash victims."] {{Webarchive. link. (12 October 2014 ''Herald Scotland'', 16 May 1989.)
16. "History of the Women's Royal Naval Service and its integration into the Royal Navy".
17. "BrNS Dodsworth F47 - ShipSpotting.com - Ship Photos and Ship Tracker".