RFA landing ship Sir Tristram dashed into the heart of a tropical storm to join forces with the American Navy in rescuing the crew of a stricken Egyptian freighter in the Indian Ocean.

Sir Tristram was escorting the Mine Countermeasures Force from the Gulf back to the UK – she acted as their command platform during the Operation Telic in Iraq – when she received a distress call from the mv Green Glory late on Monday afternoon.

The general cargo vessel was 350 miles off the coast of Oman, which meant that the Sir Tristram had a 250-mile dash in heavy seas to rendezvous with the freighter.

Acting as on-scene commander, and working closely with the Rescue Co-ordination Centre at Falmouth, the Sir Tristram co-ordinated the activities of three merchant vessels in attendance as well as the US Navy support ship, the USNS Concord, its helicopter and an American p-3 reconnaissance aircraft as the 27 crewmen were lifted to safety.

The Green Glory, a 140m, 10,000 ton ship, was en route from Mumbai in India to Leixoes in Portugal when she reported a fire in the engine room.

Although the crew managed to restart the engines in the middle of the night, when rescuing ships arrived she was still dead in the water, her engine room was flooding and she was rolling heavily.

The Captain of Sir Tristram, Capt Philip Hanton RFA, had taken his ship at best speed into the worst of the storm, battering her way through a five-metre swell and 55-knot winds.

When she arrived early yesterday morning, the SH-60 helicopter from the Concord winched two American crewmen on to the ship to help the crew into liferafts as they abandoned ship.

The helicopter then plucked the civilians from the lifeboats and transferred them to the Sir Tristram, where they were given medical checks, dry clothing and food. None were injured, despite their long night on the sinking ship.

As the five-hour operation ended, the Green Glory’s decks were awash, and one of the British sailors from Sir Tristram observed that the US helicopter crew did “a cracking job in unpleasant weather”.

The rescued crewmen were being taken for disembarkation in Salalah, Oman, before Sir Tristram continues her journey back to the UK with HM ships Grimsby, Ledbury, Shoreham and Ramsey. They are due back in the country in early August.

Grimsby and Ledbury played a key role in the mine clearance operations in the shallow waters leading to the port of Umm Qasr, which allowed the early re-opening of the port for the delivery of humanitarian aid.