(Article reproduced from Navy News - July 1982)

HMS Glasgow, basking in a glorious welcome and a hard-won reputation as the luckiest ship in the Royal Navy, limped into Portsmouth on June 19 to a rare accolade form HMS Victory - the signal "Bravo Zulu."

First ship into the war zone and first warship home, she had a miraculous escape on May 12 when a bomb passes clear through her without exploding and without causing serious injury.

They Type 42 destroyer was carrying out air defence and inshore bombardment off the Falklands with HMS Brilliant when they were attacked by three waves of four aircraft.

Two of the first wave were shot down by the Brilliant's Sea Wolf missiles and a third was seen cartwheeling into the sea. But one aircraft dropped a bomb which entered the Glasgow's after engine room, passed over the main machinery and out of the port side, leaving a 3ft. diameter hole in each side.

It Missed CPO Geoff Waddington, who was watchkeeping, by feet and though partially blinded for a time by fuel from a fractured pipe, he set to and started making good the damage.

"Everyone is lucky to be alive," he said. "I first realised I was all right when I saw sunshine coming though the hole. She is a very lucky ship.

"The young lad in front of me, MEM Colin Eastwood, caught a small piece of shrapnel in his overall pocket."

A damage control team led by the Glasgow's marine engineering officer, Cdr. Andrew Netherclift, and including CPO Waddington, MEA Kevin Lake, LMEM Craig Boswell and MEM Lee Cartwright, moved into action.

Pumps were started and mattresses pushed into the holes. Later, with help from a team from HMS Invincible, wood shoring was erected and the holes were more permanently patched up in heavy seas, with the men continually being drenched by icy sea water.

Waterline welding proved a problem. The solution was to heel the ship over ten degrees by shifting fuel around the tanks and to drive the ship around in circles.

Despite continuing leaks, damaged equipment, and loss of control to the main engine, the Glasgow returned to her air defence station within three days of being hit and stayed there until a relief ship arrived. On her voyage home the engines and propellers had to be controlled manually and comstant running repairs were carried out.

HMS Glasgow's commanding officer, Capt. Paul Hoddinott, paid tribute to the ship's company, particularly for the ingenuity of the repair operation.

"The men carried on with great steadfastness," he said. "Many of them are not yet 18 years old."

A Ship of Distinction

As well as being the first ship to enter the Falklands total exclusion zone - on May 1 - and the first warship home from the conflict, HMS Glasgow is also claiming the distinction of being the first Type 42 to land a Sea King helicopter on her flight deck.

The helicopter, from HMS Hermes, and carrying survivors from and Argentine spy ship, ran short of fuel and carried out an emergency landing with three feet to spare between the rotor tips and the ship's hangar.

"That was probably one of our hairiest moment," said the Glasgow's commanding officer, Capt. Paul Hoddinott.

Few ships can have travelled so widely in the past 18 months. After her help to the devastated island of St Lucia at the end of 1980 when she was Belize guardship, the Glasgow returned to the West Indies in early 1981, followed in May of that year by a month in the Barents Sea in the Artic Circle which took her father east than Aden. The Falklands operation took her below 50 degrees South.