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Auction: 26003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 105

South Atlantic 1982, with rosette (MEM (M)1 M S Wilkinson D183687A NP 1810), very fine

M. S. Wilkinson served on the Repair Ship MSV Stena Seaspread.

The Repair Ship MSV Stena Seaspread was requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence for service with the Task Force on 10 April 1982 and sailed for the South Atlantic six days later. She was equipped with a Heavy Machine Shop and formed part of the Tug, Repair and Logistic Area (TRALA) off the Falkland Islands.

The following is the experiences of a fellow crew member Able Seaman J. Sheppard, R.N. who served on the Stena Seaspread

'I was drafted onto the MSV Stena Seaspead, a massive oil rig vessel with a flight deck on top, that was being converted to a floating ship for the Royal Navy. Four days later, we set sail. There were about 30 merchant sailors and 160 Royal Navy crew. It was the first big trip I'd had and to be honest, at that age, it was an adventure. We stopped at Ascension Island halfway down, and by the end of April we were on the edge of the conflict. On the way there, I didn't appreciate what was happening; the older guys on board probably realised, and were a lot more worried. The work could be testing, lashing things down if the ship was rolling. We were on a 12-hour watch rotation, and I spent a lot of the trip working nights.

My big wake-up call was when the skipper announced over the tannoy that H.M.S. Sheffield had been sunk by enemy action. I remember the morning when they posted on our noticeboard the ships' companies that had been lost.

It really hit home to me that this was a proper war when I recognised the name of a lad I'd trained with, and another name, a Leading Cook who'd been in charge of our block at Raleigh. He'd been drafted onto the frigate Ardent and died when it was sunk. Seeing those names was a shock. And there was another chef who'd been lost, same as me, just 17, killed on the Sheffield. Most people nowadays don't realise how many chefs died or were wounded during the Falklands War. On the frigates, the galley was under the flight deck, making it a prime target. And on a destroyer like the Sheffield, it was the enemy's heat-seeking missiles that did the damage, and the galleys are midships - the hottest part of the vessel.

We operated between South Georgia and the exclusion zone. Some of the ships that came alongside us were really badly damaged. I remember H.M.S. Glamorgan - another ship that had been hit in the galley, so that quite a few chefs died on her as well - she had a massive hole in her and had to stay alongside for two days for watertight repair.

Going about my work, I couldn't be certain that we wouldn't be next, because we just didn't know how far outside the zone attacks were happening. I think I was probably nervous, but too young to realise it. In the end the Seapread came through it unscathed, and we sailed home a week before my eighteenth birthday, in the middle of August.'

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Estimate
£400 to £600

Starting price
£380