We're inside the superstructure.
We're just pulling on our head gear, then we got hit by the Exocet missile.
You could hear it in two phases.
You could hear it thump as it hit the ship
and a slight delay as it traveled inside the ship.
And then it actually exploded.
The whole ship just went...
just shook.
Up and down, up and down.
And the old brain said 'this is serious'.
We set back into the middle of the fleet at night.
And I can remember John Kennedy, the captain, saying
it looks like they've hit a carrier.
They could see it burning.
And then things got serious.
And, you know, everyone
I was amazed, to be honest, that there was no panic.
There was everybody was there helping everybody.
It just it was just pure teamwork and camaraderie
There was a lot of smoke coming over
and the left side of the ship
was all covered in smoke from the fires below.
People were fighting the fire.
We were
dedicated first aid team.
So our position in there, during code red, was
in the officer's dining room.
The floor was getting hot, getting warmer.
There's obviously something happening below us that we're not totally aware of.
I heard explosions of gas canisters
being blown up and going through the side of the ship.
And they were then like missiles and they were then
shooting through the side of the ship.
And as we went over the side, the ship, the guy below me stopped moving.
And if I recall, I actually stood on his hand
and I say, well, come on, keep moving.
You go into the water.
And he says, There's no more ladder.
The ladder had been blown off.
I sort of looked and thought, nah.There's no there's nothing.
Just getting dark there. There's nothing.
There's no ships.
There's no land. There's no nothing.
I'm not a very strong swimmer.
I don't want to go in that.
So when we got to the bottom of the ladder and I couldn't swim
and I kept freezing every time I got the water, I didn't want to let go.
We sort of flew back to the
to the conveyor and
I could
see all the little lights bobbing in the water,
which I realized was was the guys that jumped overboard.
I was lucky for some pull me in to a dinghy.
And then some incredibly brave Navy divers,
incredibly brave, came out to try and help us.
Fortunately, the actual current
carried me right to where the rafts, and one of our loadies -
the air load masters -
they stood in the door and they just shouted 'Geordie!'
I just looked at hime - big lad - and he just went Plop me into the raft.
I got to the stage I must admit where I thought
I'm so cold now I'm just ready to give up.
And I remember the whole brain was working,
as I've always heard, drownings an easy way to go.
All you got to do is open your hand and let it happen.
And I honestly did get to that stage.
And one of the Navy officers who was there, was very good.
He grabbed me said 'Don't worry'.
Unfortunately though, there were a few tragic accidents
and a couple of people were killed going over the side
the ship, some with the lifejackets fully inflated,
which just broke the neck when they hit the water.
One poor person got trapped to the back end of the ship
where you've got the ship's hull, which is concave,
they got kept there
by the suction effect with the shape of the ship at the back.
And we just couldn't get away from so unfortunately drowned.
Your heart goes out to the guys who didn't make it.