HMS Sheffield: Amazing scale model of disaster pays tribute to victims, survivors and their rescuers

Twenty men were tragically killed but more than 260 survived the attack on May 4, 1982, with many of them owing their lives to the crew of HMS Arrow, which came to their aid.

The scene of the disaster and the huge rescue operation, in which HMS Yarmouth also played a vital role, has been recreated in miniature form by former sailor-turned-model-maker John Chivers.

He spent 600 hours painstakingly piecing together an incredible 1/350 scale model based on official photos, diary extracts and the recollections of veterans who were there.

The artwork shows HMS Arrow pulling alongside the stricken HMS Sheffield, while HMS Yarmouth drives off suspected Argentine submarines initially thought to be on the scene.

The remarkably detailed model - even featuring moving radars and rotor blades, plus glowing navigation lights - was commissioned by the HMS Arrow Association to commemorate veterans’ lifesaving actions that day.

It was unveiled in the presence of HMS Arrow veterans Andrew Tritton and Scott Fletcher, Steve Worsfold from HMS Yarmouth, and HMS Sheffield survivor Mark Warner, in Helensburgh’s Commodore Hotel.

Mr Tritton, chairman of the HMS Arrow Association, was a petty officer marine engineering artificer aboard the frigate assigned to the forward damage control party trying to keep the fires raging aboard the Shiny Sheff in check.

He mostly oversaw running emergency power cables to sustain the stricken destroyer’s electricity supply, but also helped with other duties – anything from physically fighting the fires to carrying ammunition.

Recalling the moment HMS Arrow pulled up alongside the stricken destroyer, he said: “What I can never forget is the smell – a cross between steam from a donkey boiler combined with burning paint, oil and diesel with the occasional whiff of avcat.

“The scene resembled a nightmare, unreal, too much to take in.”

HMS Sheffield’s survivors were cared for by their comrades; those who did not require subsequent evacuation to hospital were fed bread and soup – the quickest meal HMS Arrow’s chefs could knock up.

The frigate’s crew offered up their bunks for the Sheffield sailors to rest in and provided clothes to replace those destroyed by the flames.

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Mr Tritton said of the survivors: “They were extremely anxious, not knowing where they were on the ship and jumped at the slightest noise.

“These jitters passed to the Arrow crew and although I was proud of what we had achieved and will never forget it, for them the war was over and it was a relief when they disembarked so that we could return to the ‘normality’ of being at war and getting on with our jobs without the distraction.”

The plan is to display the diorama at either at the Falklands Heritage Centre or the planned Type 21 museum in Glasgow.