HMS Spartan (S105): First on Station in the Falklands

Barrow-Built

HMS Spartan was built by Vickers Limited at Barrow-in-Furness, launched on 7 April 1978 by Lady Lygo, wife of Admiral Sir Raymond Lygo, and completed on 22 September 1979, a Swiftsure-class fleet submarine measuring 272 feet, capable of diving beyond 1,000 feet and exceeding 30 knots submerged, under her first commanding officer Commander Nigel Goodwin.

Racing South

Spartan was deployed south even before the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands on 2 April 1982, and became the first Royal Navy vessel to arrive on station, going on to enforce the maritime exclusion zone declared around the islands.

She observed Argentine ships laying mines in Stanley harbour but received no order to attack, and on 1 May, while tracking the Argentine aircraft carrier Veinticinco de Mayo, was ordered away by naval headquarters in a decision that reportedly ran against Admiral Sandy Woodward's tactical preferences at the time.

A War Without a Shot

Unlike her sister submarine HMS Conqueror, Spartan never fired in anger during the Falklands War, though she earned battle honours for 74 days of submerged operations during Operation Corporate, providing the Task Force with valuable reconnaissance on Argentine air movements and helping to keep the Argentine Navy largely confined to port, a quieter but no less important contribution than a torpedo attack would have been.

Later Service and Retirement

Spartan ran aground off the west coast of Scotland in October 1989 and again struck the seabed off Scotland in January 1990, sustaining rudder damage on the latter occasion.

She was fitted to carry Tomahawk cruise missiles in 1999, and before her decommissioning in January 2006 completed a five-month, 30,000-mile global deployment across three oceans and four continents, including the first Royal Navy nuclear submarine visit to Brazil in twenty years, complete with goodwill activities and humanitarian work at a Brazilian orphanage, a warm final chapter for a boat whose most famous moment had been a war she never got to fight.