HMS Yarmouth (F101): Rescuing Ardent's Crew and Firing Over a Thousand Shells in the Falklands

The First Modified Rothesay

HMS Yarmouth was built by John Brown and Company at Clydebank, laid down on 29 November 1957, launched on 23 March 1959 and commissioned on 26 March 1960, the first modified Type 12 frigate of the Rothesay class to enter Royal Navy service.

A Collision With a Submarine and a Gunboat

Yarmouth collided with the submarine HMS Tiptoe in 1965 before undergoing major modernisation between 1966 and 1968 that added helicopter capability and Seacat missiles. During the Third Cod War in February 1976, she collided with the Icelandic gunboat ICGV Baldur, severely damaging her bow and requiring repairs at Chatham Dockyard, an early taste of the confrontational duty that would define so much of her later career.

Towing Sheffield and Rescuing Ardent's Crew

Arriving in the South Atlantic in late April 1982, Yarmouth was extensively engaged throughout the Falklands War. She provided anti-submarine protection when HMS Sheffield was struck by an Exocet missile and later helped tow the crippled destroyer, and during the San Carlos landings she rescued the crew of HMS Ardent after Argentine air attacks set the frigate ablaze, a devastating loss of twenty-two lives aboard Ardent that this account records with the gravity it deserves, even as Yarmouth's rescue effort stands as one of the more courageous episodes of the entire campaign.

A Thousand Shells and a Skyhawk

On 23 May, Yarmouth engaged the Argentine coaster Monsunen with gunfire, and two days later claimed credit for downing an Argentine A-4C Skyhawk using her Sea Cat missiles. Across the conflict she fired over 1,000 shells from her main guns in shore bombardment missions, and after the Argentine surrender took part in recapturing the South Sandwich Islands, a genuinely exhausting and consequential war for a single frigate.

Sunk as a Target

HMS Yarmouth was decommissioned on 30 April 1986 and sunk as a target during a SINKEX exercise by HMS Manchester on 16 June 1987, bringing to a close the career of one of the most consistently active British warships of the entire Falklands campaign.