21 May 1982

“I must pay tribute, public tribute, as certainly the troops would wish us to, to the crew of ARDENT, the frigate that went down, sunk last night. They had a gun line over the British landing troops. They had to stay in position, or else the troops were totally unprotected.

ARDENT was in a totally vulnerable position in the sound, could not move, did not wish to move.

Without ARDENT they could not have got ashore, had they got ashore without ARDENT they could not have stayed protected ashore.”

“So let’s just make that tribute very public”

ITN Reporter Michael Nicholson - 22 May 1982