Richard Emly, remembered by his friends
I was a young Midshipman serving in HMS Sheffield at the time and remember this of Richard C. Emly:
In 1982, a year of huge international significance only just now really being appreciated, I was part of the Fleet that sailed south from Gibraltar to form the South Atlantic Task Force and that would, ultimately, recapture the Falkland Islands. I was a young Midshipman serving in HMS Sheffield at the time. The sailors listened to the BBC reports and those coming from the Captain and Command teams intently. They debated the issue and wondered what it was all about. Most of them, at the time, thought that some fudge would be ‘done’ by the UN and we would all sail home for ‘tea and stickies’. The crew could largely be divided into two – those young officers and ratings, average age 22, who all thought this was what it was all about and why they had joined, and those senior ratings and officers, who all wondered what it was about and who had much more to lose. The Falklands ‘Conflict’ was the first time in 25 years that the Royal Navy had gone to war. Two generations of servicemen had come and gone without ever experiencing war. It showed.
I remember at the time sitting in the cabin of Sub-Lieutenant Richard Emly. He and I were both working on the radar and computer systems in the ship – I more as his gofer and apprentice. Richard was what we called an ‘Upper-Yardy’, having come up through the ranks; he was 32 and had a young family at home with a son of about 6. His son was suffering at the time from a serious childhood illness and had recently come out of hospital. Richard showed me some of the photos he had just received of his son. He had not seen his son in 6 months, since deploying to the Middle East the previous October as part of the patrols set up following the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. I asked him about the prospects of war in the South Atlantic. He had done his estimate and concluded that ‘we would fight’. He did not necessarily want to fight and thought it all hugely avoidable but he concluded by saying: ‘I have taken the Queens shilling and every so often that is the way the cards fall.’ I can see and hear him to this day.
Richard, with his Head of Department, Lieutenant Commander Brian Woodhead, went below decks to try and flash up the computer system after the ship had been hit by an Exocet Missile. The fire started by the combustion of the missile propellant could not be contained and swept through the computer compartment. They both died fighting to fight, survive and float.
Contributing to the Garden of Remembrance
© South Atlantic Medal Association 82
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