Falklands War: Veteran recalls moment gun failed to fire amid fierce conflict

A war veteran has recalled the terrifying moment his gun jammed when fighter jets bombarded him during the Falklands War as the conflict approaches its 40th anniversary.

Norman McDade, or Mac, as he prefers to be named, signed up to the Navy in 1978 aged 17 and trained as a chef.

Little did he know that, four years later, he would be armed with a gun and embroiled in a war in the South Atlantic ocean that claimed the lives of more than 900 men.

As the anniversary approaches, Mac, who lives in Erskine, talks about some of the near-misses he faced while on board the HMS Plymouth, one of the first Navy ships to arrive in the South Atlantic for the battle.

On one particular occasion, on June 8 1982, the now 60-year-old said his magazine, the ammunition storage for a repeating firearm, jammed as the crew were bombarded by fighter jets.

“It was very inconvenient,” he said.

“It was right at the point we were getting attacked.

“We were out in the open and the jets were coming straight towards us.

“Once we could see where they were coming from, I went to open fire and nothing happened.

“So, I said to my loader, ‘you take the magazine off, I’ll get the spare out the locker’ which was just behind us.”

But as Mac turned back around, he said he could just see his comrade’s feet disappear under a metal cover onboard the ship.

He continued: “I was then trying to get the magazine in and then the ship got hit and the impact shook the ship and I was staggering on my feet and I actually dropped the magazine.

“I thought ‘oh my God there’s a live magazine’, and then as I turned I could hear someone shout ‘Get down! Hit the deck, hit the deck!’

“As I turned around and looked across the water I could see the splashes of the 30mm cannons coming towards us, the splashes were getting closer and closer.

“The jets were so close overhead, I felt I could reach up and touch them. Real fear struck.”

HMS Plymouth was hit by four 1,000lb bombs that day, but miraculously, they all failed to explode, and no one onboard died.

Mac, who is an artist and regularly paints scenes from the Falklands, talks about another, more amusing near miss of one of his colleagues.

“It only passes off as a light tale because he survived,” he grinned.

He spoke about the leading-cook on board who, at one point, was in the ship’s catering office writing a letter home when an alarm went off calling for personnel to prepare to fight.

“He was thinking, ‘I’ll just finish this letter’.

“But then the alarm went off again.

“He finally got up and went into the galley.

“After the bombing had stopped, he went back into the catering office, and the chair he was sat in was no longer there, and there was a big whole about the size of a grapefruit in the side of the wall.

“It had come through the wall hit the chair and shattered it into splinters.

“In catering they used to keep cans of beans and tomatoes which was the staple for breakfast on board, and all the cans had been pierced with bits of shards of this chair sitting there, and so it was a very, very close call,” he laughed.

Reflecting on his experiences during the war, Mac said fighting with his comrades feels like it was just yesterday.

“It doesn’t feel like 40 years.

“Every year you remember when this time comes around, particularly June 8 for me because that was the day we got hit, the ship got hit.

“You are always remembering these things which is good I think because it keeps it fresh in your memory which I don’t think is a bad thing.”

During his 121 days at sea during the Falklands war, Mac said no one onboard the Plymouth died.

“Some people lost their friends, their crew, but I didn’t.

“I was one of the lucky ones.”

Mac has close ties to Erskine, a charity that looks after veterans.

As well as being a supporter and fundraiser for the organisation, he also takes part in various activities of Erskine Reid Macewen Activities Centre in the Erskine Veterans Village.

Some of his artwork, including his Falkland paintings, will be exhibited in the charity’s annual Art of Erskine exhibition this year.