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Captain Paul Bootherstone

This article is more than 22 years old
Frigate commander whose skill saved 225 men

After 26 years in the Royal Navy, Captain Paul Bootherstone, who has died of a heart attack aged 62, faced the supreme test of his career in the Falklands war of 1982. He won the Distinguished Service Cross as commander of HMS Arrow, the frigate that rescued the crew of the doomed destroyer Sheffield.

Both ships were in the first wave of the 27-warship task force sent to the south Atlantic after the Argentine invasion on April 2. Arrow was one of an eventual total of 10 escorts with the carrier task group formed to seize control - with alarmingly slender resources - of the 200-mile exclusion zone around the islands.

The frigate fired the first shot in a bombardment of Port Stanley airfield on May 1. Arrow was also the first British ship to be hit by the daring Argentine pilots who, flying at the very limit of their range, constituted the main threat to the expedition. One sailor was wounded and the ship lightly damaged.

The bizarre conflict passed the diplomatic point of no return the next day, when the nuclear attack submarine HMS Conqueror sank the old cruiser General Belgrano outside the zone, with the loss of more than 350 men. On May 4, determined to exact revenge, the Argentine navy sent two Super-Etendard bombers against part of the task force commander Rear-Admiral Sandy Woodward's screen. These were the type 21 frigates, Arrow and Yarmouth, and type 42 destroyer Sheffield, patrolling between 40 and 70 miles south of Stanley and helping to cover the aircraft carriers Hermes and Invincible a further 40 miles out.

Each French-built Super-Etendard carried one Exocet missile. Both targeted the anti-aircraft ship Sheffield. One missed, while the other penetrated the hull without detonating its warhead. But the explosion of the missile's residual fuel was enough to set off a fire which raged through the Sheffield's hull.

Yarmouth helped to fight the blaze from starboard while the Arrow took up position on the port side. Several other ships came up in support. The battle lasted for many hours as a huge pall of black smoke formed the destroyer's funeral pyre.

With the flames drawing nearer to the magazines, the Sheffield's captain, Sam Salt, decided to abandon ship. HMS Arrow could easily have been damaged or even sunk by an ammunition explosion, but Bootherstone lifted 225 of the 266 survivors by skilful manoeuvring to enable them to jump the gap between the two bows; only 20 men were killed and 24 wounded.

Six days later, on May 10, Arrow sailed in support of her sister Alacrity in a northward sweep up the sound between East and West Falkland and was fired upon by the modern, German-built submarine San Luis, whose torpedo smashed Arrow's towed decoy. The strains of service in the stormy South Atlantic added to Bootherstone's woes, exposing serious design and construction faults including hull cracks and many mechanical problems. These brought out other key attributes in the accomplished sailor - the gifts of sustaining morale and keeping calm in a crisis.

Born in Blackpool and educated at Blackpool grammar school (1949-54), Bootherstone joined the service as an 18-year-old cadet in 1956. After early service on minesweepers, he turned to flying, qualifying in 1961 and serving on Hermes and elsewhere in Gannets, the navy's last fixed-wing airborne early-warning aircraft (hastily adapted helicopters had to perform this vital service as best they could in the Falklands). In the same year he married Janet Ferris; they had two girls and two boys.

His flying skills led to stints as an instructor and an exchange with the United States Navy. He confirmed his versatility in 1968 in his first seagoing command, a minesweeper. After training appointments he served as executive officer of a frigate before an air staff job in Whitehall in 1977. He played an important role in the navy's readaptation to fixed-wing aviation when the Sea Harrier came into service and pilots had to turn to the RAF for retraining.

Promoted to captain in 1983, Bootherstone left the Arrow for the staff of the Fleet Air Arm until 1985, when he got his third ship, the destroyer Battleaxe. His final three years of active service were spent in Canada, first at the National Defence College and then at the British High Commission in Ottawa. On retirement in 1992 he took up charity work.

He is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.

· Captain Paul Jeffrey Bootherstone, sailor, born May 7 1938; died March 1 2001

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