Hostages radioed for help but could not get a reply

Last updated at 23:31 15 April 2007


The sailors and marines taken hostage

tried to radio their mother ship as the

Iranians approached – but could not

get through.

Crew members, when debriefed in

Britain, said they called for assistance

from their two small boats but there was

silence from HMS Cornwall.

They tried normal and emergency radio

channels several times – but there was no

reply, sources said.

The 15 marines and sailors were taken in

disputed waters off the Iraqi coast on

March 23.

It is not known whether their equipment

failed to work, whether there was a failure

to monitor the channels on the Cornwall –

or whether the Iranians jammed the

signal.

It was only when the crews had been

captured by six armed Iranian vessels

that they received a response from the

Cornwall. But by this time it was too late.

Officials are investigating the loss of

contact as one of a series of errors

surrounding the hostage-taking. The inquiry will

try to determine how long they were left

without contact.

The disclosure is an embarrassment

for the Royal Navy. It will fuel suspicions

that the Ministry of Defence wanted

the freed hostages to sell their stories

simply to deflect criticism of the original

capture.

Tory defence spokesman Liam Fox said:

"That there could be communications

failure at such a critical point is extremely

alarming.

"The MoD need to ensure that a potentially life threatening situation like that

doesn’t happen again.’

The party had used two rigid inflatable

boats to carry out a routine inspection of

a merchant ship as part of UN-authorised

checks that have operated since the Iraq

war.

Until now, it was thought the landing

party was easily captured because there

was no helicopter support.

The Cornwall’s Lynx helicopter had

flown overhead to monitor the boarding

operation of the suspicious Iraqi ship but

returned to the frigate once the marines

and sailors were aboard.

The MoD said this was standard

procedure because the Lynx has limited fuel.

But radio failure would have compounded

the problem. The boats were well beyond

the visual range of HMS Cornwall and the

radio was their lifeline, insiders said.

At the time of the capture, task force

commander Commodore Nick Lambert,

said contact had been lost with the

boarding party moments after they carried out

the search.

But it has not been revealed until now

how the contact was lost.

He said: "We did have a helicopter in the

area and our understanding from that is

that the boarding party returned to its

boats which were then promptly arrested

by a group of Iranian patrol boats inside

Iraqi territorial waters."

MPs have demanded a full Board of

Inquiry – which has the power to take

evidence on oath – rather than a less formal

internal inquiry into the incident.

• Britain of duty and discretion 'is dead'

The stiff upper lip is gone, says Time Magazine, in an attack on Britain’s

chaotic handling of the hostage crisis.

In an article following the 13-day

stand-off with Tehran, the American

weekly magazine calls the behaviour of

the hostages "miserable and

cringemaking".

It also criticises the Defence Secretary

Des Browne for his "extraordinary,

pantomimical flip-flop" by reversing the

decision to allow the freed captives to

sell their stories.

Mourning the passing of the 2old

Britain" of "duty, honour and discretion", it says this has been replaced by "a

place of in-it-for-myself, let-it-all-hangout emoting".

"There’s stiff competition – the

handling of mad cow disease, the Royal

Family’s years of dysfunction – but it is

hard to think of anything in modern

times that has held Britain up to such,

and such richly deserved, international

contempt as the case of the 15 captured

mariners in the Shatt al Arab.

"Government, Armed Forces, media –

all have seemed to epitomise a society

that knows the price of everything but

the value of nothing."

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