Commander Hugh Clark DSC Royal Navy

Commander Hugh Clark, who has died aged 62, was, in the words by which he wanted to be remembered, a sailor and aviator.

Clark was commanding officer of 825 Naval Air Squadron during the Falklands War. His squadron of Sea King helicopters had been hastily re-formed from an anti-submarine training squadron and from spare aircraft (which were awaiting modernisation) when they were called into the frontline. Many of his personnel sailed in the helicopter support ship Engadine on 9 May, and eight aircraft were shipped south in the container ship Atlantic Causeway on 12 May and two more in the passenger ship Queen Elizabeth II on 13 May 1982. The squadron arrived in the war zone with no operational experience and little training in its new role of commando helicopter.

Clark’s squadron was immediately used to support ground forces in the front-line. It was entirely due to Clark’s wise direction that his aircrews rapidly learnt the necessary skills to produce such good results. His leadership in the air and in the face of ground and air attack by the enemy was exemplary and inspired the performance of his crews, and though short of equipment and expertise they formed an effective and efficient organisation. . At the peak of the war, Clark personally recorded one day when he flew of nine and half hours.

On June 8, 1982 Clark chanced to be in Fitzroy when he saw the Argentine air attack on the landing ships Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram. Sir Galahad had spent some five hours at anchor during which the Welsh Guards onboard had not disembarked and three bombs hit the ship, setting her and her cargo of ammunition and petrol on fire, killing some 45 men and wounding many more, many of them seriously burned.

Clark immediately used his radio to call for every available helicopter and within minutes several aircraft were winching men from the burning decks, or hovering low to use the downwash from their blades to push liferafts away from the burning wreck. As great gusts of flame and black smoke spewed up from inside the ship, Clark flew his helicopter into the acrid clouds and, despite exploding ammunition, winched survivors to safety.

Sir Galahad’s master, Captain Philip Roberts, was the last to leave the ship some forty five minutes after the attack, the inferno burned itself out and the ship was towed out to sea and sunk as a war grave.

Clark recorded the Sir Galahad rescue in his flying logbook in a typically understated way: “Combat operations. SAR RFA Sir Galahad”. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his “major contribution to the support of the troops engaged in the presence of the enemy which was in the highest traditions of the Service.”

825 squadron returned to Britain at the end July and was disbanded in September.

Hugh Sinclair Clark was born on May 3, 1947. His father who was director of education in Aberdeen and a governor of Gordonstoun, and he wanted to send Hugh to join his older brother, Mike, at Gordonstoun, but young Hugh preferred to remain at Aberdeen Grammar School with his friends. At school he once sang alongside the tenor Sir Peter Pears under the baton of Benjamin Britten. Having qualified as a glider pilot at 16, he turned down a place at dental school and in 1965 followed his brother into the navy.

After general service at sea, Clark volunteered for the Fleet Air Arm, serving in the helicopter cruiser Blake and the carrier Hermes and commanding the 706 Naval Air Squadron.
In 1979 he commanded the minehunter Wilton which he proudly brought into his home port of Aberdeen.
After the Falklands War Clark was promoted to commander in 1983, and following loan service in Oman and several staff appointments, became Defence Services Attaché in Muscat in 1996, retiring in 1998.
Later Clark captained various luxury yachts, including for a Saudi prince and for Sir Robert Ogden. Once, after entertaining a guest onboard he had to ask who he had been speaking to and discovering that it was Sir Alex Ferguson, Clark remarked that he thought Sir Alex was pleased to come across someone who knew and cared so little about sport but was happy to talk about Aberdeen.

He had a lifelong obsession with DIY and would never pay for someone to do any work for him such as plumbing. As a schoolboy he built a Heath Robinson remote control for his bedroom TV, and he finished installing a new shower and tiling in the last weeks of chemotherapy.

His other pursuits included deep sea fishing, Scuba diving, skiing, amateur dramatics, and Scottish country dancing. He spoke French and Arabic, was an advanced motorist and an RYA examiner, gained an Open University degree in earth sciences, and in 2006 he renewed his flying licence. He collected friends wherever he was.

Clark had green fingers and everywhere he went he took cuttings of a Black Homburg vine which had been grown by his father and his grandfather, and he owned an ancient woodland, the 40 acre Stoke Wood, where his ashes are scattered.

Shortly after Clark was given the prognosis that his cancer was terminal, he recalled his only near death experience. Flying his Sea King into battle at Mount Kent in the Falklands in 1982, in a blizzard with a heavy load of ammunition underslung, he was hit by a sudden down draught and narrowly avoided a crash. After that experience he sought to enjoy life to the full. Eerily the undertaker who attended his funeral was a former Royal Marine who had been the air controller on Mount Kent.

Clark who died on April 29, 2010 married first Jackie Barber in 1970 and second Jenny Mark who survive him with two sons of the first marriage.