During the Falklands conflict Sam Dunlop was Commodore of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA), the service that with its specialist vessels and civilian personnel provides the worldwide logistic support required by the Royal Navy. He was captain of the 24,000-ton dry stores supply vessel Fort Austin during weapon training exercises off Gibraltar under the command of Rear-Admiral “Sandy” Woodward when, on March 26, 1982, loaded with ammunition, food and spare parts, he was the first ship of the Task Force to be ordered south towards the Falklands. It was a campaign which brought into sharp focus the long-running debate about the legal and operational status of the RFA — were they warships or not?

D-Day for the landings in San Carlos Bay was May 21. Using the embarked Sea King helicopters of 848 Squadron, Fort Austin lifted guns and missiles ashore, the start of a flat-out helicopter operation that, because of the difficult terrain, would be needed to support troops all the way to Port Stanley and the Argentine surrender. For five days she was at anchor in Falkland Sound unloading her cargo, operating her helicopters and fending off repeated air attacks with her inadequate armament of machineguns and small arms. Elsewhere, the Navy bravely suffered its numerous casualties in ships and men in defence of the landings, causing the Sound to be named “Bomb Alley”.

Fort Austin counted 23 attacks with several near misses by bombs. On one occasion a wave of three Dagger fighter-bombers was strafing the already burning destroyer Antrim when one turned directly towards Fort Austin. Dunlop ordered his machineguns to open fire and braced himself for the impact of a bomb when to his amazement the Dagger blew apart only 500 yards off, hit by a Seawolf missile from the Broadsword. He is reported as having reassured a young officer; “Don’t worry. You won’t go down with this ship. With what we are carrying, you’ll only ever go up.”

Fort Austin left the Falklands for home a week before the Argentine surrender, carrying 260 survivors from the destroyer Coventry. Dunlop was awarded the DSO for his leadership, steadiness and his inspiration to those he led. Retiring soon afterwards after 40 years at sea, he was appointed CBE in recognition of his lifetime contribution to the RFA.

Times Archive, 1982: Fleet assembles for Falklands action

The British Government announced that it was assembling a large naval task force in response to Argentina's seizure of the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic

• 200-mile war zone round Falklands declared by Britain

• A day of tension and elation

• Ceasefire agreed in the Falklands

Multimedia

• Video: The Falklands Conflict begins

BACKGROUND

• Failure to heal Falklands war wounds

• 25 years on, our imperial grandeur has sailed away

• Falklands fallout

• Twenty-Five Years On

Sam Dunlop was born in Northern Ireland, and his father a master mariner, Dunlop was educated at Belfast Royal Academy. He went to sea in 1939 as an apprentice in the Bank Line tramp Cedarbank and was in Buenos Aires at the outbreak of war. His next ship was the Myrtlebank, both ships being torpedoed soon after he left them. He passed his mate’s certificate in 1942 in the tanker Empire Marvell, rising to third and then second officer.

A wish to join the Royal Navy was frustrated by his “reserved” occupation as a merchant ship officer, but in August 1943 he joined the RFA, serving initially in the fleet tanker Cedardale in support of the British Pacific Fleet, ending his war with the liberation of Hong Kong. He was appointed MBE for his wartime service.

He subsequently commanded a variety of RFAs and was promoted to captain in 1958. Deployment in command of a tanker supporting a carrier task group and the aviation training ship Engadine was pleasurably rewarded by membership of the Fleet Air Arm Officers’ Association. In 1977 he hoisted his broad pennant as commodore and senior officer of the RFA while captain of the tanker Gold Rover.

In retirement, Dunlop was chairman of the Dorset Sail Training Association, a member of the Royal Dorset Yacht Club and the Weymouth Sea Cadet Committee.

He is survived by his wife, Joyce, and by their elder daughter and twin son and daughter.

Commodore Sam Dunlop, CBE, DSO, senior officer, Royal Fleet Auxiliary, 1977-82, was born on November 27, 1922. He died on July 17, 2008, aged 85