The terrifying minutes when 14 British servicemen and a woman found themselves surrounded by heavily armed Iranians at sea are divulged today.

A plaintive radio call for a helicopter to save them was made to the mother ship HMS Cornwall moments before the sailors and Marines were seized by Revolutionary Guards.

A wireless transcript was released by the Ministry of Defence after a request by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act, although some of the transcript was replaced by the word “redacted”.

At 8.43am local time, as a suspicious merchant vessel was boarded by the British, the inspection party sent the message: “That’s Blue Team embarking”. At 9.04am comes the first sign of trouble. The crew say: “We have cowboys rpt cowboys beside us”.

A minute later, they plead for air cover: “Can we have helo over ASAP?” HMS Cornwall replies: “Can you let us know what they are doing? Are they in Iraqi territorial waters?” The reply comes: “Yes”.

A newly released MoD report to the Chief of the Defence Staff states that on March 23, 2007, the boarding team in two RIBs (ribbed inflatable boats) set out to board a vessel accompanied by a Lynx helicopter.

“En route to the [redacted] the Lynx overflew the MV Hanin and reported that they had identified a potentially illegal cargo of motor cars aboard the MV Hanin. A decision was made to redirect the boarding to this vessel which was located outside the Buffer Zone 1.5 [nautical miles] from the Op Line”.

Precisely what happened next remains secret. A passage of the report is missing, replaced with “redacted”.

It seems that the British may have raised their weapons first. The coalition had carried out 66 boardings in four weeks so it is unclear if this might have been seen as a provocative act.

The narrative resumes: “The crew of the MV Hanin became agitated and the captain told the boarding party that he did not want them to leave as he was fearful of Iranian reprisals.

“At this point OCRM [the senior Royal Marine] ordered all his personnel to make their weapons ready and for the [RIBs] to come alongside to extract the teams.

“As the party was descending the ladders, two Iranian gunboats came alongside and blocked in the RIBs. [Redacted] The initial posture of the Iranian personnel was friendly and the IRGCN [Revolutionary Guards Navy] Captain shook hands with OCRM and told him he was in Iranian waters, which OCRM refuted.

“The Iranians then adopted an aggressive stance, bringing their weapons to bear and physically blocking in the [RIBs]. Due to the speed of change in posture and the overwhelming fire-power available to the IRGCN, the boarding team took the decision to lower their own weapons in order to try and deescalate the situation.

“The [RIBs] were then piloted by IRGCN personnel including a camera-man who videoed the events”.

For nearly a fortnight Iranian TV showed the team. Leading Seaman Faye Turney, the only woman, was filmed smoking and wearing a hijab.

The MoD let the detainees sell their stories. Arthur Batchelor became a laughing stock after telling the Daily Mirror that he sobbed himself to sleep when guards confiscated his iPod and called him Mr Bean.

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