The Tribune

By ERIC WIBERG

At age 12, I began working as a packing boy at City Meats and noticed a framed portrait of a man I recognised as an assistant manager. I was told he had been killed in the sinking of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force’s flagship, Her Majesty’s Bahamian Ship HMBS Flamingo. this is the story of that shipwreck, a very raw nerve for Bahamians 33 years later.

The defence force ship was built of steel in 1977 by Vosper Thorneycroft; she was 100 tons, 103 feet long, 19 feet wide and over five feet deep. Nineteen men left Coral Harbour on May 8, 1980, to patrol the southern Bahamas for ten days. According to researcher Tony Allen at the Wrecksite database, their mission was “stemming poaching in this particular quadrant”.

At 5pm on Saturday, May 10, 1980, HMBS Flamingo spotted a pair of Cuban fishing boats named FV Ferrocem 54 and FV Ferrocem 165. Both were engaged in fishing just 500 yards north of Santo Domingo which is a barren rock 225 by 385 yards, 35 miles north of Guardalavaca Cuba and 27 miles south of Duncan town.

Being on the north of the deeper Old Bahama Channel, Santo Domingo is geographically and politically part of the Bahamas. As the HMBS Flamingo approached, the Cubans fled to the southwest for five miles. After a mile “orders to stop were passed over the loud hailer, and warning shots fired in the air, then across the bow. Finally, shots were directed to the bow of the vessels, bringing them to a complete stop.”

In other words, the Bahamians fired on the Cuban boats, presumably hitting them, and they stopped. A seaman named Whitfield Neely took a dory over to one of the boats made out of cement, and they discovered 3,000 pounds of conch, lobster, stone crab and fish. the Bahamians then arrested the four men on each boat, confiscated the boats and cargo, and putting prize crew on each with a dory, and then both fishing vessels were taken in tow towards Ragged Island.

It appears one of the Cuban boats sent out a message to Cuba, since approximately 55 minutes later two or three MIG-21s swooped out of the sky and fired warning shots off the bow of HMBS Flamingo. This usually indicates a command to stop or be fired upon. The defence force boat neither stopped nor fired, and was fired upon.

Two Cuban fighter pilots flying Soviet-built MiG jet then began strafing HMBS Flamingo. The MiGs “let go several volleys of machine-gun fire parallel to its starboard side and directly in front of the ship’s bow. No-one was hurt, and it was assumed that the exercise was aimed at frightening them to release the captured fishermen. ...[they hoisted] a second ensign and a Bahamian flag. With perfect weather, there would be no way that the pilots in their low-flying jets could mistake the identity of the Flamingo, or that they were in The Bahamas”.

The situation escalated quickly when the defence force boat was hit by rockets and suffered a series of explosions which punctured the hull. “About forty-five minutes later ....less than 1.5 miles from the cay, a second assault of rockets and machine-gun fire on the military grey Bahamian vessel. This time, the patrol craft was hit. the Operations room filled with water ... bridge burst into flames. Melting steel appeared all around from ... as the crew attempted to swim to safety, the jets returned, strafing the surrounding waters with machine-gun fire and tearing apart the two lifeboats that had been jettisoned overboard. then, a military helicopter remained in the area.”

According to Commander Amos Rolle, “I went to the radio room, but there was no power. Water was already ankle deep, so I ordered my men to abandon ship.” All except four crewmen made it to one of the fishing boats. The Cuban jets continued strafing, even as HMBS Flamingo was going down.”

Greg Curry was lead mechanic and back-up radio operator on HMBS Flamingo and he told ZNS News that “an array of bullets hit the boat itself, you know just blow everything ...the boat was on fire after a while. We pull it to neutral to a stop and you know everybody was in a panic. That’s first time we ever got physically attacked. Everyone was just running ‘round, then we saw that the boat was hit so bad the captain eventually said to abandon ship. ... just before the head count, we looked at the Flamingo; she was still floating. But they were still hitting it,” Curry said.

At that point, Whitfield Neely rowed the dory from one of the captured craft, and collected all the survivors, four of them wounded. As a defence against the hovering helicopter, the crew kept “a sub-machine gun with one magazine of 30 rounds, and a pistol before they abandoned ship. ...the helicopter left after HMBS Flamingo completely sank.

The Bahamians then... transferred to the Ferrocem 165 and in darkness.”

Another of her crew recounts how “she was spinning like a top from missiles and bullets...they were trying to sink it. Eventually Flamingo gave up and she just stood up straight and went straight down. Everybody stood up and saluted”. Despite a search by Bahamian as well as American rescue teams, the remains of the four Bahamian marines were never found.

The other vessel, Ferrocem 54 was left drifting as the engine was shot out, and the Cubans returned, “in hopes of leaving no survivors and rescuing their own”. During the voyage after the sinking, Bahamian marines found a considerable quantity of snappers, groupers, and jacks, 30 crawfish traps and canned food from the Soviet Union. The 15 surviving Bahamian crew arrived off Ragged Island with all eight Cuban prisoners and dropped anchor at the southern tip of Ragged Island at 130 pm on Sunday afternoon. Forced to walk about two miles north to Duncan Town on foot to telegraph Nassau, yet were unable to contact their commanders at first.

They were then harassed by more Cuban jets, a military transport, as well as a helicopter, which landed briefly next to the fishing boats. It appeared that in order to retrieve the poachers the Cuban military were invading The Bahamas. The Cubans even landed the helicopter on the airstrip for ten minutes without leaving it, to prevent evacuation of the surviving RBDF crew. Cuban military aircraft were seen over Ragged Island, even as late as Monday afternoon, and left when Bahamian, British, and US military jets and destroyers arrived at Cayo Santo Domingo.

The fallout took many years to untangle. Cuba agreed to pay $10m in reparations for the sinking and deaths. All eight Cuban fishermen were convicted of poaching in July, 1980. A film named Final Sunset depicts the fatal sinking of HMBS Flamingo. In 2023, this author visited Duncan Town by sea and, without saying too much, was very impressed with the high-tech aspect, military manning and monitoring, and the polyglot aspect of some inhabitants!