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34-43 Russell Street
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Captain David Hart Dyke CBE LVO
Agent: Marcella Edwards

David Hart Dyke began his naval career as one of the last National Servicemen to be commissioned Midshipman into the RNVR in 1959. He then went to Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth as a regular officer before serving in a number of ships in many parts of the world. Among the more senior appointments were Commander of the Royal Yacht Britannia, Captain of HMS Coventry in the Falklands Conflict, and Chief of Staff to the Commander British Naval Staff in Washington DC.

He retired from the Navy in 1990, and was appointed Clerk and Chief Executive of the Skinners' Company, one of the Great Twelve City Livery Companies. He finally retired in 2003 and lives in Hambledon, Hampshire, where he pursues his main interest of painting in watercolours. He is married to Diana and they have two daughters.

In 2006 David wrote FOUR WEEKS IN MAY, about the experience the ship's company of HMS Coventry in the Falklands. It was published on the 25th anniversary of the conflict in the spring of 2007 by Atlantic Books.

FOUR WEEKS IN MAY

ATLANTIC (20 Apr 07)

'On 25 May 1982, at a critical juncture in the Falklands War,
the destroyer HMS Coventry was attacked by Argentinian aircraft. In a
devastating strike, she was hit by three bombs, two of which exploded
inside her hull, killing nineteen of her crew and leaving many others badly
injured. Within minutes, Coventry had capsized, and would finally sink off
Pebble Island the following day. The loss of HMS Coventry was deeply
traumatic: it was the first occasion since the Second World War that a
British captain and his crew had to abandon a stricken ship and take to
life rafts in the cold and unforgiving waters of the South Atlantic.
Four Weeks in May is the highly personal, often harrowing story of
Coventry's war told by her captain, David Hart Dyke. It is the tale of a
proud fighting ship of the Royal Navy and of the complex ties that bind a
commander and his crew, especially in times of mortal danger. It is also
the record of one man's private anxieties about his responsibilities as
captain, the welfare of his men, and his wife and two young daughters back
at home.

Four Weeks in May is a riveting account of how men prepare for a war they
never expected to fight and how they endure its privations, terrors and,
finally, its horrors.'

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