How a British warship saved an American battleship from a deadly missile strike

Cultures · Published 10 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Gloucester achieved a historic feat. When an Iraqi Silkworm missile targeted the USS Missouri, the Gloucester bypassed standard decoy protocols to execute the first successful missile-versus-missile interception of its kind, destroying the threat in just 89 seconds.

Launched in 1982, HMS Gloucester was a Batch 3 Type 42 destroyer designed with a lengthened hull for improved endurance and stability. While her career spanned nearly three decades of global operations—from protecting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz to overseeing the 1997 handover of Hong Kong—her reputation as 'The Fighting G' was cemented during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The most critical moment occurred when an Iraqi Silkworm missile locked onto the USS Missouri. While the Missouri and the USS Jarrett deployed chaff and flares to decoy the weapon, the Gloucester’s crew relied on lessons learned from the Falklands War. They understood that firing decoys could interfere with their own targeting systems. Instead, the ship initiated a hard turn and fired two Sea Dart missiles. The interception was validated as the first of its kind, occurring between 2¾ and 4 nautical miles from the Gloucester. The entire engagement, from initial detection to the destruction of the incoming missile, lasted only 89 seconds.

Beyond this high-stakes interception, the ship’s service record was extensive. Her Lynx helicopter sank several Iraqi warships, and she spent more time in the combat zone than any other coalition vessel. Later in her career, she participated in humanitarian evacuations from Beirut in 2006 and conducted drug interdiction efforts, including the 2010 seizure of £4 million in cocaine. By the time she was decommissioned in 2011, the Gloucester had sailed over 787,000 miles. She was eventually towed to a breaker's yard in Turkey in 2015, leaving behind a legacy as one of the Royal Navy's most capable and storied vessels of her era.

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