A FALKLANDS War veteran has started a campaign to buy the Royal Navy's oldest warship and convert it into a memorial to the conflict.

Former Royal Marine Colin Waite, of Middleton-in-Teesdale, County Durham, has vowed to save HMS Fearless before it is decommissioned and sold as scrap.

The 43-year-old, who left the marines in 1984, wants to raise enough money and public support to buy the ship and transform into a museum dedicated to the South Atlantic mission.

His vision for the memorial would include landing crafts and Harrier jump jets. Visitors would be able to board the ship and look around the cabins and engine rooms. Mr Waite believes he could buy the warship as scrap metal for about £400,000, but said the cost of buying armoured vehicles and other display items, such as jump jets, could be almost double that.

HMS Fearless, which returned to Portsmouth naval base for the last time this week, was one of two assault vessels used by the Royal Marines overseas, and had the only steam-driven system left in the Navy's surface fleet.

Despite a distinguished and long service, which included her acting as the command ship for the amphibious assault on the Falklands, Royal Navy chiefs have decided against spending the £2m needed to refit Fearless.

The ship had been saved twice from being decommissioned since it was launched, in 1963.

In 1981, the Government announced that HMS Fearless was to be scrapped, but she was reprieved when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands.

In 1990, she was again heading for the scrapheap, but was kept in service.

Fearless featured on the big screen when it was used in the James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me.

He said: "I recently attended her return to Portsmouth after a seven-month deployment in the Gulf, where she had been involved in the operation in Afghanistan, and it made me realise just how much she means to people.

"For people like myself who served on her, and lost fellow marines who served on her, it is unthinkable that she will be sold as scrap metal.

"It is going to take a lot of hard work, but with help we can do it and create the first official and exclusive museum on the Falklands War - a conflict she is so strongly connected with."

To find out more about the campaign, visit the Internet website at webworkuk.co.uk. From next week, the web address will change to www.hmsfearless.co.uk Alternatively, contact Mr Waite by telephoning 07815 720737.