The Falklands War: Then and Now

In 1982, Argentina rashly gambled that a full-scale invasion of the Falkland Islands — ownership of which had been disputed with Great Britain for over a century — would put an end to years of political wrangling. However Britain’s response was to immediately dispatch a task force to recover the islands, by force if necessary. The ‘conflict’ which followed (a formal declaration of war was never given) lasted ten weeks from Argentine invasion to British liberation, the white heat of battle using 20th century technology contrasting with bitter hand-to-hand bayonet fighting in inhospitable conditions. Eyewitness accounts by the participants of both sides, and islanders, leave us in no doubt as to the ferocity of the combat on land, sea, and in the air. Comparison photography in color of all the battlefields, the crash sites of the aircraft shot down, the relics and the remains, together with portraits of those who lost their lives and the battlefield memorials, serve as a graphic testimony to their endeavors, 25 years after the battle. A Roll of Honour lists the casualties of both sides and, for the first time, the graves of all the British fallen — both on the islands and in the United Kingdom — have been visited and photographed as a lasting record of all those who made the supreme sacrifice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 30, 2009
• ISBN: 9781399076302

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INVASION AND OCCUPATION

The Origins of the Dispute

The Falkland Islands, a collection of some 200 small islands and two land masses, lie some 8,000 miles from Great Britain but only 300 miles from South America. With a land area of some 4,700 square miles, this mostly treeless landscape equates roughly to the size of Wales. Although sited the same distance from the Antarctic as the UK is from the Artic, the southern hemisphere winter can be far more inhospitable. The ferocious winds prevalent in the ‘Roaring Forties’ give an average wind speed of four times the UK average. With no trees to speak of, the vegetation mainly consists of white dry grasses and heather-like plants such as the local ‘Diddle-Dee’ bushes. The rolling featureless countryside is interspersed with low mountain ranges, giving the area a familiarity with Dartmoor in south-west England. Fortunately the coastlines of the various islands permit natural harbours and anchorages, facilitating landing and supply by sea and thus enabling settlement to take place, albeit in a hostile environment. Its strategic value as a staging point near Cape Horn — the southernmost point of South America and a focal area of trade on one of the ocean’s great junctions — outweighed the somewhat limited nature of its economic uses. However, it enjoyed a lengthy heyday in the latter half of the 20th century as a vast sheep station exporting an average of three and a half thousand metric tons of wool per annum, 90 per cent of it to the UK.

John Davis was born at Sandridge, near Dartmouth, Devon, in 1543. He was one of the most prolific and enterprising explorers of the Elizabethan age, especially in Polar waters. Interestingly, two of his main rivals in maritime exploration came from his part of Devon; Adrian Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh with whom Davis was quite friendly. His voyages in Arctic waters were certainly epic and many map references retain those names given to them by Davis. In 1588 he used his maritime prowess in a different manner to the nation’s benefit when he commanded the Black Dog against the Spanish Armada. Then, in 1591, he joined forces with Thomas Cavendish with the intention of exploring the undiscovered parts of America. Unsuccessful, Cavendish turned for home, but John Davis pressed on in the Desire to attempt passage through the notorious Strait of Magellan. Although bad weather defeated him, he did discover the Falkland Islands in August 1592, taking aboard the carcasses of some 14,000 penguins for food. Sadly, once the ship reached the tropics, the meat turned rancid and only 14 out of the 76 crew survived. In 1604 he sailed in the service of Sir Edward Michelborne of the East India Company, as pilot to the Far East and was killed by Japanese pirates off Bintent, Sumatra, on December 29, 1605.

Under the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, the then-main maritime nations — Spain and Portugal — divided up the undiscovered world between them. Taking an imaginary line running from pole to pole, Spain claimed everything to its west (including the Falklands), and Portugal the lands to the east. This situation was obviously not destined to stand the test of time and it only lasted while the two nations concerned maintained their naval supremacy. As Elizabethan England extended her reach, these claims started to look somewhat tenuous. The explorer John Davis first sighted the islands on August 14, 1592 after his exploration vessel Desire was blown off course. Another English adventurer, Sir John Hawkins, also recorded the islands two years later, as may have the Italian Amerigo Vespucci back in 1509, although none of these intrepid gentlemen actually landed. A Dutch expedition, seeking an alternative route to the East Indies in 1600, discovered the Jason group of islands to the north-west which they named ‘The Sebaldines’ after the captain Sebals de Waerdt.

Colonel Louis Antoine de Bougainville gave his Christian name to the port in Berkeley Sound where he made his base in 1764. His crew, some of whom hailed from St-Malo on the French coast, called the islands Les Malouines. This was roughly translated into Spanish as Malvinas — a name which has stuck to this day. Commodore the Hon. John Byron, was sent by HM Government to lay claim to the Falklands as a result of the recommendation by Captain George Anson for a staging post near Cape Horn. Byron fulfilled his orders but having landed on Saunders Island, he never discovered de Bougainville living on East Falkland.

The first documented landing was in 1690 by the English privateer Captain John Strong who named the water between the islands, Strong Sound, and gave the Falklands their name after the First Lord of the Admiralty, Anthony Carey, the 5th Baron Falkland, who, by the time of Strong’s landing, was incarcerated in the Tower of London under suspicion of the misuse of Navy funds!

After Strong’s visit, partly as a result of war between Britain and France, the passage around Cape Horn became more popular despite its ferocious reputation for poor weather and high seas. This produced a string of visitors including a French party under the colonist Colonel Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1764. He was disillusioned by the loss of Canada to the British and he called his base (on Berkeley Sound on East Falkland) Port Louis. As some of his sailors came from the French port of Saint-Malo, this inspired the name Les Malouines, leading to the Spanish-Argentine corruption of Malvinas.

When the British naval officer and officially-sanctioned pirate captain, George Anson, circumnavigated the globe in 1739-44, the difficulties he experienced on the South Atlantic part of his journey inspired him to propose the creation of ‘the prodigious import of a convenient station so near Cape Horn’. This, he said, even in time of peace, might be of great consequence, and in time of war, would make us masters of the seas. As Britain was then locked in a trade war with Spain, the Admiralty dispatched Commodore the Hon. John Byron (grandfather of the poet) to take possession of the islands. Landing at Port Egmont on Saunders Island off the northern coast of West Falkland, he raised the Union flag and claimed the island for King George III on January 12, 1765 without having discovered his distant neighbours at Port Louis on East Falkland. After a brief sojourn of four days, the two ships in the expedition, Dolphin and Tamar, sailed away without the knowledge that France had already established a port complete with gun positions sited to defend their colonists. All this had been set up in the two months that Colonel de Bougainville had been present.

A British garrison for the Saunders Island site did not arrive for another year when the British ships Jason, Carcass and Experiment landed a force of 25 marines, four 12-pounder guns and a prefabricated blockhouse in January 1766. Jason remained in the area to start surveying the new possession more thoroughly and did not discover the Port Louis settlers until December. Each demanded that the other should leave but no force was expended and Jason left in January 1767. The Spanish, still evoking their claim under the Treaty of Tordesillas over 250 years beforehand, persuaded the French to give up their settlement at Port Louis, even compensating de Bougainville generously for his efforts and he formally handed over possession to a Spanish garrison on April 1, 1767. Les Isles Malouines thus became Las Islas Maluinas (later Malvinas).

Port Louis, in Berkeley Sound on the East Coast of East Falkland, was the location of the first recorded settlement in the islands. The site today boasts the oldest inhabited house on the Falklands, built originally as a barracks in 1843. This contemporary engraving gives some impression of how the port looked in the late 1700s.

Although the new Spanish owners were vaguely aware of their British neighbours, news of their presence did not reach the European mainland until the return of de Bougainville in the autumn of 1767 and the Captain-General of Buenos Aires, who was responsible for the new Spanish settlement, did not find out until the following summer. A chance meeting between two ships — a Royal Navy sloop and a Spanish survey vessel — gave confirmation whereupon the Spanish governor set a deadline for British withdrawal to take place by November 30, 1769 — six months hence.

On June 4, 1770 the Spanish arrived with a force of five ships with 126 guns and 1,500 personnel. The defenders had only one ship and eight guns plus 120 troops so the outcome was in no doubt and after a token exchange of gun-fire, the British surrendered on June 10 but under favourable terms as all the stores and equipment that could not be removed were signed for by the Spanish. The British Government was told that the Governor in Buenos Aires had acted on his own initiative without proper authority — which was quite untrue — and popular opinion in Britain demanded a response. As the crisis had not been predicted, the Foreign Secretary, Lord Weymouth, resigned, and reluctantly Prime Minister Lord North had to consider war. However, when France made it clear they would not support Spain in hostilities with Britain, the Spanish King Charles III had to return Port Egmont and in January 1771 the relevant declaration was drawn up. Although the Spanish reserved the right of sovereignty over the islands as a whole, Britain omitted this clause from their copy of the declaration, a subterfuge declared at the time by the Opposition in Parliament as sowing ‘the genuine seeds of perpetual hostility and war’. Two hundred and eleven years later this prediction was to come true.

The need for economy within the Admiralty, coupled with questions over the need for a garrison in such an inhospitable location, meant that the troops under Lieutenant S. W. Clayton in HMS Endurance did not leave until three years later — on May 22, 1774. A token of the British sovereign claim was left hammered to the fort’s main entrance in the form of a lead plaque stating:

‘Be it known to all nations that Falkland Islands, with this fort, the store houses, wharfs, harbours, bays and creeks thereunto belonging are the sole right and property of His Most Sacred Majesty King George the Third, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of Faith, etc., in witness whereof this plate is set up and His Britannic Majesty’s Colours left flying as a mark of possession by S.W. Clayton, Commanding Officer at Falkland Islands. AD 1774’

There the situation rested until internal unrest in the Spanish colonies in South America forced the withdrawal of the Spanish garrison at Soledad (as the Port Louis settlement had been renamed) for the purposes of reinforcing the Viceroy of the Pleta, who had retired to Montevideo to rally his forces. A popular uprising led by prominent citizens of Buenos Aires had erupted on May 25, 1810 and, after they captured Montevideo, each of the separate regions started to break away: Paraguay in 1811 and Uruguay, seized by the Portuguese, was added to Brazil in 1816. On July 9 the same year, the citizens of Buenos Aires, having formed a representative assembly, declared themselves the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata, independent of Spain, and claimed themselves heirs to the old colonies of which the Falklands was regarded as being one.

Louis Vernet was born in France in 1792 and originally had business interests in the islands before being made the fourth and last Argentine (or United Provinces) Governor in 1829, the authorities believing that his business accumen would bolster the fortunes of the colony. In order to placate the British Consul in Buenos Aires (who had protested at his appointment), Vernet sought their permission to land on East Falkland and promised to provide regular reports to the consulate. His high-handed dealings with American seal hunters, who were breaking his restrictions on the practice (to preserve stocks for his own exploitation), led to the dissolution of Port Louis by the USS Lexington and the dedication of the islands to be ‘res nullus’ (free of all government) by its captain. Vernet never returned and he died in San Isidro, Argentina, in 1871.

In reality nobody physically claimed the islands and their only visitors were American seal hunting ships whose crews enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and complete lack of interference from authority. The first United Provinces visitor was the Mercuvia in March 1820. She had been driven off course in a gale and her American captain stayed only long enough to arrange for the sale of his vessel to a shipwrecked French crew. In 1826, having been granted fishing and grazing rights by the United Provinces, Louis Vernet, a native of La Plata Province, settled in Soledad (Port Louis) and he renegotiated his contract two years later for a further 25 years to include seal hunting.

Vernet was subsequently appointed Governor by the United Provinces which provoked a complaint from the British, even though they had not protested when the United Provinces laid claim to all the old Spanish colonies a few years earlier. The American seal hunters had scant regard for any authority and, after repeated warnings, Vernet felt it necessary to impound the skippers of three ships for poaching. In 1831 he personally took one of them from the Harriet to Buenos Aires for trial. Upon his arrival, however, he found the American warship USS Lexington in the port and her captain, Silas Duncan, demanded that Vernet be handed over to the United States or that the United Provinces should arrest him. In either case he had to stand trial for piracy. Without awaiting his response, Duncan sailed for Soledad, arriving on December 20 flying the French flag so as not to arouse suspicion. Luring the principal settlers aboard, Duncan promptly arrested them, hoisted the US flag, and landed a raiding party that spiked the fort’s guns, blew up the magazine, and sacked the settlement. He returned to the River Plate with his prisoners clapped in irons. Anchoring off Montevideo, the possession of the hostages ensured that the United Provinces declared the seal-hunters activities legal. After extracting this diplomatic confession, Duncan put his captors ashore and withdrew. Outraged, the United Provinces lodged a claim for compensation with the US Government that was rejected out of hand.

News of this high-handed American action reached Britain in the spring of 1832, seemingly implying US intentions to protect sealers’ interests with the establishment of a permanent naval presence. This could not be countenanced and, accordingly, Captain Richard Onslow with two ships, Clio and Tyne, were dispatched ‘in the name of His Britannic Majesty, to exercise the rights of sovereignty’. Arriving at Port Egmont on December 20, Onslow sailed over to Berkeley Sound on January 2, expelled the United Provinces military personnel there (who refused to take down their flag) and formally took possession of the Falklands, raising the Union Jack the following day. While ignoring the protests from the United Provinces, the British Government also neglected to change things on the ground, simply leaving Vernet’s employees free to carry on as before. The only instruction was to the storeman that he was to raise the Union flag on Sundays and whenever visiting ships called! (This humiliation was to form the basis of future claims by Argentina which additionally cited their inheritance of the islands from Spain via the United Provinces (as purchased from the French), and the subsequent physical abandonment of the islands by Britain, in 1771 and 1774 as proof of their right to rule.)

In January 1834, the frigate HMS Tyne arrived, an English sealer having reported the murder of Soledad’s storekeeper and three of Vernet’s other employees. The murderers were apprehended and the ship’s First Lieutenant stayed to govern the islands while some seamen and marines were instructed to commence more detailed survey work. That same year the British Prime Minister, Lord Charles Grey, stated that the British would not permit ‘any other state to exercise a right as derived from Spain, which Britain had denied to Spain herself’. Successive half-yearly warship visits built up the livestock and the population to the point that in 1841 the Admiralty felt able to recommend permanent colony status for the Falklands. In August the same year, Lieutenant Richard Moody of the Royal Engineers was appointed Lieutenant-Governor, arriving on January 22, 1842. The creation of the Legislative Council and the naming of the Royal Marines barracks after him are his legacy. One year and one day latter, Letters Patent produced in London, raised Moody to full Governor status with the declaration of ‘Her Majesty’s Settlements in the Falkland Islands and their Dependencies’.

The following September an amendment included civil maritime jurisdiction over coastal waters with the title ‘Admiral of the Islands’. The settlers’ capital was moved to Stanley in July 1845.

Richard Clement Moody was born on February 13, 1813 in Barbados, West Indies, in St Ann’s Garrison where his father served as a Royal Engineer and Colonial Office administrator. This was to be the career followed by Richard after his commissioning as a second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in 1830. After serving in Ireland and the West Indies, he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Falklands in 1841. A popular representative of the Crown, Moody wrote a report which was well received although he did not go so far as to organise a survey or tenure system during his time in office. (Today the barracks at the west end of Stanley bear his name.) After much greater work during his next posting to British Columbia, Canada, (undertaking surveying and road building) as colonel in 1858, Moody returned to England where he became Regimental Colonel, running Chatham Barracks. He was promoted Major-General in January 1866 and died in Bournemouth after he retired from the army on March 31, 1887.

Naturally Argentina protested vigorously but again they were rejected. The country was bankrupt after having squandered a loan from a British bank on a war with Brazil between 1825-27. (It has been mooted that five years previously an approach had been made to the British to exchange the cancellation of the debt for repudiation of the Argentine sovereignty claim — a deal that the British apparently refused.)

Many wooden-hulled trading vessels of the 19th century used Stanley as a repair and replenishment station. Inevitably, many were damaged after the perilous voyage around Cape Horn, some being deemed beyond repair so were dumped around the harbour where many of them remain to this day. Top left: The Charles Cooper was an American-built square rigger which was abandoned in 1866 alongside the wreck of the Actaeon, built in Canada in 1838 and ended her life in 1853. Both were incorporated into a now disused jetty behind what is today the Capston Gift Shop. Above left: The Jhelum, built in Liverpool in 1849, was a three masted barque which sailed into Stanley harbour in 1870 in such a poor state of seaworthiness that she was condemned and left to serve as a floating store opposite Ross Road West. Above right: The most impressive wreck to be seen today is undoubtedly the Lady Elizabeth. Built in Sunderland in 1879, she made several visits to Port Stanley, including delivering building materials for the construction of Christ Church Cathedral in the 1890s. Her luck ran out in 1913 when she struck a rock approaching Stanley harbour and she had to be left in Whalebone Cove to be used as a floating warehouse until being completely abandoned in 1936.

From the 1850s, sheep farming started in the islands and in 1856 the Falkland Islands Company was incorporated by Royal Charter to manage and exploit large tracts of the land. By 1867 even West Falkland had been settled and within two years all the available land had been leased to sheep farmers. With the discovery of gold in California and Australia, shipping traffic around Cape Horn increased dramatically. This, in turn, led to a greater demand for the islands as a service station on the Montevideo—Valparaiso run. Crews could replenish stores of fresh meat vegetables and water and effect any necessary repairs. (The hulks of many ships deemed beyond repair are still to be seen in and around Stanley Harbour, most of which date from this period, up to the early 20th century.)

Beginning in 1849, military deterrence was provided by retired or pensioned marines between the ages of 26 and 53, but this somewhat parsimonious approach to defence was improved in January 1858 when a force of Royal Marines arrived with their families. Known as the Falkland Islands Garrison Company, they were on station until the force was withdrawn as a cost-cutting measure in December 1878.

Apart from the installation of a wireless telegraphy station in 1910, which could just reach Punta Arenas from where a cable linked to London, the Edwardian era passed without incident, until the advent of the Great War in 1914 when on December 8 a major naval battle took place off the eastern coast of East Falkland. The British force under Vice-Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee sank four German battle-cruisers, including the flagship Scharnhorst captained by Vice-Admiral Count Maximilian von Spee, with the loss of some 1,900 men. (This epic battle is marked today by the 1914 Battle Memorial on Ross Road West in Stanley.)

The impressive 1914 Battle Memorial commemorating the naval engagement fought off East Falkland in the early days of the First World War.

Incredibly, the first major naval engagement of the Second World War came within a week of the 25th anniversary of the 1914 battle, in this case, involving three light and heavy cruisers operating out of Port Stanley. Seriously damaged in the battle on December 13, 1939, the Graf Spee, which had been harassing and sinking Allied merchant shipping in the South Atlantic, put into Montevideo for repairs. Left: The damage to her port hull, her whaler and Arado Ar 196 seaplane, was pictured in Montevideo harbour, and again after her scuttling in the estuary of the River Plate (right) which was watched from four miles away by the crews of her protaganists on Ajax and Cumberland (below) on December 17. After this major gathering of British naval might in Stanley harbour, the rest of the war passed quietly in the islands.

Between the wars, life continued peacefully in the islands, much as they had always done, save for a dispute over stamps! Falklands Islands postage stamps (which have become much priced by collectors) were periodically issued by Great Britain, but the Argentines objected, as in their opinion they considered that they were the sole authority for issuing stamps for a dependency they believed they owned. This set in question was issued to commemorate the centenary of British re-occupation and Buenos Aires retaliated by refusing to issue visas to British passport holders born in the islands as they were deemed to be Argentine subjects.

In December 1939 the famous Battle of the River Plate heralded the Second World War’s impact on the Falklands. The light and heavy cruisers HMS Ajax, Exeter, Cumberland and Achilles were operating out of Port Stanley in case the Germans attempted a raid to avenge the 25th anniversary of their defeat in 1914. On December 13 — almost to the day of the earlier battle — Exeter, Ajax and Achilles fought and seriously damaged the German pocket-battleship Graf Spee, an amazing coincidence bearing in mind the surname of the German commander in 1914!

After the battle in the seas off the River Plate, HMS Cumberland set out from Stanley to assist and arrived off Montevideo where Graf Spee had taken refuge in order to effect essential repairs and off-load injured crewmen. Before the coup de grâce could be administered by the Royal Navy upon the Germans sailing, the battleship was scuttled by the crew outside the river mouth, the crew being interned in Argentina. HMS Exeter, damaged in the initial battle, had to put into Stanley for repairs, and by Christmas she was joined by Achilles, Ajax, Cumberland and Dorsetshire (Cumberland’s sister ship). Stanley had not seen the like since 1914 and would not witness such a gathering of Royal Navy strength again until 1982.

Apart from some concerns that Argentina might take advantage of British preoccupations elsewhere, the rest of the war in the Falklands passed relatively without incident. In June 1943, the pro-Axis, German-trained Argentinean army seized power. This transformed the nature of Anglo-Argentine relations from a kind of gentleman’s disagreement which was never argued over openly, into a more direct form of low-level confrontation. The Junta’s declared nationalistic ideals could only be expressed in territorial expansion southwards — into the Antarctic — since neighbouring Chile already claimed and occupied the mainland and island territories within easy reach.

The Argentine tactics took the form of visits by survey teams to uninhabited Antarctic islands — such as Thule in the South Sandwich Islands — followed by the erection of a notice claiming sovereignty. These notice boards would subsequently be removed by the Stanley-based trawler HMS William Scoresby and the British would then follow up with formal protests through normal diplomatic channels.

Juan Perón did more than any other Argentine politician to raise his country’s awareness of the Malvinas issue. Education in schools, coupled with intensive propaganda campaigns, led to Argentines believing implicitly in their claim to the islands. Born on October 8, 1895, he joined the army via military school at 16 and excelled at sport, especially fencing — he was army champion. Serving as a military attaché in Italy in the late 1930s, he was heavily influenced by the success of Nazi/Fascist policy in Europe. After joining a military coup in 1943, he assumed control of the country by popular demand in October 1945. Overthrown by his own methods — a military coup (this time by officers inclined to democracy) — he fled to Paraguay in September 1955. After a brief return to the presidency in October 1973, he died in office on July 1, 1974.

In the early months of 1946 power struggles within the Junta produced a new leader in the form of Coronel Juan Perón, the Minister of Labour. He had considerably consolidated his position beforehand by the assiduous cultivation of support within the trade union movement as well as the patronage of other ‘young colonels’ within the armed forces. Until his removal from power in 1955, the political and press campaign for the return of the Falklands reached an almost xenophobic nationalistic hysteria which found popular support across the country.

In 1947 state schools introduced a highly emotive style of ‘historical’ Argentine claims to the islands which by the 1980s led to the almost religious status of the public’s perception of their country’s right of sovereignty.

A highly provocative large-scale Argentine Navy ‘Antarctic Task Force’ was established in October 1948, largely as a result of the successful occupation of Deception Island (in the south Shetlands) and exploration of British-owned sheep stations in Patagonia. The fact that HM Government chose to close the Falklands naval station, HMS Persuivant, and transfer operation of the wireless station to the Falklands Islands Government (FIG), gave Perón the distinct impression that British resolve was somewhat lacking and opportunity beckoned. It took a frank discussion between the British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, and his Argentine counterpart, stating in no uncertain terms that any armed Argentine invasion would be met by force, before the situation was defused. Britain, Argentina and Chile agreed to a proposal to limit ships deployed south of 60 degrees latitude, and in addition it was understood that the Royal Navy would supply a lightly-armed vessel to support the ships of the newly-formed British Antarctic Survey (BAS). This became the level of deterrence that was to last for over 30 years until HMS Endurance found herself in the spotlight of Argentine moves to seize the initiative off South Georgia in 1982.

The increasing pace of British decolonization in the 1960s saw a redoubling of efforts by Argentina to present its case at the United Nations. From the Argentine perspective it seemed that the British were trying to divest themselves of troublesome, far flung colonies but Buenos Aries failed to appreciate that in each case independence was granted on the basis that it was according to the wishes of the inhabitants. The Falklanders were most definitely not in this category and were unwilling to change their allegiance no matter how much Argentina promised them. In 1964 they brought the dispute before the UN on the basis that the 1960 resolution preached the language of decolonization. In December 1965 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution asking both sides to seek a peaceful solution pointing out that the interests of the islanders should be respected. Inevitably this led to stalemate in subsequent negotiations as the islanders were adamant that they would not accept Argentinean jurisdiction in their affairs. In turn, Argentina would not countenance self-determination as a principal of government. In the event, Argentina showed itself to be no respecter of human rights on the mainland, let alone overseas, and the routine disappearance of political opponents and dissidents at home was hardly likely to lead the Falklands into the arms of an authoritarian, military dictatorship.

In the mid-1960s it was the aeroplane that was used by political activists in Argentina to bring the Malvinas dispute to public awareness. The first incident was a somewhat comical affair when in September 1964 a civilian pilot, Miguel Fitzgerald, landed his Cessna 172 on Stanley Racecourse (then the only airstrip in the town) whereupon he planted a small Argentine flag on the racetrack, handed a protest leaflet to a bemused bystander, and took off again! After the usual Foreign Office protest and Buenos Aries apology, the incident was forgotten until two years later a much larger airborne invasion took place at the same location.

On September 28, 1966, an Aerolineas Argentinas DC-4 airliner was hijacked during a domestic flight between Buenos Aires and Rio Gallegos. An armed ultra right-wing nationalist group called ‘El Condor’ had forced the crew of six to divert to Stanley in order to liberate the islands. About half of the 45 passengers on board are believed to have belonged to the group. The pilot managed a skilful landing on the racecourse just after lunch, and a detachment from the Falkland Islands detachment of Royal Marines which drove up to investigate was quickly made prisoner. In the end the tense stand off was diffused by negotiation once it was pointed out to the hijackers that nobody on the islands wanted to be liberated from British rule!

Attempting to leave with their hostages, the DC-4 (registration LV-AGG ) became bogged into the soft ground and later in the day the release of the hostages was secured by a local clergyman acting as a negotiator. The highjackers were returned to the mainland in an Argentine merchant ship the Bahia Bien Suceso, where they were promptly arrested and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment in June 1967 by a somewhat embarrassed Argentina.

Over the next few years Anglo-Argentine relations improved somewhat with the solution of variety of issues hitherto stalemated due to the sovereignty question. The introduction of a ‘White Card’ travel document circumvented the dispute over passports and visas as it became the only paperwork required to travel between the two countries. Coupled with the setting up of a twice monthly seaplane service between Stanley and the mainland, the islanders had to accept the need for the White Card if they wanted to take advantage of the service by LADE (Lineas Aereas del Estado — the Argentinian state airline) which proved a godsend for both travel and trade.

This thawing of relations also led to improved trade relations in the military sphere, and the Argentine Navy took delivery of a British Type 42 guided-missile destroyer, the Hercules, in August 1977. They also received British assurance and overseeing of the construction of a second destroyer in Argentina, the Santisima Trinidad, which was finally commissioned in July 1981.

In the Falklands, the physical manifestation of this new co-operation took the form of permission to build a ‘temporary’ airstrip for LADE flights on the Cape Pembroke peninsula at Hookers Point. It was opened in November 1972 but was regarded with a great deal of suspicion by the islanders, as was the construction of a residence for the LADE manager. This occupied a leased plot near the racecourse and the size of the building did little to ease tension within Stanley over the ultimate goal of Argentine rapprochement with the UK regarding the islands. A spate of arms purchases had taken place with America and Israel for aircraft and helicopters, Holland for an aircraft carrier (the Veintecino de Mayo, ex-Karel Doorman, ex-HMS Venerable) and Germany for submarines. These acquisitions in a relatively short time frame contributed towards a downward spiral in the Argentinian economy. This, in turn, led to popular unrest and consequently an upturn in the Junta’s heavy-handed repression of political dissent which engendered international condemnation and an embargo on supply of spares for the imported military hardware — not an ideal situation for a country contemplating armed invasion!

After three years of democratic rule, the armed forces had again taken control of the country in March 1976. The Falklands question was still on the agenda at the United Nations and in 1974 the General Assembly had passed a resolution calling on both countries to hasten their efforts to find a solution. Although the islanders had not objected to the talks taking place, they were not directly involved, thus rendering any resulting agreement of little value. Unhelpful and somewhat inflammatory remarks in the Argentine press by Arauz Castex, their Foreign Minister, did little to help and merely drew a second warning from the British Ambassador in Buenos Aires that any use of force would be met in kind. The British commissioning of an economic survey of the area, chaired by Lord Shackleton, further enraged the Argentines, as his arrival in Stanley coincided with the 143rd anniversary of Captain Richard Onslow’s repossession of the islands. As a result the ambassadors of both countries were recalled and Foreign Minister Castex gave a gloomy and somewhat prophetic prediction that British intransigence over the situation would leave only one course open to Argentina.

Talks recommenced in New York in February 1976 where the British position over defending the islands was again reiterated. During the discussions a major embarrassment for the Argentine Ministry for Foreign Affairs took place at the instigation of the Argentine Navy, again seeking to influence the talks. The BAS research ship Shackleton, was some 80 miles south of the Falklands, not far from the location of the 1914 naval battle, when she was fired upon by the Argentine destroyer Almirante Storni. Claiming that the ship was on an unauthorized incursion of Argentine territorial waters, the destroyer attempted to stop and board the Shackleton which managed to escape unharmed. Consequently the Argentine delegation in New York had to sheepishly confirm that the BAS ship could continue on her way without hindrance. This incident resulted in retention of the naval patrol ship, HMS Endurance, for another year as it had been earmarked in Whitehall as a possible candidate in the next round of defence cuts. The reprieve came when the Foreign Office recommended it as an essential tool in British South Atlantic policy.

The end of the decade and onwards into the 1980s saw tentative talks between the two countries with Britain favouring ‘leaseback’ where sovereignty would pass to Argentina but administration would remain a British affair. Nicholas Ridley, the Foreign Secretary at the time, vigorously promoted the idea, even visiting the islands to canvas in favour. The islanders emphatically refused to countenance such a sell-out, even when Ridley intimated that failure to reach an agreement could result in the islands being abandoned to their fate. All this gave the hardliners within the Argentine administration more hope that Britain would not intervene in the event of an occupation of the islands by force. The final countdown to war, unbeknown to the outside world, had begun.

On September 28, 1966, a group of extreme right-wing Argentine nationalists called ‘Movimiento Nueva Argentiana’ or ‘El Condor’ hijacked a DC-4 airliner of Aerolineas Argentinas. They had taken advantage of the fact that the incoming force of Royal Marines for the island garrison comprised just one officer and five men. The intention was to proclaim Argentine sovereignty over the Falklands on the 150th anniversary of Argentina’s independence. Unfortunately, as the passengers included the Governor of Tierra del Fuego, the incident failed to go the hijacker’s way and the Argentine government did not react as they had hoped. Upon the conclusion of the incident, fortunately without bloodshed, the perpetrators were jailed on charges ranging from piracy to conspiracy against the state. Above: Local resident Peter Betts snapped the skilful approach of the DC-4 as it landed on Stanley racecourse.

This map shows all the principal Argentine air and sea bases used in the 1982 conflict and its preparation.

Countdown to War

On December 15, 1981, Vicealmirante (Vice-Admiral) Juan Lombardo was officially installed as Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) at the main Argentine naval base of Puerto Belgrano, 280 miles south-west of Buenos Aires. The ceremony was conducted by Almirante (Admiral) Jorge Anaya, the naval member since 1976 of Argentina’s ruling three-man military Junta, the other two being General Leopoldo Galtieri and Brigadier General Basilio Lami Dozo. A fanatical exponent of the return of the Falklands, Anaya even suggested action on the subject as far back as 1977 when he was Fleet Commander. He had decided that Argentina must regain possession by January 1983 to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the removal of an Argentine governor and British (re)settlement of the island. Overlooking tenuous sovereignty claims from this period, all Argentines are taught, almost as an article of religious faith, that their legitimate claims have been usurped down the years by the British. Even today, successive Argentinian Presidents are expected to stress the issue of sovereignty in their inaugural address.

In an aside after the ceremonial for Lombardo’s installation as CNO, Anaya dropped a subtle bomb-shell by telling him to prepare plans for the occupation of the Falklands: ‘to take them, but not necessarily to keep them’ is how Lombardo remembered the conversation to British historian Martin Middlebrook in 1987. Anaya stressed the need for absolute secrecy and as swiftly as he initiated the conversation, the subject was closed and the admiral left.

After some careful deliberation, Lombardo decided he required further confirmation. ‘Soon after receiving my first order, I flew to Buenos Aires to meet Admiral Anaya again and ask for clarification. I set out my questions in a hand written document to make sure that they were ‘on the record’, but no copies were made. I asked these questions: Was the operation to be purely naval, or joint with other services? Was the intention to take and keep the islands, or take them and hand them over to someone else, and, if so, would this be an Argentine force or a world force, that is the United Nations? Could he guarantee that the secret nature of the planning be maintained?

‘These were the answers I was given: It was to be a joint operation, but no one else had yet been informed. (I didn’t know at the time whether Galtieri and Lami Dozo were aware of Almirante Anaya’s orders to me, but it was confirmed a few days later that they were.) I was to plan a take-over but not to prepare the defence of the islands afterwards. About secrecy, he said that I would only be working with three other almirante – Allara, Büsser of the Marines and Garcia Bol of the Naval Air Arm; these were all near to me at Puerto Belgrano.

Contraalmirante Carlos Büsser, the Commander of Marines, was to lead the invasion force.

‘I started talks with those three, and they all asked the same or similar questions. So I went back to Buenos Aires to insist that, if the operation was to be joint, cooperation with the other services would be essential. Anaya agreed that General Garcia of the army was in mind but had not yet been informed. He repeated that it was a Navy task – to take over the Malvinas.’

The idea of not garrisoning the islands after capture was discounted at an early stage and subsequent plans incorporated this feature. September 15, 1982 was set as a completion date for planning. This date was decided upon as a result of several factors, British intentions to scrap the Royal Navy’s Antarctic patrol vessel HMS Endurance in the forthcoming UK defence cuts being one. Also the worst of the southern hemisphere’s winter in the region would be over. Another factor concerned the yearly intake of Argentine conscripts. They would be well advanced in their training by then which would give the planners the opportunity of including last year’s trained conscripts (now reservists) in the new partially-trained intake. In addition, a major contract with France to supply 14 Dassault Super Etendard aircraft and 15 Exocet anti-ship missiles, would be completed by then, giving Argentina a significant increase in attack capability.

A deciding factor in the Junta’s decision to press ahead with invasion was also their successful occupation of remote Thule in British South Sandwich Islands, some 1,000 miles south-east of the Falklands, in 1976. Of little value to the British apart from as a scientific research base, it was another disputed sovereignty island that Argentina felt possession of would strengthen her claim to the bigger prize. The fact that the British inertia over the occupation extended to no announcement of the deed until 1978, gave the Argentines hope that maybe the same trick could be repeated.

As the operation would be in the nature of an amphibious assault, the plan involved Contraalmirante (Rear-Admiral) Carlos Büsser, Commander of Marines. Another keen ‘Malvinist’ (as Falklands recovery disciples were known), Büsser was briefed on December 29, 1981 and by February 2, 1982 he had set up a landing force planning team of five, working under tight security in tandem with Lombardo’s two-man group working on the naval support plan. An officer from Naval Intelligence was on the ‘board’ of both teams to provide co-ordination.

Practice landings were carried out in February and March 1982 in Patagonia by the unit chosen for the main force, the Batallon de Infanteria Marina 2. The exercise area on a stretch of coast on the Valdés peninsula closely resembled the Stanley coastline without the problem of having a town nearby to compromise security. It also had roads and tracks closely mimicking the actual ones which linked Stanley airport with the chosen landing beach at nearby Yorke Bay and the town itself. Significantly, bar three key officers, battalion personnel had no idea of the target for their preparations. Completed by the third week of February, the plan was submitted for Junta approval on March 9.

1982 Vintage sleeve patch of the Amphibious Commando Group — chosen to spearhead the invasion.

The Grytviken Affair

Fortunately for the Argentines, a minor diplomatic irregularity in South Georgia, 600 miles to the east of the Falklands (see map page 10), had mushroomed into a major diplomatic incident which would give their ambitions in the region a major boost. Considered a dependency of the Falklands, South Georgia’s administration was part of the diplomatic brief entrusted to the Governor, based in Stanley at Government House. The current incumbent, Rex Hunt, had been in post for just under two years and had reached his own conclusions as to the need for robust attitudes towards any flouting of rules regarding issues of sovereignty or immigration. One of these concerned the somewhat archaic but necessary regulation covering the need for any visitors to South Georgia being required to report to the manager of the British Arctic Survey team, based at Grytviken. He acted as the legal magistrate and representative of the Governor, handling any immigration issues there.

Back in October 1978 options on salvage rights to three disused whaling stations on the island had been awarded by their Edinburgh-based owners to an Argentine scrap-dealing firm owned by Constantino Davidoff. Despite Foreign Office concerns about such a deal being contracted with an Argentine national, bearing in mind the political implications in such a sensitive area, the deal had been allowed to proceed, as the Foreign Office felt unable to interfere in a purely financial venture.

Two years went by during which time Davidoff came up with various excuses as to why he had not exercised his option on the scrap but eventually, in December 1981, he had got his act together and travelled to Leith in South Georgia to inspect the pickings. Unfortunately he omitted to follow the correct procedure and did not report to the BAS manager at Grytviken but went directly to Leith. Accordingly, this was reported to Governor Hunt. More alarmingly, the Argentine Navy, perhaps with an eye to greater prizes, afforded David-off the use of a naval transport icebreaker the ARA Almirante Irizar. Its captain, Cesar Trompetta, was instructed to sail under radio silence and to be deliberately obtuse in his observance of the landing regulations, undoubtedly to test the resolve of the British Foreign Office over a minor sovereignty matter. Who knows, the thinking in Buenos Aires ran, if the British ignore this, perhaps they will not be that bothered over more important issues, as was proven over a similar scenario in South Thule in 1976 where an identical action had led to permanent Argentine occupation.

Although Davidoff’s contract was due to expire in March 1982, despite his immigration black mark, after he apologised to the British Embassy in Buenos Aires, he was granted an extension until March 1984. His explanation was that he needed ample time to complete the work but his lawyer was reminded that the correct immigration procedures would be expected in future and that he must report to Grytviken before going on to Leith.

The Argentine Navy again lent him the use of one of their ships, albeit with a merchant navy crew. This was the Bahia Buen Suceso under the command of Capitan Osvaldo Niella. Two months beforehand, on January 4, 1982, the formal complaint by Britain to Argentina about the irregularities on Davidoff’s first visit had been rejected in Buenos Aires. Alarm bells should have been ringing by now in the Foreign Office but things were now about to get worse. In hindsight it seems that the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not in possession of all the facts for it appears that Almirante Anaya was moving his Navy chess pieces around the South Atlantic chessboard on his own initiative to force the Malvinas question to the top of his country’s foreign policy agenda. After all, he had just instructed his new Chief of Naval Operations to prepare plans for an invasion and now this little scenario had fallen right into his lap, to provide justified ‘provocation’ for his action.

Needless to say, when this second ship arrived off South Georgia, it again followed the same pattern of radio silence on the journey outwards, landing straight at Leith on March 19 without undertaking the immigration formalities. During the unloading over the next two days, the crew raised the Argentinian flag and started shooting the indigenous reindeer to supplement their rations. Both actions were guaranteed to raise concerns of Steve Martin, the BAS manager: the former on a purely political basis, and the latter as it specifically contravened one of the landing conditions in Davidoff’s contract that he was not permitted to bring firearms ashore and hunt wildlife. Martin immediately reported back to Governor Hunt at Stanley.

Rex Hunt recollected later that ‘approaching Leith Harbour, the BAS men heard several rifle shots and saw the Bahia Buen Suceso berthed at the deep-water jetty. Cargo was being unloaded and there were almost 50 men ashore, some in civilian clothes and others in white military-style uniforms. An Argentine flag flew from the top of the generator station. They entered the manager’s house and found 12 men sitting at the table eating reindeer steaks and the word British on the notice board had been scrawled over with Argentina.

‘Finding no English speaker, two of the field party, Trefor Edwards and Neil Shaw, went abroad the Bahia Buen Suceso and met Captain Niella who to their relief spoke English. In an amicable atmosphere, they advised him that he should have reported first to Grytviken for clearance formalities and he replied that the British Embassy in Buenos Aires had given him permission to land at Leith and that the base commander at Grytviken should have been so notified. Trefor Edwards had a VHF set with him and relayed this information to Steve Martin at King Edward Point.

‘Early the next morning, I went on board the Endurance [recently arrived in Stanley], spoke to Steve Martin over the ship’s radio, and sent him the following message to be delivered to the leader of the Argentine shore party at Leith:

1. You have landed illegally at Leith without obtaining proper clearance.

2. You and your party must go back on board the Bahia Buen Suceso immediately and report to Base Commander, Grytviken, for further instructions.

3. You must remove the Argentine flag from Leith.

4. You must not interfere with the BAS depot at Leith.

5. You must not alter or deface any of the notices at Leith.

6. No military personnel are allowed to land in South Georgia

7. No firearms are to be taken ashore.

Governor Hunt then reported the facts of the case thus far to the Foreign Office, adding the view that in his opinion the Argentine Navy was using the scrap contract to test Britain’s resolve over the ownership of South Georgia. He also ventured the suggestion that as this was Davidoff’s second infringement, the team should now be ordered to leave South Georgia altogether, even if it did now report to BAS manager at Grytviken. He also suggested that if the Argentines did not respond, HMS Endurance should be dispatched to Leith to enforce the request to leave.

The response from London was surprisingly swift and succinct. It concurred with the Governor’s assessments and actions to date and instructed the British Ambassador in Buenos Aires to inform the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the incident was regarded with the utmost seriousness, to the degree that if the Bahia Buen Suceso did not leave forthwith, HM Government would have to take what ever steps it deemed necessary. HMS Endurance was instructed by C-in-C Fleet to leave for South Georgia immediately to reinforce the position. In addition, her normal compliment of 12 Royal Marines (under the command of Lieutenant Keith Mills) was supplemented by additional NCO and eight Marines from NP8901 at Stanley.

The Argentine flag flies over the old generator station at Leith; one of the infringements of the landing conditions contained in Constantino Davidoff’s contract and reported by British Antarctic Survey manager Steve Martin.

Keith Mills’ annotations on this 1958 Naval survey chart of King Edward Cove have been numbered for further clarity in following the battle. [1] Royal Marines’ main position. [2] Grytviken. [3] Course of ARA Guerrico. [4] Puma hit here. [5] Alouette hit here. [6] Argentine troops landing site. [7] Royal Marines machine-gun post. [8] Puma crash. [9] Puma flight path. [10] Alouette force-landing.

A confident Lieutenant Keith Mills stands behind the wheel of HMS Endurance during the voyage to South Georgia, sometime between March 20 and 23.

The Suceso departed Leith on March 21 (the day after Endurance sailed from Stanley) leaving the workmen from Davidoff’s firm behind and, it was suspected, some marines disguised as civilians. Endurance was ordered to keep them under surveillance by helicopter, but not to intervene directly at this stage, and she anchored at Grytviken on March 23. Diplomatically, things rapidly became entrenched with the Argentinian Foreign Minister, Nicanor Costa Mendez, implying that the threat now posed by HMS Endurance was unacceptable to his superiors (he named Almirante Anaya specifically in a private discussion with the British Ambassador).

On March 24 the Argentine Navy dispatched a corvette to patrol between South Georgia and the Falklands in order to intercept Endurance if she removed the Davidoff party at Leith. Immediate military assistance for the workmen arrived the next day in the form of the naval transport ship Bahia Paraiso, diverted from Antartic survey work further south. Aboard were 14 mixed sailors and marines of the Buzo Tactico (a special forces underwater demolition team) under the command of Capitan de Corbeta Alfredo Astiz. The force had, in addition, two helicopters: an Aerospatial SA330L Puma, serial AE-504 of Batallon de Aviacion de Combate 601-CAB 601, and a Sud-Aviation SE-3160 Alouette III, serial 0699 (3-H-110) of 1 Escuadrilla de Helicopteros.

HMS Endurance, anchored in Cumberland Bay off Grytviken and commenced her brief of observing the Argentine presence at Leith.

During the course of March 24, Endurance’s Westland HAS1 Wasp Helicopters XS527 and XS539 inserted two-man Royal Marine observation posts which relieved the BAS men of a somewhat onerous task, bearing in mind their supposedly non-combatant status.

Daybreak on March 25 revealed the Bahia Paraiso at anchor in Stromness Bay. Although the Marines on Jason Peak could see the ship, restricted vision into Leith itself led Lieutenant Mills to move the next day to Grass Island, deep inside the bay, but continuing poor visibility dictated another move. Mills and his Sergeant-Major, Peter Leach, decided on a close target reconnaissance so were landed by BAS launch at the foot of the Olsen Valley. Checking that the abandoned whaling stations were empty, Mills and Leach crept silently through the freezing rain to a rocky outcrop on Harbour Point, some 600 meters from the buildings at Leith. From here by March 27 they could see stores being unloaded and the Argentine marines moving about on the jetty. At the same time, Captain Nick Barker of Endurance decided to see things at Leith for himself and Lieutenant-Commander Tony Ellerbeck and the observer Lieutenant Wells flew him over Olsen Valley to Tonsberg Point where they could see into Leith. Meeting up with Lieutenant Mills and Sergeant-Major Leach, the party spotted Alouette 0699 which was being flown by Teniente Remo Busson who had orders to search for Endurance. When a report came in that Endurance’s Wasp had been spotted, Busson took Capitan Trombetta for a closer look. Having made a low-level pass over the five Britons, Busson brought the Alouette into a hover above them, whilst Trombetta gave Barker a two-fingered gesture! Clearly both sides were now fully aware of the presence of the other and the British surveillance team accordingly moved to Busen Peninsula.

This shot (above), taken in 1983, shows King Edward Point in the distance to the left of the abandoned whaler. This is the view south-eastwards from Grytviken jetty. Shackleton House is the large grey, red-roofed building to the left of the cluster of buildings — the grass plateau to its left is the main RM defensive position on April 3. Shackleton House (sometimes marked on maps as Discovery House) was built by the Falkland Islands Company for its staff to service the whaling industry at nearby Grytviken but no sooner was it completed than shore-based whaling was discontinued in 1964! It was taken over by the Falkland Islands Development Survey (which became the British Antarctic Survey) in return for the FIDS representative being responsible for all the administrative functions of the Dependency — magistrate, harbour-master, customs officer, immigration officer, etc. This was where Steve Martin and his BAS scientists were based. The buildings in Grytviken itself were largely uninhabitable, save for the church (below) which originally stood in Stromwen, Norway, before being moved to South Georgia in 1913.

At the end of March, Captain Nick Barker was ordered back to Stanley. This he planned to do at night, without lights or radar switched on, to avoid detection by Bahia Paraiso and Guerrico, which he knew were searching for Endurance. The picture (above) was taken as Nick left, and Bill Hurst, right, plot their course in Endurance’s chart room and was actually taken during the event as it unfolded. As soon as Captain Barker received word of the Argentine invasion at Stanley, he turned about to assist Lieutenant Mills and his party of Marines at Grytviken. En route, the Endurance’s 20mm Oerlikon guns were uncovered (above) and her distinctive red Wasp helicopters painted black to make them less visible(below). Here, XS539, coded 435, receives her warpaint — she is now a training airframe at RNAY Fleetlands Apprentice School.

On March 28 the two Argentine helicopters busied themselves offloading marines after which the Bahia Paraiso left Leith. Captain Barker decided to try to keep her under observation and put to sea the next day in an effort to find the Argentine vessel which he spotted towards the end of the day, some 15 miles northeast of Cumberland Bay. London impressed upon Barker the need to keep his ship out of Argentine hands and he eventually returned to Grytviken, until he was ordered back to Stanley at best speed on March 31. London’s assessment of the evidence coming out of Argentina indicated an invasion of the Falklands was imminent and that the troops already in theatre would need whatever naval reinforcements were to hand. Before he left, Barker was ordered to land the balance of Lieutenant Mills’ Royal Marines to give some measure of protection to the BAS personnel.

The chain of