Fight for Falklands Freedom E-Book

Harold Briley

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 265

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

'Journalists are said to write the first rough drafts of history. But I was only the messenger.' When Argentine troops surged onto the shores of the Falkland Islands, it was Harold Briley who broke the news to Britain and the rest of the world. As the BBC World Service's Latin America Correspondent, he was perfectly placed both metaphorically and physically: not only was he reporting from his base in Buenos Aires, but he had first-hand knowledge of the countries, their politics and their cultures. In Fight for Falklands Freedom: Reporting Live from Argentina and the Islands, Briley returns to the Islands to tell the full story in a breathless play-by-play account. Drawing on hundreds of his own reports, as well as interviews with political and military leaders from both sides, this is a fascinating insight into what happened, when it happened – and why.

Leseprobe

No one in Buenos Aires had a more helpful attitude to the Islanders than Harold Briley. He did a terrific job keeping up morale. The Falkland Islands expressed their appreciation with a huge banner saying ‘God Bless you, Harold!’

Sir Rex Hunt, Falklands Governor, 1982

Harold Briley is one of the best and wisest correspondents – very sound on the Falklands.

Lord Shackleton, pioneer of Falklands post-war prosperity

Harold Briley in every corner of the world has been one of the best Correspondents I have ever met and the most well-informed. In good times and in bad, we never had a bad word.

Lord Carrington, who resigned as Foreign Secretary

Your voice from Buenos Aires loomed large to us at Ten Downing Street.

Hugh Colver (Ministry of Defence PublicRelations Chief and aide to Prime Minister)

Thanks to Harold Briley from all of us in the Armed Services for his support and perceptive reporting.

General Sir Peter de la Billière (UK Commandant of SAS duringFalklands War)

To our Man in Buenos Aires. Thank you for keeping our end up.

Admiral of the Fleet Lord Lewin (Chief of Defence Staff, 1982)

Harold Briley’s Falklands war coverage was one of the most extended pieces of sustained stamina of any correspondent on any story.

Sir John Tusa (Director, BBC World Service)

There was continuous praise here for the BBC’s magnificent coverage … the only reliable news media. Special thanks to Harold Briley. He was outstanding.

1982 Telegram from Islanders leaders, signed Harold Rowlands(Chief Government Official)

Your Newsletters were a source of great comfort to us in our darkest days during Argentine occupation.

Falkland Islands Association Committee, Stanley

Your heartening reports from enemy territory did a lot to boost the morale of the Falkland Islanders. We will never forget you.

Falkland Islands Club

This book is dedicated to the Falkland Islandersand to the British Armed Forces whosecourage and sacrifice liberated them.

The author will make a donation for every copy sold to researchby forces’ charities into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)from which many Falklands and other veterans suffer.

First published 2022

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Harold Briley, 2022

The right of Harold Briley to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-8039-9089-7

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Foreword by Sir John Tusa

Introduction

SECTION ONE: PATH TO WAR

1 Dateline Buenos Aires

2 Argentina in Meltdown

3 Downcast Defence Secretary, Upbeat Admiral

4 Argentina’s 1983 Deadline

5 Countdown to Conflict

6 Secret Argentine Landings, UK Arms Sales

7 Duplicitous Diplomacy, Deliberate Deceit

8 Islanders Rebuff Unrepentant Minister

9 Invasion Speculation Rife

10 Falklands Calm, Argentine Mayhem

11 New Junta Updates Invasion Plan

SECTION TWO: WAR AT SEA, IN THE AIR, ON LAND

12 South Georgia Ignites Invasion Fuse

13 Diplomacy Fails to Avert War

14 Falklands War a Mistake

15Belgrano Sunk, Heavy Loss of Life

16 Enter Exocet, Exit HMS Sheffield

17 Epic Long-Range Bomber Raids

18 British Back on Falklands

19 Warships Blasted in ‘Bomb Alley’

20 Battle of Goose Green, Death of a Hero

21 Goose Green: Crucial Turning Point

22 Troopships Bombed, Many Casualties

23 Mountain Strongholds Fall, Sudden Surrender

24 The Red and Green Life Machine

25 Islanders at War

26 Imprisoned in Community Halls

27 Islanders Fight Back

28 Going Home

29 Chile Invasion Averted

30 Who was to Blame for Falklands Conflict?

31 Invasion Warnings Ignored

SECTION THREE: THE MEDIA AND THE WAR OF WORDS

32 Riveting Radio Commentary

33 Challenge to Media

34 Propaganda Failures

35 BBC’s Unique Role

36 Meeting the Islanders

SECTION FOUR: 1982–2022 RECOVERY AND AFTERMATH

37 Fortress Falklands – or is it?

38 Oil in Troubled Waters

39 The Modern Falklands

40 New Generation in Key Roles

41 The Modern Argentina

42 Anglo-Argentine Dilemmas

43 Supping with the Devil

44 The Disappeared Who Won’t Go Away

SECTION FIVE: EARLY HISTORY, ORIGINS OF DISPUTE

45 Discovery and Settlement

46 Bygone Battles 

Appendix 1: Exclusive Interview with ArgentineForeign Minister, Dr Costa Mendez

Appendix 2: History Date Milestones

Acknowledgements and Bibliography

About the Author

FOREWORD

By Sir John Tusa, former Director of BBC World Service.

This book is a comprehensive account of the 1982 Falklands Conflict, not just the fighting but all the events influencing the dispute – political, diplomatic and historical, from its origins centuries ago to the present day. Front-line reports give eyewitness descriptions of what happened and the far-reaching consequences for Britain, Argentina and the Falkland Islands.

The author and his colleagues won widespread acclaim, which countered criticism of some BBC broadcasts from the Prime Minister and military commanders for disclosing troop and ship deployments. The BBC repudiated these criticisms, defending its hard-won commitment to give accurate accounts of events, however unpalatable. The book reveals both British and Argentine sources crediting BBC reports of British advances persuading Argentine commanders to surrender, thus shortening the war and saving lives.

BBC World Service radio overcame communication obstacles to reach where other media could not. These were ‘truly the first drafts of history’. The Islanders sent many messages of thanks to the BBC and to Harold Briley for reports which kept them informed and boosted morale.

He was uniquely qualified to communicate with them in a personal way, having visited the Islands the year before the invasion, forging lasting friendships in scattered farm communities.

I paid him this tribute: ‘Harold Briley’s Falklands war coverage was one of the most extended pieces of sustained stamina of any correspondent on any story.’

For four years, he reported events in a vast area of 8 million square miles from Mexico to the Antarctic through twenty-five countries, most of them hostile military regimes.

His reports brought death threats from Argentine hit squads who kidnapped and killed 120 journalists and arrested others. He was forced to quit Argentina for a time but defied the death threats to return to Buenos Aires to broadcast globally the first news of the invasion, followed by hundreds more during and after the conflict.

He was in the right place at the right time. Foresight, as well as courage and stamina, is the hallmark of a good foreign correspondent.

If luck matters too, a good correspondent makes his own. Harold Briley certainly did – and deserved it.

John Tusa

(Explanatory note: War was never officially declared by Argentina or the United Kingdom. So, it was called a ‘conflict’. But, by any other name, it was war, deploying all the weapons of war: shot and shell, artillery and aircraft, ship and submarine, tanks and troops, bomb and bayonet, mortar, missile and mine.)

INTRODUCTION

SETTING THE SCENE – CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES – PAST AND PRESENT

The Full Story: Invasion, History, People, Politics.

It began with a surprise dawn invasion on 2 April 1982, shattering the peace of a neglected British colony, the Falkland Islands – an isolated cluster of islands 8,000 miles away in the South Atlantic and only 300 miles from Argentina. A population of 1,800 had been engaged in sheep farming for more than a century in a penguin paradise that was teeming with wildlife. Having visited them fifteen months earlier, I feared for their safety when they were inundated by an Argentine armada of ships, warplanes and 10,000 troops.

Years of negotiations with the United Kingdom for transfer of sovereignty were abruptly halted by a desperate dictatorship acting to stall its downfall by rebellion by a population protesting against corruption, economic hardship and brutal repression. But its attempt to unite the nation by satisfying a long-cherished ambition to possess the Islands failed. The UK sent a powerful navy-led task force to recapture the Islands.

Appeasement of Argentina by Britain deliberately left them defenceless. The UK continued selling deadly weapons to the enemy for which they never paid! The UK contemplated betraying the Islanders to a cruel regime, telling them they would be ‘better off’ as part of Argentina! Thirty years earlier, Winston Churchill had acted decisively to deter Argentine ambition.

Margaret Thatcher told me on a visit to the Falkland Islands that the invasion came as a complete surprise. Yet the government’s military intelligence services warned of the Argentine threat many times over several years. Argentina even publicly announced – and told me in advance – that its deadline was January 1983 to gain possession.

The Prime Minister said the worst decision in her life was to send men to war knowing some of them would be killed. She took the risky decision solely on the judgement of one man: the Head of the Navy, Admiral Sir Henry Leach, whose foresight had his ships ready to sail. Margaret Thatcher’s political career was saved by the Admiral’s military acumen.

A war of words, not just of weapons, weaved a web of lies, distortion, diplomatic deception, and even an allegation accusing the British Ambassador in Buenos Aires of helping the enemy because he favoured Argentina.

The invasion forced a reversal of UK policy, in future to pledge total support for the Islands’ defence, development and determination to remain British.

The intriguing question persists: what if …?

If Argentina had won, the dictatorship would have survived and triggered another war by invading Chile. The dictators would have escaped lifetime jail sentences for human rights atrocities. The Falkland Islanders would have emigrated, mostly to New Zealand. And the Thatcher government would have been brought down.

Nearly 1,000 people killed in the conflict would have died in vain. They, above all, were the losers.

Who were the winners? The British armed forces, for their determination and courage. And the Falkland Islanders, who have since built a dynamic, democratic country, energised by a highly educated post-conflict generation occupying key roles in government and commerce.

The Falklands saga reads like far-fetched fiction. But it is realistic fact, which this book clarifies, telling the story word by word of what happened as it happened, from the author’s own on-the-spot experience, supplemented by secret documents since declassified.

The seventy-four-day conflict did not end one of the longest sovereignty disputes in history. Forty years on, Argentina continues to intensify its claim. And the United Kingdom emphatically rejects it.

In the six months leading up to the 40th anniversary, Argentina was again in political crisis, the UK updated its progress on building a stronger navy, and the Falklands government revealed far-reaching plans for economic development – a very different scenario from 1982.

Harold Briley, 2021

SECTION ONE:PATH TO WAR

1

DATELINE BUENOS AIRES

Foreign Office tells Governor, ‘Make your dispositions accordingly!’

Invasion came suddenly at first light, spearheaded by special forces. As they splashed ashore from landing craft, I was in Buenos Aires broadcasting first news of the invasion on the BBC World Service to a global audience, most of whom had never heard of the Falkland Islands. Newsflashes from Reuters and other international agencies were dropping on editors’ desks worldwide.

Here’s what I broadcast at this dramatic moment:

BBC despatch, Argentine Invasion: Falklands 02/04/1982, 0600 GMT

CUE: Argentina’s threatened invasion of the British Colony, the Falkland Islands, is reported to be under way. A fleet headed by Argentina’s flagship Veintecinco de Mayo (25th of May) was reported to be heading the invasion assault in which thousands of troops and aircraft were taking part. Official confirmation was expected from the President, General Leopoldo Galtieri, in a nationwide television and radio broadcast. From Buenos Aires, a report by BBC Latin America Correspondent Harold Briley.

‘The assault on the islands was timed to begin at first light with a commando raid to take possession of the airport just outside the capital, Port Stanley. The plan was to pour thousands of troops ashore and swiftly secure the islands, inhabited by eighteen hundred British people. Some reports say troops have landed and are advancing from the airport but there is no official confirmation. A token force of about eighty British marines commanded by a major was braced to fight back but with little chance against such heavy odds. The invasion fleet was said to number several ships, the aircraft carrier, several destroyers and corvettes, and submarines.

‘The only British navy ship in the area, patrolling off the Falklands dependency of South Georgia, a thousand miles south-east of the main islands, was the ice patrol vessel Endurance, armed with only two light guns and two helicopters. But a powerful British fleet was said to have put to sea, headed by Britain’s newest aircraft carrier, Invincible, but with a long way to go.

‘The fateful decision to go ahead with the threatened invasion first came soon after midnight with an Argentine news agency report. It said the invasion force was on the way and that the Army Chief of Operations, General Mario Menéndez, has been named as Military Governor of the islands, with three other senior officers to help him.

‘The Argentine aircraft carrier was reported to have fifteen hundred assault troops on board, and many more, including airborne troops, had been mobilised in the southern ports of Rio Gallegos and Comodoro Rivadavia, facing the islands about three hundred miles away in the South Atlantic. The invasion was timed to take place before British naval reinforcements would arrive in a dash of several thousands of miles across the Atlantic from Europe. As dawn came here in Buenos Aires, the air was filled with the sound of military aircraft flying overhead.’

Harold Briley, BBC, Buenos Aires.

Journalists are said to write the first rough drafts of history. But I was only the messenger. The message had been written thirty years earlier in Argentina’s invasion plan, repeatedly updated since.

The Governor of the Falkland Islands, Rex Hunt, with communications to the outside world cut off, told me he listened to my broadcast crouched under a table in Government House, radio beside him and revolver in hand to repel Argentine intruders. ‘As I listened to you,’ he said, ‘Argentine troops arrived, shooting out all the windows in my conservatory.’ The Falklands were in the front line and on the front pages when much of the world never knew they existed.

The first intimation of invasion came in a Foreign Office cable to the Governor: ‘An Argentine task force will gather on Cape Pembroke (the approach to Port Stanley) early tomorrow morning, 2 April. You will wish to make your dispositions accordingly.’

The Governor’s communications officer, Brian Wells, tore the cable from the printer with the cheery remark, ‘They might have added “Goodbye – and the best of British [luck] …!”’

UK foreign policies had placed the Falkland Islands in a perilous predicament. Indecision and appeasement had prevented military reinforcement as ‘unjustifiable expense’. The irony is that the procrastination of the past would immeasurably multiply the cost for the future – £3.5 billion for the ten-week war and tens of millions every year since for recovery and defence.

As commander-in-chief as well as governor, Rex Hunt’s ‘dispositions’, as the Foreign Office disingenuously called them, were seventy-nine lightly armed Royal Marines, supported by the small part-time volunteer Falkland Islands Defence Force, civilians with a modicum of military training. Not much to repel a fast-approaching Argentine armada with 10,000 troops and armoured vehicles, supported by 200 warplanes massed on the mainland within striking range.

A second Foreign Office cable was no more helpful than the first: ‘We are aware of your plans for the defence of the Seat of Government and resistance to any incursion. The conduct of any operation, of course, is entirely a matter for you and the forces under your command. But is there any additional guidance you wish to have about specific rules of engagement?’

In simple language, it meant ‘you are on your own’. Rex Hunt called it ‘cautious diplomatic language’. Others would call it passing the buck. Foreign Office fantasy phraseology was an inadequate substitute for military might.

In Buenos Aires, intense military activity fuelled invasion fervour. I witnessed raucous rejoicing for a long-cherished ambition, at last achieved but short-lived. The Falkland Islanders, facing danger, desecration and an uncertain future, did not know then that their nightmare would herald a new dawn of development and prosperity.

I had made a fact-finding tour of the Falklands in 1981, getting to know the people and the lay of the land, giving my reports a personal factual basis. I even landed from the sea at San Carlos, where the task force landed fifteen months later to liberate the Islands. And I visited peaceful farm settlements which later became battlegrounds.

2

ARGENTINA IN MELTDOWN

Buenos Aires demonstrations. Galtieri – villain to hero. United Nations peace call.

Rex Hunt paid tribute to the British Ambassador to the United Nations, Sir Anthony Parsons, who had a more practical, persuasive way with words than the terse-tongued cable compilers at the Foreign Office in London. He convinced the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution calling on Argentina to withdraw its forces. I was in the Argentine Foreign Ministry where officials testily tossed the cable down for me to see. They were dismayed that the resolution was not vetoed by the Soviet Union, Argentina’s biggest trading partner, with which relations had grown greatly. Ministers believed they had lost the diplomatic initiative to Britain while securing their military objective.

In Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher’s husband, Dennis Thatcher, who prided himself on his geographical knowledge, asked, ‘Where are they?’ It was a fascinating footnote to momentous events. He reached for The Times Atlas of the World ‘to find out where the bloody hell they were!’ The Defence Secretary, John Nott, peered at a map to pinpoint the tiny dots in the South Atlantic, which his drastic cuts in naval strength had placed in mortal danger.

The fateful few days leading to invasion had been marked in London by ignorance then disbelief, and in Argentina by volatile changes of mood, which illustrated how the invasion changed sentiment towards the unpopular regime, and explains why the junta acted.

Four days previously, on Tuesday, 30 March, I witnessed violent public protest erupt into the biggest demonstration against the junta since the military seized power in 1976. Defying a ban on demonstrations, I joined thousands of protestors in Buenos Aires’ main square, the Plaza de Mayo, trying to storm the Presidential Palace. Inside, General Galtieri nervously sipped his favourite tipple, Scotch whisky, the only habit he had in common with Margaret Thatcher. Unknown to the hostile mob outside, he had already given the order for the invasion. His army, navy and air force were mobilising and on the move.

The demonstrators were driven back by tear gas, water cannon, rubber bullets, and helmeted riot police charging on horseback with flailing batons. Holding my small radio to my ears, I was surrounded by riot police, thrusting their guns into my back and stomach, accusing me of directing the rioters by walkie-talkie radio. No, I told them, I was just listening to the BBC Five O’Clock News! Their sweating faces registered menacing disbelief.

I escaped to the telephone exchange to file my despatch, choking from tear gas. No one at the BBC or elsewhere took much notice of the violence erupting in Argentina. It was a sideshow on the world stage.

The regime’s crackdown on rioters was swift – 2,000 arrests in Buenos Aires and hundreds more in provincial cities. Others were wounded by rubber bullets and real bullets. Many were beaten up. The military rulers reminded them that demonstrations were banned under emergency regulations. The demonstrators denounced it as brutal repression, in what one newspaper called ‘a day of rage’. Their cry was for justice and bread, an end to repression and human rights violations, and a return to democracy.

Two days later, the square was the venue for a different demonstration: the weekly Thursday gathering of the long-suffering human rights group ‘Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’, demanding to know the fate of their missing children, mostly teenagers, at the hands of the regime. For more than four decades, the Mothers have demonstrated in silence in a mood of profound sadness, mourning their children who had disappeared without trace, victims of the very juntas with whom successive British governments had been negotiating to hand over the Falkland Islanders.

Fast forward twenty-four hours to the morning of the invasion, and the atmosphere had completely changed. The square was thronged with 250,000 demonstrators yelling their praise of Galtieri, shouting, ‘Las Malvinas son Argentinas’ (‘The Falklands are Argentine’). It was an astonishing reversal of fortune for the junta, removing the threat of its immediate overthrow. The demonstrators threatened to beat me up. But the crowd formed a protective cordon around me, saying, ‘Leave him alone. This is our day of celebration.’

As the warm sunshine bathed the square in light, the tall, uniformed figure of Galtieri emerged onto the balcony of the pink presidential palace, the Casa Rosada, a balcony made famous by Eva Perón, ‘Evita’, the iconic wife of former military President Juan Domingo Perón, who had renewed the sovereignty claim during the Second World War when Argentina supported Nazi Germany.

Galtieri smiled broadly and held his arms wide as if to embrace the multitude below, basking in their adulation, as he boasted of his capture of the Islands and barked his defiance of Britain. The agony and the ecstasy of a fractured, tortured Argentina had been played out in those fateful four days. The faltering junta had saved itself briefly but had brought on its own demise.

In the next seventy-four days, the warm sunshine gave way to winter, as the savage South Atlantic storms swept up from the Antarctic. The atrocious weather would be a potent factor which almost scuppered the British task force in what its commander, Admiral Sir John ‘Sandy’ Woodward, and the land force commander, Major General Sir Jeremy Moore, called a ‘close-run thing’, echoing Wellington’s famous comment on the Battle of Waterloo the previous century.

Throughout the day of the invasion the British government waited in vain for official confirmation. The Governor had hastily scribbled down the simple message: ‘Invasion has started. Closing down.’ The cypher equipment to encode messages was thrown into the harbour. But the transmission failed as a result of a technical glitch as the Cable and Wireless radio link switched the receiving station in the United Kingdom to frustrate Argentine attempts to jam messages. Ironically, it jammed the Governor’s invasion message!

Thatcher promised Parliament that the Islands would be retrieved. ‘We cannot allow the democratic rights of the Islanders to be denied by the territorial ambitions of Argentina … There will be no change in sovereignty without their consent.’

The Prime Minister who had once famously boasted ‘the Lady is not for turning’ (on her policies) had performed a complete U-turn. Only days earlier, her government was ready to hand over the Islands to one of the most brutal regimes in Latin America.

Thatcher said that if this kind of force was allowed to succeed, there would be many other examples the world over. Someone, some country, had to say, ‘Stop.’

The Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, a man of principle, resigned, taking the blame for diplomatic failure, along with his two deputy ministers, Humphrey Atkins and Richard Luce. Lord Carrington’s distinguished political career was over, having first been a minister in Churchill’s post-war government. Fittingly, for a wartime officer decorated for gallantry, he became NATO Secretary General during the climax of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. He died in 2018, aged 99, widely respected for his integrity.

The small Royal Marines Falklands contingent resisted bravely, killing several Argentine invaders, but were ordered by the Governor to surrender to avoid bloodshed. The Argentines consolidated their occupation, pouring in troops, and occupied South Georgia 800 miles to the south-east, overcoming fierce resistance from a dozen Royal Marines landed from HMS Endurance. They killed three Argentine marines, destroyed a helicopter, and damaged a corvette.

The British diplomats flew out of Argentina, and there was an exodus of some Anglo-Argentine families from one of the biggest expatriate English and Welsh communities in the world, with descendants numbering about 250,000, many with dual nationality.

3

DOWNCAST DEFENCE SECRETARY, UPBEAT ADMIRAL

Intelligence warnings ignored. Ill-timed navy cuts. Action-man Admiral puts steel into Iron Lady. Task force sails.

The defeatist advice of Defence Secretary, John Nott, was that it was impossible to retake the Islands, faced with daunting logistics and Argentina’s geographical advantage.

The hero of the hour suddenly appeared to reassure Margaret Thatcher – the First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sir Henry Leach. A veteran of Second World War sea battles, he swept aside Nott’s pessimistic portents and promised he could despatch a task force within two or three days to recapture the Islands. Ironically, John Nott had previously come close to sacking Admiral Leach for opposing Nott’s 1981 navy cutbacks, which signalled the end of the task force concept of projecting power with a global reach. The cuts would slash the frigate fleet from fifty-nine to fifty and scrap other warships. Fortunately for Britain, these had not yet gone ahead. Britain’s only ice patrol vessel, HMS Endurance, destined to be scrapped in March only days before the invasion, was on her last patrol in the South Atlantic, and two aircraft carriers, which had already been sold abroad, HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible, had not yet been delivered. All three ships were invaluable in winning the war. Though kept secret at the time, Invincible was hampered by engine breakdown.

Margaret Thatcher asked whether the task force could reach the Falklands in three days. ‘No,’ Admiral Leach told her. ‘Three weeks. The distance is 8,000 nautical miles.’ And would it be led by the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal? she asked. ‘No,’ replied Admiral Leach. The government had temporarily taken her out of service!

Nott was sceptical about the viability of such a risky operation. But Thatcher was convinced: ‘Henry Leach had shown that if it came to a fight, the courage and professionalism of Britain’s armed forces would win through.’ Admiral Leach said: ‘Faced with a crisis, we had a Prime Minister with courage, decision and action to match it.’

Sir Henry urged that they should not ‘pussyfoot’ with half-hearted measures but send ‘every element of the fleet of any possible value. What is the use of a navy if you don’t use it?’ An armada of 199 ships and 20,000 men sailed south.

Admiral Leach was a man of action but few words in the Nelsonian tradition. His directive to go into battle had only nine words: ‘The Fleet is to be made ready and sailed.’ In his Northwood headquarters near London, the Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet, Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, who was to oversee the whole campaign, codenamed Operation Corporate, asked for more time to prepare. Admiral Leach replied, ‘No!’ His prescience and professional preparedness made up for the politicians’ prevarication. It was his last major act of a distinguished career. He died in 2011, aged 88, the unsung hero of the war.

The Prime Minister rejected a face-saving negotiation proposed by the Labour Party’s leader, Michael Foot, to withdraw the fleet to avoid war. She had very little sleep but remarkable stamina as she presided over the War Cabinet, making life-and-death decisions. She emerged a heroine and won the next general election in 1983, her popularity restored by the ‘Falklands factor’.

The real heroes were the task force and the Islanders. The military campaign which trumped Galtieri’s failed gamble succeeded against all the odds and appalling winter weather. The resolve and courage of the armed forces, led by outstanding commanders, reversed flawed political policy and procrastination, naïve navy cutbacks, and dubious diplomacy.

4

ARGENTINA’S 1983 DEADLINE

Argentine deadline puzzles Thatcher. Prime Minister and Defence Secretary ‘culpable’.

The junta occupied the Falklands in the year they had vowed to do so, before its publicly-declared deadline, January 1983. This marked the 150th anniversary of what they describe as ‘the expulsion of an Argentine population from the Islands’ in 1833 by a British naval captain, who had been sent there to restore order. Argentina’s inaccurate account of this incident festered in Argentine minds for 150 years, sowing the seeds of the dispute.

New research on this historically significant event rejects the Argentine account as untrue and discredits its sovereignty claim. The British captain did not expel a resident Argentine population, but only a mutinous garrison that had murdered its own commanders.

The invasion may not have been such a surprise if British governments had read the history books and heeded warnings from their own intelligence service over several years. Instead, they engaged in years of ineffectual negotiations and appeasement policies to hand over the Falkland Islands voluntarily.

The Argentine junta acted impulsively in a mood of opportunism to avert its own imminent collapse amid violent domestic dissent, economic failure, corruption and repression. The junta cynically turned its population’s anger into support for precipitate implementation of a nationalistic ambition to acquire ‘Las Malvinas’, their name for the Falkland Islands. It was an obsession nurtured by 150 years of falsehoods and distortion, still propagated today in schools and in its modern multimillion-dollar ‘Malvinas Museum’, to which thousands of pupils are taken by bus every week. Argentina lost the war but never ceased its unremitting propaganda campaign.

5

COUNTDOWN TO CONFLICT

Scrapping Falklands guard ship sends wrong signal.

For years, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had refused to send reinforcements to the Falklands. The MoD said it would be a ‘practical nonsense to attempt serious operations against a perfectly competent and well-equipped local opponent off the toe of South America’. It was costly advice which the Royal Navy would prove to be wrong.

Lord Carrington opposed the Defence Secretary’s decision to axe HMS Endurance, the designated Falklands guard ship and the navy’s only strengthened ice patrol vessel. Carrington thought it was ‘the wrong signal’, suggesting lack of commitment to defend the Falklands.

Nott argued that Endurance (launched in 1962) was old and expensive to maintain with no defensive role. Thatcher backed him, saying the ship had limited military capability. Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, as detailed in Freedman’s history, later criticised her as being ‘either ignorant of the ship’s political significance or chose to ignore it’. In fact, Endurance was equipped with sixteen missiles, two helicopters, two deck guns, and sophisticated listening devices manned by Spanish-speaking technicians, to intercept Argentine intelligence signals twenty-four hours a day, a vital asset in the run-up to the invasion.

Endurance maintained the UK’s presence in the Antarctic, affectionately known to scientists of all nations there as ‘the Red Plum’ with her red-painted hull colourfully contrasting with the white ice environment. Only six weeks before the invasion, Lord Carrington unsuccessfully urged Nott to change his mind. However, Nott was dissuaded from disposing of two troop-carrying ships, Intrepid and Fearless, which were indispensable in the conflict to come.

James Callaghan, who served in the Royal Navy in the Second World War, warned that the withdrawal of Endurance