Battle of the Falkland Islands, 1982
by "Napoleon"
napoleon@voyager.net
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Battle of the Falkland Islands, 1982
by "Napoleon"
napoleon@voyager.net
In early 1982, the junta ruling Argentina found it convenient for domestic political reasons to have a foreign victory and enemy. As Argentine newspaper, La Prensa had reported, “The only thing which can save this government is a war.” At the time, Britain had taken a number of budget-cutting steps which the junta mis-construed to mean that Britain would not contest a take-over of the Falkland Islands, to which Argentina had laid claim for many years, calling them the Malvinas.
On April 2, Argentina captured the Falklands from the garrison of under one hundred royal
marines. This presented the British government with its opportunity for reaping domestic
benefits from a foreign victory and enemy. The British government quickly decided to
send a fleet-supported counter-invasion force, accepting combat 8,000 miles from Britain
and only several hundred miles from Argentina. Key ships that sailed with the fleet
included aircraft carriers Hermes (50p stamp) and Invincible. Other key ships were the
P&O passenger liner Canberra serving as a troopship (13p stamp, white ship; ship in
foreground is the MV Norland, harbor is San Carlos). The passenger liner Queen
Elizabeth II sailed later with more infantry.
Several ship names recalled previous battles associated with the Falklands. One of the
modern air defense ships was the Type 42 destroyer Glasgow, whose namesake had been
involved in the 1914 Battle of the Falkland Islands. The 1982 carrier Invincible had
a predecessor battle cruiser with the same name present at the 1914 battle. The Hermes
had a 1939 namesake carrier involved in the search for (although not the sinking of) the
German battleship Graf Spee, later sunk in the River Plate. Finally, another Type 42
destroyer was the Exeter, whose namesake was badly damaged in the 1939 Battle of the
River Plate and retired from the battle to make repairs at Port Stanley. Thus the
Falklands had been interwoven with sea battles over much of the twentieth century,
although previously not as an object of the conflict.
As seems typical of extemporized military ventures, the British campaign was a near-run thing. Four destroyers and frigates were sunk, two by Exocet missiles--a fact that Hastings and Jenkins suggests quickly increased the Exocet value on the military hardware market. On June 14, 1982, the Argentine garrison in the Falklands surrendered. Argentina had been beaten at sea (including sinking the heavy cruiser General Belgrano by British nuclear submarine Conqueror), in the air (by RAF and naval Harriers flown from the two aircraft carriers; an RAF Harrier is shown on the 17p stamp), and on the ground by an assortment of British infantry (shown on the 5p stamp). One of the ground assault highlights was 450 paratroopers capturing Goose Green from more than 1,250 Argentine soldiers and another was the march from San Carlos to Port Stanley, a march made more difficult by the loss of helicopters when an Argentine Exocet sank the merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor with its load of helicopters (and all the tents for the land forces).
While militarily and emotionally satisfying for Britain, restitution of the status quo ante bellum did nothing to resolve the basic problem of sovereignty over the islands. They still had a small population economically and emotionally tied to Britain 8,000 miles away while Argentina was only hundreds of miles away and a much more logical trading partner.
1. W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 1983