Falklands War (1982). The Falkland Islands had been under British control since 1833, but Argentina had become increasingly anxious to acquire them. On 19 March 1982 a group of Argentine scrap metal merchants landed on South Georgia without permission, and this was followed on 2 April by full invasion. The Foreign Office was caught largely unawares and Lord Carrington described the invasion as a ‘great national humiliation’. The British government acted swiftly, assembling a task force consisting of 10,000 troops and 44 warships with auxiliary and aircraft support. It was dispatched 8,000 miles to the south Atlantic, using Ascension Island as a forward base.

The USA, anxious to retain good relations with both countries, tried to mediate through Secretary of State Alexander Haig but to no avail. On 25 April marines recaptured South Georgia. On 2 May the Argentine battleship General Belgrano was sunk by a British submarine with large loss of life and two days later the British destroyer HMS Sheffield was hit by an Exocet missile and sunk.

British troops, under aerial attack, landed on the Falklands at San Carlos on 21 May and established a bridgehead. After fierce fighting the settlements at Darwin and Goose Green were retaken and the capital, Stanley, came under fire. On 14 June the Argentine garrisons surrendered. The war cost the lives of 236 British and 750 Argentine soldiers. It was the turning-point in the fortunes of the Thatcher Conservative government, but in Argentina, General Galtieri's military junta fell from power a year later.

Richard A. Smith