War In The Falklands

Although the ‘Reagan-Thatcher axis’ would be the most enduring personal alliance in the western world throughout the 1980s, Britain entered the Falklands alone. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was bent upon defending the 1,800 islanders, people of British ‘tradition and stock’ who were now controlled by a foreign power. She dismissed advice from officials like Defence Secretary John Nott, who believed that Britain’s largest remaining colony could not be re-taken. She assembled a task force in order to fight a war 8,000 miles from Britain’s shores. On 5 April the first battle ships and aircraft carriers set sail. Americans diplomats watched with interest, believing their militarily inferior ally would quickly lose.

The fate of Thatcher’s task force was touch and go. If one of the aircraft carriers had been knocked out, or if the Argentine's had effectively opposed the amphibious landing at San Carlos, Britain’s attempt to recapture her long-faded imperial ‘glory’ would have been doomed. Furthermore, if the British Army had not managed to fight their way through the mountains that protected Stanley so rapidly, hundreds of people would have frozen to death in the snow.

We hear from an Argentine fighter who attempted to repel an SAS platoon bent on blowing up all the aircraft on his runway, and the Falklands police chief. This man disappeared into the mountains when the Argentines invaded, only to emerge when the British troops arrived. He was later made an honorary Paratrooper for guiding them through the minefields.