Dan Snow's History Hit - Falklands40: What Started the Falklands War?

Episode Date: April 2, 2022

On April 2nd 1982 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared war against Argentina over the Falkland Islands in the Southern Atlantic. To make sense of the conflict on its 40th anniversary, the... podcast is bringing you a special season of episodes marking the key moments of the war with the help of experts, veterans, islanders and more.This first episode is Falklands 101: Dan gives a potted history of the rocky archipelago and is joined by military historian and friend of the podcast Dr Peter Johnston who runs through the who, the what and the why of the Falklands War.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Britain has the responsibility towards the islanders to restore their democratic way of life. She has a duty to the whole world to show that aggression will not succeed and to uphold the cause of freedom. Yeah! Hey everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History at 40 years ago. For 10 weeks in the spring of 1982, a sparsely populated string of islands, hundreds of miles east of South America, dominated headlines around the world. In a chapter of global history that sort of represents really one of the last ghasts of a shrinking British empire. The UK, beset at home by unemployment, polarisation and economic stagnation, battled the nation of Argentina for control of these islands.
Starting point is 00:00:58 The Falklands War, as the 74-day conflict came to be known, may seem, well, small and insignificant compared to the Second World War, Korea. But in fact, I think it did have a huge influence on the subsequent trajectory of the UK. And the UK's success in South America cemented Conservative Party Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's hold on power. She won a huge election victory just after the war, and it rallied the nation behind a common cause, protecting one of the last vestiges of its once mighty empire. So this year is the 40th anniversary, and over the next three months we'll be bringing you episodes to mark those key moments. There's going to be
Starting point is 00:01:36 some explainers from me, interviews with historians, analysis from experts, memories from veterans on both sides, and insight from Falkland Islanders themselves. So if you know absolutely nothing about the Falklands War, or if it's an area of particular interest, I can guarantee this series is for you. In the meantime, folks, let's get stuck in and work out why the Falklands War came to be. So everyone, let's go all the way back. Why not? The Falkland Islands, the Argentinians call them the Islas Malvinas, are a remote South Atlantic archipelago. I've been there. They are ruggedly beautiful. The wind blows constantly. Imagine the Western Isles in Scotland,
Starting point is 00:02:19 but then thousands and thousands of miles away. That's a little bit what it's like. With penguins. There's rugged terrain. There are cliff-lined coasts. The hundreds of islands are home to sheep farms and lots and lots of bird life. The capital, Stanley, sits on East Falkland, which is the largest island where the lion's share of the fighting took place.
Starting point is 00:02:42 There is debate on who got the Falklands first. It's perfectly possible that during the Ice Age the Falkland Islands may have been joined to the mainland of South America, so Amerindians from Patagonia could have visited the Falkland Islands. Amazing recent discoveries of arrowheads and Lephonia on the southern half of East Falkland, as well as remains of a wooden canoe, provide evidence that in fact the Yaghan people of Sierra del Fuego may have made the journey to these islands, fascinatingly. But they were uninhabited when they were discovered by Europeans. The first person that we think spotted the islands was John Davis, an Englishman in 1592,
Starting point is 00:03:21 who was in the ship Desire. But then the Dutchman, Siebold van de Witt, made the first undisputed sighting of them around 1600. Typically, people saw them on their way into the Pacific, the rich hunting grounds of the Spanish Empire in the Pacific. John Strong, an English captain, made the first recorded landing there in 1690, and he named the sound between the two islands after Viscount Falkland, a British naval official. The name was later applied to the whole island group. An archipelago in the region of the Falkland Islands, so probably them, started to appear on Portuguese maps from the early 16th century. The French navigator Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, who was at the fall of Quebec,
Starting point is 00:04:03 but that's not important, founded the island's first settlement on East Falkland in 1764. He named the islands the Malovines. The British in 1765, a year later, were the first to settle West Falkland, but they were driven off by the Spanish, I hope you're all paying attention to this, who had bought out the French settlement around 1767. The British outpost on West Falkland was restored in 1771, and then they withdrew in 1774 for economic reasons, but never renounced their claim on the Falklands. Spain maintained a settlement on East Falkland, which it called Soledad Island, until 1811. Now bear in mind, Spain is the colonial power for much of South America at this time. So in 1820, when Buenos Aires, when Argentina effectively breaks away, declares
Starting point is 00:04:52 independence from Spain, Buenos Aires sought to maintain the Spanish claim to the Falklands. It proclaimed its sovereignty over the Falklands. And now you're starting to see where all the trouble begins. So much like the rest of the world in the long 18th century, bits of earth are being claimed and contested by European colonial powers. So far, nothing much unusual here. It's the longevity of that conflict, the longevity of that claim, the obstinacy of the Argentinians that has made this rather unique. Bear in mind folks there was a Argentinian settlement on East Falkland. It was destroyed by an American ship the Lexington in response to the confiscation of three US ships that had been hunting seals in the area and in 1833 the British followed up on that by expelling the few remaining Argentine
Starting point is 00:05:43 officials without firing a shot. Richard Clement Moody, who was a royal engineer, was appointed as lieutenant governor of the islands, and Moody left England for the Falklands on the 1st of October 1841. He arrived the following year. He was instructed by Lord Stanley, the British Secretary of State for War and Colonies, to report on the building a new capital. Moody gave the job of surveyor to Captain Ross, interestingly, who was leader of the Antarctica expedition, hence the Ross ice shelf down in Antarctica. Captain Ross delivered his report. He said the place called Port William offered a deep water anchorage for naval vessels that's well protected from the winds and the
Starting point is 00:06:20 storms, and the southern shores of so-called Port Jackson, on the very eastern tip of East Falkland, was a suitable location for a proposed settlement. Moody started building this in July 1843 and it was named Port Stanley after his mentor, Lord Stanley, the man who sent him there. Clever bit of managing up there. Not everyone was enthused about the new location of the capital. One visitor famously remarked that of all the miserable bog holes, I believe that Mr Moody has selected one of the worst for the site of his town. With the establishment of that deep water anchorage and improvement at port facilities, Stanley saw a dramatic increase in the number of visiting ships.
Starting point is 00:06:57 In the 1840s, it was a very useful stopping off, a waypoint for the California Gold Rush. Bear in mind, of course course that is before the great transcontinental railway carried settlers from east to west in the USA and they had to take ships all the way around to get to California all the way around Cape Horn and up the western side of the Americas. There was a boom in ship provisioning and ship repair as a result. It helps that ships need repairing because they usually got battered in the southern Atlantic and the rounding of Cape Horn. So Stanley and the Falkland Islands generally are famous as a repository for many wrecks. 19th century ships that maybe limped into the islands but were then condemned as unseaworthy, not worth repairing. They were then often employed as
Starting point is 00:07:41 floating warehouses by local merchants. At that time, briefly, Stanley became one of the world's busiest ports. But as shipbuilding improved, ships were able to travel faster, further, and there were less so-called coffin ships, unseaworthy vessels, that needed places like Stanley to make repairs. Less and less ships called there. And after the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, Stanley was hardly viable at all. Port Stanley was kept going by the whaling, the sealing in the early part of the 20th century, and British warships and the men they carried on them in the First and Second World Wars. More recently, it's been fishing and cruise ships that have kept the place going. It wasn't just the ports. The British established themselves right across the
Starting point is 00:08:31 islands. Settlements were started. Many of them initially were cattle stations. They were farms. The cheviot breed of sheep were introduced to the islands in 1852 and sheep farming became the dominant form of agriculture. By 1885, there was a British community of about 1800 people on the islands. It was self-supporting, but Argentina never gave up its claim to the islands. They regularly protested at Britain's so-called occupation. Even today, it feels like a very remote, very isolated place. The internet is still pretty 1990s, to be honest. But the islands were completely isolated until 1911, when Marconi installed a wireless telegraphy station
Starting point is 00:09:09 to enable telegrams to be sent to mainland Uruguay. During the First World War, the Falklands were briefly thrust onto the global stage when a German squadron of ships from the Pacific, built around the two powerful warships Scharnhorst and Eisenau attempted to capture the islands and the coal that was stored on them. They actually stumbled across very powerful British battlecruisers who steamed out of Stanley and fought a running battle. Nearly all the German ships were destroyed. In the Second World War, things were slightly less dramatic. The Falkland Islands Defence Force, sort of volunteers made up of local men of military age, were called out to man gun positions and
Starting point is 00:09:50 signalling posts, and they carried out mounted patrols and coastal watches to guard against the landing of enemy forces. Though many of the same kind of wartime privations experienced back in the UK, there were blackouts, travel restrictions, and rationing. The Falklands were safe from Hitler's gaze. After the Second World War, the issue of sovereignty of the Falkland shifted to the United Nations. In 1964, the islanders' status was debated by the UN Committee on Decolonisation. Argentina based its claims to the Falklands on Papal Bulls of 1493, modified by the Treaty of Torre de Silas of 1494. You'll remember the one. It's the one in which Spain and Portugal decided to divide up the New World between themselves. Portugal getting the islands of the Atlantic
Starting point is 00:10:39 and Brazil, while Spain took the rest of the Americas. Argentina insisted that it had inherited Spain's claim. Britain based its claim, slightly more prosaically, on the open, continuous, effective possession, occupation and administration of the islands since 1833. Longer, folks, let's not forget, longer than California has been American. And Britain was also determined to apply to the Falklanders the principle of self-determination, as recognised in the United Nations Charter. Britain asserted that far from ending a colonial situation, Argentine rule and the control of the lives of the Falklanders against their wishes would in fact create one. In 1965, the UN General
Starting point is 00:11:22 Assembly approved a very daring resolution inviting Britain and Argentina to hold discussions to find a peaceful solution to the dispute. These seemingly endless discussions were still rolling on by early 1982, but they came to a dramatic end. On April 2nd, Argentina's military government invaded the Falkland Islands. So there you go. That's two or three hundred years of history. Join me after the break as we make sense of the minutes and hours that led up to the declaration of war. What was Argentina thinking?
Starting point is 00:11:54 And how difficult was Thatcher's decision about how to respond? I'm talking to military historian, head of research at the RAF Museum, and friend of the podcast, Dr. Peter Johnston. More coming up. How can toilet training cows help save the planet? Should we start renting our clothes? And why on earth is Bez from the Happy Mondays now keeping bees? I'm Jimmy Doherty, TV presenter, farmer and conservationist.
Starting point is 00:12:28 And these are just a few of the questions we'll be answering on my new podcast on Jimmy's Farm from History Hit. Join me on the farm to hear from the likes of the founder of the Eden Project, Sir Tim Smit. It is only people who don't know what they're doing that can do marvellous things in some areas, people who don't know what they're doing that can do marvellous things in some areas because received wisdom will sometimes you'll talk yourself out of it if you've got lots of people who've done it before. Professor Dieter Helm on how to stop climate change. There may be all sorts of products like avocados and everything will have palm oil in it etc and these have not just long distances involved in it but they're not actually producing what could be produced on the land and the frame that it's set and my old friend jamie oliver i
Starting point is 00:13:13 think i was stupid enough naive enough and unspoiled enough about the world that we live in listen to on jimmy's Farm now wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium
Starting point is 00:13:43 in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you very much for coming on the pod. Not at all. Thank you so much for having me. So what's going on with Argentina? How is Argentina being run in the early 1980s? So what you've got to think about with Argentina is
Starting point is 00:14:20 this is a country that has been going through its own sort of period of social political change. It's been lurching violently from military dictatorship to military dictatorship. Obviously, there's a figure of Peron who's loomed large in this. He's been this huge charismatic figure who really had no great sort of allegiance to either politics on the left or politics on the right. He's sort of been typically described as a fascist. But one of Peron's great skills was to unite both these groups together. But there's always been this strong undercurrent of militarism that was with him. And that sort of is carried through. And then eventually that's given way to this full-blown military dictatorship, which by the time you get to the 1980s is continuing to
Starting point is 00:14:57 sort of play out. But the leadership of Argentina is this military junta who is composed and made up of sort of the different service chiefs, effectively. And at the time of the Falklands in 1982, it's led by Galtieri, Leopoldo Galtieri. He's an army man. He's actually been trained at West Point in the United States. The big reliance he's going to have in terms of launching the Falklands War is going to be on Admiral Anaya and the Navy. Obviously, it's a seaborne invasion. Therefore, you need the Navy. So Argentina itself is not a democracy at this stage. It is a military dictatorship. And yet in the wider context, the wider geopolitical context
Starting point is 00:15:30 of Latin America, it's sort of this right-wing bulwark against expanding communism, Marxism, socialism. And as such, it's therefore got particularly important allies in places like the United States, but also it's butting against and fighting against many of its colleagues. So for the Argentines, you'd say probably going throughout the 1970s, the country they're most likely to actually end up fighting against isn't the UK at all, it's probably Chile, in particular over some of the disputed islands in the Beagle Channel, the bottom end of the Tierra del Fuego and these sorts of places. So what you've got is an inherently unstable, fragmented, but quite powerful, economically powerful democracy with a very strong social identity, combined with its
Starting point is 00:16:13 underlying burning issue about the justice of the cause and the idea of, well, the Falklands or the Malvinas. Las Malvinas o Argentinos is a national rallying cry. It's been taught in schools really since 1833. And, you know, when the British sort of seize their chance after the Americans get involved and take the Falklands back. And you've got all this bubbling together. And as such, what the Junta realise is actually that the cause of the Malvinas for them in the 80s, on the back of their dirty war, they're fighting against their own people and the insurrection they're facing.
Starting point is 00:16:42 That could be the one way of uniting everybody, by taking out, striking, seizing the opportunity to bring them back into Argentine control, that is going to be the way in which everyone can suddenly rally behind them and people may forget their grievances against this dictatorship. They launch a war to try and shore up their own position. And like our little friend Vladimir Putin's recent discovery, once you roll the iron dice, things can get pretty complicated, right? Tell me about the invasion itself. You mentioned it was seaborne. What form did it take? So that's actually a really good analogy you just used there as well, because what happens is you have people who are looking to shore up domestic support or make bold claims on the international stage, taking advantage of other people's seeming indifference. And for the Argentines, what they've noticed is, you know, the Falklands obviously is a long way
Starting point is 00:17:29 from the UK. There had been regular naval patrols, the endurance, the ice ship was supposed to be passing through reasonably regularly. The decision to withdraw that essentially opened the sea lanes by which the Argentines would need to invade. You know, there's no way they could do any kind of mass parachute drop or anything like that. The Falklands is not a fortress. It's pathetically, smallly defended by a tiny group of raw Marines, a token garrison. But it still has a lot of natural geography you've got to overcome. So it's going to need to be a seaborne invasion.
Starting point is 00:17:55 And that's what is essentially put together for Operation Rosario, as the Argentines look to build and strike. And it's going to be about moving, predominantly initially with special forces, so some of their crack troops, you know, seaborne landing of commandos who are going to seize control of key areas. There's a bit of a historical dispute about the idea that they're supposed to go in
Starting point is 00:18:14 and deliberately not cause casualties, not cause any damage or anything like that. But the way in which they attack the Royal Marine barracks of Moody Brook and try and especially smash that to the ground, the Royal Marines have all left, shows that really they were going in with a stated aim of really winning and fighting and obviously the Royal Marines fight back so what you've got is a seaborne invasion landing these commandos and special forces in the early hours of the 2nd of
Starting point is 00:18:37 April who are converging quite quickly on Stanley you know that is the nerve centre the heartbeat of the islands you know whoever controls Stanley essentially has control of the Falkland Islands and the surrounding islands as well. So there's no way they're not going to land on West Falkland, they're not going to land on the western side of East Falkland, they're going to very much converge on the capital, seize the capital, and essentially then proclaim Argentine sovereignty over this contested area. And there's nothing the Brits can do. There's no long runway, you can't surge in reinforcements, there's no ships nearby. So Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister in the UK, how does she decide her next move?
Starting point is 00:19:11 So this is quite an interesting stage here, because there's some intelligence that suggests that the Argentines are planning this, that it's coming into the Foreign Office. The first time that's been reported is actually when the Argentines have already landed, and there's sort of conflicting reports about something they might invade when they're already there. It's sort of a bit of a farce really. But once this presentation has happened, you know, submarines are dispatched, the idea of sending warships down there is sent. But the whole point of the Argentine attack is to seize the Falklands and present it as a fair complete to the international community. The whole idea is that they say, well, look, we've got it. It's now ours.
Starting point is 00:19:45 This is a long standing issue. You have Resolution 2065 in 1965 about making meaningful progress on this sort of thing. We have tried through diplomatic channels, but it's not gone anywhere. But they're now ours. It's time for you to accept that. Now, the way in which this plays out in the UK is quite interesting. So obviously, there's meetings late into the night on the Friday. The 2nd of April was a Friday in 1982. And Thatcher is there and she's convening several members of her cabinet. Now some very senior people in this cabinet, you know, Carrington served in the Second World War, not served in Malaya. White Law's there as well. You know, there are distinguished military records amongst these politicians at the time. And they're
Starting point is 00:20:20 having a very meaningful discussion about what they can do in response to this, because it's instantly reactive. They've not been able to shore up the defences beforehand or anything like that. This is very much a question of saying, well, the Argentines have seized it, what are we going to do? And it tends to vary. If you read Thatcher's own accounts of these, she seems like she was quite staunch in what she wanted to do. She wanted to have a military response, etc. But the Foreign Office is basically saying it can't be done the foreign office has said we'll have absolutely no international support we'll become a pariah there's no way we can stop the argentines doing this we're going to have to just accept it and
Starting point is 00:20:55 try and negotiate some kind of peaceful settlement for the benefit of the islanders who are there but the military are a bit more ambitious about what they can do. And actually, it's the arrival of Sir Henry Leach, the first sea lord. Great moment in full uniform. In full uniform, indeed. It's one of those moments where if it hadn't happened, you could write a great script when it happened. He comes in and he passionately makes the military case and he's asked, can we do it? And his response is not only can we do it, but we should do it because otherwise we'll wake up in a completely different world where our word counts for little, essentially. He very much is talking about
Starting point is 00:21:27 the importance of standing strong to resist aggression because of obviously things like Hong Kong, Gibraltar, these other contentious issues of islands and territories that are contested as well. And he makes it clear that they need to send a message, let alone what it might stand in the wider context of the Cold War to the Soviet Union as well. And so I think that's particularly key. And I think his resolve, I think, certainly helps carry the mood. And then that carries over into the next day. So there's this extraordinary meeting, this extraordinary debate in the House of Commons on the 3rd of April. The House of Commons is recalled for a debate on a Saturday, the 3rd of April 1982. The first time that's happened since the Suez Crisis. And funnily enough, Suez is referred to quite a lot throughout that. There is this overarching shadow and fear that actually,
Starting point is 00:22:11 if the British do embark upon a military response, that it could be a failure. And a failure on a global scale like Suez was, which could really humble Britain's already retreating international opinion in 1982. So this is by no means a done deal. But actually what Thatcher finds is a relatively supportive House. People could have gone all in on her and said, well, you're accountable for what has happened. You are the Prime Minister. You're accountable for this. But actually people are predominantly supportive. Even Michael Foote is very supportive as well.
Starting point is 00:22:42 And actually what you have is this almost Churchillian moment, this almost Churchillian rhetoric that says the Falkland Islands are British and we will support them and they deserve to be British and all these sorts of things, which is remarkable given in 1981 that the Nationality Act would have deprived the Falkland Islands of British citizenship anyway. And actually the British had arguably been spending the last three or four decades trying to negotiate the islands away. But yet here we were, 3rd of April 1982, on the back of the Argentine invasion, proclaiming that this now was the time for the British to respond, and they were going to respond. And a military task force was going to be sent to do so. With hindsight, it's been placed at an interesting point in
Starting point is 00:23:17 British history, the sort of post-war decline, the retreat from empire, pretty economically difficult 1970s collapse of industry, like big unemployment. This war kind of came at a good time for Margaret Thatcher, if it's possible to say that. Yeah, I think with hindsight, certainly it appears that way. But at the time, I mean, this could have just been the death knell for her already quite unpopular premiership. Well, in fact, Thatcher is the most unpopular prime minister since polling began in 1981 at that stage. And so what this presents is sort of a national moment, really, on a stage where by 1982, we have sort of 14 years of political and economic turmoil. It's devalued the pound. It's been bailed out by the IMF. There's Northern Ireland going on as well.
Starting point is 00:24:01 There's Rhodesia. There is, as you say, the wider retreat from empire. This is a country that is not the power it once was. This is not the country that would instantly respond to acts of aggression, even in a punitive way. You think about some of the things that Britain did in the 19th century. I mean, look at the Abyssinian campaign or something like that, where they marched thousands of miles just to capture the castle of somebody who takes British hostages and then just leave again. You know, Britain is completely different a hundred years on. And that's in some ways is why Argentina chose to strike. But yet, what this becomes is almost a popular rallying call. And it's really the press that carries this forward, actually. It's really the press that drives this and says, you know, we've got
Starting point is 00:24:41 to respond. The Times has an editorial that declares, you know, we're all Falklanders now. this and says, you know, we've got to respond. The Times has an editorial that declares, you know, we're all Falklanders now. It echoes the Second World War in particular as sort of this national existential threat to British identity, which 40 years on, it sounds a bit strange because it's 8,000 miles away. And yet the overarching principle, as was then, as is now, is that the people that wanted to remain British, this is self-determination in action. And in a slightly curious way, this is the British almost acting in an anti-colonial way, because they are preserving the rights of self-determination, which is one of the guiding principles of the United Nations, of international law and the post-war order. So a really significant time, and that's what's driving a lot of this. Funny enough that it's not the first popular
Starting point is 00:25:22 outcry about demanding something is done by the government on the Falklands. You go back to the 1770s, for example, where the Spanish seized the Falklands from the British then. The Spanish are quite angry that they violated the Treaty of Retreat in 1713. They've started colonising the South Atlantic and the Latin America area. So they take it back. And there's this huge public outcry that Britain should go to war with Spain over the Falklands, which in 1770, they say, they even get Dr. Johnson to write a pamphlet that says, well, no one really wants the Falklands anyway. It's not really worth getting worked up about. We should just move on. But in 1982, obviously, it represents, I think, an opportunity
Starting point is 00:25:58 to rally people together in a very fragmented, socially, political, economic Britain behind this idea that the Falklands should be defended and can be defended. And so the amphibious task force is sent. Tell me, what is sent? We're going to be looking at the course of the war throughout May on this podcast. So this is just about us setting the whole thing up here. Talk to me about the composition of the... I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr Ele Eleanor Janaga.
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Starting point is 00:26:40 Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. This task force. So the British Armed Forces in 1982 are in quite an interesting position, really. What the Falklands represents is a challenge. Instantly, it's a challenge for how the British can respond. It's 8,000 miles away. It's going to be the end of a huge logistical
Starting point is 00:27:09 chain. And so any response they need is going to be probably sea-based. And yet the Navy has been bearing significant cuts through progressive defence reviews. It's only John Knott's famous 1981 defence review, all of which hasn't been actually implemented yet. It's one of the great what-ifs, I think, of British history is that if the Argentines had simply waited. But the British don't have an aircraft carrier big enough to launch fast jets off. They've got the Hermes, which is very old, and they've got the Invincible as well, which is going to go down and it can launch sea harriers with a vertical takeoff and landing capability. harriers with their vertical takeoff and landing capability but around in terms of defense vessels and other fleet there really is sort of a question of well what can we actually send and what kind of meaningful impact can we have what's it going to take to take these islands back because nobody
Starting point is 00:27:54 really knows that much about them there aren't charts for the south atlantic there aren't really accurate maps of the islands either and so these huge questions being asked fortunately a significant part of the fleet is on an exercise called spring train in and around Gibraltar and the Mediterranean at the time. So they can be mobilised for war quite quickly and then reinforced with other ships and other forces. Now, when it comes to the land forces, again, the question becomes, how are they going to get there? You know, there's been decades of strategic orientation for the British military just to fight the Soviet Union, either in the North Atlantic or on the plains of northern Germany. So of the army, for example, there's 160,000 people in the British army in 1982, but 55,000 of them are sitting in Germany, staring across the inter-German border, waiting for the 3rd Soviet Shock Army to come rolling
Starting point is 00:28:39 through the Minden Gap. They can't be moved. The question's about being raised, who else is going to go? The Royal Navy itself has been recast as quite heavily submarine-based or anti-submarine warfare, so then suddenly, how are they going to get down there? And then there's the question of the RAF. 8,000 miles is beyond the really effective operating capability of virtually everything the RAF has. The idea being for the RAF throughout the Cold War was they'd launch either from the clutch airfields in Germany or the airfields in the UK. And that's how they'd be able to strike at the enemy that was expected, which was the Soviets. So there's all these questions being asked and a lot of adaptability and creative thinking and solutions that are being brought up with. And that's where you see
Starting point is 00:29:15 things like ships being taken up from trade. And that's why famously the Canberra, the cruise ship is pressed into service as a troop transporter. And later in the Queen Mary too is going to be taken on as well to take five infantry brigade down as reinforcements. So that's what you're having is this collection of military vessels, civilian vessels, ships taken up from trade, car ferries that are being pressed into service and taken out. And that's why I think there's this sense that the Falklands is this national effort
Starting point is 00:29:41 because you see all these civilians who are being pressed into service with this connection with the wider world. It's not just exclusively grey funneled ships sailing south. There's a lot of other things as well. I mean, the Canberra is this enormous white beacon sailing south, which is not what you'd want to go to war in.
Starting point is 00:29:56 And eventually this task force converges on Ascension Island, which is pretty much halfway between Britain and the Falklands. And it's 127 ships when it gets to Ascension. And that's when you get a lot of cross-decking of stores, real preparation for war. And when you read the memoirs of the people who went
Starting point is 00:30:13 and you speak to them, it's really when people left Ascension, they began to think that this was real. Before then, many, many people had assumed it was just a big show. It was a giant bluff. And of course, on top of that, what you've got at a diplomatic level is you've got Haig, the Secretary of State from the United States, doing all this shuttle diplomacy, desperately trying to find a deal. Thatcher being quite receptive to any kind of potential deal.
Starting point is 00:30:34 You know, even on 14th of April, she says that, I think we might have to accept this deal, this idea of leaseback or a condominium of shared administration. But yet every mile they get further south, particularly after the past ascension and the equator, the seas get rougher, the seas get darker, things start to get more serious. And then ultimately they all arrive on station on 21st of May 1982, which is when Operation Sutton, the amphibious landing,
Starting point is 00:30:59 is formally launched. And that's when you see three commando brigade with the three Royal Marine commandos in it. And then the additional two parachute battalions attached as well. That's when you see them go ashore as part of this first wave. And that's really when British feet step back on the islands that things are going to get real there. But of course, before then, you've got the Belgrano, you've got the Sheffield, you've got the Black Buck raised by the Vulcan bombers too. You'll all be hearing much more about those on this podcast. But yeah, the Belgrano is obviously a formerly American cruiser,
Starting point is 00:31:27 I think it was, wasn't it? Then it was sunk by a British submarine. Other British ships were struck by XSAT missiles, so there's a war at sea. And then, yeah, the amphibious assault on land. Tell me, on the amphibious assault on land, what about the Falkland Islanders? Are these guys caught in the firing line?
Starting point is 00:31:41 So throughout the decades leading up to 1982, the Falkland Islanders were absolutely adamant they didn't want anything to do with Argentina. They saw what was happening in Argentina at this time. They saw the dirty war taking place. And even while you had politicians like Ridley or you had Scott, the Foreign Office Minister of Civil Servants as well,
Starting point is 00:32:01 even while you had those people coming down and trying to extol the virtues and benefits of closer links with Argentina, both in terms of economic outputs for the islands, hospitals, schools, general travel opportunities and air link, etc. They never wanted to be part of Argentina. They always wanted to be British. And so for them, this is the absolute worst thing that could happen. No one welcomes them to the islands at all. Particularly some of the Argentine conscript units who've been brought up to believe that Las Malvinas are Argentinos and expected the people to sort of welcome them, you know, to throw off the imperialistic yoke of the British. But actually,
Starting point is 00:32:32 no, the people in Stanley, where the main concentration of the population is, they don't want the Argentines there. But for the other people who are out in the wider Falkland Islands, or the camp as they refer to sort of the wider island. These people live on isolated farms, and their experience is quite scary, really, because they are isolated, they are by themselves. The people in Goose Green, for example, are taken hostage and forced into the village hall and kept in absolutely terrible conditions there. Other isolated farms have the Argentines who will roll through and loot and steal and intimidate. But what they're all listening to is the World Service. They're hearing the task force getting closer and closer. And so they want the British
Starting point is 00:33:08 to get there. They want to be liberated. It's just really a matter of time. Or if there's a political settlement before they get there, which is the big worry. I think one of the great underdeveloped and underspoken about aspects of the Falklands is the diplomatic war that goes on. Think of someone like Parsons at the UN, who builds this incredible international consensus that means that Argentina becomes a pariah state and are completely isolated. That means that ultimately Britain occupies the moral diplomatic high ground, which gives it the ability to essentially wage a campaign of liberation. Briefly, briefly, briefly, let's talk about that campaign. The amphibious is landing on the western side of East Falkland. There you go get your maps out and then they were hoping to helicopter
Starting point is 00:33:49 do a series of helicopter assaults across the islands to a series of garrison strong points hilltops towards stanley helicopters didn't make it for various reasons and lots of them didn't and famously people have heard about the yomp the walk in which those commandos and those parachute battalions had to effectively walk across east Falkland towards Stanley fighting a series of battles against entrenched positions yeah so on the 21st of May obviously they land and they're put ashore and the big fear is that this is going to be a contested landing the Royal Marines have practiced amphibious landing so they're relatively comfortable with what they're doing. Again, it's quite lucky that they still have amphibious assault ships. They're actually earmarked to be sold on and scrapped, the idea being in 1981, any amphibious landing will take place in a friendly port, so you don't
Starting point is 00:34:37 need an amphibious assault ship because you're just going to move people into Europe to hold the line against the advancing Soviets, so you're not going to need an amphibious assault ship. So again, had the Argentines waited, that asset wouldn't have been available to the British. But they put ashore and then they go firm and they consolidate. And throughout this period, the Argentine Air Force, the Argentine Navy aviators are hammering the task force. The ships are being damaged, ships are being sunk. And again, all of this is reporting back. And this is building political pressure. This is a sense of, well, we're there, what are we going to do? From a military perspective, when you make the landing, you have to consolidate, you have to build up your supplies,
Starting point is 00:35:12 you have to build up a logistical chain, you have to get the bullets and the blankets and the shells ashore, or else you can't really do anything. And logistics is a major challenge. Ivor Helberg, who's in charge of 3th Commando Brigade's logistics, has one of the most incredible jobs in modern warfare to be able to manage this. But the political pressure is building and that's why you see the assault down on Goose Green and Darwin, which is sort of to the south of San Carlos, where the concentration of the British is. And that's an idea about winning a moral victory over the Argentines early on, establishing a moral dominance and building momentum. As you say, whilst this advance across the northern axis takes place,
Starting point is 00:35:48 which is to basically approach Stanley from the north with the Comando Battalions and Three Parra. The Three Parra tab. Three Parra don't yomp. Three Parra tab. Oh no, of course. I know I'm going to get tweets about that. And then, as you alluded to, the idea being that all of this movement, because it's incredibly difficult moving across the Falkland Islands. There are not convenient roads. There's no railway. So everything is going to be done in quite harsh weather conditions as well. The South Atlantic winter is approaching and there's no cover.
Starting point is 00:36:13 There's no natural cover of trees or forests or woods or anything like that. So it is going to be quite challenging. The task force is prepared for that. They're sending down Chinook helicopters, newly ordered, newly arrived from the United States, Chinook helicopters from 18 Squadron. But only one of those makes it. The others are lost on when the Atlantic conveyor, again, not a military ship, a container ship, is struck by an Exocet missile and burns up. And they use Wessex helicopters as well, and they lose all the flying stores as well. So suddenly they're down to one heavy lift helicopter that suddenly takes on an incredible amount of work.
Starting point is 00:36:45 helicopter that suddenly takes on an incredible amount of work but after the fierce fighting at goose green and then the northern axis advance there's a southern axis advance that opens up where two para move forward to fitzroy and then obviously the welsh guards who come down as fifth infantry brigade are unfortunately caught out as well the concentration of british forces gets closer and closer to stanley again the real center of gravity where they're going to have to go they are getting closer and closer to this point where they're going to have to go they are getting closer and closer to this point where they're going to have to really concentrate all their effort if they're going to win this war before winter approaches and then that's where you see these battles for the mountain line these famous names tumble down two sisters mount harriet longden all of these
Starting point is 00:37:18 come into play as the british inexorably get closer and closer push the argentines further and further back until on the 14th of june war ends. Thanks very much. That was a tour de force, Peter. Thank you very much indeed. As I said, you'll be hearing lots more about that on this podcast. You'll be hearing Intuitive Veterans and you'll be hearing a blow-by-blow account of some of those battles, some of those remarkable moments in Falklands War history. And one of our most exciting episodes is going to be when I'm coming to RAF Cosford to your wonderful museum, the RAF Museum, and you and I can be talking about the Black Buck raid, the long distance bombing of Stanley Airport. Absolutely. It's one of the most famous contributions the RAF makes to the campaign to liberate the islands. It's an incredible
Starting point is 00:38:01 organisational effort, logistical effort too. We've got a Vulcan and a Victor that actually took part in that so I'm looking forward to showing you those as well as maybe if there's time showing you Bravo November herself which is a recent addition to the the RF Museum's collection can't wait Peter thank you very much for giving us a start of a 10 not at all thank you so much for having me it's a fascinating period of history and it's great that we're commemorating it throughout this 40th anniversary period. So thank you for helping spread the word. I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs,
Starting point is 00:38:33 this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. There is an accompanying TV series on History Hit TV. You can go if you follow the link in the description of this podcast. You just click on that link, you get two weeks free if you sign up today, and you can check out all of the amazing Falklands interviews, archive, all the documentary stuff we're producing right there on History Hit TV, the world's best history channel. Go and check it out. Good evening. I have an
Starting point is 00:39:00 important announcement to make about the state of affairs between the British and Argentine governments over the Falkland Islands dispute. On the night of the 2nd of April 1982, without warning, Argentina launched its invasion of the Falkland Islands. I have alerted the Royal Marines and I ask now for all serving members, all active members of the Falkland Islands Defence Force to report to the drill hall as soon as possible. What followed was Britain's last solo war, the last major conflict that Britain fought by itself.
Starting point is 00:39:38 Britain has the responsibility towards the islanders to restore their democratic way of life. In the Falklands, Britain's last war, we meet the veterans who experienced the war first hand. We were a regular army, no consequence. The desire was to go and prove that I could do what I'd been trained to do. Even seeing HMS Sheffield smoking away on the horizon, I still thought that won't happen to us, HMS Coventry. Coming to History Hit TV in April. you

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