Webmaster: Desmond
2009 © all rights reserved
North Devon Remembers
Those who died in the Service of their Country
Map of the Falkland Islands,
Click to view enlargement.
Twenty-six years ago on the second of April 1982, Argentine Forces invaded the Falkland Islands: a British Dependency situated in the South Atlantic. Immediately, the British government led by the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, responded by organizing ‘Operation Corporate’, and dispatched advanced elements of a British Military Task Force to recover the islands.
The small island of South Georgia was recaptured in late April without casualties. At the same time the main task force assembled east of the main Falkland Islands.
On the 21st of May, Brigadier Julian Thomson's 3rd Commando Brigade made a successful and unopposed landing at San Carlos Water on East Falkland, and a beachhead was quickly consolidated. In order to secure the southern flank of the beachhead the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment fought a major land engagement at Goose Green: at which time their commanding officer Col ‘H’ Jones was killed in action and, in consequence of his outstanding courage and determination to ‘win the day’, was subsequently awarded the Victoria Cross for Valour.
The Argentine air force responded by attacking the ships of the Task Force at anchorage in San Carlos Water, and avoiding the Naval and RAF Harrier aircraft, and British ground to air missiles, eventually bombed and sank a number of Royal Navy ships.
On the 4th of May, HMS Sheffield was sunk by a French manufactured Exocet missile fired from an Argentine aircraft, and thereafter the Exocet remained a serious threat to the naval element of the task force. Later the civilian containers ship the Atlantic Conveyor, carrying vital equipment and supplies’, including vitally needed helicopters, was sunk. As a result the land based troops were forced to make their operational movement east toward the mountains and Port Stanley, the capital, on foot.
After fighting a series of long, arduous, hand-to-hand actions in the mountains, in early June, the Argentine forces finally surrendered to General Jeremy Moore on the 14th of June.
During the war 255 British Military personnel and 14 merchant seamen were killed, and the total Argentine casualties were estimated to be 660.
we knew you well!
HMS Intrepid, on which the final Argentine document of surrender was signed in 1982, meets her ignominious end!
(Mouse over images to view enlargement).