Falkland Islands

Factual Questions
21

Here are the differences:

The residents of the Falklands were ethnically British, and the territory was/is British territory outright for as long as the Crown wants. The previous poster who pointed out their potential strategic value in controlling round-the-Cape shipping is probably correct in identifying Britain’s original interest, obsolete though it may be. Being Brits, they had to be defended if the Union Jack were to mean anything to anyone (and if Thatcher were to keep her job).

Hong Kong had a termination date on the lease for the New Territories (most of its acreage) due to some appalling lack of foresight at the time, and its population is mostly Chinese (and therefore “expendable” ?). Although Hong Kong Island could have been kept British under international law, it wouldn’t have been viable.

FWIW, the people of Gibraltar (the ones who aren’t Royal Navy personnel and families based there) are a blend of Spanish and Genoese, NOT British.

22

The criticism concerned the fact that the British and Argentines had agreed to a “hostility zone” in which the conflict would be restricted; in effect, they were only going to fight over the Falklands. The General Belgrano was outside this radius when it was destroyed. The British rationale was that it was steaming into a conflict zone and so was effectively a combatant and a legitimate target.

23

I recall at the time, that there was speculation of major oil deposits, off shore fromthe falklands. Other than that, I don’t see why the british spent $4 billiuon+, and 800 lives, to recapture this pile of rocks.
Does anybody know if oil wells have been drilled off the Falklands? Another factoid-at the time the war broke out, there was an American anthropologist doinf field work in the Falklands-he supposedly uncovered a human habitation site, that was over 6,000 years old! Anybody know more about this?

24

Yes they can. IIRC they come under the Scilly Isles!

25

As has been pointed out, only the New Territories were to be returned to China when the lease expired. HongKong and Kowloon were given to England in perpetuity. Not only did the UK not care about all the Chinese who lived there but they didn’t give much thought to the British subjects either. It was deemed not to be in the interests of the UK to hang on to HK and so the British subjects were left in the cold and the Chinese were told to go screw themselves.

26

During the 96 Summer Para-Olympics, Britain & Argentina played eachother in the wheelchair basketball finals… it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. They were totally beating the crap outta eachother. Argentina had this center, I think his nickname was “El Capitan” or something, who would have probably been a linebacker had he had legs; he would bodily lift the Brit players outta their chairs by the back of their necks and throw them to the ground. It was more like a cross between a demo derby and a boxing match than a basketball game. Anybody got a tape of it?

27

[HIJACK]
Sailor, check out the following http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/7/0,5716,109237+2+106286,00.html.

"In the late 1970s, concern about the future of Hong Kong began to loom large, as British jurisdiction over the leased areas of the New Territories neared the 1997 expiration date. Although the lease applied only to the New Territories, the Chinese government had consistently maintained that the whole of Hong Kong was Chinese territory and considered that the question of the earlier Hong Kong-British agreements came under the category of unequal treaties and also required resolution. "
[/HIJACK]

If you really want to discuss Hong Kong, shall we start a new thread?

28

Gary, that article supports what I said. If you are going to provide cites you might as well have them support what you said. And, believe me, I am familiar with HK history. Yes, China was saying the cession of HK was done under duress and was therefore null.

Well, guess what, Argentina or Spain never even oficially ceded the Falklands so from that point of view Britain would have a stronger reason to return them than they had with HK.

29

My understanding was that Argentina and Spain never even officially HAD the Falklands, so they COULDN’T have ceded them, and Britain couldn’t have “returned” them.

Hong Kong is a done deal. I think Gibraltar is more interesting at this point. Any takers?

30

>> My understanding was that Argentina and Spain never even officially HAD the Falklands

Not a good comparison. They had temporary settlements and had claimed sovereignty.

When HongKong was ceded to england in perpetuity, it was a barren rock. Queen Victoria’s derisive comments are famous. While China claimed sovereignty over it, they really did not exercise any kind of effective control (since there was nothing to control). One reason the brits were given rights was to curb piracy which the Chinese could not do.

So, from that standpoint the comparison is still valid.

31

Lots of misaprehensions here so I’ll do my best.

I was in the Royal Navy at the time and went there twice.

The first time we were sent was during 1977/78 Novemeber to January .The Minister who sent us was David Owen who was Secretary of State for Defence.This was the last Labour government before MS Thatcher and co came to power.

The reason we were sent was that there had been intelligence reports recieved that held the Argentine was making warlike preparations involving maritime units.
HMS Phoebe(my ship) HMS Alacrity along with helicopter carrying supplies ships Blue Rover and another I can’t remember right now were sent down with a full war complement of equipment along with HMS Warspite, a hunter killer nuclear sub.Already in the locality was HMS Endurance, the arctic survey boat with its complement of armed helicopters and anther Royal Fleet Auxiliary(RFA) with its helicopter contingent.

Bear in mind that at sea a helicopter is an extremely powerful weapons platform so that an RFA carrying 4 of them is a very effective military unit.

In the event there was no war in '77/'78 but the whole affair was known as operation Journeyman.

The intelligence sources are not really a great mystery, the Royal Navy trains sailors and officers of many nations and doubtlessly recruits some of them along the way.We sold them an aircraft carrier, two subs, several frigates and two of the most modern destroyers and we had to train them how to use them.
The real mystery to me is that these sources would certainly have been available to Ms Thatcher later on so why were they ignored ? Sheer incompetance is the most charitable answer but there is also more sinister possibility.
For several years our country had sent signals that the Argentinians interpreted as GB wanted to withdraw from the Falklands, such as scrapping HMS Endurance and not replacing her and by the way the Flakland had been allowed to become almost completely dependant for most of its supplies from Argentina.

At some point Argentina decided to test GB’s resolve by making provocative landings on the South Sandwich islands with military personnel pretendind to be scrap recovery workers and they raised the Argentine flag.There was some furore in our press at the time and some warnings about what might follow but these appeared to be ignored by the Thatcher administration.

Encouraged by this a beleaguered Gen Galtieri ordered the the Falklands be taken.He needed a military success as his Junta was becoming increasingly unpopular and support in the military, his guaruntor of power, was wavering.

Bear in mind that the Falkland islands are actually further away from Argentina than Berlin is from London so the idea that this is their locality is somewhat thin.

When the Falklands were taken the Thatcher government was already hugely unpopular, opinion polls suggested that there would be almost no memebers of her party would be re-elected when the next election was to be held the following year.This was not a surprise to that administration because unemployment had increased by an unprecedented amount and they had absolutely no answer for it, in fact it was directly and intentionally a result of their political theories but even they must have been surprised at how the numbers spiralled out of their control.

Now given that a war is always a good way of gaining political popularity amongst your own people, that the Thatcher administration likely knew what Galtieri was up to then one begins to wonder if it was convenient to ignore what was going on in the hope that some conflict might erupt.

My personal view is that it was an opportunity that Thatcher grabbed with both hands. David Owen said as much in an interview some years after the war, and he also revealed that my first trip down there had been only one of several missions the Royal Navy had carried out in this regard and no war had taken place so nothihg had been heard of them.

Clearing up some details - the General Belgrano was hit during so-called attempts to find a solution.I doubt that these were never more than a delaying tactic by the Argentinians. There was only a relatively short period of time in which retaking the Falklands was viable due to the onset of South Atlantic winter and they were stalling for it.
The Belgrano was not on her own she was accompanied, as all major surface units are, by a fleet which consisted of at least one destroyer and two frigates and very likely a sub.Such a force would have represented a serious threat to the Royal Navy. This fleet was outside the exclusion zone imposed by Britain but would have been a legitimate target in my view.
The sinking of the Belgrano had a major strategic effect since it then caused the Argentine Navy with its Aircraft carrier group to remain in port, this was vital if the Falklands were to be succesfully retaken.Around 200-300 sailors lost their lives.

HMS Sheffield was hit by Exocets carried by French made Dassault Super Etendards,.This was a major surprise as it was not thought that Argentina had aircraft capable of carring this weapon this far and they did not have airborne refualling capacity.They actually refuelled from two other aircraft of the same type which were carrying extra tanks and since they had not done this before one is forced to admire their ingenuity.

My part in this later mission was very small.My ship HMS Ambuscade had only just returned from an Armilla patrol(Iran v Iraq watching) and so we got away late.We had to try catch the task force up but we burned off our fuel in doing so and because the weather was somewhat lumpy we coud not take any more on and fell below our combat reserve.This meant the HMS Antelope was sent to carry out the role that had been assigned to us and she was destroyed in Falklands Sound.
By the time we had fuelled up the sea war was over and it was all down to the men in green, we did a shore bombardment one night but that was it for us.

Actually it gets better than that.The Falkland Islanders had fewer right to residency in the UK the the Honk Kong residents.There was no right to citizenship or vote or even our protection.They were employed in an almost feudal contract by the Falkland islands company.

There was talk of oil-exploration around the Falklands and of manganese nodule deposits on the ocean floor, then there was talk of fishing rights and also of strategic importance.The only thing of real note was that the hulk of the SS Great Britain which was rediscovered lying ashore and forgotten of its important place in maritime history.This was recovered and was restored back in the UK.That’s about all we got out of it, except for Maggie Thatcher of course.

As for HMS Sheffield being sunk almost instantly I can tell you for certain that it was not.

Lizard said

Tactically speaking, sinking an enemy vessel is not seen as the best option.It is regarded as being more useful to cripple an enemy ship as this will cause others to escort her and so tie up military resources and become vulnerable themselves, the Exocet is designed specifically to do just this.

HMS Sheffield was in a peacetime cruising state when it was hit.That meant it only had one of its 4 firemain pumps running at the time.This is an inexplicable ommission since it should have been running in what is called “defence mode” with at least 2 firemain pumps and possibly 3 running.What happens is that you have each pump feed one section of the firemain and isolate by closing cetain flow valves from the other sections.If the firemain is damaged then hoses can be run from sections where is is still intact and the fire can be dealt with.The first thing HMS Sheffield lost, apart from the operations room was firemain pressure.She burned for 3 days and it was the heat from th efire that caused the structural damage that broke her back , so that she went down in two halves.
Had she been operating in the correct state of readiness it is nearly certain that she would not have sunk but her operational capacity would still have been compromised.Bear in mind that she was hit in the middle and the firefighting teams are based toward the front and after sections of the ship so they were unharmed and had the capacity to fight the fire had there been firemain pressure available.
This I know for sure as some of her survivors were put onto our ship.

32

Most excellent post casdave! Always nice to have first hand information.

Please confirm something that has not been mentioned about Hong Kong yet (much to my amazement).

As the lease on Hong Kong became ready to expire, the British economy was on the ropes as well. All native born residents of the city were technically Royal Subjects. Try to imagine the huge impact on the home economy if a large majority of them attempted to exercize their rights and resettle in Great Britain. The impact would have been profound. A mild dose of xenophobia would have been all that was necessary to incite race riots. The party in power would have taken it in the shorts over such social disarray.

Anyway casdave maybe you can confirm or refute this nugget of historical trivia.

Another topic as yet unbroached is the fact that NATO forces relished the opportunity to test all of their new smart weapons and dispose of scads of ageing ammunition in the Falklands conflict. I see it as being similar to the Spanish Civil War where blanket bombing and tank warfare were brought out of their nascent status.

Any takers?

33

Please explain this. I was under the impression that the Sheffield was the only British ship lost. Are you saying that if your ship had gotten there on time you might be dead now?

34

ticker,

you said the Falkland islanders could vote in British elections, under the Scilly Isles.
The actual constituencies in ‘CORNWALL and the ISLES of SCILLY’ are:
Falmouth and Camborne
Cornwall North
St. Ives
Cornwall South East
Truro and St. Austell.

These are all in the SW of England. I can’t believe any Member of Parliament could represent them, plus constituents 8,000 miles away. For example the only direct flights to the islands used to be by military aircraft.
Are you sure?

ElvisL1ves,

you posted ‘The residents of the Falklands were ethnically British.’

I’m not sure what this means. Couldn’t you say e.g. America was ethnically British? :slight_smile:

Further ‘Being Brits, they had to be defended if the Union Jack were to mean anything to anyone (and if Thatcher were to keep her job).’

Well (cynically) I could say the Union Jack is mainly used by right-wing political groups (Conservatives, National Front). After all, there’s no British football, cricket or rugby team (and there’s only one in Athletics because of Olympic regulations).
I think you nailed it with your second comment, though.

And ‘Although Hong Kong Island could have been kept British under international law, it wouldn’t have been viable.’

This is interesting. Hong Kong certainly makes a lot of money. Do you mean the Chinese could ‘starve’ it into submission? (I agree they probably could).

RickJay,

you posted ‘The British rationale was that the General Belgrano was steaming into a conflict zone and so was effectively a combatant and a legitimate target.’

I’m sure Thatcher claimed at first it was sailing towards the islands, but later had to retract (i.e. admit it was retreating).

Casdave,

Excellent post!

I would only quibble with ‘The Falkland islands are actually further away from Argentina than Berlin is from London so the idea that this is their (Argentina)locality is somewhat thin.’

OK, but they’re on the other side of the world from us.
Did you know where they were when you were sent there?

Zenster,

You posted ‘Try to imagine the huge impact on the home economy if a large majority of them (Hong Kong British citizens) attempted to exercize their rights and resettle in Great Britain.’

Most probably didn’t have right of residence. But if they did, why shouldn’t they exercise them? :rolleyes:
In any case I personally would rather struggle for a while than leave British citizens to the mercies of the Chinese Government.

35

There were several British warships lost and we were incredibly lucky not to lose more.

HMS Coventry was sent out to deny the Argentine Air Forces (AAF)their preferred approach route and she was very effective taking down several aircraft with her Sea Dart missile system.She was eventually hit and sunk but she bought enough time for the main force to disembark at San Carlos bay.

RFA Sir Gallahad was hit and sunk - she was the vessel carrying the Third Brigade which was mainly the Welsh Guards.The story of what happened here is a shocking indictment of the stupidity of senior officers and their application of inter-service rank above expertise.Gallahad was escort by HMS Torquay which was hit in the same attack and 4 of her crew were killed.The Captain of the Torquay had insisted the the Gallahad be unloaded and the Rpaier ground to air sytems be deployed as soon as possible.
Instead the idiot commanding the 3rd brigade insisted that his men required rest and refused since he outranked the Torquays skipper.It probably had more to do with not having a Navy officer take control of his men rather than any real need for rest. They sat in the bay extremely vulnerable for some hours and it came as no surprise when the AAF hit them.
This was almost a war losing blunder, you cannot afford to lose the military effectiveness of an entire brigade when reinforcements are three weeks away.Gallahad was destroyed and the Third Brigade was seriously compromised.

There was another Navy vessel lost and shame on me because I cannot remember her right now.

Another crucial loss was a cargo ship that was sequested for military use, the Atlantic Conveyor. She was hit and lost but she had the much of the transport on her including the big lifting helicopters, some were saved and they proved crucial in the supply role.

To return to the AAF, theiir pilots were RAF trained and were highly skilled and courageous.They came in very low and released their bombs too clse to their targets with the result that the arming mechanisms did not have time to unwind (they are like a small propellor which unscrews) Quite a few ships were hit but the bombs never went off.One of their aircraft came in so low that it crashed having hits the aerials of one ship.

The performance envolope of the AAF aircraft that could reach us was for mid to high altitude work which meant that the British Harrier pilots made sure they engaged them at low levels and had a huge advantage.

HMS Antelope was sent into Falklands sound to prevent any possible movement of Argentine troops, which could only be done by boat, from one side of the island group to the other and so keeping their forces divided. She surprised a tanker and destroyed it but was later hit by around 20 bombs and missiles.If they had manged to control the fire she would not have been lost but the heat was so intense that the aluminium superstructure started to burn and such fires are horribly difficult to extinguish(when these ships were built this was flagged up as a hazard).
As it was they lost around 24 crew out of 170 so it goes to show how well she was able to take the explosive damage.
In fact when you look at the casualties on the British warships they are relatively low which show the benefits of modern construction methods, compare with the 200 and more lost on the Belgrano, a much older design, to see what I mean.

Weapons systems - the crucial ones were the Sea Dart wich was able to deny large areas of sky to the AAF, Sea Wolf surface to air which was more than a match for the AAF and shot down several aircraft in each attacking flight of 4. The Harrier platform on which was based the Sidewinder air to air missiles, supplied by the US at very short notice, I believe the US actually took operational missiles off its own aircraft to keep us supplied and the good old 4.5" gun which was accurate enough to take out a couple of AAF aircraft and a couple of Exocets too. When these were used in the shore bombardment, directed by special forces using satellites pinpointing, they were incredibly accurate, our Army have never seen how effective they were and were very impressed.

At the other end of the scale, HMS Conquerer fired a couple of the RN’s newest torpedo - the Tigerfish but the control wires didn’t pay out properly thus they missed and they reverted to using the elederly MK V torpedoe instead.
Some of the older ships still had Sea Slug missiles which were designed in the early sixties.They decided to use them for shore bombardment as well since those ships were near the end of their life, a ton of bang coming in at supersonic can ruin your day.

As it happens and by pure coincidence my very last trip in the RN before I left was to Hong Kong.We spent four weeks there generally abusing our tender young bodies and bank accounts and after having completed our servicing work we set sail again, only for us to blow some of the tubes in the boilers which in turn buggered the bricking inside them.Result was an extra two weeks, quite honestly I don’t think I could have physically lasted another week after that, one had oneself quite a time.

As for the legal status of the residents, IIRC all they required was that they would have the right to flee HK if the Chinese got too heavy, very few actually wanted to leave and the Chinese did not want to lose the wealth creators either so they treated them with kid gloves. You can speculate about race riots but I think that this was the traditional Tory racism that was rearing its unpleasant little head more that anything.Many of those who did take out dual nationality preferred Canada and Australia to the UK as we were in an economic hole anyway brought on by, you guessed it, the Tories.

36

I just remebered the other RN vessel that was sunk was HMS Ardent and it was her not HMS Antelope that took our place in Falklands sound. HMS Antelope was sunk but in differant circumstances.

Being a RN type person I was well aware of where the Falklands were before any conflict took place as there were two engagements there in WWI. It’s the sort of history you pick up in the Navy.

37

Why do people only respond to my posts when I’m WRONG? Just asking.

Okay casdave, you sound like you know what you’re talking about. I was pretty uncertain about some of what I said. I guess I should’ve checked it out more thoroughly. But was I right that the Falkland Islands War is still the only occasion (or was at least the first) where a ship was sunk by an air-launched missle?

Might I add that’s it’s nice to hear from real British people on here. No one can cut through the crap as well as they can. Yay!

38

The Argentines call them Malvinas? Is that Argentinian for “sour grapes”?

39

I read in a book about the Gurkhas that an officer leading them in the Falklands carried a walking stick instead of a personal weapon. The Argentines surrendered when they knew they were facing Gurkhas, thinking that they took heads.

40

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