Anniversary of the end of the Falkands War

Just thought I'd mention, very briefly, that today marks the 25th anniversary of the end of the Falklands War.

There are some bits and bobs about the war here. Whatever you may think about the war and the reasons behind us fighting, I think it's worth remembering those who died on both sides.

Very much worth remembering.

I was involved on the design side of Nimrods that were modified for Operation Corporate as the Falklands conflict was known and i have never ever worked in a more co-operative atmosphere in my life.

We had TV's in the office so we could have constant updates and, contrary to what was being said on the news about the USA not getting involved, i had 2 engineers from the US Navy and McDonnel Douglas sat with me from the beginning.

Whilst i'm not a fan of warfare i remember vividly the whole country coming together as one in a common cause.

Absolutely BD - the US did us more than a few favours. Diplomatically they supported us, and militarily provided us with the (then new) AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles for the Harriers, which made a huge difference in the air war. Even the French tried to help a little, by restricting the supply of the Exocet, and releasing details to us of how it worked.

Yep I was also going to post something about this. I remember it well.

Spare a thought for those who perished on our side but also those poor conscripted kids from theirs.

we still have a sizeable presence there as the Argies still lay claim to their "Malvinas".

Keep 'em pink. Bloody islands are ours. One of the last bits of our old Empire.

At Woodford?

We used to live only a few miles from Woodford Aerodrome (great 1-day airshow years ago).
Used to see Vulcan going up with a trail smoke behind it after maintenance...

Yup at Woodford, was a great time to be there and i miss the airshows too.

Glad we could be of service.

Its not as if the UK needed a huge coalition to assist her. No war is a cakewalk, but taking on Argentina was not akin to taking on the Wehrmacht. Due to our past "antics" in Latin America, it would have been very difficult for us to actually have sent our own combat forces.

25 years- I feel old.

Indeed, Argentinian ground forces were mostly ad-hoc units made up from conscripts from the previous year's intake - they surrendered in their droves, sometimes to far smaller UK units. The biggest problem for the UK was fighting a full combined-arms campaign so far from home (i.e. a logistical problem). The best chance Argentina had was the exocet - luckily for us they never really made these count as much as they could have done - had one of our carriers or perhaps the QE2 been sunk we'd have had real problems.

Losing the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets with the loss of all but one of the Chinooks on board caused more than enough problems. Not to mention a bloody long walk across the Falklands for the troops.

The walk may have been long, but how the Argies sailed all the way to somewhere near Scotland without being detected amazed me at the time!

For once, Captain Ridiculous has said something almost sensible. Until the Falklands war, I was hardly even aware of the existence of the Falklands, let alone where they were located. In fact, if I remember correctly, in my collection of the works of the late cartoonist Giles, there's a cartoon from the time showing the typical British family watching the news on TV, and one of them is saying, "At least now we know which are the Falklands and which are the Orkneys".

All due respect to those on both sides who lost their lives, and to their families, but were a few rocks in the south Atlantic really worth the bloodshed?

I was working at the R.O.F. and they emptied the stores of all the stuff.Was hoping to be kept on when my apprenticeship ended in August but no such luck

Apparently a junta's worth of Argentine generals thought so.

And evidently a load of British politicians thought so too.

Maybe Galtieri knew something about the undrilled South and East Falkland Basins that no one else did... or the huge squid stocks that the islanders only started selling very lucrative harvesting licenses for in 1987. Or maybe he just had an unfeasibly big ego (I fancy it was the latter).

I thought back then there was only one British politician?

Little problem with it being your sovereign territory, no matter how small it is. National pride required you take action. All wars start out of stupidity and that one was no exception.

What if Canada grabbed those two little islands that France still lords over? Would France send a flotilla to liberate them from the Canuck grip?