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out a balance sheet of the reasons for the British success, as well as the reverses, and to identify some of the lessons to be derived from the Falklands. To begin with, the joint services’ planning must have been superlative, especially when one considers the speed with which the operation took place. To get together a task force of one hundred ships; to take the world’s biggest liner off a cruise, weld a helicopter deck onto it, and pack it with three battalions of troops; then to land them all within two months of the Argentine invasion on islands eight thousand miles away held by a garrison superior in numbers, and with air superiority, in appalling weather conditions, was little short of miraculous.

Equally miraculous was the way in which Britain’s three ace cards—the QE2 and the two aircraft carriers, the Hermes (ancient) and the Invincible (small)—were deployed out of harm’s way from the deadly Argentine air force. The sinking of any one of the three would probably have torpedoed the whole expedition. The decision to take South Georgia first, and use it as a safe rendezvous, was as inspired as the choice of San Carlos for the first landing. Because San Carlos lay in the dangerous narrows of Falkland Sound, choosing it achieved total surprise, and thereby avoided the kind of D-Day casualties dreaded in Britain, although the Royal Navy paid dearly. In fact not one paratrooper or commando was lost at San Carlos; while the bridgehead there effectively isolated the garrisons both on West Falkland and on Goose Green from the main Argentine stronghold at Port Stanley.

AH

About the Author

Alistair Horne

Sir Alistair Horne’s Kissinger: 1973, The Crucial Year is published by Simon & Schuster.

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out a balance sheet of the reasons for the British success, as well as the reverses, and to identify some of the lessons to be derived from the Falklands. To begin with, the joint services’ planning must have been superlative, especially when one considers the speed with which the operation took place. To get together a task force of one hundred ships; to take the world’s biggest liner off a cruise, weld a helicopter deck onto it, and pack it with three battalions of troops; then to land them all within two months of the Argentine invasion on islands eight thousand miles away held by a garrison superior in numbers, and with air superiority, in appalling weather conditions, was little short of miraculous.

Equally miraculous was the way in which Britain’s three ace cards—the QE2 and the two aircraft carriers, the Hermes (ancient) and the Invincible (small)—were deployed out of harm’s way from the deadly Argentine air force. The sinking of any one of the three would probably have torpedoed the whole expedition. The decision to take South Georgia first, and use it as a safe rendezvous, was as inspired as the choice of San Carlos for the first landing. Because San Carlos lay in the dangerous narrows of Falkland Sound, choosing it achieved total surprise, and thereby avoided the kind of D-Day casualties dreaded in Britain, although the Royal Navy paid dearly. In fact not one paratrooper or commando was lost at San Carlos; while the bridgehead there effectively isolated the garrisons both on West Falkland and on Goose Green from the main Argentine stronghold at Port Stanley.