Argentine Fight for the Falklands

Martin Middlebrook

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781783032020
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

An account by the only British historian to have been granted open access to the Argentines who planned and fought the Falklands War. Avoiding involvement in the issue of sovereignty and concentrating entirely upon the military story, this history is a unique and balanced look at the 1982 war for the islands that the UK called the Falklands and Argentina called the Malvinas, a ten-week conflict that killed nearly a thousand people. Among the men the author met were the captain of the ship that took the scrap-metal merchants to South Georgia; the admiral in charge of planning the Falklands invasion; the marine commander and other members of the invasion force; two brigadier-generals, five unit commanders, and many other men of the large army force sent to occupy and defend the islands; the officer in charge of the Argentine garrison at Goose Green; and, finally, the brigadier-general responsible for the defense of Port Stanley and soldiers of all ranks who fought the final battles.

1 • The Year of the Malvinas

On Tuesday 15 December 1981, Admiral Jorge Anaya flew from Buenos Aires to the main Argentine naval base at Puerto Belgrano, 280 miles away to the south-west. He went there to perform the official installation of Vice-Admiral Juan Lombardo as the new Chief of Naval Operations; it was a routine change of post. After the ceremony, Anaya surprised Lombardo by quietly telling him to prepare a plan to occupy the Falkland Islands: to ‘take them but not necessarily to keep them’ are the words Lombardo remembers. The conversation was a brief one, and after stressing the need for absolute secrecy Anaya returned to Buenos Aires.

Anaya was the Commander-in-Chief of the Argentine Navy and a member of the military junta which had ruled Argentina since 1976. His visit to Puerto Belgrano took place only a few days after General Leopoldo Galtieri became President, replacing General Roberto Viola, whose health was deteriorating. It has been suggested that Admiral Anaya, longest serving member of the junta, made the recovery of the Falklands a condition of his support for Galtieri as President. Certainly, the character and attitude of Anaya would be crucial in what was to come. Fellow officers describe him as a ‘solitary, severe, self-disciplined person, quite unlike the normal naval officer’. He was an old school friend of Galtieri, that bond being the basis of a friendship between naval and army officer not often seen in Argentina. Anaya had been Naval Attaché in London in the early 1970s during a period of weak leadership in British politics. He knew little of Margaret Thatcher. He was an ardent ‘Malvinist’, but the suggestion that he made the recovery of the islands a condition of his support for the new President is not supported by senior Argentine admirals. They believe that when Galtieri became President he asked Anaya and Brigadier Lami Dozo, the Air Force member of the junta, what future plans the old junta had been developing and what suggestions they could make for the new presidency. Policies were discussed for various sectors of government; the head of the list for foreign policy was the resolution of the ‘Malvinas problem’. The vital role for Admiral Anaya was that the use of his Navy would be essential if the islands were to be occupied and held. If Anaya was not whole-heartedly behind the endeavour, then little could be achieved. But Anaya was enthusiastic, and his orders to Admiral Lombardo in the last days of 1981 set in train that tragic sequence of events.

It must be stressed, however, that the plan to use armed force was no more than a back-up to a forcefully renewed diplomatic initiative. January 1983 would see the 150th anniversary of the removal of an Argentine governor and settlement from the Falklands by the Royal Navy and the establishment of the British settlement. The junta determined that the islands would be recovered by one means or another before that anniversary; 1982 was to be ‘the year of the Malvinas’. A renewed round of negotiations with the British was due to start in February; these and the harnessing of world opinion would be vigorously pressed. But, if the diplomatic offensive failed, then the junta wanted a plan ready in case conditions developed which might seem favourable for military action. Rear-Admiral Gualter Allara, the Commander-in-Chief Fleet, who would soon become involved in the planning, sums up the situation at the turn of the year:

It was only a contingency plan. The mood was dictated by the absolute lack of progress in negotiations. It was believed, particularly in the Navy, that a time would come when conditions would arise which would require something more active than negotiations. There had been plans in the past - some only academic, such as in our War College - but at that time, at the end of five years of fruitless negotiations, we had become very frustrated. The political belief was that it would be necessary to put some dynamism into those negotiations. For that reason a plan to recover the Malvinas was put in hand. But I must stress again that it was all of an absolutely tentative nature at that stage.

Vice-Admiral Lombardo soon decided that he needed some clarification of his orders. One point that emerges from his description of the next moves is that Admiral Anaya, at least at this time, was not necessarily determined upon the retention of the Falklands, probably hoping that the taking of the islands followed by a voluntary withdrawal would be sufficient to force a conclusion to the diplomatic negotiations:

Soon after receiving my first order, I flew to Buenos Aires to meet Admiral Anaya again and ask for clarification. I set out my questions in a handwritten document to make sure that they were ‘on the record’, but no copies were made. I asked these questions:

Was the operation to be purely naval, or joint with other services?

Was the intention to take and keep the islands, or take them and then hand them over to someone else, and, if so, would this be an Argentine force or a world force, that is the United Nations?

Could he guarantee that the secret nature of the planning be maintained?

These were the answers I was given:

It was to be a joint operation, but no one else had yet been informed. I didn’t know at that time whether Galtieri and Lami Dozo were aware of Admiral Anaya’s orders to me, but it was confirmed a few days later that they were.

I was to plan a take-over; but not to prepare the defence of the islands afterwards.

About secrecy, he said that I would only be working with three other admirals - Allara, Büsser of the Marines and Garcia Bol of the Naval Air Arm; these were all near to me at Puerto Belgrano.

I started talks with those three, and they all asked the same or similar questions. So I went back to Buenos Aires to insist that, if the operation was to be joint, co-operation with the other services would be essential. Anaya agreed that General Garcia of the Army was in mind but had not yet been informed. He repeated that it was a Navy task - to take over the Malvinas; what followed was for the junta to decide. They did not think that there would be a military reaction by the British.

The second main problem was the need to maintain secrecy, because if the British discovered our plans they could cause our entire naval operations to fail just by placing one nuclear-propelled submarine in the area. In 1977, when Anaya was Commander-in-Chief Fleet and I was in command of submarines, we were buying some German submarines. Anaya asked me if those new submarines could be used in the anti-submarine role against British nuclear submarines. I was sure that he was thinking of the Malvinas even then. He even showed me a note he had written to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy at that time, saying that something should be done about the Malvinas.

The other armed services soon became involved. Their work was overseen by a Comisión de Trabajo — a Working Party - which held its first meeting at Army Headquarters in the Liberatador Building in Buenos Aires in mid-January 1982. The three members were Vice-Admiral Lombardo, General Osvaldo Garcia of the Army and Brigadier-General Siegfriedo Plessl of the Air Force. The Air Force would play only a very small role at this stage, and its representative will not figure in this story again, but General Garcia is an important figure. He was the commander of V Corps, with headquarters in Bahia Blanca not far from the naval base at Puerto Belgrano. His corps area covered the whole of the southern part of Argentina; the only army units to be included in the early plans would be from his command, and all naval and air preparations would also take place in that area. This concentration of activity in the south, remote from the capital of Buenos Aires and the more populated north, would be a valuable aid to the maintenance of secrecy.

The three officers each appointed small working parties to carry forward the planning process. Admiral Anaya’s initial plan to take the islands but not necessarily to stay or to defend them was abandoned at an early stage, and a period of permanent garrisoning by Argentinian troops was envisaged while the full civil process of what the Argentinians viewed as the reintegration of the islands into the homeland after the 150-year gap took place. A date of 15 September was given for the completion of the planning. No move was envisaged before that date for these reasons: Most of the year would be devoted to allowing the diplomatic offensive to proceed. The worst of the midwinter weather would be over by September. HMS Endurance, the Antarctic patrol vessel, would have been withdrawn under planned British naval cuts. The training of the army conscripts, who were taken in early each year for their period of service, would be well advanced. It was still expected that the British would make no military response to a landing, but, if they did, the re-equipment of the Naval Air Arm’s main strike unit with fourteen French-built Super Étendard aircraft and fifteen Exocet anti-ship missiles was expected to be complete by September.

The planning went ahead, steadily but without urgency. The main landings would be carried out by the Navy and its marines. A small army contingent would be carried with the landing force, and a full regiment of infantry would take over as soon as the small British Royal Marine force had been overcome. The Argentine Air Force would only be asked to provide some transport aircraft. Much of the early planning involved Rear-Admiral Carlos Büsser, the Commander of Marines; he was also a keen ‘Malvinist’. He received his orders on 29 January and, by 2 February, had set up a five-strong ‘Landing Force Cell’ in a small office at Puerto Belgrano. A second naval planning unit was soon established under Vice-Admiral Lombardo, with just two other officers to produce the ship-support plan. One officer from Naval Intelligence worked in both cells.

The 2nd Marine Infantry Battalion was chosen to form the main landing force and this unit started carrying out amphibious exercises on a stretch of coast on the Valdés peninsula in Patagonia where there was a beach which resembled the planned landing beach on the coast near the Falklands town of Stanley ¹ and a network of tracks similar to those linking the beach with the airport at Stanley and with the town. There was, however, no town at the exercise area; that might have resembled the Falklands too much and given away the game. The 2nd Marines practised their landing several times in February and March, but only three officers from the battalion knew that they were rehearsing a possible landing in the Falklands.

The basic landing plan was ready by the third week in February and was presented to the junta on 9 March. The junta accepted it and forwarded it to Admiral Suárez del Cerro, the Chief of the joint Armed Forces Headquarters, whose duty it was to incorporate this military plan into the overall ‘national plan’ which was moving forward into 1982 with the recovery of the Falklands as one of its main objectives. Vice-Admiral Büsser concludes: ‘We were told to be prepared to continue the planning right up to the last three months of the year. I have to stress that it was a truly national plan, not just a military one, with the main emphasis always on recovering the islands by negotiations.’

2 • Crisis in South Georgia

In October 1978, Constantino Davidoff, an Argentine businessman, asked the Edinburgh-based firm of Christian Salvesen whether it would sell the scrap material in four abandoned whaling stations in South Georgia - three at Leith, Husvik and Stromness, which were all grouped together in Stromness Bay but came under the general name of Leith, and a fourth at Grytviken which was twenty miles distant. An agreement was signed in September 1979 under which Sr Davidoff could dismantle and take away the buildings and equipment at the three stations at Leith, but not the one at Grytviken. Davidoff agreed to pay just over £100,000 and to remove the material before the end of March 1982. Ironically, the stations at Husvik and Grytviken had been Argentine owned until their recent purchase by Salvesen’s. But Davidoff found it difficult to complete his arrangements in this remote part of the world and had to ask for an extension. His working expedition was not ready to leave Buenos Aires until II March 1982, and Salvesen’s agreed that his dismantling party could remain at Leith for the remainder of that southern winter but under several conditions: that he provide his party with all necessary supplies and power, that he would not make use of Salvesen’s facilities at Grytviken and that the party comply with the British regulations while in South Georgia.

The British Government claimed sovereignty over South Georgia and had maintained a presence there since 1909. South Georgia was classed as a ‘Dependency’ of the Falkland Islands; its local regulations were handled by a magistrate who was a member of the British Antarctic Survey station at Grytviken. Argentina also claimed South Georgia as its territory and found the British regulations irksome.

When Sr Davidoff visited South Georgia in December 1981 to carry out a reconnaissance of the scrap material he had purchased, he failed to report at Grytviken. When he returned to Buenos Aires to prepare his main expedition, the British Embassy there stressed that the regulations must be complied with on a future visit.

Davidoff’s working party which left Buenos Aires on II March 1982 sailed in the Bahía Buen Suceso; this was a transport ship of 5,000 tons, able to carry eighty passengers as well as cargo. It was owned by the Argentine Navy and was used as a naval transport when so required, but much of its time was spent on commercial charter work, its usual ‘beat’ being the long coastal run down to the extreme south of Argentina; the ship also made one voyage each summer taking tourists to visit the Argentine scientific bases in Antarctica. When the ship was hired out to Davidoff and sailed from Buenos Aires, its captain and crew were all members of the Argentine mercantile marines; there were no Argentine Navy personnel on board. The ship carried Davidoff’s equipment and the forty-one civilian workers of his party; it also carried some general cargo for delivery to the Argentine port of Ushuaia on its return voyage. Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego, is the southernmost town in the world.

Sr Davidoff was not on board the Bahía Buen Suceso when it sailed from Buenos Aires; one of his engineers would be in charge of the dismantling crew. Davidoff had reported the sailing of the expedition to the British Embassy in Buenos Aires but had not had time to obtain a landing permit, agreeing instead that a representative of his party would report at the British Antarctic Survey base at Grytviken, which was twenty miles away from Leith. The Embassy made no objection to this arrangement. The ship’s master, Captain Osvaldo Niella, continues the story:

It was a normal voyage with exceptionally fine weather except for fog in the last twenty-four hours or so. We arrived off Stromness Bay in the night of the 16th of March but waited for dawn because of the fog before going into the bay and on to Leith. Then we had to repair the old whaling pier carefully before we could anchor. It took the workers two days to do this and then another two days to unload all their equipment. There was no one else there.

Davidoff’s senior engineer did not go around the coast to obtain his landing permit from the British at Grytviken during this period. One of the British scientists, out on a field survey, came within sight of Leith on the 19th, the third day of the Argentine presence, saw an Argentine flag flying and heard shots being fired, both items being contrary to local British regulations. I asked Captain Niella about this:

Yes, the workers fixed up a flagpole, only an improvised one three or four metres high, and put up an Argentine flag. It was nothing to do with me. The men seemed very pleased to be there. They would be making good money; also, one feels a bit more patriotic when one is away from home, particularly when one has arrived in a place which you feel belongs to your country. They were working hard during the day and had a bit of a party at night, with some drink and tango music under that flagpole.

As for the rifle firing - yes, that was probably members of my crew. They often used to go ashore sport shooting when we were at Ushuaia, and this was an even more remote place. I don’t think anyone thought about the British regulations.

The British magistrate at Grytviken reported the Argentine infringements by radio to Rex Hunt, the British Governor in the Falklands. Hunt replied, on the 20th, telling the scientists that they were to contact the Argentine party by radio, insisting that the flag should be lowered and that someone must come to Grytviken and obtain a landing permit. The flag was lowered, but no one came to Grytviken. Next day, with all Davidoff’s equipment ashore, together with sufficient food and supplies for the winter, the Bahía Buen Suceso departed. Contrary to some accounts, she did not take any of the scrap-metal workers with her; they were all left at Leith. The ship set course for Ushuaia, her captain and crew unaware of the intense diplomatic activity caused by the visit.

The matter ceased to be a local one on 20 March, the day before the Bahía Buen Suceso sailed from Leith. Governor Hunt signalled London, reporting the incidents and the continuing failure of the Argentines to complete the required formalities at Grytviken, and also saying, incorrectly, that Argentine military personnel were ashore, as well as stating his belief that the Argentine Navy was using the scrap-metal party to establish a presence on South Georgia. The British Government, through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, sent a formal protest to the Argentine Government, asking that the Bahía Buen Suceso return and remove the entire Argentine party; if this was not done, ‘the British Government would have to take whatever action seemed necessary’. That same day, HMS Endurance , with twenty-two Royal Marines on board, sailed from Stanley, its departure being observed by Argentine airline officials there and reported to Argentina. That demand from London and the sailing of the Endurance escalated the affair to a completely new level; either the British would have to climb down or the Argentines would have to submit to the British demands. It was a crucial day.

The following day, 21 March, the Argentine Government informed London that it assumed that all of the Argentine workmen had left when the Bahía Buen Suceso sailed that morning. The temperature cooled, and Endurance turned back towards the Falklands. But, on the 22nd, the British on South Georgia reported that the workers were still present and that no immigration document had yet been completed. On 23 March, Lord Carrington, the British Foreign Secretary, sent an even stronger message to Buenos Aires. If the Bahía Buen Suceso was not ordered back to remove the working party at Leith, the Royal Marine party would do so forcibly on the Endurance. Endurance was ordered to change course again and made for South Georgia. She reached Grytviken on 24 March and was ordered to stand by.

Far from acceding to the British demands, however, the Argentines were responding with a military move of their own. The naval vessel Bahía Paraíso, part of the Argentine Navy’s Antarctic Squadron, had been carrying out a routine training exercise near the South Orkney Islands. The Carrington ultimatum of 23 March was more than the junta could stomach. Bahía Paraíso was ordered to the Falklands. Endurance put her twenty-two Royal Marines ashore at Grytviken on 24 March. Th...