Occupation of the Falkland Islands
The occupation of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands was the short-lived Argentine occupation of a group of British islands in the South Atlantic whose sovereignty has long been disputed by Argentina. Until their invasion on 2 April 1982 by the Argentine military junta, they had been governed by the United Kingdom since it re-established control over them in 1833.
The invasion and subsequent occupation signalled the start of the Falklands War, which resulted in the islands' returning to British control on 14 June 1982.
Background
The Falkland Islands had been under British administration since January 1833, when the United Kingdom re-established sovereignty over the islands which, at that time, housed an Argentine settlement. Argentina has claimed the Falklands as part of its territory ever since.The UK first claimed South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in 1843, and incorporated them as Falkland Islands Dependencies in 1908. The Argentine Fishing Company had an operation on South Georgia in the early 20th century, and Argentina had claimed sovereignty over South Georgia since 1927 and the South Sandwich Islands since 1938. In November 1976, Argentina landed and occupied the uninhabited island of Southern Thule in the South Sandwich group, which had been in a British possession since the 18th century.
Establishment
In the early hours of 2 April 1982, in the wake of violent anti-government riots in Buenos Aires, the military junta, which ruled Argentina, launched an invasion of the Falkland Islands. Faced with overwhelming Argentine force, Rex Hunt surrendered to Admiral Carlos Büsser at 9:15 am. The next day, Argentina sent troops to capture and occupy South Georgia and the uninhabited South Sandwich Islands.Argentina had claimed the islands were part of the then federal territory of Tierra del Fuego and South Atlantic islands. On 3 April 1982, the junta issued a decree which separated the islands from the jurisdiction of Tierra del Fuego and named Brigadier General Mario Menéndez as the 'Military Governor of the Malvinas, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands'.
74 days of occupation
On the first day of the occupation, Governor Hunt and officials from the Foreign Office were removed from the islands by the Argentine forces and sent to Montevideo, Uruguay. Argentine troops took over control of the Falkland Islands Broadcasting Studio when Patrick Watts was live on air. Rodney Hutchings, a former school-teacher from Britain that had only recently settled in Teal Inlet with his wife and son, recalls the sudden influx of Stanley residents seeking refuge in the settlement:Argentina used Spanish while on the islands, including the use of Puerto Argentino, the Argentine name for Port Stanley. Vehicles were told to drive on the right, with painted arrows on the road indicating the direction of traffic. Street signs and traffic signs were changed accordingly, including the use of the metric system. The Argentinian captain Barry Melbourne Hussey, who was chosen for a position in the administration due to his knowledge and experience of English, asserted safety as a major concern, during discussions with the Falkland Islanders: "Which would you prefer, that our eighteen-year-old conscripts, with their big lorries, should try to drive on the left, or that you, with your little vehicles, change to the right?". However, outside Stanley, most roads were single track anyway and some islanders refused to observe the new rule and continued to drive on the left. Other acts of civil disobedience included Reg Silvey broadcasting clandestine radio messages throughout the occupation.
The restrictions imposed by the military government became steadily worse – identification papers, curfews, compulsory blackouts, confiscation of radios and cameras, requisitioning of Land-Rover 4x4 vehicles and soldiers breaking into abandoned houses to steal furniture to use as firewood. Throughout the occupation, Phil Middleton and Steve Whitley would visit the abandoned houses to make sure they were not being vandalized but would also use these inspections as a cover to photograph Argentine positions.
According to Port Stanley resident John Pole Evans, Argentine Air Force Pucarás conducted napalm bombings on 21 April near Stanley as a show of force that coincided with General Cristino Nicolaides's visit as commander of the Argentine Army's 1st Corps that included the 10th Infantry dug around the Falklands capital: "We knew what sort of damage they could do, because during April whilst we were still in our homes, they'd bombed the Tussac Island in the harbour with napalm and it burned for a couple of days. This was like a warning of what they were capable of—that they could destroy the settlement if they wanted to. For them it was probably just some sort of target practice."
Residents considered critical of the Argentines were expelled from the islands. This included Bill Luxton whose family had been resident in the Falklands since the 1840s and the editor of the Falkland Islands Times David Colville. This proved embarrassing in the international press and so 14 residents of Stanley considered to be potential troublemakers were imprisoned and were sent to Fox Bay East and placed under house arrest.
On 1 May, a Royal Air Force Vulcan bomber from Ascension Island attacked the airbase at Port Stanley before dawn. Royal Navy Sea Harriers attacked Port Stanley and Goose Green airbases at dawn. The bombing led to the Argentines authorities and local civilians organising civil defence in the Falklands capital and several robust houses were designated Defensa Aerea Pasiva.
During the occupation, 114 inhabitants of Goose Green were imprisoned in the social hall until released by the British following the Battle of Goose Green. Lieutenant-Colonel Ítalo Piaggi, the Commanding Officer of the Argentine 12th Infantry Regiment, claimed that the lockdown in Goose Green was to protect the locals from attack by enraged Argentine Air Force personnel following the 1 May Sea Harrier strike.
According to local farm manager Eric Goss:
According to Brook Hardcastle, the general manager of the Falkland Island Company based at Goose Green:
On 4 May the British destroyer HMS Sheffield was hit by air-launched Exocet missile south-east of Falklands and a Sea Harrier was shot down over Goose Green. Eric Goss remembers the shocking news that day and having to intervene to save a local from potential harm:
On 6 May, Major Alberto Frontera in the presence of the civil affairs officer Captain Arnaldo Sanchez and the Regimental Medical Officer, Senior Lieutenant Juan Carlos Adjigogovich, visited the social hall to ensure the confined senior citizens were managing under the circumstances. The Regimental Medical Officer along with an air force medical officer, First Lieutenant Fernando Miranda-Abós would regularly visit the social hall with Adjigogovich reporting, "We set up the clinic in one of the local houses. We tried to have a good relationship with them but they looked at us with suspicion. There was a daily medical review and every time they needed a doctor they were attended. I don't know how they managed before we arrived, because they called us quite often, practically every day, for whatever reason." The medical officer in the book Partes de Guerra also describes how the infrastructures of Goose Geen broke under the strain of accommodating nearly 1,000 soldiers and local civilians and the British air attacks and naval bombardments that followed.
On 21 May, the Argentine command in Port Stanley sent out a civil affairs team, under Colonel Horacio Chimeno and Captain Esteban Eduardo Rallo to discuss the safety of civilians and to build shelters. Eric Goss again: "I told them to begin this process they should let the civilians go to their homes. I explained that all the eggs were effectively in one basket and that if we were to spread around the settlement then, if the worst happened, some of us would have a chance of survival. In the following days a number of civilians - my family included - were able to move back home." During the meeting with Vicecomodoro Wilson Rosier Pedrozo in attendance, it was agreed that air force personnel, that were largely inactive after the Pucara ground-attack aircraft had been withdrawn elsewhere, should form a military police unit to protect the local houses from vandalism after complaints had reached Monsignor Daniel Spraggon in the Falklands capital that the soldiers had started to smash furniture in order to apparently keep warm at night.
According to David Colville from Port Stanley, the Argentine military expelled 52 schoolchildren from the Falklands capital and turned the playground of the school into a compound for drilling troops. The Argentine Air Force took over the Stanley Schoolhouse Building with one room serving as the Centro de Información y Control under Comodoro Alberto Américo Catalá and another becoming the joints headquarters of the air force, army and marine anti-aircraft batteries. The Argentine peso replaced the Falkland Islands pound and stamps were overfranked with an "Islas Malvinas" postmark and an Argentine postcode, 9409. Bill Etheridge was the Postmaster and continued to operate with his staff under the supervision of Everto Hugo Caballero of the La Empresa Nacional de Correos y Telégrafos. The Postmaster recalls:
Caballeros was no fan of the military junta, did not approve of the occupation and respected his new colleague Bill. "When all this is over," he told the Islander, "you must come and visit me and we'll have happier times."
On 26 May, with Port Louis, on northeastern East Falkland, already under direct observation from British Special Forces established ashore, the 601st Combat Aviation Battalion was advised that a minor from the settlement was suffering from a life-threatening-medical-condition and needed urgent evacuation to King Edward Memorial Hospital in order to undergo emergency surgery. Under the instruction from General Mario Menéndez, a Huey helicopter was soon prepared and piloted by Lieutenant Héctor Molina, with co-pilot and mechanic Corporal Roberto López and an army surgeon aboard lifted off from Stanley Racecoursce and flying as low as possible along the coastline to avoid detection from British warships where able to reach their destination and bring the sick child back to Stanley, saving his life for which he thanked all involved in his rescue in a series of emails in 2012.