MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US sidewinder missiles vital.

The British task force could not have retaken the Falkland Islands from Argentine occupation without the latest version of the side-winder missile. This is admitted by Baroness Thatcher in another of her Times articles giving her version of the conflict.

The side-winder missiles, used to deadly effect by the task force Harrier aircraft, were, she says, supplied by the United States Defence Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, who also provided matting for a makeshift airstrip, and even proposed sending the giant aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower to act as a mobile runway for the British forces in the South Atlantic -- "an offer that we found more encouraging than practical".

Her article entitled "From Despair to Victory" describes her dismay on May 25, "one of the worst nights of the war", when the destroyer HMS Coventry was sunk and so also was the container ship Atlantic Conveyor, carrying vital Chinook helicopters for ferrying troops, eight of which were lost and only one saved. But 19 Harriers had earlier been flown off to the aircraft carriers Hermes and Invincible. Without them she questions whether the campaign could have continued.

How was Canberra missed?

She says she was desperately anxious about casualties at San Carlos but in fact 5,000 troops were landed safely. "How the Argentine pilots missed the huge, white-painted Canberra, acting as a troop ship, I will never know".

Resisting US pressure for negotiation to avoid Argentine military humiliation, Margaret Thatcher says: "I wish I could have been as confident. I knew, as they could not, how many risks and dangers still faced us".

She says the "terrible losses" suffered when the troop-landing ships Sir Tristram and Sir Galahad were bombed and set ablaze were "etched on her mind".

After the bitterly fought battles on the mountains around Stanley, she writes: "The speed with which the end came took us all by surprise. The Argentines were weary, demoralised and badly led. They had had enough. They threw down their arms and retreated through their own minefields to Stanley.... The war was over. ... Right had prevailed. And when I went to sleep very late that night I realised how great had been the burden now lifted from my shoulders".

Harold Briley, London

Categories: Falkland Islands.

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