History Channel documentary on the Falklands 1982 air warfare

Tuesday, June 16th 2009 - 04:41 UTC

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The “Malvinas War” seen from the air is the documentary to be aired Monday in the History channel for its Spanish language customers. According to the release the “War from the air” is a unique documentary which shows one of the most outstanding angles, but least publicized, of the 1982 South Atlantic conflict, the air battles between the Argentine Air Force and the Royal Air Force.

“Unique images recreate historic moments which to our days have never been seen, and chronicled by those directly involved in the dog fights”, points out History Channel.

Through CGI animated reconstructions, real and exact, following on the accounts of the pilots involved, the air war program displays the “last air battle of the Cold War and the fire baptism of the Argentine air force”.

On the one side the adrenalin of the pilots flying at ten metres over sea level, no radar, no radio with just occasional sputters of communication, the bombings, the air dog fights and the dramatic refuelling over the South Atlantic are some of the most poignant points of the story, based on interviews with the pilots who fought on both sides.

During the 1982 South Atlantic conflict the British Task Force rapidly took control first of the sea, then on the ground following the landings in San Carlos, but air warfare was different.

According to History channel with inferior equipment, the Argentine pilots showed intrepidness, courage and surprising professionalism surprising their British counterparts and generating more than a problem for the Task Force.

To this day the expertise and creativeness of the Argentine pilots are remembered with awe as well as the tactics used by the Argentine Air Force, “which forced the review of modern anti air tactics of ground troops”.

This is the history of the Malvinas war and the air knights which confronted and fought gallantly against one of the most powerful armies in the world, concludes the presentation of tonight’s Malvinas War, air warfare chapter

Categories: Politics, Falkland Islands.

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Salvador
Although actual images of war are not - in my opinion - of good taste, this video-film I watched yesterday evening and will be shown again on friday 19th June, 09 at 9pm Argentine time, avoids showing death as much as possible and is therefore suitable to be seen by anyone 12 y.o. or more. Argentina's “recovery” feat was doomed from the very moment it was decided by the de facto military goverment officialdom who wanted to show the people that “it may be done” only to stay in power. Unfortunately, booze does not help to think and we were all messed up into this deadly, foolish confrontation which ruined decades of reciprocal goodwill and even friendship. The film shows not the land armies' actions, but instead a story by the brave Argentine pilots doing what they could with their vintage and badly cared for aircraft, their scarce ammo & bombs and only a handful of good Mirage fighter-bombers armed with a score of ultimate-generation air-to-air missiles, the French Exocets, adapted to the Mirages - in a hurry - by Argentine engineers as these missiles were never shot before. With these flying machines and unbelievable courage and skills, our pilots managed to sink and damage a fair number of enemy ships, thus delaying the British landing as much as possible. Believe it or not, at the end of the film an air force man makes a balance of material costs incurred, comparing the prices of our almost useless lost aircraft and those of the Class 21 frigates and other vessels and aircraft that were lost by the other side. I feel that this is of very bad taste because the loss of Argentine planes - junk actually - was almost always accompanied by the loss of a brave, resilient pilot who offered heroically his life for nothing but a bunch of drunk military scoundrels, and not really for their land. Military, it appears, never learn. Now I wonder whether the islanders or anyone except Argentines would be happy to watch this 2-hour long video, but I may add that it is worth watching, if only to learn from past errors... Cheers, Argie-Salvador
Jun 16th, 2009 - 09:03 pm 0

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