MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

RAF Vulcan bombers trained to bomb mainland Argentina during Falklands war

The Vulcans would take off from Ascension Island and target airfields

British newspaper The Telegraph caused a media stir in Buenos Aires on Monday after running a story disclosing the details of a military operation to attack Argentina mainland during the Falkland Islands conflict in 1982.

According to the news piece, Royal Air Force Vulcan bombers designed for nuclear raids on Russia trained night and day in Scotland, Wales and Canada for an air attack in Argentine soil, more specifically Air Force bases and landing strips.

The newspaper states the plans were drawn up by Air Commodore Simon Baldwin, “who was the wing commander in charge of the last remaining Vulcan squadron in 1982.”

A top team of veteran pilots spent months plotting the raids, preparing to fly into Argentina mainland, The Telegraph informed.

Historian Rowland White said the commander in charge of the attack “was left in no doubt at all that attacks against the Argentine mainland were now his squadron's raison d'être”.

“It would be a major challenge but the crews were up for it, they were happy to go and do it but we were not gung-ho,” Baldwin told reporters.

“The attack of two flights of two Vulcans would be launched from Ascension Island, the mid-Atlantic British possession, which was 1,600 kilometres closer to the Argentine mainland air bases than the Falklands”, the paper explained.

British forces and intelligence feared the Argentine Junta could attempt a desperate attack following their unconditional surrender to the Task Force in the Falklands.

According to the story, the squadron went as far as Goose Bay, Canada. “But by the end of the year Argentina elected a democratic government and the threat to the Falklands went away,” it concludes.