MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

1982: Falklands' Task Force removes Argentine base from South Sandwich islands

Remains of the Corbeta Uruguay outpost in the island of Thule

Having recovered South Georgia at the end of April and defeated the Argentine forces in the Falklands marking Liberation of the Islands on June 14, the Task Force still had another job, this time in the South Sandwich Islands.

Corbeta Uruguay was an Argentine military outpost established in November 1976 on the island of Southern Thule, following on orders from the then military Junta governing Argentina, with the purpose of backing its territorial claims on the South Sandwich Islands.

Britain discovered the base in December 1976 but sought a diplomatic solution to the issue until 1982.

Early in the Falklands conflict, Argentine special forces were brought by the navy vessel Bahía Paraíso to South Georgia and landed at Leith Harbor on March 25, 1982, a few days before the April 2nd invasion of the Falklands.

The Corbeta Uruguay base retained Argentine personnel until 20 June 1982, when the British forces fresh from victory in the Falkland Islands sent a task force to Thule to end the Argentine presence.

After the Argentine garrison at Corbeta Uruguay surrendered, the island of Thule was emptied and the facility left unmanned.

However in December 1982 it was mostly demolished by the Royal Navy after a patrolling vessel, HMS Hecate discovered that someone had taken down the Union flag from the base flagpole and replaced it was the Argentine colors.

The base was named after the Argentine corvette, ARA Uruguay that rescued Otto

Nordenskjóld and his crew in 1903 in the Antarctica peninsula, near the present day Argentine Esperanza Base.