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“God bless you Harold”, The Times obituary

Briley beside a minefield in the Falklands

Harold Briley's obituary by The Times, published Tuesday, August 22, 2023. - Reporter who broadcast the first news of Argentina’s invasion of the Falklands in 1982 and later campaigned for the Islanders’ rights.

In a momentous report from Buenos Aires on April 2, 1982, Harold Briley, a veteran foreign correspondent, broke the news of Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands on the BBC World Service.

His broadcast marked the start of a conflict that dominated the headlines for 74 days. In a matter of hours Britain had responded to the invasion by ordering a task force, led by two aircraft carriers, to retake the British territories in the South Atlantic, 8,000 miles from the navy’s main base at Portsmouth.

Speaking in clipped English, with little hint of his Lancashire roots, Briley told listeners: “Argentina’s threatened invasion of the British colony, the Falkland Islands, is reported to be under way.

“A fleet headed by Argentina’s flagship, Veinticinco de Mayo, was reported to be heading the invasion assault in which thousands of troops and aircraft were taking part. Official confirmation was expected from the president, General Leopoldo Galtieri, in a nationwide television and radio broadcast.”

Briley, the BBC’s Latin America correspondent, had been only too aware of the growing tensions between Buenos Aires and London over sovereignty of the Falklands, which lie 300 miles east of Argentina, where they are known as Islas Malvinas.

He had a particular sense of unease after the cancellation of a visit that he was scheduled to make to the Falklands on board HMS Endurance, the British patrol vessel, at the end of March. The commander of the ship, Captain Nick Barker, had messaged Briley to say that he could not pick him up in Uruguay as planned. Barker had been ordered to sail to South Georgia, another British territory, 1,400 miles east of the Falklands, where Argentine troops had made a landing in the guise of scrap-metal workers. “That was the clue that something was wrong,” said Briley, who hurried back to Argentina from his base in Brazil.

On April 2 he picked up a bulletin from Telam, the Argentine news agency. The report stated that “the invasion force was on its way” with 1,500 assault troops.

In Port Stanley, capital of the Falklands, Rex Hunt, the British governor, heard Briley’s report while crouching under a table in Government House, with a radio beside him.
Hunt later told Briley, “As I listened to you, Argentine troops arrived, shooting out all the windows in my conservatory.”

Hunt ordered the 57 Royal Marines who had been resisting the invaders to cease firing and lay down their arms.

Over the next two months Briley, then aged 51, continued to report from the Argentine capital, where he remained during the conflict. As the British task force sailed ever further south, he witnessed a change of mood in Buenos Aires, where people began to realize that the country faced a serious adversary.

By then he had reported on events in South America for the World Service for three years and was familiar with the brutality of Argentina’s government, a military junta led by Galtieri, which had waged a “dirty war” against domestic opponents. “I covered the dictatorship’s campaign of repression, and they made several death threats against me,” said Briley. “They killed 30,000 of their own people, including 130 journalists.”

On the eve of the invasion thousands of people had been in the central square — the Plaza de Mayo — in Buenos Aires protesting against the military government. On April 2 Briley was in the same square as it filled with people celebrating the invasion and what they regarded as the restoration of national honor.

Briley understood how important the Islands were to the Argentines. He also understood how important it was to the Islanders to remain British. He had visited the Falklands the year before when he met many local people who would follow his reports on hidden radios throughout the conflict.

In one settlement, Goose Green, where 114 Islanders were held by Argentine guards in the community hall for four weeks, the sound of Briley’s voice resonated strongly. His reports gave them hope.

The hostages, including many women and children, followed the progress of the conflict on a radio hidden in the spartan hall, which had two lavatories and one sink. Conditions were grim. They were liberated on May 29 after the Battle of Goose Green, a turning point in the war, when Argentine positions were overrun by soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, even though they were vastly outnumbered.

After the surrender of Argentina’s forces on June 14, the Islanders raised a banner outside Government House that said: “God bless you Harold”. He was awarded the Freedom of Goose Green and was also given the right to free drinks at the “Glue Pot”, which is the popular name for the Falklands Club in Port Stanley.

He remained in Argentina long enough to witness the collapse of the military junta and the restoration of democracy, but the Falklands conflict continued to define his life.

In the years immediately after the war, he interviewed many of the leading figures on both sides. He accompanied Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister, on a visit to the Islands, and met General Mario Menéndez, who had been governor during the occupation. In 1991 he became a member of the executive committee of the Falkland Islands Association, which supports the right of the Islanders to decide their own future.

Two years later he became co-editor of the Falkland Islands Newsletter with Peter Pepper, a former geologist who studied the history of the Falklands.

Briley published a book, ''Fight for Falklands Freedom, which documents attempts by Britain to reach a deal with Argentina over the Islands’ sovereignty as well as the 1982 conflict. The cover shows him on the deck of the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible, which led the task force.

The Falklands government honored Briley last year by naming a park after him. Harold Briley Park occupies the top of Sapper Hill, which overlooks Stanley, and sits between one road named after Rex Hunt, the former governor, and another named after Admiral Sir “Sandy” Woodward, commander of the task force. Briley was thrilled.

Harold Briley was born in Anfield, Liverpool, in 1931, the son of Jessica Briley and her husband, also named Harold, who ran a business making cart wheels. He had an elder sister, Joyce.

He was evacuated to north Wales on the outbreak of war in 1939 but returned to Liverpool just as the Germans started to bomb the city. On one occasion, he was blown out of his bed when a parachute mine landed nearby. He was then sent to the Isle of Man.

In 1942 he won a scholarship to Douglas High School, where he made his mark as a footballer — they nicknamed him “Dixie” after the Everton striker Dixie Dean — and excelled at tennis. An industrious boy, he did shifts on a milk cart before school and cleaned offices afterwards.

He joined The Isle of Man Times as an apprentice reporter in 1948 and later served with the Royal Artillery in Hong Kong on National Service. In 1954 he joined one of the Manchester newspapers as a reporter, and then specialized in shipping and politics on the Liverpool Post and Echo.

Briley moved to the BBC in 1960 and took on many different roles for the World Service. He became its first political correspondent. He covered India and Pakistan in the early 1970s, including the war that led to the establishment of Bangladesh, until he was appointed UN correspondent in New York in 1973. He became East Europe correspondent in 1977, and reported on the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

Although he spoke little Spanish, he was then appointed Latin America correspondent. He covered the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua before concentrating on the repression in Argentina under Galtieri, and its neighbor Chile, which was ruled by another military dictator, General Augusto Pinochet.

He returned to Britain in 1983 when he became defense correspondent until his retirement in 1990.

Briley had married Norah Mylrea in Douglas in 1956. They had met in the Isle of Man as teenagers. The couple had a daughter, Heather, who is a journalist, and a son, Kevin, who is a bus driver.

In retirement they moved from their home in Orpington, Kent, to Battle on the East Sussex coast. His wife and children survive him.

Briley was appointed OBE for services to journalism and broadcasting. He started writing a book about the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and, after suffering from macular degeneration, followed the work of charities supporting those with impaired vision.

He will be remembered for his great passion for the Falkland Islands and its people and his coverage of their darkest hours. According to Sir John Tusa, former head of the World Service, “Harold Briley’s Falklands coverage was one of the most extended pieces of sustained stamina of any correspondent on any story.”

Harold Briley OBE, journalist, was born on March 20, 1931. He died of cancer on June 26, 2023, aged 92.

 

See also “The Iron Lady and I”