MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands marks in May the landing of British forces and the liberation of Goose Green

British forces unloading supplies from landing craft at San Carlos

May is a month of commemoration for the population of the Falkland Islands, as the 44th anniversary of the Argentine armed invasion falls this month — an occupation that was defeated and expelled following the landing of the Task Force dispatched by London.

That event took place on 21 May 1982 in San Carlos Bay, and it was the action that, just three weeks later, on 14 June, brought about the surrender of the Argentine occupation forces.

Residents are invited to gather this Thursday the 21st at around 11:00 at the symbolic San Carlos Cemetery — where the remains of some of the forward British troops lie — to pay their respects and remember a day of such significance to the people of the Falklands. There will be a brief religious service, military honours, a minute of silence, and those who wish to do so may lay floral tributes.

The other major event to be commemorated is Goose Green Liberation Day, which will take place on 29 May from 11:00 at the Social Club of that settlement.

It was in that club where, during the Argentine occupation, some one hundred and twenty people — mostly women, children and the elderly — were held confined and crammed into a single room, with minimal sanitary conditions, while fighting and bombardment unfolded nearby. Many mothers shielded their children under the floorboards of the building, fearing the worst.

In the Battle of Goose Green, fought on 28 and 29 May, around 450 British paratroopers ultimately prevailed, taking nearly 1,600 prisoners and securing the release of the more than one hundred men, women and children held captive by Argentine forces.

Goose Green-Darwin is the second most important settlement in the Islands and in 1982, when wool was still the backbone of the Islands' economy, it had all the facilities needed to house around one hundred and fifty people, among them families and shepherds.

Following the recapture of Goose Green and the overland march from San Carlos to Stanley — some 110 kilometres — British forces, after fierce fighting on several of the hills surrounding the Islands' capital, prevailed and secured the final and unconditional surrender of the occupation forces on 14 June 1982.

The march to Stanley had to be made on foot, as the Falklands' peat bogs are in practice impassable in winter due to the saturated ground — heavy vehicles sink, all the more so given the absence of roads. In 1982 there were at most tracks suitable for horses.

The container ship carrying helicopters, Harrier jets and spare parts — the Atlantic Conveyor — which had been earmarked precisely to cover that stretch, was sunk by Argentine aircraft using one of the last Exocet missiles at their disposal, in the Sound between the two main islands of the Falklands.