49 Fun Facts About Falklands War

How long did the Falklands War last?

Ten weeks: Argentina invaded on 2 April 1982 and its garrison surrendered on 14 June, after 74 days, in a war that neither side ever formally declared.

Besides the Falklands, which other islands did Argentina invade the next day, 3 April 1982?

South Georgia fell on 3 April only after 22 Royal Marines shot down a helicopter and damaged an Argentine warship; British forces retook the island on 25 April.

By what name does Argentina know the Falkland Islands?

Islas Malvinas comes from the French Îles Malouines, a name given in the 1760s for the sailors from Saint-Malo who founded the islands' first settlement.

Which British prime minister secretly sent two frigates and a nuclear submarine south in 1977?

James Callaghan's government secretly ordered the ships south after Argentina set up a base on Southern Thule, fearing the Falklands might be next.

Which minister pitched a leaseback scheme to islanders in 1980 and was savaged in Parliament?

Nicholas Ridley, a Foreign Office minister, proposed handing Argentina sovereignty and leasing the islands back; the islanders rejected the idea and MPs attacked it.

Which general headed the Argentine junta that ordered the invasion?

Leopoldo Galtieri had taken the presidency only in December 1981; he was removed from power before the end of June 1982, the month of the surrender.

Who were the Argentine party that raised their flag at Leith Harbour on 19 March 1982?

Scrap metal merchants under contract to clear an abandoned whaling station ran up the Argentine flag, turning a salvage job into the crisis that led to war.

Which ice patrol ship was Britain's only naval presence in the South Atlantic before the war?

HMS Endurance was due to be scrapped in the 1981 defence cuts; her captain warned that Argentina would take it as a green light, and the Foreign Secretary objected too.

What was the Argentine codename for the 2 April landings?

Operation Rosario's commandos had orders to avoid British casualties if they could, and the outnumbered Royal Marines laid down their arms that morning without losing a man.

Who was the Governor of the Falkland Islands at the time of the invasion?

Sir Rex Hunt put on his full ceremonial uniform, plumed hat and all, to face the Argentine commander, and was then expelled to Uruguay.

Which First Sea Lord told Thatcher that Britain could and should send a task force?

Sir Henry Leach, still in full uniform from a function in Portsmouth, tracked Thatcher down at the Commons while her Defence Secretary doubted the islands could be retaken.

What was the British codename for the whole campaign to retake the Falklands?

Operation Corporate was directed from a headquarters at Northwood, on the edge of London, some 8,000 miles from the fighting.

What did UN Security Council Resolution 502 demand?

An Argentine withdrawal was demanded by ten votes to one, and the Soviet Union abstained instead of using its veto.

Which Foreign Secretary resigned days after the invasion, taking responsibility for the failure to foresee it?

Lord Carrington insisted on going over the Foreign Office's failure to see the invasion coming; Thatcher called it a devastating blow, and an inquiry later cleared him of blame.

Who was appointed Argentine Military Governor of the occupied Falklands?

Mario Menéndez was ordered by Buenos Aires on 14 June to keep fighting; he chose to negotiate instead, and the surrender was signed the same day.

Which US Secretary of State flew between London and Buenos Aires on a shuttle-diplomacy mission?

Alexander Haig spent much of April shuttling between the two capitals; when his mediation collapsed, Washington dropped its neutrality and openly backed Britain.

Which liner, fresh from a world cruise, was requisitioned and sailed with 3 Commando Brigade?

SS Canberra kept her white cruise-liner paint all the way to San Carlos Water, earning the nickname the Great White Whale, and came home to cheering crowds in Southampton.

About how many ships sailed in Britain's Falklands task force?

About 130: the task force grew to 127 ships, dozens of them merchant vessels taken up from trade, from ocean liners to ferries.

Which two aircraft carriers led the task force out of Portsmouth?

Invincible and Hermes left Portsmouth on 5 April, within days of the invasion: one carrier was almost new, while the flagship Hermes was about 30 years old.

Which mid-Atlantic island served as the British task force's staging base, roughly halfway to the Falklands?

Ascension was the only usable base on the way south, yet it still lay nearly 4,000 miles short of the Falklands.

Which French president banned arms sales to Argentina and opened French ports in Africa to the British fleet?

François Mitterrand backed Britain from the start, even though France had sold Argentina the jets and missiles that went on to sink British ships.

Which Royal Marines slang word for a long march under full kit entered everyday British English in 1982?

Yomp, a slang word of uncertain origin, caught on when the Marines lost their transport helicopters at sea and had to cross East Falkland on foot under heavy loads.

Which bomber flew the Black Buck raids on Stanley airfield, then the longest bombing missions ever flown?

The Avro Vulcan was at the very end of its service life; each 16-hour round trip needed a relay of tanker aircraft to get a single bomber to Stanley and back.

Which American-made air-to-air missile gave Britain's Sea Harriers the edge in dogfights over the Falklands?

Sidewinder missiles of the newest AIM-9L model let Sea Harrier pilots shoot down Argentine jets without losing a single aircraft in air-to-air combat.

The British Total Exclusion Zone around the islands extended how far?

200 nautical miles was the radius Britain declared on 30 April; two days later the cruiser General Belgrano was torpedoed outside it, a decision argued over for decades.

Which British submarine torpedoed the cruiser ARA General Belgrano on 2 May?

HMS Conqueror, a nuclear-powered hunter-killer, sank the cruiser with torpedoes; the Argentine surface fleet returned to port and stayed there for the rest of the war.

What had the Belgrano survived unharmed as USS Phoenix?

Pearl Harbor: USS Phoenix came through the 1941 attack unharmed; sold to Argentina a decade later, she was sunk in 1982 with the loss of more than 300 lives.

Which Type 42 destroyer was the first Royal Navy ship sunk in action since the Second World War?

HMS Sheffield's warning sensors were blanked out by one of her own radio transmissions as the missile came in; she burned for two days and sank under tow.

Which French-made anti-ship missile became a household word in Britain during the war?

Exocet is French for flying fish; Argentina had only five of the air-launched version, yet they sank two British ships and caused near panic in London.

A Sea King on an aborted SAS mission was burned by its crew after landing in which neutral country?

Chile was the end of a one-way flight to land special forces near an Argentine air base; the crew burned their Sea King near Punta Arenas and gave themselves up.

An SAS raid on 14 May destroyed Argentine aircraft on which grass airstrip?

Pebble Island lost all 11 of its aircraft, six of them Pucará ground-attack planes, to SAS demolition charges a week before the British landings at San Carlos.

British forces nicknamed the San Carlos landing bay what?

Bomb Alley got its name as low-flying Argentine jets attacked the ships guarding the San Carlos landings day after day, sinking several Royal Navy warships within a week.

Why did many Argentine bombs fail to explode when they hit British ships?

Released too low to arm: pilots flew in at mast height to dodge missiles, so the fuzes had no time to arm. Admiral Woodward blamed a BBC broadcast for revealing the fault.

All but one of the four heavy-lift helicopters of which type were lost with the Atlantic Conveyor on 25 May?

Chinook Bravo November happened to be airborne on a test flight when the ship was hit, and as the only one left it earned the nickname The Survivor.

Which battalion attacked Goose Green and Darwin at the end of May 1982?

2 PARA took more than 900 prisoners, far more men than it had attacked with, in the first and longest land battle of the campaign.

Lieutenant Colonel H. Jones was posthumously awarded which decoration for Goose Green?

Victoria Cross: Jones died leading a charge on an Argentine trench, and the war's only other one, also posthumous, went to Sergeant Ian McKay on Mount Longdon.

Which landing ship was bombed on 8 June with the Welsh Guards still waiting aboard?

RFA Sir Galahad lost 48 men in the fire, 32 of them Welsh Guardsmen; badly burned survivor Simon Weston later became a well-known charity campaigner.

The 8 June air attack on two British landing ships is usually named after which settlement on East Falkland?

Bluff Cove was only where the troops were headed: the ships were hit at anchor off Fitzroy while the Guards waited to be moved on.

HMS Glamorgan was hit on 12 June by an anti-ship missile fired from what?

A launcher on shore: Argentine navy technicians took it off one of their own destroyers and rigged it up near Stanley to hit the ships shelling the coast.

Which unit captured Mount Tumbledown in the final night of fighting before Stanley fell?

2nd Battalion, Scots Guards took the mountain from Argentine marines in a night of close-quarter fighting with grenades and bayonets, hours before the surrender.

To which British officer did the Argentine garrison surrender on 14 June?

Major General Jeremy Moore then signalled London that the islands were 'once more under the government desired by their inhabitants', words Thatcher read to the Commons the next day.

Which member of the royal family flew Sea King helicopters from an aircraft carrier during the Falklands War?

Prince Andrew, then 22, flew as a Sea King co-pilot with the task force; he later said it was a moot point whether he had really served as a missile decoy.

Which tabloid ran the 'Gotcha' headline after the sinking of the Belgrano?

The Sun pulled 'Gotcha' after the first edition, once it became clear how many sailors might have died; it was the paper that also ran 'Stick It Up Your Junta!'

Which Argentine writer called the war 'a fight between two bald men over a comb'?

Jorge Luis Borges coined the line after the war; the great Argentine writer had British ancestry and grew up speaking English as well as Spanish.

In the sovereignty referendum held a generation after the war, how many Falkland Islanders voted against staying British?

3 votes were cast against and 1,513 in favour in the 2013 poll, a 99.8% Yes on a 92% turnout that Argentina dismissed as having no legal validity.

Which permanent RAF base with a long-haul runway opened on East Falkland in 1985?

RAF Mount Pleasant became the centrepiece of Britain's post-war defences, its runway sized for wide-bodied jets so the garrison could be supported by air.

Which animals thrived in the Falklands' fenced-off minefields?

Penguins were too light to set off the mines, so the fenced-off beaches became accidental reserves for nearly 40 years, until a mostly Zimbabwean team finished clearing them in 2020.

What did defeat in the Falklands bring Argentina the following year?

Democracy returned in 1983: the discredited junta called elections, Raúl Alfonsín won the presidency, and the former military rulers were later put on trial.

Which Commonwealth country, led by Robert Muldoon, expelled Argentina's ambassador and lent Britain frigates during the war?

New Zealand sent the frigates Canterbury and Waikato to take over a Royal Navy patrol in the Indian Ocean, freeing British warships to join the task force.