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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 25, 1982
PAGE 9
establishment of the bridgehead at San Carlos Bay. British forces relanded
there under extreme Argentine aerial counter-attack exactly seven weeks to
the day after Argentina's April 2 takeover. Here is how a dispatch over our
ASSOCIATED PRESS news wire reported the remarkable events surrounding this
pivotal operation:
� half-dozen dud
Argentine
bombs
that
slammed
into
Royal
Navy
warships but failed to explode may have spelled the difference
between victory and defeat for the British in the Falkland Is
lands war.
Military analysts in London believe that if the destroyers and
frigates hit by the bombs in Argentine air attacks May 21 at the
San Carlos Bay beachhead had been knocked out, the navy could
have been forced to withdraw. That would have left the 5,000
British troops on shore dangerously exposed with their supply
line cut at the most critical point of the campaign to recapture
the islands seized by Argentina April 2.
"If those bombs had gone off and we'd lost those ships at that
time the outcome of the campaign could have been very, very dif
ferent," said a Royal Navy Intelligence source, who asked not to
be identified. Adm. Sir John Fieldhouse, commander-in-chief of
the British Fleet, admitted the British were "extraordinarily
lucky" not to lose more men and ships than they did in the 74-day
conflict ••••
Four damaged British warships are limping back to their bases on
England's south coast for repairs.
"We' re the luckiest ship
alive," Capt. Anthony Hoddinott, skipper of the 4,100-ton de
stroyer Glasgow, hit by one of the dud bombs, said when his ship
arrived at Portsmouth. The 1,000-pound bomb dropped by an Argen
tine Skyhawk May 12 smashed through one side of the destroyer,
passed through the engine room and out the other side without ex
ploding.
British experts believe the bombs, mostly World War II vintage
American and British weapons sold to Argentina, failed to deto
nate because of faulty mechanisms. Three of the four warships
damaged by duds were hit in "bomb alley,
11
the narrow Falkland
Sound between the two main islands where the navy strung its "gun
line" to protect the San Carlos landing. In four days of fer
ocious air attacks, the destroyer Coventry and frigates Ardent
and Antelope were sunk. Six ships were damaged.
".!J:.
still seems remarkable that the bridgehead survived and that
� large section of the fleet was not sunk," said John Witherow, a
TIMES of London correspondent who was aboard a warship in "bomb
alley." "The Argentines came remarkably close to winning that
battle."
Even the final battle for Port Stanley could have been otherwise. If the
Argentines, who were superior in numbers and materiel (but certainly not
morale) had known how dangerously short of supplies the British were, they
perhaps wouldn't have surrendered en masse so remarkably fast. The much
anticipated bloody fight for Port Stanley never materialized. Here is how