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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 25, 1982
PAGE 10
our REUTERS news wire, on June 16, summarized this battle-that-never
really-was:
The commander of British forces on the Falkland Islands said
today that only a handful of shells was left for some guns used by
his troops in the final battle for Port Stanley.
"It was a•••close thing in certain senses," Major General Jeremy
Moore said, paraphrasing the Duke of Wellington, the British com
mander after his victory at Waterloo in 1815. Moore said that
some guns which began the last battle with 400 shells were at one
point down to eight. He was speaking of what he called the logis
tics problem of supplying forces 8,000 miles from Britain ••••He
said 33 British soldiers died and 140 were wounded in the final
three-day battle for Port Stanley.
The veteran marine commando •••said •••"the (Argentine) air force
clearly fought with great bravery. Despite enormous losses they
kept corning."
He said [that] Argentine regular troops also
"fought very well and had to be winkled out. Some of the young
conscripts, perhaps the majority, didn't want to be here. Some
� kept in their trenches !?,y having bullets fired through both
feet."
He paid tribute to the bravery, professionalism and dedication of
his own force and said: "The enemy were extremely surprised at
how fast we got across from the landing base." [British marines
"yomped" their way across 50 miles of boggy terrain under the
burden of 120-pound packs.]
After the surrender, Argentine troops in Port Stanley admitted to the vic
torious British how ill-provisioned they were in the field of personal
needs, especially clothing and weather-protective gear. One poor soldier
complained he had managed only two showers in the 62 days he was in the
islands. Nevertheless, Argentine supply planes had regularly evaded the
"exclusion zone" armaments to ferry in war supplies--even including the
night before the surrender. The British were surprised at the volume and
quality of war materiel that fell into their hands. Here's another REUTERS
report, from June 23:
Britain's booty from the war to repossess the Falkland Islands
includes a vast array of weaponry including Exocet, Tiger Cat,
Blowpipe and SAM missiles and two complete radar systems worth
$10 million each.
British armaments experts have defused three French-made Exocet
missiles deployed in a land battery by the Argentines near the
airport at Port Stanley, the Falklands capital. A missile fired
from this system damaged the British light cruiser Glamorgan in
the final phase of the battle to retake the islands. British
military sources said Argentine agents were believed to have pur
chased the Exocets on the black market at prices up to $860,000
each.
The British now hold a fast
Pucaras [ground attack planes]
patrol boat, several undamaged
and 14 helicopters, including 10