Even the best fighting force can be severely blunted if the logistics effort to support it is found wanting.
And a logistics chain stretching thousands of miles over hostile ocean might be expected to be prone to failure.
But at the beginning of June 1982 there was an impressive stream of ships carrying stores, equipment, ammunition and fuel south from the UK to the Falkland Islands, usually via Ascension Island and maybe South Georgia as well.
And heading north were empty ships heading to load up once more, and the occasional warship to be patched up – destroyer HMS Glasgow amongst them.
At the beginning of June the area off the landing beaches on San Carlos Water, known until then as the AOA or Amphibious Operating Area, was renamed the TA, or Transport Area, into which small convoys of transport ships were escorted just about every night by warships.
There was an established ‘safe’ (or as safe as it could be during a bitter conflict) corridor of just over 100 miles leading from the rendezvous point in the TRALA (Tug, Repair And Logistic Area), just outside the eastern limit of the Total Exclusion Zone, into Falkland Sound, which was still a dangerous place to be with the ever-present threat of Argentine air attacks.
Casualties from the battlefields ashore – both British and Argentinian – were being shuttled efficiently out of harm’s way through a chain of hospital and ambulance ships, again from both sides, operating out of the ‘Red Cross box’ to the north of the islands.
This box, a universally-accepted neutral zone, was around 20 miles across and allowed the wounded to be taken to one of the two main hospital ships (former cruise liner HMHS Uganda and ARA Bahia Paraiso, a converted icebreaker) for treatment under conditions as near to a shore-based surgical unit as was possible on the high seas.
Once stabilised or treated, patients would then be taken on to South America, and on Wednesday 2 June ambulance ship HMS Hecla, a converted survey vessel, arrived at Montevideo in Uruguay with a group of patients; sister ship HMS Hydra followed her in a few days later while Hecla returned to the Red Cross box on Sunday 6 June.
Onshore in the Falklands, British troops continued to move towards the starting positions for the final assault on Stanley that would, in theory, crush Argentine resistance and finally take back control of the Falklands.
42 Cdo L Coy RM had already reached Mount Challenger from Port San Carlos earlier in the week, and J Coy were flown in by helicopter late on 2 June from Goose Green, which had been taken at the end of May in a vicious battle with dogged Argentine troops.
42 Cdo L Coy helicoptered from Port San Carlos (31st May), and J Coy from Goose Green (2nd June). Both Coys reached Mount Challenger.
2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment also flew out of Goose Green, but they were taking the southern route and headed for Fitzroy and Bluff Cove, where an assault on Stanley would be launched from the south-west.
The move was a bold one – a 35-mile jump forward, with Maj John Crosland having telephoned a resident in Fitzroy who assured him that the small Argentine group there and at nearby Bluff Cove had withdrawn.
With the weather deteriorating by the day, in wintry conditions work continued to establish the infrastructure needed to support the two-pronged attack.
Teal Inlet, on the northern side of East Falkland, was just about ready by 2 June, and the waterways had been swept and found to be clear of mines, and preparations were being made to create the necessary forward operating base at Fitzroy as well.
The inlet, just 15 miles from Stanley and close to forward troops on Mount Kent, provided deep water anchorages for unloading of troops and materiel, though it was still vulnerable to air attack, as would become apparent.
Back at San Carlos Water, on 2 June the Great White Whale – liner-turned-troopship Canberra – returned to the landing beaches from the relative safety of the Carrier Battle Group out at sea.
This time she offloaded two battalions of Guardsmen of the 5th Infantry Brigade via Landing Craft Utility (LCUs) and a couple of Sea Kings of 825 Naval Air Squadron, and with the area blanketed by thick fog there were to be no Argentine attacks while she remained in ‘Bomb Alley’.
Heading on in, she offloaded the two Guards battalions on Wednesday morning again using the hard-worked LCU's plus her two No.825 Sea Kings.
Onshore at Port San Carlos a team of Royal Engineers were putting the final touches to a forward airfield for Sea Harriers, greatly extending the effectiveness of these vital aircraft, which had flown Combat Air Patrols (CAPs) almost daily since the carriers arrived in theatre.
The first two jump jets to use the new operating base, from Saturday 5 June, were from 800 Naval Air Squadron,
Wednesday night saw the start of Operation Black Buck 6, when an RAF Vulcan bomber flew from Ascension Island to Stanley to carry out a successful Shrike missile attack on an Argentine Skyguard air defence radar installation.
On this occasion the Vulcan developed a problem with its refuelling system on the return leg and had to divert to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where it remained for a week.
On the evening of 2 June Type 42 destroyer HMS Cardiff attempted to shoot down an Argentine C-130 Hercules on a resupply mission to Stanley, but the aircraft, which was at the limit of the Sea Dart’s range, managed to avoid the missile.
There was one fatality on 2 June; Sgt Ian ‘Kiwi’ Hunt, a Royal Marine serving with the Special Boat Service (SBS), was killed in a ‘blue on blue’ incident when his unit unexpectedly came into contact with an Special Air Service (SAS) patrol near Teal Inlet.
Today’s image from the Imperial War Museum collection (© IWM FKD 347) shows members of the 5th Infantry Brigade landing at San Carlos on 2 June 1982. Troops can be seen digging in in the foreground, while colleagues move to their dispersal areas in the middle distance. A sea King helicopter is moving a truck in by air.
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* These posts can only give a brief sense of what was a complex and fast-moving situation 40 years ago, and cannot cover the involvement of every ship, squadron and unit in detail – for a much more comprehensive account see the Falklands section of naval-history.net at https://www.naval-history.net/NAVAL1982FALKLANDS.htm
