Operation Tidespring Epilogue
Narrator of 'Sea of Fire', BBC2 Documentary, August 1997
“The Atlantic Conveyor and Conventry had of course known that the Argentine Forces on the Islands had surrendered and the short but on the freighter probably somewhat more intense celebrations are evidence of this. What was to happen on the 6th May was not really connected to this but it hammered home that the conflict was not yet over. The Argentine Missile Submarine was in contact with the Argentine High Command, but they too only heard what they were being told, meaning that they too were unaware of the magnitude of the 2nd Battle of the Falklands several days before.
The courses of the two groups converged without either side knowing what was going to happen on that fateful day.
HMS Coventry was on the port side of the Atlantic Conveyor while her Helicopter was on standby in case anything was detected. Captain Fleming had every reason to expect a reasonable uneventful Journey to Ascension Island, considering that all known Argentine Naval units were accounted for, the remaining Cruiser at port, the Carriers sunk and the Submarines showing up on photographs.
On the morning of the 6th the Lynx Helicopter aboard Coventry was just being readied for the usual dawn patrol when the ASDIC room called out an unidentified contact, in fact the Missile Submarine that had lain in wait for more orders from shore and found the group by accident only. Now it is necessary to understand that Coventry was using her towed ASDIC passive array, at a speed that was the best compromise between the best speed of the Atlantic Conveyor and sensor performance in the current water temperature. Captain Fleming ordered the Helicopter to be launched immediately and soon the Lynx was vectored onto the probable location of the contact.
Dipping it's own passive ASDIC into the waters of the South Atlantic, the helicopter almost immediately failed to detect the contact for several critical minutes that allowed the Argentine Submarine to close to point blank range. However when she levelled off and came close to the surface in order to fire her missiles sound was generated that couldn't fail to be picked up by the operators both aboard Coventry and the Lynx.
Immediately going to Action stations the crew of the Destroyer was almost immediately aware of a problem, the contact was between them and the helicopter and so close already that it would take the Lynx several precious moments to get within firing position for the air-dropped Spearfish torpedo on the starboard side. Almost congruently with the Lynx dropping it, the Argentine Submarine fired four out of five anti-ship missiles. Being less than three miles away from the Destroyer and the Freighter, there was only an extremely small window in which the missiles could be engaged, and unfortunately they were well within the minimum engagement envelope of the Sea Dart. Instead the CIWS turret roared into life, managing to shoot down one of the missiles just as it broke the surface, and another one as it had just passed the ship, Coventry being in the blind spot of the warheads.
The other two however were too fast.
One grazed the bows of the Atlantic Conveyor but failed to explode (most probably and electrics failure) and did nothing but damage a few bits of the various things on the deck of the freighter.
The second missile however hit the ship almost exactly in the middle of her upper deck and caused a massive fire that would eventually go on the claim the lives of a third of her crew, in spite of immediate assistance rendered by the Conventry.
The men would fight for their ship for almost nine hours before the last fires were out and most of the deck cargo had been tossed over the side, but in the end the Atlantic Conveyor remained afloat.
What had happened to the Argentine Submarine in the meantime?
The Spearfish dropped by the Lynx had barely had time to arm itself, but it crossed the distance within seconds, with predictable results.
To this day the Argentine People's Armada refuses to disclose the name of the Submarine or if there were any more of it's type. HMS Coventry is currently on a tour with the British Pacific Fleet, while the Atlantic Conveyor is on the Liverpool-Halifax route as a container carrier after her 1984 rebuild.”
Burma Board of Education, College History Textbook, 2002
After the liberation of the Falklands Islands the Empire immediately asked for mediation by the League of Nations and used diplomatic channels in Washington to indicate that as far as Britain was concerned the war was over and that there were no further designs of Argentine territory on the mainland or any form of reparation. The Prime Minister even indicated that one was willing to pay for the transport of the Prisoners of War back to the mainland in British ships.
No answer was forthcoming from Buenos Aires even though Washington was surprised at the lenient British posture and immediately agreed to make use of American influence in Argentina to end the war before more people on both sides were killed. On the 10th of May, after almost a week of no activity at all the reason for the comparative silence of Buenos Aires became clear when units of the People's Guard instigated the hard-line 'May Coup' as it is known in the west against the relatively détente-minded Government of Marshal Fuentes with the first 'Party-Military Council' Government. It was clear that while the Argentines sorted themselves out that there could be no thought of actual negotiations, so instead Admiral Kavaney consulted with London and declared a unilateral cease fire that would remain in effect until some sort of agreement with Buenos Aires could be reached.
At first the Hardliners were unwilling to accept the facts and refused to come to the table, in fact mere hours after the American Ambassador had delivered Washington's desire for a speedy and peaceful resolution and had hinted that if things went on Washington might withdraw objections to a limited British Air campaign against the mainland the Argentine Air Force sortied a Squadron of Bombers with orders to 'attack and annihilate British shipping around the Islands'.
This attack was beaten off and the only effect of it was that Ambassador McAuliffe insisted on Washington putting more pressure on the Argentines and that at the same time London officially and very publicly asked Brasilia[1] for permission to possibly use Força Aérea Brasileira bases in the south in case Bomber Command needed to visit Argentine Naval and Air Bases.
It was most probably this that was the reason for the about face of the new Argentine Leadership, because two days afterwards the British Ambassador to Chile was quietly asked to meet with his Argentine Counterpart.
No peace treaty was ever signed, nor have the Argentine leaders given up their claims on the Falklands (as evidenced by the rhetoric during the latest regime change in 1998) and both sides merely agreed to suspend hostilities and not to take them up again. Still, the British Empire had won the conflict and reassured especially Brazil and Uruguay that the Allied position in South America was as strong as ever, and the Falklands war was officially declared over on 14th May 1983.
The Official History of the Falkland Islands, Liverpool Publishing House, 2000
In the immediate aftermath of the war the biggest task facing both the Royal Marines and the local inhabitants was rebuilding the damaged infrastructure. To impede movement the Fleet Air Arm had bombed several crossroads. The Argentine Prisoners of war were repatriated by using the very same landing ships that had brought the Marines to the Islands.
Over the next years the British military presence on the Islands increased tenfold. The Falklands Island Marine Regiment was raised in 1984 to have a permanent defence force always station on the Islands and RAF Port Stanley was turned back into a purely civilian airport the same year as it was decided that it would be better to build a whole new base to house the rotating Squadrons which would be RAF Mount Pleasant. The Naval station was increased from a singular Frigate to a Type 82 (later Type 45) Destroyer and two frigates.
[3]
As early as 1985 the Argentine military began orchestrating what turned out to be a regular series of incidents meant to provoke the British. With the regularity of clockwork unarmed Argentine aircraft would intrude into British airspace or Argentine Naval vessels would impede civilian traffic to and from the Islands. However the Argentine Navy never recovered from the beating it had taken at 2nd Falklands and to this day does not operate anything larger than a Destroyer, the last cruiser having been scrapped in 1988. These incidents were always a convenient way of distracting from the internal turmoil that dominated Argentina for most of the 1980s, and that Scotland in 1986 and Germany in 1990 defeated the Argentine National Football team in the finals for the World Cup did not help either as the population seized on anything that could possibly improve their standing in the world.[2]
Still, the Argentine obsession with the Islands began to wane as the country stabilized during the 1990s but even so once or twice a year the Lightnings and later Typhoons were scrambled from RAF Mount Pleasant to intercept Argentine NWA Type 707 converted airliners that attempted to overfly the Islands on either Intelligence gathering missions or to show the world that Argentine goes where it pleases. To this day the Argentines do not have official diplomatic relations with the British Empire nor is there a Charge d'affairs, with the interests of British subjects being represented by the Swiss and Russian embassies.
Autobiography of Admiral Sir Frederick Kanveney, KBE, DSO and Bar, RN (ret.), 2011
The return of Force Z to Scapa Flow is an occasion that I still remember fondly. I had only shifted my flag back to Ark Royal when we crossed the Equator and the damaged ship drew a lot of comments from the onlookers once she was moored, but when we entered the anchorage through Hoxa sound, we could immediately see the crowds of cheering people on the banks surrounding the base. HMS Hood flew the White Ensign from every mast as the sounds of 'Rule Britannia' played by the RM band on the quarterdeck of the Hood waved over the water. When I disembarked from one of Ark Royal's launches near the CinC's Headquarters we were met by the CinC, the Prime Minister and Her Majesty the Queen who assured me that the British population all over the Empire was proud of what we had accomplished and....
The End..
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I must say its a rather new experience for me to actually finish one of these. I did some AARs a while ago, but nothing on the scale of the AAO-verse.
[1] TTL the capital was also built, albeit at a different location farther north to keep it farther away from the Pact nations in South America.
[2] I will hold exactly who wins when during the cup secret for the moment. *evil grin *
[3] The weather on this picture is actually fitting quite well with the subject matter, as it was the “Farewell to the Lightning” show in 1987 according to the caption.
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