Reply To: HMS SHEFFIELD and the Exocet

[Malcolm Lewis]

Paul Brown’s book featured as an SNR Podcast is an important record of the sad loss of six RN and RFA ships as well as the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano. It is a MUST READ for the naval historian.
Both the British Government and its military were unprepared to respond to the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands, the windswept rocks 8000 miles away in the South Atlantic. Paul gives a harrowing description of life aboard a modern warship under constant attack from fast jets with bombs and missiles. The book is very well researched and includes information from government files only recently released.
The unanswered question I suppose is would Argentina have carried out such an invasion if the UK had not withdrawn the ice patrol ship Endurance, which showed a lack of commitment to the Falkland islanders and, at the first signs of trouble such as the landings at South Georgia, sent a nuclear submarine from its patrol area in the North Atlantic to the Southern Ocean?