Osprey - Air Campaign 037 - Operation Black Buck 1982 The Vulcans Falklands War Raids.pdf

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C A M P A I G N
A I R
OPERATION
BLACK BUCK
1982
The Vulcans’ extraordinary
Falklands War raids
A N D R E W D. B I R D
|
I L LU S T R AT E D B Y A D A M TO O B Y
A I R C A M PA I G N
OPERATION
BLACK BUCK
1982
The Vulcans’ extraordinary Falklands War raids
A ND RE W D. BIR D | I LLU S TR ATE D BY ADAM TOOBY
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGY
ATTACKER’S CAPABILITIES
DEFENDER’S CAPABILITIES
CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES
THE CAMPAIGN
AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS
FURTHER READING
INDEX
4
10
12
31
40
46
90
94
95
4
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
After 30 years of service
as a platform for Britain’s
nuclear deterrent, the
venerable Avro Vulcan
would finally see combat
in the conventional role in
the Falklands War.
(Getty Images)
At the end of the world, a little bit of empire lingers on in the Falkland Islands, an archipelago
in the South Atlantic over which Britain and Argentina have been at loggerheads for more
than 300 years, with both claiming sovereignty. The root of the problem over these clumps
of rocks can be traced to the celebrated
Inter caetera
issued by Pope Alexander VI, who
guillotined the lands that European navigators were starting to discover into two territories,
one Spanish, one Portuguese.
Lines drawn (and then revised) went straight from north to south through what is now
modern Portuguese-speaking Brazil, leaving land to the west of the line to the Spaniards.
This included most of the South American mainland, whose conquistador armies had not
yet arrived in Mexico or Peru. The 1493 document showed that on the Spanish side of the
line, still undiscovered 400 miles off the future Argentinian coast, lay the cluster of islands
that the British would name after the naval entrepreneur Viscount Falkland, and on which
the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville would name the first settlement Les Îles
Malouines after St Malo, in western France. Spaniards would much later adapt the French
name to give the islands the name Las Malvinas.
It is not entirely clear whether Portuguese or Spanish sailors sighted this archipelago or
any other South Atlantic islands such as South Georgia. The English navigator John Davis,
aboard the
Desire,
made the first confirmed sighting of the islands in 1592. The first known
landing was by English Captain John Strong in 1690 at Bold Cove, Port Howard on West
Falkland. Strong seemed unimpressed, noting that there was an ‘abundance of geese and
ducks’ but that ‘as for wood, there is none’. He charted the sound between the two principal
islands, which he named ‘Falkland Channel’ (today known as Falkland Sound) after the First
Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Falkland, and sailed away. Sealers, whalers and penguin
hunters from different corners of the globe became frequent visitors.
Meanwhile, British legislators in Canada systematically cleansed provinces and territories
of Acadian people during the Seven Years’ War, deporting some to France. These displaced
people boarded two frigates at St Malo in the autumn of 1763 under the command of French
5
An earth mover clearing
soil for the new US
Army Air Force base,
Wideawake, on Ascension
Island that will become
a joint US Air Force and
Royal Air Force base.
(Photo by Ivan Dmitri/
Michael Ochs Archives/
Getty Images)
Admiral Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, and sailed across the South Atlantic to colonize the
‘Îles Malouines’.
Anchoring in Berkeley Sound, they rowed ashore and christened the landing spot Port
Louis after King Louis XV and established the first settlement on north-eastern East Falkland
in February 1764. While Port Louis flourished, the British in January 1765 established
a base off West Falkland at Port Egmont, Saunders Island, with neither party realizing
that a settlement existed on the opposite island. Here the first systematic scientific and
meteorological observations were recorded in the Falklands. Saunders Island continued to
be used by British sealers and whalers until Jacinto de Antolaguirre, one of two Spaniards
to govern the Falklands (Las Malvinas), in 1781 sent Salvador Medina Y Juan with troops
to Port Egmont. Their orders were to ‘destroy every object found in Egmont as part of your
reconnaissance of that area’. No opposition was evident. All houses were burned to ensure
they would not be re-used, and the name plaque was removed by Salvador and presented
to authorities in Buenos Aires, from where it was recaptured by the British roughly 30
years later.
Almost every year from 1782 an ice breaker from
Buenos Aires arrived at Egmont to prevent the British
from re-establishing their rule. However, as Spain’s empire
crumbled under Napoleon’s occupation and the march
of liberal ideas – encouraged by Britain and the United
States – Spanish domination in Latin America dissipated.
Spring 1810 saw sovereignty over the Viceroyalty of the
Río de la Plata transfer to the successor state, Argentina.
In 1823 Argentina appointed a governor of the Malvinas,
Louis Vernet from Hamburg, Germany, although his
appointment was never officially gazetted – and so was
not strictly legal.
The Falkland Islands became a Crown Colony in
1840. Governor Richard Moody, with the cooperation
of HMS
Terror
and HMS
Erebus
captains Francis Crozier
Northwood Headquarters
in Northwest London.
As Headquarters of the
Commander-in-Chief Fleet,
the site was the controlling
Headquarters for
Operation Corporate, the
Falklands War, in 1982.
(Andrew D. Bird
Collection)

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