Sir John Nott: 'Bloodshed was justified'
Updated on 01 February 2007
Former defence secretary Sir John Nott tells Channel 4 News about the lead-up to the Falklands War.
Eve of war
On the eve of the Falklands War, defence secretary Sir John Nott had to face workers of the Portsmouth naval dockyards he had just sacked.
Defining moment
In a conflict with many defining moments, Sir John, despised in the Royal Navy for advocating spending cuts in the early 1980s, said his abiding memory was witnessing the dedication of the dock workers who had just got their P45s.
He said: "They worked day and night for three or four days to get the ships ready to sail 8,000 miles to the Falklands - and they'd only just received their redundancy notices through the post.
He was addressing the dock workers in Portsmouth on April 4, less than two weeks after the Argentine invasion and just before the departure of HMS Hermes.
"I just remember being so impressed by them, it has stuck with me.
"When the original announcement was made over the job losses, I'd had bolts thrown at me. But before the war the people I met were all very polite, there was no abuse.
"It was an incredible thing really."
'I still think the war was justified in the climate of the time'
Sir John had faced accusations his plans to scale down the Navy, including proposing scrapping the Antarctic patrol ship HMS Endurance, had given Argentina the impression the UK was no longer concerned with its overseas force projection and led Buenos Aires to think it could invade the Falklands.
When the Argentines invaded in March 1982, he offered to resign, which was refused by Margaret Thatcher.
But he defended the reasoning behind the cuts.
"We were reducing the size of Portsmouth dockyard - it was a decision taken before anyone had even heard of the Falklands.
"Although I have hundreds of memories from the war, being there in Portsmouth is one of the things I remember most clearly."
Did you see it happen?
Do you have a story to tell from the Falklands conflict? Perhaps you or a close relative were in the forces, or maybe you were at the Portsmouth quayside as the ships set sail for the south Atlantic. Do you have pictures from the time?
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Sir John was the MP for St Ives, Cornwall, from 1966 to 1983 and he joined the Cabinet when Thatcher won the General Election in 1979.
He still believes the 74-day war, in which 255 Britons and 655 Argentineans died, was valid.
He said: "It was an unpleasant experience for everybody. It's an experience that I went through - and not something I wanted to go through again.
"But I still think the war was justified in the climate of the time, we were in the middle of the Cold War.
'Thatcher was terrific'
"We had to show that if someone attacked us we would defend ourselves. Mrs Thatcher was terrific."
Sir John said he understood concerns from some of those injured in Falklands combat that the Ministry of Defence had not looked after them sufficiently.
In 2002, veterans who said they were not adequately treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, filed suits against the MoD.
'Of course the Falklands should stay British, but ultimately that's up to the islanders to decide.'
According to the South Atlantic Medal Association, which represents the soldiers, 256 British soldiers were killed during that conflict, but since then 264 have committed suicide.
Sir John says: "I do have sympathy with the veterans, but each individual has a different perspective.
"When soldiers come out of the service, I think very often it's because they miss the great comradeship and it's not the same afterwards. That creates the feeling they have been abandoned."
Despite playing such a key role in the conflict, Sir John, 75, has only been back to the Falklands once since the war and that was shortly after conflict ended.
He added: "Of course the Falklands should stay British, but ultimately that will be up to the islanders to decide.
"At the moment that's what they want, so that's how it should be."
After the Falklands War, in October 1982, he famously stormed out of a BBC interview by Sir Robin Day who accused him of being a "here today, gone tomorrow politician," after saying he would not seek re-election the following year.
Sir John called the interview "ridiculous" and walked off set. However it wasn't in vain. He used the phrase "Here today, gone tomorrow" as the title for his autobiography.
