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On the late afternoon of 25 May 1982, at the height of the Falklands war, the British destroyer HMS Coventry was hit by bombs dropped by two Argentinian aircraft. Within 15 minutes, the Coventry had capsized. Although the majority of the crew were saved, 19 British sailors lost their lives and 25 were injured.
The incident was not just a major blow to the British forces at the time. It also undermined confidence in the strategies and tactics of the British navy, leading to significant changes in the naval approach to attacks from the air.
The Falkland Islands, known in Spanish as Las Islas Malvinas,
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are a small, windswept group of islands in the South Atlantic, about 400 miles from Argentina, 900 miles from Antarctica and 8,000 miles from Britain.
First charted in the late 17th century by a British explorer sailing for Chile, the Falklands were claimed by the Spanish in 1713 and by the French in 1764. A British commodore, John Byron, arrived in the Falklands in 1765. Unaware of the French presence there, he established a small settlement. Two years later, France ceded the islands to the Spanish, who set about expelling the British settlers. They were later allowed to return, but the Falklands remained part of the Spanish empire.
In 1829, during a dispute between the United States and Argentina, an American warship was sent to the islands. The captain ordered the sacking of the islands' main settlement, the destruction of some Argentinian weaponry and the arrest of some of the islands inhabitants. The ship then left, the captain declaring the islands' 'free of all governments'. Four years later, Britain claimed them.
In the 1960s, the Labour government of Harold Wilson began negotiations to hand the Falklands over to Argentina. However, under Conservative prime minister Edward Heath, the idea was scrapped. Britain's relations with Argentina deteriorated over the course of the 1970s. In 1981, General Leopoldo Galtieri became president of Argentina following a coup d'état. He immediately began planning the invasion of the Falklands/Las Malvinas, which took place on 2 April 1982.
A British task force was immediately dispatched to recapture the islands. At the end of April, it arrived within the 200-mile exclusion zone declared around the islands by the British. Military action began on 1 May. The following day, the Argentinian General Belgrano was sunk, despite the fact that it was sailing outside the exclusion zone: 323 were killed. Along with the HMS Coventry, which was sunk on 25 May, the British lost HMS Sheffield, Ardent and Antelope as well as the container ship Atlantic Conveyor.
The conflict lasted until 14 June, when the Argentine forces surrendered. More than 900 lives had been lost.
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