Falklands air warfare

sir – The runway at Port Stanley in the Falklands was not damaged by the Black Buck raids as Michael A Fopp says (Letters, July 21) – or not enough to prevent Argentine C-130s from using the airfield almost every night of the war. As we got closer, my artillery forward observers could see them, but my guns were just out of range.

Staff visiting the airfield just after the Argentine surrender reported no craters on the runway, but several on each side. The runway was too short for fast jets, and the Argentines failed to use the time before the British carriers arrived to extend it.

There were four times as many Royal Navy Sea Harriers as RAF Harriers in the Task Force aircraft carriers. The latter were not designed to be air-defence fighters, and their mission was to support ground troops, which they did admirably. But without the Sea Harriers, designed as airdefence fighters, we would have lost the war. It would not have mattered how many RAF Harriers we had.

Dr Fopp is correct to say that the threat of bombing mainland Argentine airfields dragged some of their air-defence fighters north and away from the battle in the south. But the greatest contribution of the RAF was to maintain the air bridge between Britain and Ascension Island for urgent stores and personnel, and to deliver by parachute vital spares to the Task Force at sea. There was also a gallant performance by the crew of RAF Chinook.

Major General Julian Thompson Commander of 3 Commando Brigade in the Falklands, 1982

London SW6