Falklands garrison plan
THESE are the headlines from The News on April 27, 1982, as the Falklands War crept ever closer.
Falkland garrison planned, 3,000 troops for ‘tent city’
Britain is planning an Army garrison of around 3,000 troops for the Falklands once they are recaptured or handed back through diplomatic action, Whitehall officials disclosed today.
Army headquarters at UK Land Forces, Wilton, near Salisbury, has supplied 2,000 tons of tents for the new garrison, which will be formed by 5 Infantry Brigade, now training in Wales.
Most of the tents are in Atlantic Conveyor, the 14,946tonne roll-on, roll-off chartered cargo ship which left Devonport at the week-end.
The rest will be loaded on another ship, still to be chartered, which will also carry another 20 days’ ammunition supply for the taskforce.
Officials said today that, following any action in the Falklands, the Royal Marines would be pulled out “almost immediately” because of their NATO commitments to defend the Northern flank of the Alliance in Norway.
The garrison will be formed from troops of 5 Infantry Brigade, the Army formation assigned to the role of operations outside the NATO area.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence today issued a categorical denial that a small British force had landed on the Falkland Islands.
A report in The Times today said an advance party had landed there and was seeking a landing site for the main force. But a Defence Ministry spokesperson stressed: ‘That is not true. We are saying quite specifically that this is definitely untrue.’