Restoring our military to its former strength
SIR – General Sir Mike Jackson’s warning (Interview, January 29) that British forces would be unable to recover the Falkland Islands if Argentine forces were to take control of them is a grave one with far-reaching implications. Our Armed Forces have been run down by successive governments to such an extent that we are now in a very vulnerable position.
The Coalition Government, indisputably influenced by the Liberal Democrats, is particularly to blame. There is a serious possibility that military action by Britain will be required in the near future not only to defend the Falkland Islands from the Argentine threat, but also to contain the situation in Iran.
Surely the time has now come at least to call a halt to any further reduction in expenditure on our Armed Forces. Ron Forrest Lower Milton, Somerset SIR – Sir Mike Jackson’s assertions deserve closer examination. Savage cuts were also being imposed on the Royal Navy 30 years ago. In February 1982, I was serving on the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible when it was announced that the ship had been sold to Australia. The contract had been signed. It was a done deal.
HMS Hermes, the Navy’s other major aircraft carrier, was also being run down prior to sale or scrapping, and the long-serving amphibious platforms, HMS Intrepid and HMS Fearless, were both, on account of age and apparent inability to perform usefully in any future conflict, in the final stages of being prepared for scrap. The ice-patrol ship, HMS Endurance, was also being withdrawn from the South Atlantic.
This gloom-and-doom scenario, now reiterated by Sir Mike, was visible to all, especially to the Argentine government, which took full advantage of it.
But when the invasion came two months later, all four ships were on their way to the South Atlantic and the ice-patrol ship was returning to South Georgia. If history were to repeat itself, despite the current cutbacks in ships and personnel, I believe today’s response by the Navy would be no different. Commander Roger Paine RN Hellingly, East Sussex