Argentina 'repatriates' Falklands population in 1982

I believe it went further than that. Wideawake on Ascension Island was certainly used, although I'd not entirely sure under whose jurisdiction the air base was. IIRC there were even rumors of a carrier being offered to the Brits, though that was never followed up on (and, barring disaster, would not be).

Wideawake was most certainly used, and it was, well, full of US transport aircraft...obviously just there on training missions, guv, honest...:)
 
There was a great deal of, at the time, VERY quiet cooperation by the U.S. & NATO with the UK.

It was both more and less simple than that...:)

There were really 3 types of cooperation.

First, the visible stuff, help in negotiations, things like replenishing the NATO war stocks the British were using (things like the latest mark sidewinder, for example)

Second, the things they were keeping reasonable secret, to avoid any embarresment - things like the satellite data, other intelligence, the fact that US planes were actually airlifting supplies direct to Ascention - nothing illegal, but they didnt want it too widely known.

The third was the one that got very little attention at the time (unless you were involved with people doing it :), which was all the face to face and phone calls going on between British officers and their US equivalents. Remember, these guys had trained in NATO together for years, knew each otherw ell -and after all, a phone call isnt official policy, right? :) But a surprising amount of stuff was arranged that way.

And of course, the press made a big fuss of some of the public (and not necessarily that important) help while a lot of the really helpful stuff was kept very quiet indeed.
 
As an aside, during the Falklands War, I was a student in the Navy Surface Warfare Officer Department Head course. And the only overt supporter of the British.


I don't know what US Navy you were serving in during the Falklands war, but the Navy I was serving in acted very differently.

The CG I was serving aboard was in the yards in Charleston at the time and the tempo of work aboard her increase markedly. Both the crew and yardbirds began putting in more time during more days while equipment we had been waiting for suddenly appeared dockside. The reason? The cruiser was home ported in Mayport, was part of USS Forrestal's normal escort group, and that was the carrier all the scuttlebutt had deploying either in support of Britain or as "part" of the Royal Navy.

Kirkpatrick was nothing but a big mouth and, in view of the kinds of official, unofficial, overt, covert, backdoor, personal phone call, and other support Britain was given by the US government and military, she had no support in the administration and no idea of the mood of the country as a whole.
 
I never understood why the Argentinians never attacked Ascension Island
Uh, because they couldn't have gotten there except on a one-way kamikaze raid? And they'd be hitting an AMERICAN:eek: air base? Say hello to the Nimitzs!!:mad::p And the B-52s. And the ect. ect. ect....:rolleyes:
 
Though a little harder if there are shots of joyful Argentinians moving into the 'evacuated' houses - and then pictures of the bodies of dead argentinian civilains killed by the 'brutal british imperialists'.

If you are going to go down the 'repatriate' route you may as well go whole hog and put your own people in 'harms way' - maybe people who are not considered politically reliable - after all it was a penal colony at one time.

Is it true 50% of Argentina's population lives within 50 miles of Buenos Aires? I can't see people acclimated to such a climate rushing to live in the Falklands. In winter.:( And the political undesirables were already dead. Besides, the Argentine military couldn't supply their own troops. How were they going to feed displaced civilians?
 

CalBear

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I never understood why the Argentinians never attacked Ascension Island

Easier ways to get killed than crashing into the Atlantic. Acsension Island is 2,844 miles from the most north easterly bit of Argentina, and well over 3,000 miles from the nearest heavy jet runway.

What would they have attacked with, a 737? The British were on high alert, as were the Americans. Nothing was going to sneak up on the Island, it is literally in the middle of nowhere (in fact you have to go about a thousand miles to get TO nowhere) so what is the plan? Fly in, ask the RAF for a landing slot in the pattern, attack, refuel from the RAF/USAF stores, and fly home?

Somehow that seems unlikely.
 
Is it true 50% of Argentina's population lives within 50 miles of Buenos Aires? I can't see people acclimated to such a climate rushing to live in the Falklands. In winter.:( And the political undesirables were already dead. Besides, the Argentine military couldn't supply their own troops. How were they going to feed displaced civilians?
Actually about 1/3 of the population. You could get a few thousands (the equivalent of the islands population) volunteer to go there out of chauvinism and public employment. As for supply, the Junta didn't consider invading the islands would cause a war, so why would they bother thinking supplies could be an issue?

Now, while forced emigration (technically, a genocide iirc, even if nobody dies) is the worst kind of PR move a regime known for it's little PR ability could get, there is little more than OTL, short of using nukes, that the UK can do without an American carrier showing up in the South Atlantic. The RN carriers could only carry Harriers, with limited range and payloads and their only other option were the Vulcans, which would be stretched to reach mainland Argentina (but could do it) but might have been intercepted.

Of course, any kind of mild international support Argentina could get simply vanishes in this case.
I never understood why the Argentinians never attacked Ascension Island
Actually, there was a plan to use expatriate guerillas taking refugee in Spain to sink ships at Gibraltar. As they weren't Argentinean soldiers, the Junta would simply wash their hands and claim they've acted in their own accord. The Spanish police stopped them while investigating a robbery the guys didn't really have nothing to do with, though.
 
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