Nuestra Patria: The Chilean-Argentinian Border War, 1978-80
- Thread starter Chris Oakley
- Start date
Chris Oakley
Banned
Nuestra Patria(continued)
Chapter 4
The Peruvian air force saw the war as a perfect chance to show off its considerable inventory
of Soviet-made Sukhoi attack jets. The Su-22, derived from the old Su-17 and code-named by
NATO as “Fitter”, was the perfect type of ground attack aircraft for a regional conflict such as the
Chilean-Argentine border war-- sturdy, simple to operate, and capable of carrying a substantial
weapons payload. The Fitter was something of a rarity among Latin American air forces, being
of Russian manufacture yet serving in the military of a country that had close ties to the West; it
was largely for budgetary reasons that the Peruvian government had bought the SU-22, not for
political ones as some right-wing politicians in Peru’s neighbors had charged.
Of course, there were plenty of Western-made aircraft in the Peruvian air force’s inventory too.
The French-built Dassault Mirage V and the American-made Cessna A-37 Dragonfly were both
a major part of the Peruvian air arsenal during the Chilean-Argentine border war; the Mirage V
in particular was viewed by Argentine ground commanders as a severe threat to their tactical
operations and deterring Mirage pilots from attacking the Argentine front lines was deemed a
high priority by Argentine air defense commanders. In fact, with the exception of Israel, there
was no nation whose Mirage inventory suffered greater casualties than Peru; fully a quarter of
the Peruvian air force’s Mirage Vs were shot down by Argentine SAMs or fighter aircraft during
the war. Of course, for every Mirage V lost to enemy action an Argentine fighter jet went down
in flames...
******
After the Almirante Grau’s first engagement with the Argentines at Tierra del Fuego, there was a
brief lull in the naval phase of the Chilean-Argentine border war. The ground war, however, went
on unabated; in fact, in early December of 1978 it would intensify as the Argentine army started
an ambitious thrust across the northernmost section of Argentina’s frontier with Chile. What was
to be dubbed “the Tea Time Campaign” by a British newspaper because it had started around 4
o’clock in the afternoon began with a devastating barrage of artillery strikes to the west of Chile’s
Los Flamencos National Reserve park. As the Chilean army tried to regroup from the first shock
of the bombardment, Argentine infantry and armored vehicles mounted a go-for-broke thrust over
the frontier line in a pincer movement intended to encircle the bulk of the main Chilean defensive
force before it could blunt the Argentine assault.
By December 10th most of the Los Flamencos reserve was in Argentine hands, prompting an
enraged Augusto Pinochet to fire most of the Chilean army general staff. Plenty of lower-level
officers were sacked too, prompting a NATO defense attaché stationed in Santiago at the time
to joke to one of his colleagues that it was a wonder there were any officers left in the Chilean
army besides Pinochet. But the damage these sackings did to the army’s morale was hardly a
laughing matter. To many of the men in the field, it began to seem as if the left hand didn’t know
what the right hand was doing; some of them thought it questionable whether the left hand’s index
finger knew what the thumb was doing. Psychologists attached to the Chilean army medical corps
noted a spike in incidences of depression among ordinary soldiers in the aftermath of these firings
as well as an increase in suicides.
Nor were the other branches of the Chilean military immune to such problems. The same day
that General Pinochet fired most of his army’s high command, the captain of the Chilean navy’s
largest cruiser shot himself in despair over rumors that he would shortly be relieved of command
for failing to sink an Argentine sub; obsessed with protecting his regime’s image, not to mention
his own, Pinochet ordered the coroner who made out the captain’s death certificate to change the
cause of death from “suicide” to “accidental weapons discharge”. When the coroner rightly refused
to comply with this unreasonable demand, the Chilean dictator fired him on the spot and replaced
him with a loyal government supporter who made the changes that the general wanted. It would
take more than fifteen years, and a change in governments, for the truth about the cruiser captain’s
suicide to finally come to light.
Chapter 4
The Peruvian air force saw the war as a perfect chance to show off its considerable inventory
of Soviet-made Sukhoi attack jets. The Su-22, derived from the old Su-17 and code-named by
NATO as “Fitter”, was the perfect type of ground attack aircraft for a regional conflict such as the
Chilean-Argentine border war-- sturdy, simple to operate, and capable of carrying a substantial
weapons payload. The Fitter was something of a rarity among Latin American air forces, being
of Russian manufacture yet serving in the military of a country that had close ties to the West; it
was largely for budgetary reasons that the Peruvian government had bought the SU-22, not for
political ones as some right-wing politicians in Peru’s neighbors had charged.
Of course, there were plenty of Western-made aircraft in the Peruvian air force’s inventory too.
The French-built Dassault Mirage V and the American-made Cessna A-37 Dragonfly were both
a major part of the Peruvian air arsenal during the Chilean-Argentine border war; the Mirage V
in particular was viewed by Argentine ground commanders as a severe threat to their tactical
operations and deterring Mirage pilots from attacking the Argentine front lines was deemed a
high priority by Argentine air defense commanders. In fact, with the exception of Israel, there
was no nation whose Mirage inventory suffered greater casualties than Peru; fully a quarter of
the Peruvian air force’s Mirage Vs were shot down by Argentine SAMs or fighter aircraft during
the war. Of course, for every Mirage V lost to enemy action an Argentine fighter jet went down
in flames...
******
After the Almirante Grau’s first engagement with the Argentines at Tierra del Fuego, there was a
brief lull in the naval phase of the Chilean-Argentine border war. The ground war, however, went
on unabated; in fact, in early December of 1978 it would intensify as the Argentine army started
an ambitious thrust across the northernmost section of Argentina’s frontier with Chile. What was
to be dubbed “the Tea Time Campaign” by a British newspaper because it had started around 4
o’clock in the afternoon began with a devastating barrage of artillery strikes to the west of Chile’s
Los Flamencos National Reserve park. As the Chilean army tried to regroup from the first shock
of the bombardment, Argentine infantry and armored vehicles mounted a go-for-broke thrust over
the frontier line in a pincer movement intended to encircle the bulk of the main Chilean defensive
force before it could blunt the Argentine assault.
By December 10th most of the Los Flamencos reserve was in Argentine hands, prompting an
enraged Augusto Pinochet to fire most of the Chilean army general staff. Plenty of lower-level
officers were sacked too, prompting a NATO defense attaché stationed in Santiago at the time
to joke to one of his colleagues that it was a wonder there were any officers left in the Chilean
army besides Pinochet. But the damage these sackings did to the army’s morale was hardly a
laughing matter. To many of the men in the field, it began to seem as if the left hand didn’t know
what the right hand was doing; some of them thought it questionable whether the left hand’s index
finger knew what the thumb was doing. Psychologists attached to the Chilean army medical corps
noted a spike in incidences of depression among ordinary soldiers in the aftermath of these firings
as well as an increase in suicides.
Nor were the other branches of the Chilean military immune to such problems. The same day
that General Pinochet fired most of his army’s high command, the captain of the Chilean navy’s
largest cruiser shot himself in despair over rumors that he would shortly be relieved of command
for failing to sink an Argentine sub; obsessed with protecting his regime’s image, not to mention
his own, Pinochet ordered the coroner who made out the captain’s death certificate to change the
cause of death from “suicide” to “accidental weapons discharge”. When the coroner rightly refused
to comply with this unreasonable demand, the Chilean dictator fired him on the spot and replaced
him with a loyal government supporter who made the changes that the general wanted. It would
take more than fifteen years, and a change in governments, for the truth about the cruiser captain’s
suicide to finally come to light.
Chris Oakley
Banned
Nuestra Patria(continued)
Chapter 5
Among other things the “Tea Time” offensive inspired Pope John Paul II to issue one of his first
major foreign policy encyclicals as head of the Roman Catholic Church. On December 16th, eight
days before he would deliver his first Christmas Eve mass as pontiff, he published On The Costs
Of War, an impassioned for both Chile and Argentina to make peace as soon as possible. It was
either that, the pope warned, or run the risk of a “catastrophic” escalation of the border conflict into
wider regional hostilities-- possibly even World War III. But neither Santiago nor Buenos Aires was
in much of a listening mood at that point. In fact, the Argentine foreign ministry bluntly dismissed the
pontiff’s calls for a cease-fire as “ridiculously naïve.”
Christmas came and went without any significant progress made towards a cease-fire agreement. If
anything, the Pope’s dire prediction of the border war escalating into a wider conflict seemed to be
getting closer every day to becoming a reality. Certainly then-President of the United States Jimmy
Carter seemed to think so; on January 2nd, 1979 he authorized the U.S. State Department to begin
quietly evacuating dependents and nonessential personnel from the American embassies in Chile,
Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. He also sent Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to
Colombia to get the Colombia government’s candid assessment of how bad things could get in the
Chilean-Argentinian border conflict. The Colombian foreign minister’s response to Vance’s question
on this topic alarmed the White House: the consensus in Bogota was that an escalation wasn’t just
possible, it might very well be inevitable. And the minister was far from alone in drawing that highly
pessimistic conclusion-- in nearly every national capital south of the Panama Canal it was accepted
as a given that it would only be a matter of months, maybe weeks, until other countries joined Peru
in being drawn into the hostilities between Chile and Argentina.
In the Kremlin Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev and his top spymaster, KGB chief Yuri Andropov,
watched the latest turn of events in the border war with more than passing interest. At the very least
they anticipated greater opportunities for making sales of Soviet-made military hardware to clients in
Latin America; with the United States distracted by the war and the seriously deteriorating political
situation in Iran, there was also the welcome prospect for Moscow of being able to tip the civil wars
raging simultaneously in Nicaragua and El Salvador in favor of the Communist insurgent forces in
those countries with little risk of a countermove by Washington in support of the government armies.
Chapter 5
Among other things the “Tea Time” offensive inspired Pope John Paul II to issue one of his first
major foreign policy encyclicals as head of the Roman Catholic Church. On December 16th, eight
days before he would deliver his first Christmas Eve mass as pontiff, he published On The Costs
Of War, an impassioned for both Chile and Argentina to make peace as soon as possible. It was
either that, the pope warned, or run the risk of a “catastrophic” escalation of the border conflict into
wider regional hostilities-- possibly even World War III. But neither Santiago nor Buenos Aires was
in much of a listening mood at that point. In fact, the Argentine foreign ministry bluntly dismissed the
pontiff’s calls for a cease-fire as “ridiculously naïve.”
Christmas came and went without any significant progress made towards a cease-fire agreement. If
anything, the Pope’s dire prediction of the border war escalating into a wider conflict seemed to be
getting closer every day to becoming a reality. Certainly then-President of the United States Jimmy
Carter seemed to think so; on January 2nd, 1979 he authorized the U.S. State Department to begin
quietly evacuating dependents and nonessential personnel from the American embassies in Chile,
Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. He also sent Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to
Colombia to get the Colombia government’s candid assessment of how bad things could get in the
Chilean-Argentinian border conflict. The Colombian foreign minister’s response to Vance’s question
on this topic alarmed the White House: the consensus in Bogota was that an escalation wasn’t just
possible, it might very well be inevitable. And the minister was far from alone in drawing that highly
pessimistic conclusion-- in nearly every national capital south of the Panama Canal it was accepted
as a given that it would only be a matter of months, maybe weeks, until other countries joined Peru
in being drawn into the hostilities between Chile and Argentina.
In the Kremlin Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev and his top spymaster, KGB chief Yuri Andropov,
watched the latest turn of events in the border war with more than passing interest. At the very least
they anticipated greater opportunities for making sales of Soviet-made military hardware to clients in
Latin America; with the United States distracted by the war and the seriously deteriorating political
situation in Iran, there was also the welcome prospect for Moscow of being able to tip the civil wars
raging simultaneously in Nicaragua and El Salvador in favor of the Communist insurgent forces in
those countries with little risk of a countermove by Washington in support of the government armies.
It's great to watch another south american story, specially an argentinian related, again! Despite the timeline looks great, I must say that peruvians were by the argentinian side if war erupted, and there was no chance of a chile-peru understandment when Lima - still- reclaims for territories lost 100 years ago in Chilean's hands.
I don't know, maybe Chris has something planned, let's see what happens...but although this error, i like the story so far.
Saludos
I don't know, maybe Chris has something planned, let's see what happens...but although this error, i like the story so far.
Saludos
Chris Oakley
Banned
Nuestra Patria(continued)
Chapter 6
As for Brazil, they didn’t necessarily agree with the conventional wisdom that a wider regional war
was inevitable but many of their top military and intelligence leaders did anticipate the possibility of
hostilities spilling over to Brazilian territory. Even before the Chilean-Argentine border conflict began
there had been some diplomatic unpleasantness between Argentina and Brazil when a prominent
Rio de Janeiro businessman was arrested in Buenos Aires on dubious espionage charges; since
the war began, a Jornal do Brasil correspondent had been killed in the first Argentine air strike on
Valparaiso and a Brazilian fishing trawler had been boarded by Argentine naval personnel under the
pretext of searching for a deserter. So when a British military delegation arrived in Brasilia on January
18th to open negotiations for a mutual defense pact, the Brazilian government proved very receptive
to their overtures.
The same day the Anglo-Brazilian mutual defense pact negotiations began, the Chileans stunned
the Argentines by doing the one thing Argentina had been convinced they wouldn’t do. For weeks
the conventional wisdom among the generals in Buenos Aires had been that the Chilean army was
unwilling to mount a frontal attack on the Argentine forces occupying the Los Flamencos reserve due
to the massive casualties such an assault would likely entail. But at 8:30 AM Santiago time on the
morning of January 18th the Chileans proceeded to blast conventional wisdom to pieces, hurling three
of their best army divisions at the center of the Argentine lines in a surprise attack that drove a wedge
into the Argentine battlefront. Startled at the audaciousness of the Chilean assault, the Argentines
fell into a somewhat disorganized retreat; this greatly encouraged the Chilean troops, who pressed
home their subsequent thrusts against the Argentine occupation forces with considerable vigor and
as a result made swift and steady progress in taking back Los Flamencos. By January 24th, just six
days after the initial Chilean ground assault, three-quarters of the Los Flamencos reserve was back
under Chilean control.
******
Any hope the Jorge Rafael Vidala government might have had that the Anglo-Brazilian mutual
defense pact would be just a piece of paper was dashed on February 2nd, 1979 when the British
Admiralty issued an official statement confirming that a Royal Navy task force would be departing
Southampton later in the month with orders to assist the Brazilian Navy in protecting the southeast
coast of Brazil. While the administration of then-British prime minister James Callaghan didn’t have
any intention of becoming a direct combatant in the Chilean-Argentinian conflict, by the same token
they wanted to make it clear to Buenos Aires that London would not tolerate Argentina threatening
British interests in the South Atlantic region. Despite accusations of war-mongering from the state-
controlled Argentine press, the British presence in Brazil was largely defensive in nature-- not a
reaction to what the Argentines had done, but to what they might do. There was a genuine and
deep concern in the offices of the Ministry of Defence that in one way or another the outcome of
the Chilean-Argentine border war might motivate Buenos Aires to make a grab for the Falkland
Islands. If Argentina won the war, this argument went, a victorious Buenos Aires might attempt to
capitalize on its triumph by seizing the Falklands; conversely by the same token, if Argentina lost
the border war it might try to salve the wound to its pride with an invasion of the islands. Either way
it was a critical priority for Whitehall to discourage any impulses Buenos Aires might have towards
occupying even one square inch of Falklands territory.
In that same vein, the RAF dispatched a bomber detachment to Brazil with authorization to
mount air strikes against military and command/control targets inside Argentina at the slightest
hint of a move by Argentine forces to invade the islands. These bombers, normally deployed to
NATO bases in Europe to deter possible Soviet nuclear attack, had been transferred to Brazil
after first getting their atomic payloads switched for conventional bombs and having U.S. Air
Force B-52s take over their European assignments. The Vidala government quite predictably
accused London of “war-mongering”-- an ironic charge, given that it was largely Argentina’s own
belligerency which had sparked the chain of events leading to the Vulcans’ deployment in Brazil.
While she might have disagreed with him on many other things, Conservative MP and eventual
Callaghan successor Margaret Thatcher wholeheartedly endorsed his decision to sign the mutual
defense pact with the Brazilian government; in fact, when she became prime minister herself three
months after the Royal Navy’s Brazilian coast task force left Southampton one of her first official acts
was to meet with the Brazilian military attaché in London for a series of consultations on the question
of deploying advisors from the elite SAS commando service to Brazil to train the Brazilian army’s own
special forces.
The same week that Thatcher was elected British prime minister, the Chilean army commenced
its final push to eject the last remaining Argentine occupation troops from Los Flamencos. This time
the infantry and armored units were supplemented by a detachment of airborne troops who touched
down behind the Argentine lines. Under the combined pressures of these simultaneous thrusts, many
of the Argentine soldiers simply broke and ran-- which made it considerably easier for Chilean troops
to complete their mission. Within days, the last remaining Argentine positions in Los Flamencos had
been overrun and the preserve was fully back in Chilean hands. Chilean state media trumpeted this
victory as the turning point of the border war, as did General Pinochet, who in his first public speech
following the capture of the last Argentine positions at Los Flamencos boasted the war would be over
within a month.
Of course the hostilities between Argentina and Chile would go on considerably longer than that,
but the re-conquest of Los Flamencos gave a massive and much-needed boost to Chilean national
morale at just the right time. Chilean air force pilots became bolder in entering Argentine airspace; the
Chilean navy struck at a number of key Argentine naval bases; and Chilean army artillery units began
a new wave of bombardments against Argentine border outposts. In Lima, Peru a group of Chilean
students held what they called a “victory march” near the gates of the shuttered Argentine embassy.
Chapter 6
As for Brazil, they didn’t necessarily agree with the conventional wisdom that a wider regional war
was inevitable but many of their top military and intelligence leaders did anticipate the possibility of
hostilities spilling over to Brazilian territory. Even before the Chilean-Argentine border conflict began
there had been some diplomatic unpleasantness between Argentina and Brazil when a prominent
Rio de Janeiro businessman was arrested in Buenos Aires on dubious espionage charges; since
the war began, a Jornal do Brasil correspondent had been killed in the first Argentine air strike on
Valparaiso and a Brazilian fishing trawler had been boarded by Argentine naval personnel under the
pretext of searching for a deserter. So when a British military delegation arrived in Brasilia on January
18th to open negotiations for a mutual defense pact, the Brazilian government proved very receptive
to their overtures.
The same day the Anglo-Brazilian mutual defense pact negotiations began, the Chileans stunned
the Argentines by doing the one thing Argentina had been convinced they wouldn’t do. For weeks
the conventional wisdom among the generals in Buenos Aires had been that the Chilean army was
unwilling to mount a frontal attack on the Argentine forces occupying the Los Flamencos reserve due
to the massive casualties such an assault would likely entail. But at 8:30 AM Santiago time on the
morning of January 18th the Chileans proceeded to blast conventional wisdom to pieces, hurling three
of their best army divisions at the center of the Argentine lines in a surprise attack that drove a wedge
into the Argentine battlefront. Startled at the audaciousness of the Chilean assault, the Argentines
fell into a somewhat disorganized retreat; this greatly encouraged the Chilean troops, who pressed
home their subsequent thrusts against the Argentine occupation forces with considerable vigor and
as a result made swift and steady progress in taking back Los Flamencos. By January 24th, just six
days after the initial Chilean ground assault, three-quarters of the Los Flamencos reserve was back
under Chilean control.
******
Any hope the Jorge Rafael Vidala government might have had that the Anglo-Brazilian mutual
defense pact would be just a piece of paper was dashed on February 2nd, 1979 when the British
Admiralty issued an official statement confirming that a Royal Navy task force would be departing
Southampton later in the month with orders to assist the Brazilian Navy in protecting the southeast
coast of Brazil. While the administration of then-British prime minister James Callaghan didn’t have
any intention of becoming a direct combatant in the Chilean-Argentinian conflict, by the same token
they wanted to make it clear to Buenos Aires that London would not tolerate Argentina threatening
British interests in the South Atlantic region. Despite accusations of war-mongering from the state-
controlled Argentine press, the British presence in Brazil was largely defensive in nature-- not a
reaction to what the Argentines had done, but to what they might do. There was a genuine and
deep concern in the offices of the Ministry of Defence that in one way or another the outcome of
the Chilean-Argentine border war might motivate Buenos Aires to make a grab for the Falkland
Islands. If Argentina won the war, this argument went, a victorious Buenos Aires might attempt to
capitalize on its triumph by seizing the Falklands; conversely by the same token, if Argentina lost
the border war it might try to salve the wound to its pride with an invasion of the islands. Either way
it was a critical priority for Whitehall to discourage any impulses Buenos Aires might have towards
occupying even one square inch of Falklands territory.
In that same vein, the RAF dispatched a bomber detachment to Brazil with authorization to
mount air strikes against military and command/control targets inside Argentina at the slightest
hint of a move by Argentine forces to invade the islands. These bombers, normally deployed to
NATO bases in Europe to deter possible Soviet nuclear attack, had been transferred to Brazil
after first getting their atomic payloads switched for conventional bombs and having U.S. Air
Force B-52s take over their European assignments. The Vidala government quite predictably
accused London of “war-mongering”-- an ironic charge, given that it was largely Argentina’s own
belligerency which had sparked the chain of events leading to the Vulcans’ deployment in Brazil.
While she might have disagreed with him on many other things, Conservative MP and eventual
Callaghan successor Margaret Thatcher wholeheartedly endorsed his decision to sign the mutual
defense pact with the Brazilian government; in fact, when she became prime minister herself three
months after the Royal Navy’s Brazilian coast task force left Southampton one of her first official acts
was to meet with the Brazilian military attaché in London for a series of consultations on the question
of deploying advisors from the elite SAS commando service to Brazil to train the Brazilian army’s own
special forces.
The same week that Thatcher was elected British prime minister, the Chilean army commenced
its final push to eject the last remaining Argentine occupation troops from Los Flamencos. This time
the infantry and armored units were supplemented by a detachment of airborne troops who touched
down behind the Argentine lines. Under the combined pressures of these simultaneous thrusts, many
of the Argentine soldiers simply broke and ran-- which made it considerably easier for Chilean troops
to complete their mission. Within days, the last remaining Argentine positions in Los Flamencos had
been overrun and the preserve was fully back in Chilean hands. Chilean state media trumpeted this
victory as the turning point of the border war, as did General Pinochet, who in his first public speech
following the capture of the last Argentine positions at Los Flamencos boasted the war would be over
within a month.
Of course the hostilities between Argentina and Chile would go on considerably longer than that,
but the re-conquest of Los Flamencos gave a massive and much-needed boost to Chilean national
morale at just the right time. Chilean air force pilots became bolder in entering Argentine airspace; the
Chilean navy struck at a number of key Argentine naval bases; and Chilean army artillery units began
a new wave of bombardments against Argentine border outposts. In Lima, Peru a group of Chilean
students held what they called a “victory march” near the gates of the shuttered Argentine embassy.
Chris Oakley
Banned
They both hate Argentina. 
What else do you need?
On a more serious note, I think I should finally be ready to post Chapter 7 in the next 48 hours or so.
What else do you need? On a more serious note, I think I should finally be ready to post Chapter 7 in the next 48 hours or so.
Peru hates Chile....the same goes for Bolivia.....Argentina just doesn't like Chile...there is no hate. Bolivia and Peru lost a lot of territory in the Pacific War. And Argentina and Peru are really close allies....specialy against Chile. I dont see Peru siding whit Chile on this.