The Falklands War edited by Andrew Dorman, Michael D. Kandiah and Gillian Staerck CCBH Oral History Programme The Falklands War CCBH Oral History Programme Programme Director: Dr Michael D. Kandiah © Centre for Contemporary British History, 2005 All rights reserved. This material is made available for use for personal research and study. We give per- mission for the entire files to be downloaded to your computer for such personal use only. For reproduction or further distribution of all or part of the file (except as constitutes fair dealing), permission must be sought from CCBH. Published by Centre for Contemporary British History Institute of Historical Research School of Advanced Study University of London Malet St London WC1E 7HU ISBN: 19 0516507 2 A version of this witness seminar has been published in the Proceedings of the Strategic and Combat Studies Institute, Occasional Number 46 (2003). A ‘Falklands Roundtable’ on official US perceptions of the conflict was held by the Presidential Oral History Program and is available at: http://millercenter.virginia.edu/programs/poh/falklands.html The Falklands War Held at the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC), Watchfield, Wiltshire on 5 June 2002 Chaired by Geoffrey Till Paper by Lawrence Freedman Seminar edited by Andrew Dorman, Michael D. Kandiah and Gillian Staerck Centre for Contemporary British History Contents Contributors 9 Citation Guidance 11 The Falklands War: Seminar Transcript 13 edited by Adnrew Dorman, Michael D. Kandiah and Gillian Staerck Elite Oral History and the Global Implications of the Falklands Conflict: 73 British Perspectives Michael D. Kandiah Elite Oral History and the Global Implications of the Falklands Conflict: 81 An American View Stephen Knott Contributors Editors: ANDREW DORMAN Department of Defence Studies, King’s College London at the JSCSC. MICHAEL D. KANDIAH Centre for Contemporary British History GILLIAN STAERCK Institute of Historical Research Introduction: REAR ADMIRAL JOHN MBE, Commandant of the JSCSC, 2002-3. LIPPIETT Chair: PROFESSOR Department of Defence Studies, King’s College London at the GEOFFREY TILL JSCSC. Paper-giver: PROFESSOR SIR CBE. Department of War Studies, King's College, University of LAWRENCE FREEDMAN London. Official Historian of the Falklands Conflict for the Cabinet Office. Witnesses with their position during the war: AIR-CHIEF MARSHAL SIR KCB, KBE, Director of Service Intelligence. MICHAEL ARMITAGE MARSHAL OF THE GCB, CBE, DFC, AFC, DL, FRAeS, Chief of Air Staff ROYAL AIR FORCE SIR MICHAEL BEETHAM FIELD MARSHAL THE KG, GCB, OBE, MC, JP, Chief of General Staff LORD BRAMALL OF BUSHFIELD CAPTAIN MICHAEL CB, Commodore of Amphibious Warfare. 10 The Falklands War CLAPP RT HON LORD PC, Chairman of the Conservative Party, Paymaster-General PARKINSON OF 1981-3, and Member of the War Cabinet CARNFORTH AIR MARSHAL SIR KCB, KBE, FRAeS, Air-Officer Commanding No.18 Group JOHN CURTISS RAF and Air Advisor to Commander-in-Chief Fleet SIR NICHOLAS GCMG, KCVO, HM Ambassador to the United States HENDERSON SIR ROGER JACKLING KCB, CBE, Head of DS11, Ministry of Defence MAJOR-GENERAL KCB, CB, OBE, MC, Land deputy to CINC Fleet and later SIR JEREMY MOORE Commander Land Forces Falkland Islands RT HON SIR JOHN NOTT KCB, PC, Secretary of State for Defence ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET GCB, KCB, DL, First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff SIR HENRY LEACH MAJOR GENERAL CB, OBE, Commander 3 Commando Brigade JULIAN THOMPSON ADMIRAL SIR JOHN GBE, KCB, Flag Officer First Flotilla and Senior Task Group (SANDY) WOODWARD Commander From the floor: STEWART BOURNE Royal Navy JOCK GARDNER Naval Historical Branch DR ERIC GROVE University of Hull PETER FREEMAN SULLE ALHAJI COMMANDER MIKE BEARDALL MAJOR SERGIO PRADO Argentina LT COMMANDER Royal Navy NICHOLAS TINDALL LT COLONEL RICHARD PERRY © Centre for Contemporary British History, 2005. Not to be reproduced without permission. Citation Guidance References to this and other witness seminars should take the following form: Witness name, in ‘Witness Seminar Title’, seminar held [date of seminar], (Institute of Contempo- rary British History, [date of publication], [full internet address of seminar]), page number of refer- ence [use the number given in the header at the top of the page referenced]. For example, Sir Nicholas Henderson’s remarks on the US offer of a fleet carrier during the Falklands crisis should be footnoted as follows: Sir Nicholas Henderson, in ‘The Falklands War’, seminar held 5 June 2002 (Centre for Contempo- rary British History, 2005, http://www.icbh.ac.uk/witness/falklands/), p.64. For Harvard reference style, use (CCBH Witness Seminar, date of publication) in the text, and the follow- ing style in the bibliography: ‘Witness Seminar Title’, held [date of seminar], Centre for Contemporary British History, [date of publication], [full internet address of seminar]. For fuller guidance on the citation of all types of electronic sources, please refer to the H-Net Guide at: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/about/citation/general.html 12 The Falklands War © Centre for Contemporary British History, 2005. Not to be reproduced without permission. The Falklands War Edited by Andrew Dorman, Michael D. Kandiah and Gillian Staerck This witness seminar, jointly organised by the Centre for Contemporary British History (CCBH, then Institute of Contemporary British History, ICBH) and King’s College Lon- don, was held at the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC) at Watchfield (near Swindon), Wiltshire on 5 June 2002. A version of this witness seminar has been pub- lished in the Proceedings of the Strategic and Combat Studies Institute, Occasional Number 46 (2003). Participants included Rear Admiral John Lippiett (Commandant of the JSCSC), Professor Geoffrey Till (chair), Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman (paper-giver), Air-Chief Marshal Sir Michael Armitage, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Michael Beetham, Field Marshal The Lord Bramall of Bushfield, Captain Michael Clapp, The Rt. Hon. Lord Parkinson of Carnforth, Air Marshal Sir John Curtiss, Sir Nicholas Henderson, Sir Roger Jackling, Major-General Sir Jeremy Moore, The Rt. Hon. Sir John Nott, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Leach, Major General Julian Thompson, and Admiral Sir John (Sandy) Woodward. JOHN LIPPIETT Thank you to all those who have put this together; it was lots of organisation and I know it will be very worthwhile. I am particularly grateful to the witnesses themselves for coming forward and sup- porting us in this way. There are many memories to be had from the events of 20 years ago. I am aware that there are some of those in the audience who were indeed at school in those days, and the generation beyond and above were the commanders and their political masters who held centre stage then and are on the stage now. For me, 20 years ago, I was flying out to Gibraltar to join my ship as a First Lieutenant and I definitely knew not of two things: I had not a clue I was about to go to war and I had not a clue that 20 years later I would be the Commandant of the Staff College intro- ducing such an august body. We are delighted to have you here; we are fascinated to hear your views and I know this afternoon will be very useful, not only to us, but to historians in the future. I now turn to Professor Geoffrey Till, who will chair this afternoon’s proceedings. 14 The Falklands War GEOFFREY TILL I would like to start with a quotation from Sir John Nott’s latest book.* This is what he says on page 307: ‘There will always be Sir John Nott, Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Recollections other (equally) important battles being waged consecutively with of an Errant Politician (London: the soldiers’/sailors’ battle on the ground. I think we need a Staff Politico’s, 2002). College session on this.’ Well this is it! The order of proceedings today will be that we will have a brief scene-setting introduction by Professor Freedman and then we start immediately into session 1, where we will focus on the run-up to the Falklands conflict, aiming by about teatime to get to the repossession of South Georgia. We will resume after tea and focus then on the conduct of the main campaign, and maybe end up with a few lessons for today. To start the ball rolling could I please ask Professor Freedman to set the scene. He is here as the official historian of the Falklands conflict for the Cabinet Office. SIR LAWRENCE My memory, I perhaps should say, was that on 1 April 1982 I bec- FREEDMAN ame Professor of War Studies at King’s College and then on 2 April I had a war. The only shift in my position after that was on 1 August 1990, when I became Director of the Centre for Defence Studies at King’s, and as some of you will recall there was a war on that day too when Iraq invaded Kuwait. So you will see my main contribution to world peace is to stay exactly where I am! I want to congratulate the organisers on this event and on the tim- ing: we were 20 years ago just between Goose Green and Fitzroy in terms of event, and of course we are now just a few days before the rematch on Friday. I want to do a bit just of scene setting. I don’t want to talk for very long because, as you will have noticed, I am the only person on this platform without an important designation in front of them indi- cating the role they played at the time, and I think it is important to James Callaghan (Lord Calla- hear from them. I just want to say a little bit, by way of scene set- ghan of Cardiff, 1912-2005), ting, about what was happening with the previous government (not Labour politician.