Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Falklands: British ships carried atomic weapons



Official history: British ships carried atomic weapons in 1982 Falklands War
02:58 PM EDT Jun 28

LONDON (AP) - British ships carried nuclear weapons to the Falkland Islands during the 1982 war with Argentina because there wasn't time to unload them before setting off, according to an official history of the conflict published Tuesday.

The British government confirmed two years ago that the nuclear depth charges had been carried by the task force.

Britain had no intention of using the weapons, but it proved impossible to remove them as the ships were hastily dispatched to the South Atlantic after Argentina invaded the islands, Prof. Lawrence Freedman writes in The Official History of the Falklands Campaign.

Freedman, professor of war studies at King's College, London, said he was surprised that the British fleet carried nuclear arms.

"A number of ships had come from exercises off Gibraltar and had the normal number of nuclear depth charges that British ships took with them at the time, and they didn't really have a good way of taking them off," Freedman said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"The government was desperate to get them away from the task force, but the delays that this would have caused at a time when they were trying to make the biggest diplomatic impact meant they decided they had better take them and get them off later," he said.

"They put them in the safest places possible. There was no intention to use them, but they certainly went."

Argentine troops invaded the islands - known in Argentina as Las Malvinas - on April 2, 1982, amid claims that country had inherited the archipelago from the Spanish crown before they were occupied by Britain in 1833.

In all, more than 700 Argentines and 255 British soldiers perished before Britain reclaimed the islands, populated by 2,220 people of mostly British ancestry. Argentina still claims the archipelago but has pledged never to invade again.



http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/050628/w062842.html