Return to bomb alley: 40 years on, and the
Falklands War remains shrouded in mystery

by PAUL CARDIN

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Author Paul Cardin, who served during the conflict,
says there are many unanswered questions.

FORTY years ago, an Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands in early April 1982 was followed by 74 days of hostilities and an eventual British victory.

I was always politically aware, served in the Royal Navy and I am a veteran of this conflict. Aged just 22 at the time, my ship HMS Yarmouth found itself in San Carlos bay (Bomb Alley) for a fortnight and here I saw ships being bombed and sunk, and my mates being injured and
killed.

As a Leading Radio Operator, I saw all the messages that were being passed between ships and CINCFLEET HQ in Northwood, UK, and I was ideally placed to know
what was going on as the events unfolded around me. Although this book contains my diary – including
a daily timeline of events, written on location – it’s very different from the usual military memoir. It has the feel
of documentary journalism and is written from a dedicated, enquiring perspective.

The Falkland Islands are very distant, were not well-known to UK citizens in 1982, and were of uncertain or even limited value. At the time, some serious questions
were forming in my mind about the circumstances of the invasion, the lightning-fast creation of a huge task
force, and what exactly could have been going on behind the scenes to pressurise Margaret Thatcher into
organising such a powerful military response so quickly.
This book is not one of those ‘Here I am, pull up a chair, and here’s a long list of what I did during the war’ offerings. Instead, it poses a number of serious, probing questions from a neutral perspective, aimed at highlighting what may have been under discussion in Whitehall and Buenos Aires in the lead up to the
invasion, during the fighting, and in the immediate aftermath. The main spotlight is focused on what decisions were being made and why in the action areas around the islands.

1. Why was it never reported by the BBC and UK media that 90 per cent of Falkland Islands land, including the vast sheep farms, was owned by absentee landlords, resident in the UK, and that Falkland Islanders
were actually working tenants? So, just how ‘paramount’ were the islanders’ interests, as claimed by Margaret Thatcher?

2. On the day when ARA General Belgrano was sunk, killing 368 Argentine sailors, why had it allegedly taken 17 hours for an urgent telegram, containing the full details of the Peruvian peace plan, to reach 10 Downing Street?

3. Was it right for task force leader Admiral Sandy Woodward to suggest that the Belgrano was part of a pincer movement and therefore represented an imminent threat to Britain’s aircraft carriers?

4. Why was public access to all incoming telegrams sent during the Falklands conflict embargoed until 2052, or a further 40 years?

5. Pre-invasion, why did Foreign Office Minister Nicholas Ridley hold clandestine meetings in secret
locations with senior members of the Argentine junta, where trade deals, Falkland Islands sovereignty and a
99-year leaseback deal were all on the table?

6. Why was Britain still selling arms to the fascist Argentine junta just four days before the invasion?

7. In the face of high-level protests, why were sweeping defence cuts to UK forces being made in the South Atlantic area in late 1981, and did these reductions leave the Argentine junta with the impression that an invasion of the islands would stand uncontested?

8. What was the 1,000lb bomb that I heard rumours of during the conflict – a bomb that was regularly
being passed from ship to ship? Was it a tactical, nuclear depth charge, the possession of which breached the
South American nuclear-weapon-freezone” treaty?

9. Were any ships containing the 1,000lb bomb sunk during the conflict, creating a ‘Broken Arrow’ situation?

10. Had Britain’s junior ranking soldiers and marines been operating with an unspoken, socialist, brothers-in-arms ethos in order to better harness their bravery and loyalty?

11. How could Argentine forces’ volunteers serve a fascist military junta which had spent years kidnapping, disappearing and murdering thousands of their own
citizens?

12. Has the Falkland Islands Government now lost credibility and stature by investing heavily in
extremely difficult to recover gas and oil as part of a ‘fortress’ economy heavily reliant upon fossil fuels?

I have accessed and reproduced many of the official documents that had been hidden away at the time by
the Conservative government. I have signposted and summarised these events from my own perspective,
which gives readers a better insight into government evasions, the lies that were told at the time and why.

After the conflict, no matter how hard they tried, the British public couldn’t get to see what was
happening behind the scenes. They were constantly drip-fed gushing media stories about political and
military courage and the glory of the Falklands victory. I have never doubted that there was plenty of courage on display, from fighters on both sides.

In 1982, and with all the sensitive cabinet documents under lock and key for the next 30 years, the UK government and media had granted themselves the perfect opportunity to gaslight the electorate into voting for a Conservative government; one that went on to enjoy a landslide election victory just a year later in June 1983. ‘Return to Bomb Alley 1982 – the Falklands Deception’ will be published on March 28th 2022.

See Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Nook, Kobo, and others.

https://video.pictory.ai/1753391391271/202507242133493402YIA3o30jCc1NX1?el=app_video_share

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Return to Bomb Alley 1982 – The Falklands Deception, by Paul Cardin

Amazon link

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I’ve been very busy … I’ve needed to be. Below are 101 examples of Wirral Labour / Tory / LibDem scandals, abuse of disabled people, corruption, lies, cover-ups, distortions, conflicts of interest, whitewash investigations, kickbacks, cronyism, control of the local media, gags, bumper pay-offs and clean bills of health to the guilty … and much more … all gathered over the last 10 years.

http://paulcardin.substack.com