Warbird Information Exchange

MOTF:

Yes, a great book! I have it (twice, I believe).

British authors tend to write for the Comando de la Aviacion Naval Argentina, the acronym "CANA" when the correct term is COAN. I make that very same mistake during my research, and was promptly corrected by my very good argentinean friends and researchers.

Although not aircraft per se, the theme of the vessels sunk or damaged (on both sides) were mostly due to aircraft action, with the probable exception of the ARA Belgrano, but even then, air assets likely also played a part in locating the old cruiser.

http://www.naval-history.net/

Minor damage to "Argonaut" by cannon (21st May)

Destroyer "SHEFFIELD" (4th May) and

Support ship "ATLANTIC CONVEYOR" (25th May) hit by Exocet and both sunk

Royal Navy:


Frigate "ARDENT" sunk by bombs (21st May)

Damaged LSL's "Sir Bedivere", "Sir Galahad" and "Sir Lancelot" with UXB's (all 24th May)

Destroyer "Glasgow" damaged by UXB (12th May)

Frigate "Argonaut" damaged by UXB (21st May)

Frigate "ANTELOPE" sunk by bomb (23rd May)

Destroyer "COVENTRY" sunk by bombs (25th May)

Frigate "Broadsword" damaged by UXB (25th May)

LSL's "SIR GALAHAD" (later scuttled)

"Sir Tristram" damaged

"Fearless" LCU F4 sunk by bombs (all 8th June)

Destroyer "Glamorgan", frigates "Alacrity" and "Arrow", minor damage by cannon fire and near misses (all 1st May)

Destroyer "Antrim" damaged by UXB,

Figate "Ardent" damaged by bomb,

Frigates "Brilliant" and "Broadsword" minor damage by cannon fire (all 21st May)

Frigate "Plymouth" damaged by UXB and cannon (8th June)


Argentinean Navy:

Cruiser "GENERAL BELGRANO" sunk

Fleet transport "ISLA DE LOS ESTADOS" sunk

Coaster "Monsunen" driven aground

Trawler "NARWAL" sunk

Fleet transport "Bahia Buen Suceso" damaged

Transport "Rio Carcarana" damaged

Patrol ship "Rio Iguazu" beached

Transport "RIO CARCARANA" destroyed

Submarine "Santa Fe" disabled

Patrol vessel "Alferez Sobral" damaged


Saludos,


Tulio

_________________
Why take the best part of life out of your life, when you can have life with the best part of your life in your life?

I am one of them 'futbol' people.

Will the previous owner has pics of this double cabin sample

GOOD MORNING, WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Press "1" for English.
Press "2" to disconnect until you have learned to speak English.

Sooooo, how am I going to know to press 1 or 2, if I do not speak English????

ohhh something i can answer
Outside the air teminal at Mount(un)Pleasant is one of the Phantom's , they were the Spey powered one's , as far as i know they didnt just leave em all there just the one ...
Outside the MT(vehicles) area is i believe a Panhard armoured car .
There are a few mirage drop tanks dotted around the Mount pleasant site , used as corner posts.....
On Pebble Island you can still see the effects of the SBS , there is part of a Skyvan lying there , and a few bits of Puccara .Also away from the airfield at Pebble spread over about a quater of a mile is a Mirage , not sure it it's a dagger or not , but i found the intake which still had part of the center cone and you could see tha cannon trough on it also.I told that the pilots remains for this Mirage were sent back to Argentina ,but apparently they stated it wasnt the pilot ? work that one out ????
Also on Pebble is the remains of a Learjet that was apparently shot down by a destroyer ......the rear end crew were found several years after the conflict by an islander looking for electrical cabling , they are very god scavengers out there ....
Not far from the mount pleasant site there is a marker for a Wasp(i think) that was hit by freindly fire.
By the old marines barracks , Moody Brook was an old landing craft and you could pick up bits of metal from an Argentine helicpter that went down there.Going back before the conflict you will find some big ship type gun turrets and memorials for the first world war ...And not forgetting the shipwrecks that are in the harbour , these are the old wooden type sailing ships, sadly they are falling apart .
Got tot say i had 2 good dets to the Falklands and if anyone is ever thinking of going id say DO IT !!!
Cheers
bob

richard, thank you for the much needed refresher course. i didn't mean to trivialize the war by any means, it was a very serious conflict. best, tom

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

You were right in your first assumption, regarding Belgrano, as she was found by HMS Conqueror on 30th April, without air involvement, and subsequently sunk on 2nd May, being hit by 2 x Mk18 WW2 era torpedo's, just over 40 years after the Japanese failed to sink her at Pearl when she was the then USS Phoenix.

Rob

No problems here, a superb discussion. Its nice for WIX to focus on something non American from time to time.

There were some very interesting articles in the Sunday Times newspaper only last weekend concerning the conflict.

A very brief precis is that President Mitterand of France was worried that we may use Nukes in the Falklands (we took them because it was easier to just leave them on board than offload them - bearing in mind that we got the Task Force ready in a matter of days). Apparently Margaret Thatcher intimated that she would have no chice unless he gave her the secret coes that would allow us to jam the Excocet missiles. This wasafter the two ships were sunk and so worried was our French friend that he gave the codes.

Undoubtably this game of Brinkmanship accross the channel saved many British (and ultimately Argetinean)lives.

One thing I still haven't been able to figure out after all these years is whether the correct term is "Argentine" or "Aergentinian"? I hear both words used all the time. Anyone have a dictionary?

_________________
Rob Mears
'Surviving Corsairs' Historian
robcmears@yahoo.com
http://www.robmears.com

Hi Rob,
I think both Argentine and Argentinian are acceptable in the english language.

Tom... no problem, I never thought you meant harm, but I thought that I had to say something. Sometimes we get so fixated on the relics of war that we forget the price paid by those who took part... I am no exception here, but it is something I try very hard to remember.

This has actually turned into a fascinating discussion. The Falklands/Malvinas conflict has always been of great interest to me. There is very little information out there sadly.

There was a pretty good British film about one soldier's experiences called "Tumbledown", about a lieutenant in the Scots Gueards who was severely wounded during the hand-to-hand battle on Mount Tumbledown. It is more about his recovery from his injuries than about the fighting itself, but is well worth watching. There is some controversy around it though, because the main character is a not entirely reliable narrator.

There is also a terrific account of the air fighting from the Royal Navy's perspective by Commander 'Sharkey' Ward called "Sea Harrier over the Falklands". It is probably the best written book on airial combat I've ever read, although the author clearly has an axe to grind against some of his superiors.

There's an extremely irreverent book about the Falklands called "Don't Cry for Me Sargeant Major". I read it twenty years ago, and really enjoyed it, but might think differently now. It was written by two of the journalists who went down there with the fleet. It is not so much about the fighting in the war, as the journalists were not allowed to leave the ship until very late. It is about the journalists experiences covering it. They spend a good deal of time lampooning Max Hastings, the extremely pompous and tedious reporter (now Sir Max Hastings and former editor of the Daily Telegraph and Evening Standard) who wrote his own history of the Falklands war. It is a very interesting view of the conflict, and worth reading. There is a lot of very raw humor in it, which is very typical of the British, especially in wartime.

I also found a pretty fascinating website dedicated to crewmen from HMS Yarmouth, one of the british warships in the conflict. There are a lot of personal photographs on the site from the the war., especially images of ships such as Sheffield and Ardent after they had been hit. Yarmouth helped in rescuing the crew and trying to quell the fires. Just click on the different people's names to see the images posted by them.

http://www.hms-yarmouth.com/dave_'sharky'_ward.htm

Anyway, I have really appreciated a lot of the comments here, and have learned a great deal also... thanks especially to Tulio.

Cheers,
Richard

Personally, I find it a bit 'number heavy' - more of a spotter's guide to the individual airframes involved, and prefer Jeff Ethell and Alfred Price's 'Air War - South Atlantic' as a narrative history of the aerial conflict.

I agree that Ward's 'Sea Harrier over the Falklands' (still in print as a softback) is a great read. An interesting character, I heard him lecture a couple of years after the war, he had some very forthright views.

Another interesting book is 'Harrier, ski-jump to Victory' by John Godden, published soon after the war.

A comprehensive bibliography on all aspects of the Falklands War can be found here. http://www.naval-history.net/F01Books.htm

Howdy, guys!

"Aergentinian" would be incorrect. "Ae" would make it so, but also "ian".

The more commonly used term is Argentinean (given that the name of the country is Argentina and not "Argentini" ).

In Spanish, the "gentilicio" that is, the term used to address people from a country or region, is Argentinos for males or people in general, and Argentinas for females.

Good, informative thread.

Part of the consequences of this unfortunate conflict, was the agreement from Argentina, to discontinue the research and development of a ballistic missile; the Argentinean aeronautical industry is one of the most advanced in South America (Brazil of course, has a far more advanced industry and production set-up).

The Argentineans were one of the first countries to design and produce indigenous aircraft in all of Latin America already during the late 1920s and 1930s, continuing of course with the Pulqui (jets) the Calquin, the Pucara, the experimental flying wings designed by the Horten Brothers, the Guarani transports, and lately the Pampa.

Civilian aircraft (mostly Piper designs) have been built under license, by Chincul aeronautical company.

Saludos!


Tulio

_________________
Why take the best part of life out of your life, when you can have life with the best part of your life in your life?

I am one of them 'futbol' people.

Will the previous owner has pics of this double cabin sample

GOOD MORNING, WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Press "1" for English.
Press "2" to disconnect until you have learned to speak English.

Sooooo, how am I going to know to press 1 or 2, if I do not speak English????

logistically the brits did a remarkable job scrambling men, ships, & weapons to such a far place from britain in such a short time period.

_________________
tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

We had a lot of behind the scenes help from our friends across the Atlantic. but this 14 year old (in 1982) was very proud of what we achieved.

There was a cost though. 255 British Servicemen and 3 Islanders made the ultimate sacrifice.

Lest we forget

As a Chinook ground crew bod who arrieved just after the end of the "conflict" I can tell you what you saw in the press and on the box was only the tip. After the Conveyer went down with all our kit, it really was a mend and make do affair.
As for whats left down there, god knows, and to be honest it can stay there, All you got told about was Port Stanley and Goose Green. Kellys Garden was the place to be, we had some Big Wig turn up one day tto see how we are getting on, great we said, as we all stood there in different items of clothing like something out of MASH, but with bad attitude.
OOHHHhhh - happy days. - NOT.

Good topic though, carry on.

_________________
English and proud of it.
Enjoy life - it's the only one you've got.

For those that are not familiar with the Pucara, here is a picture of the example at the IWM...
http://community.webshots.com/photo/287 ... 4982ysdtux

Despite perhaps a few poor chosen words, this has been a great thread.

Mike

_________________
Mike R. Henniger
Aviation Enthusiast & Photographer
http://www.AerialVisuals.ca
http://www.facebook.com/AerialVisuals

Do you want to find locations of displayed, stored or active aircraft? Then start with the The Locator.
Do you want to find or contribute to the documented history of an aircraft? If so then start with the Airframes Database.

Falklands Folks:

The poss aircraft that hit HMS Sheffield and damaged the HMS Invincible. Photo Aviacion Naval ARg Via C/w.com

_________________
FAH619®

I was told by one of our guys who has a ton of combat time in the Marine A-4s that if the Argentineans had not used electrical fusing at low level the damage to the RN would have been much worse. The US Marines went back to manual arm especially for low level and the nonexploding bomb problem went away.