On 2 April 2017, it was 35 years since Argentinean soldiers landed on the Falklands Islands, triggering a violent culmination to a territorial dispute between Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government and Argentina’s military junta.
The invasion of Port Stanley launched a ten-week war that cost the lives of 655 Argentine troops, 255 British servicemen and three islanders. Sovereignty over the windswept and sparsely populated islands, situated off the coast of Argentina in the South Atlantic, was a source of tension for decades. Britain has ruled the Falklands uninterrupted since the mid-19th century and the vast majority of the island’s tiny population – fewer than 3,000 at the 2012 census – are descendants of British settlers.
However, in Argentina, where the islands are known as Las Malvinas, the government maintains the country inherited control of them from Spain in the 1800s and point to their proximity to South America to bolster their claim of sovereignty.
Tension first started to boil over when a group of Argentine scrap metal-workers landed on British-controlled South Georgia, 810 miles east of the Falklands, on 19 March and raised the Argentinean flag.
Then, on 2 April, around 3,000 Argentine Special Forces invaded Port Stanley, the islands’ capital, setting the scene for conflict.
As with any war, one of the lasting legacies for the soldiers who served in the conflict is the continued pain and trauma caused by long-term injuries. Former soldier Simon Weston is one of the most known Falklands veterans. He was on board the RFA Sir Galahad in Port Pleasant on 8 June 1982 when it was bombed and suffered 46 per cent burns. The ship was carrying thousands of gallons of diesel and petrol as well as ammunition and phosphorus bombs. Out of Weston’s platoon of 30 men, 22 were killed.
