In early 1982, the Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield was on her way home to Portsmouth after several months patrolling the Gulf of Oman.

Families of the crew were eagerly awaiting the return of their loved ones, when the ship was re-routed from Gibraltar to sail to the South Atlantic because of a conflict over an obscure group of islands 8,000 miles away.

Commanding officer, Captain James `Sam' Salt, sent a message via the ship's satellite communications system asking The News to convey best wishes to family and friends at home.

His message was simple. `We hope you all had a very happy Easter. We are fit and well,' he said.

Less than a month later on May 4, HMS Sheffield was hit by an Exocet missile fired from an Argentinian Super Etendard aircraft. Twenty of her crew were killed and the ship abandoned as fires raged on board.

The short time which had elapsed between HMS Sheffield's interrupted journey and her destruction, is an indication of how fast events moved in the whirlwind of the Falklands crisis 15 years ago.

It was a whirlwind which had caught the British government off-guard.

Not only did it reflect badly on a foreign policy which had constantly failed to resolve the dispute with Argentina over the Falkland Islands, but also on those who ignored warnings of an imminent invasion.

It also exposed the failings of the government strategy of concentrating defence spending on countering the threat from the Soviet Union in Europe while largely ignoring other potential areas of conflict.

This strategy was responsible for plans to savagely cutback the navy, including the intended sale of the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible.

It was a supreme irony that such moves should have come as Britain, albeit unknowingly, was on the brink of a war which would largely rely on maritime power to move a major force to the other side of the world.

From this mire of mistakes, it was left to Britain's armed forces to salvage the nation's pride. It is difficult to praise too highly the way they rose to this challenge.

They had to fight a war 8,000 miles away in a notoriously harsh climate against well-equipped and entrenched forces operating only 400 miles from home who could call on their country's entire airforce for support.

That the British armed forces won and reclaimed the Falklands is an extraordinary feat. But it was a close contest and the price for this war which should never have happened was 236 British and 750 Argentinian dead.

Argentinian forces successfully invaded the Falklands on April 2, 1982. It came out of the blue as far as the British public were concerned, but the government should have known better.

Although the Argentinian decision to invade the Falklands was not taken until March 26, there had been signs from the start of the year that at least some elements in Argentina were considering it.

Captain Nick Barker, of the ice patrol ship HMS Endurance, which was also an intended victim of the defence cuts, reported back conversations with Argentinian officers who had warned of an imminent invasion.

But government officials chose to interpret this as special pleading for the future of Endurance and failed to take pre-emptive action.

In fact the decision to decommission Endurance probably contributed to the Argentinian Junta's decision to invade.

The Foreign Office had already warned the decision could be misread in Buenos Aires as a decline in Britain's commitment to the Falklands.

It is certainly true that Argentina's leaders did not believe Britain would respond to the invasion.

But it was not just British complacency which failed to head-off the crisis in 1982. The blame also lay with the failure of successive governments to settle a long-running dispute with Argentina over the Falklands.

Britain and Argentina had, and still have, competing territorial claims to the islands dating from the 18th century. These claims again became a source of tension during the 1960s.

During the ensuing period British governments, faced with determination from the islanders to remain under British rule and the public pressure this caused in the UK, refused to grant Argentina concessions over sovereignty. But neither did they strengthen Britain's commitment to the Falklands.

Either of these options might have averted the crisis of 1982.

None of this, of course, excuses the decision by Argentina to invade the Falklands, an action clearly against the will of the islanders. But it shows the 1982 war, with its terrible loss of life, could have been avoided.

The trigger for the invasion came on March 19, 1982, with the strange incident of a group of scrap metal merchants landing on the dependency of South Georgia and raising the Argentinian flag.

Argentina resisted British calls for these scrap metal merchants to be removed and then decided the time was right for a full-scale invasion of the Falkland Islands themselves.

A small detachment of Royal Marines on the islands put up a brave but futile resistance before Governor Rex Hunt ordered them to lay down their arms in the face of overwhelming Argentinian forces.

The next day, April 3, a detachment of 22 Royal Marines on South Georgia also surrendered after a fierce battle in which they forced down an Argentinian helicopter, badly damaged a warship and killed four Argentinian troops.

If the Argentinians had believed Britain would not respond, they very quickly found out they were mistaken.

The government now began to redeem itself from its misjudgments over the Falklands with fast and decisive action. But it was the armed forces and the dockyard workers who had to translate this resolve into practice.

Fire damage to HMS Sheffield after it was hit by an Exocet

Famously, staff at Portsmouth dockyard were being handed redundancy notices caused by defence cuts when the call came to prepare the fleet. They worked day and night to turn ships round in days rather than weeks.

A report in The News on April 5 captured the bustle as the ships which would form the task force were prepared for war.

`Hermes (the aircraft carrier) was a hive of activity as truck loads of equipment and stores arrived at the jetty. Chain gangs of sailors, helped by aircrew officers, kept the loading operation moving.

`Sailors who could be spared were given brief shore leave to meet wives and sweethearts in Portsmouth to say goodbye'.

In Southampton, a few days later the luxury liner Canberra, quickly converted into a troop ship, left for the South Atlantic amid emotional scenes with military bands playing the music of the song 'Sailing'.

Despite such scenes, many people believed it would never come to war and the diplomats would find a solution before the task force completed its 8,000 mile journey to the South Atlantic.

They were wrong. Many of the men who sailed south during that intense period in the spring of 1982 were destined never to return.

Start of the conflict
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