When I started working with Lieutenant General Galtieri as his attorney for the defense (on April, 1983), one of the first questions I asked him was: \u201cGeneral, why were draftees sent to the Falklands?\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was his explanation: \u201cMr. De Vita: on April the 23rd, 1982, the Naval Intelligence Service (SIN is the Spanish acronym) deciphered a coded message from General Pinochet addressed to all the Chilean armed forces\u2014land, sea, air, and police forces. The message stated that they were ready to \u201csupport Great Britain overtly or covertly\u201d (the fleet was arriving on April the 25th).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For this reason\u2014that is, the fear of facing hostilities from yet a second front\u2014, Argentine troops\u2014duly trained and equipped\u2014were stationed at the Andes mountain range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was confirmed by General Vaquero, General Garc\u00eda, and other high ranking officials before the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and the testimonies were included in the file #59 of the Federal Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In due time, and thanks to the information that gradually became of public knowledge, the Chilean support for the British fleet was confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is biased because not all the brave Argentinean individuals who fought at the Falklands were \u201cboys\u201d. The heroic members of the Argentine Air Force, the Naval Force, the Marine Force, the Merchant Navy force, the Infantry, the Artillery, and the BIM5 were not conformed by \u201cboys\u201d. They were men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indeed, the \u201cboys\u201d fulfilled their duty as it was expected from them: as men. I believe that the British government must have felt indulged when Carlos Sa\u00fal Menem \u2014a great son of our Argentine homeland\u2014 took the decision to abolish the mandatory military service in Argentina (a veritable source of brave men).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where is there any other occasion in which the British empire fought against \u201cwar boys\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, there was. The case, being cited below, is very different from the Argentine case because of its geographical and cultural background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The date was January the 22nd of 1879: the Isandhlwana battle took place at that time, in south Africa. Great Britain was seeking to seize economic resources (needless to say, never by democratic means or subject to human rights); Specifically, Great Britain was in need of minerals, and the Zulu territory (Zululand) had them plenty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Great Britain faced the opposition of the owners of the lands: the Zulu tribes, whose members did not agree with this act of robbery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In order to persuade the Zulus, the British government sent one of its best regiments\u2014conformed by 1,200 men, and 900 ancillary staff\u2014, armed with the most modern equipment of the time being: cannons, machine guns, rifles and pistols.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Opposite them were the Zulu tribes: their members were barefoot, wearing just a loincloth, and armed with spears and shields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both sides engaged in a battle, called the battle of Isandhlwana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were absolutely no survivors on the British side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the Falklands, the British casualties are far from the 240-250 declared men (no wonder the state secret regarding the 1982 events was extended for ninety years, when the usual period of time is of thirty). According to the German magazine \u201cStern\u201d (1984), the British casualties are recognized at around 1,500 men. This exact number of caualties was mentioned by Captain Robacio and Admiral Busser on the basis of conversations held with British officers at the time they were war prisoners (these conversations were held after the ceasefire).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Argentinean society has no idea of the magnitude of the feat performed by the \u201cwar boys\u201d, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Argentinean society barely collects that during 1806 and 1807, the population of this \u201clittle town in the remotest part of the Earth\u201d kicked the second most important army in the world out of Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Falklands feat is even greater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suffice it to say that the latest British naval defeats took place in 1941, when the German battleship \u201cBismarck\u201d sank the British cruiser \u201cHood\u201d, and in 1942, when the Japanese Zero fighter sank two British jewels: the \u201cRenown\u201d and the "Prince of Wales".<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Forty years came and gone until Great Britain lost their ships at the Falkland Sound (in Spanish, \u201cSan Carlos Strait\u201d), and at Bluff Cove (in Spanish, \u201cBah\u00eda Agradable\u201d), \u201cthe fleet's darkest day\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As to the land casualties, the latest ones underwent by the British took place on September, 1944, at Arnhem bridge. This operation had been conceived by marshal Montgomery; it was aimed at arriving Germany from the north; the British had to cross three Dutch bridges: Eindhoven, Nijmegen, and Arnhem. These bridges had to be captured and occupied by American, Polish, and British paratroopers, while a column of armored vehicles drove down the road until reaching the bridges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The British intelligence gave the "go-ahead" signal to the operation, but everything went wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The British parachute troops, which had the mission of capturing the Arnhem bridge, landed on the verge of a forest, where an SS Panzer division was having a rest. The British casualties were of 9,000 men, although some reckon them of about 16,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Again, forty years went by until the Falklands war started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5. Last, but not least, it has been publicly acknowledged that, without the aid given by the US and the Chile Republic, Great Britain would have had to withdraw its forces from the Falklands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other words, Great Britain would have been defeated; among other brave men, by the \u201cFalklands war boys\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Fifth Myth: The “War Boys” 1. Why were they sent? When I started working with Lieutenant General Galtieri as his attorney for the defense (on April, 1983), one of the first questions I asked him was: “General, why were draftees sent to the Falklands?”. This was his explanation: “Mr. De Vita: on April the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[91],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sin-categoria-en","tag-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malvinas1982.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malvinas1982.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malvinas1982.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malvinas1982.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malvinas1982.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/malvinas1982.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1727,"href":"https:\/\/malvinas1982.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions\/1727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malvinas1982.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malvinas1982.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malvinas1982.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malvinas1982.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}