Operation Georgias

Satellite image of South Georgia Islands taken by NASA

Date April 3, 1982
Place Grytviken , South Georgia Islands
Result Argentina takes control of Port Leith and Grytviken
Belligerents
Argentina vs. United Kingdom
Commanders
Captain Carlos Trombetta vs. Lieutenant Keith Paul Mills
Forces in combat
Argentina: 40 marines and the destroyer ARA Guerrico
UK: 22 Marines and HMS Endurance
Casualties
Argentina: 3 dead, 9 injured, 1 corvette damaged, 1 helicopter shot down
UK: 1 injured, 22 prisoners

Operation Georgias was the code name used by the Argentine Armed Forces to designate the occupation operations of the South Georgia Islands at the beginning of the Falklands War in 1982.
The invasion of South Georgia took place on April 3, 1982, when Argentine naval forces took control of South Georgia Island (renamed San Pedro Island) after surrendering a small group of United Kingdom Marines. in Grytviken. The Argentine intervention began on March 19, 1982 when a group of civilian workers arrived in Port Leith aboard the ARA Bahía Buen Suceso transport (B-4), raising the Argentine flag. Some Argentine marines had infiltrated among the workers, presenting themselves as civilian scientists.


Polar ship HMS Endurance in Mar del Plata in February 1982, shortly before its intervention in the Georgias.

Argentine workers in South Georgia

Davidoff contracts
In September 1979, the Argentine businessman Constantino Davidoff, director of the company Georgia del Sur S.A. and specialized in scrap metal business, signed a contract with the Christian Salvensen Co. of Edinburgh, by which it acquired the right to remove the remains of the old abandoned whaling facilities in the ports: Leith, Stromness and Husvik, on the Georgian islands. from the south.
Davidoff managed the service of the polar ship HMS Endurance at the British embassy in Buenos Aires in order to transport the personnel and equipment necessary to dismantle the facilities to the islands. As the British did not accept the request to use the HMS Endurance, in August 1981 Davidoff requested permission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Argentine Navy to hire passage on the Antarctic transport ships. Knowing of the British government's decision to withdraw HMS Endurance from service in the South Atlantic and anticipating the possible evacuation of Grytviken, the Navy signed an agreement with Davidoff that allowed it to arrive at the islands at least twice a year.

Proyecto y Operación Alfa

In September 1981 the Navy conceived a plan to take advantage of Davidoff's business in South Georgia and thus establish a secret base in that disputed territory. This action was code-named Project Alpha.5 The plan consisted of infiltrating the military among the workers, with the excuse that they were scientists. Once HMS Endurance had withdrawn from the South Atlantic, starting in April it would be joined by 14 marines embarked on a ship destined to reestablish Argentine Antarctic bases, which would establish a permanent military base in South Georgia. That base would have the help of winter, which would prevent the measures that the British could take for its removal.
Parallel to the project, in October 1981 the Antarctic naval commander received the order from the chief of operations of the General Staff of the Navy to study a possible establishment of a scientific base on one of the islands in dispute with the United Kingdom. It was expected that the base could be installed in the 1981-1982 Antarctic campaign. That operation was called Operation Alpha. At the beginning of December it was decided that the base would be occupied by the military and not by civilians as had been planned, due to the need to keep it secret. The Amphibious Commando Group was ordered to enlist 1 officer and 6 non-commissioned officers. The same measure was taken with the same number of tactical divers.
On January 29, 1981, the training of the commandos and designated divers began, with Lieutenant Alfredo Astiz as their leader. The rest were Lieutenant Carrilaff, 1 diving non-commissioned officer, 1 nursing non-commissioned officer, 5 diving corporals and 5 amphibious commando corporals. On February 28 they were embarked in Ushuaia on the Antarctic campaign ship ARA Bahía Paraíso. So that it would not interfere with their plans for the Falklands, on March 16 the Military Committee canceled Operation Alpha, but the commandos remained on board preventively and left on March 18 for the South Orkneys accompanying the ship's Antarctic campaign.


ARA Almirante Irízar. 

Davidoff Travels

The businessman informed the British embassy of his trip, without requesting permission to do so on the icebreaker, and on December 16, 1981, he set sail for South Georgia aboard the icebreaker ARA Almirante Irízar (Q-5), to carry out a inventory of facilities to be dismantled in Stromness Bay. He arrived there on the 21st and left a few days later.6 On December 23, the British magistrate of South Georgia discovered traces of the Argentine presence in Port Leith and reported it to the governor of the Falkland Islands Rex Hunt, who relayed it to London. December 31st. The British government ordered its embassy to present a note of protest for the violation of its sovereignty by the unauthorized landing, but the Foreign Minister claimed to be unaware of the incident and on February 9 there was a new formal protest that was rejected by the Argentine Foreign Ministry on the 18th.
Another Argentine trip to the islands occurred in February 1982, when a business rival of Davidoff, bank employee Adrián Marchessi, made an unscheduled visit to Port Leith. Marchessi arrived at the Port Leith facility aboard the Caiman, a Panama-registered yacht, with which he had sailed from Mar del Plata.8 He reported to Grytviken, saying he was part of Davidoff's scheme and gave British authorities local details from the inspection made by Davidoff in December and even from other Argentine trips in the 1970s.

The raising of the Argentine flag

On March 18, 1982, the ARA Bahía Buen Suceso arrived at Port Leith, disembarking Davidoff's workers and his equipment, without passing through Grytviken as required by the British government. On that date, the only British presence in Port Leith was a team from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). On March 19, 4 members of the BAS heading to Bahía Carlita discovered the ARA Bahía Buen Suceso unloading equipment in Puerto Leith, with the Argentine flag flying. About 100 people were disembarked and had occupied a BAS shelter. The leader of the BAS team, Trevor Edwards, addressed Captain Briatore to inform him that his presence was illegal and that they must pass through Grytviken, then notified the British magistrate at King Edward Point. The senior BAS commander in Grytviken, Steve Martin, sent a message to Governor Hunt, who consulted with London. The commander demanded the removal of the Argentine flag and the reembarkation of the workers. The commander of the ARA Bahía Buen Suceso responded that the mission had the approval of the British embassy in Buenos Aires and ordered the flag to be lowered, but it did not appear in Grytviken as the British demanded.
On March 20, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was informed of what happened. As the Argentines had not complied with the diplomatic formalities, the British government decided to intervene on a small scale and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom (Foreign Office) ordered the sending of the HMS Endurance with the aim of forcing the operators to lower the flag. and prevent the disembarkation of personnel. The ship departed Port Stanley on 16 March with a complement of 22 marines.
On March 21, the British embassy held a diplomatic protest in Buenos Aires, requesting the Argentine government to evict the workers. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentina, Nicanor Costa Méndez, responded by appearing to clear up the crisis, assuring that the ARA Bahía Buen Suceso would soon depart the islands and that the incident had no official consent.
On the morning of March 22, the ARA Bahía Buen Suceso departed from Port Leith. However, in the afternoon, a BAS observation post detected the presence of Argentine personnel and passed the information to London. Consequently, the Foreign Office ordered HMS Endurance to evacuate any Argentine personnel remaining on South Georgia.

Operation Georgias

On March 23, the Commander of the Antarctic Naval Group, 16 Captain César Trombetta, in command of the ARA Bahía Paraíso (B-1) that was in South Orkney, received orders from the General Naval Staff to head to maximum speed to the South Georgia Islands, with the mission of preventing the eviction of Davidoff's group of Argentine workers by the HMS Endurance, left for this purpose from the Malvinas Islands.
The British movements were met with a series of Argentine countermeasures: the corvettes ARA Drummond (P-31) and ARA Granville (P-33) were deployed between the Falklands and South Georgia, being in position to intercept HMS Endurance and rescue any Argentine personnel he had on board.
On March 24, the Argentine government informed the press of the workers' presence in South Georgia, while Astiz received the order to "disembark on March 25 at 00:15 in Port Leith in order to protect Argentine workers. "
The ARA Bahía Paraíso arrived at Port Leith on the night of March 24 and disembarked the group of 14 soldiers commanded by Astiz (Grupo Alfa), with individual weapons belonging to the ship. The ARA Bahía Paraíso remained in the area and patrolled the area with its helicopters during the following hours. News from the south reported an unusual movement of Argentine Navy warships in the South Atlantic Ocean. Upon arriving at Port Leith, HMS Endurance found the ARA Bahía Paraíso anchored, then both ships were chasing each other and hiding around the islands until they lost contact with each other on March 31.
Faced with the prospect of possible military conflict, the Foreign Office sought to achieve some form of compromise. Lord Carrington proposed to his counterpart Costa Méndez that he pardon the workers present at Port Leith and give them the appropriate documentation, which could include the stamping of temporary permits instead of passports, which was a crucial concession for the Argentine position. Argentina's claim, however, was that the arrival of any of its citizens to South Georgia should follow the procedures agreed in the 1971 communications treaty. Governor Rex Hunt strongly rejected this extension of the agreement, valid only for the Falkland Islands, and conveyed his concern to the British government.
The British plan was that BAS commander Martin would be responsible until the Argentine forces demonstrated any hostile intent, if that occurred Lieutenant Keith Paul Mills would take command.
On March 28, 1982, at 10:57, the destroyer ARA Santísima Trinidad (D-2) set sail as the flagship of the commander of Task Force 40, embarking its commander and the commander of the Malvinas Theater of Operations, General of division Osvaldo García, starting Operation Rosario that concluded with the surrender of the British governor of the Malvinas on April 2. That same day, 40 marines under the command of Lieutenant Guillermo Luna were embarked in Puerto Belgrano heading to the South Georgia, in the corvette ARA Guerrico (P-2) (currently P-32), traveling precariously and overcrowded for 4 days as it is not a ship with the capacity to transport troops and due to the weather conditions.
On 30 March, when it became obvious that invasion was imminent, the British government ordered the destroyer HMS Antrim, followed by two other surface ships and three nuclear submarines, to South Georgia to support HMS Endurance. . The rest of the British naval units were placed on four-hour alert.
On April 1, the General Naval Staff received Operations Order No. 1/82 "S" to "occupy Grytviken and hold Leith in order to ensure control of the Georgia Islands", for which it ordered the missile corvette ARA Guerrico , under the command of frigate captain Carlos Alfonso, join the ARA Bahía Paraíso, equipped with two helicopters from the Antarctic Group (1 Puma from the Argentine Army, 1 Alouette (from the Naval Aviation Command of the Argentine Navy) and a group of 40 infantrymen of marines under the command of Lieutenant Guillermo Luna who joined Astiz's forces in Puerto Leith. Until that date, South Georgia had not been included in the Malvinas Theater of Operations.




Badges of Alfredo Astiz at the Imperial War Museum in London.

With the available units, Task Group 60.1 was formed, with César Trombetta as commander, made up of the units:
60.1.1. Polar ship ARA Bahía Paraíso, commanded by frigate captain Ismael J. García.
60.1.2. ARA Guerrico corvette, commanded by frigate captain Carlos Alfonso.
60.1.3. Fraction of the Marine Infantry Battalion No. 4 (BIM 4) with 40 men, commanded by Lieutenant Guillermo Luna.
60.1.4. Two helicopters from the Antarctic Group: 1 Puma from the Army and 1 Alouette from the Navy's Naval Aviation Command.
60.1.5. Group of tactical divers and amphibious commandos (14 men), under the command of Lieutenant Alfredo Astiz.

As a consequence of the above, a series of high-level meetings and conversations took place in order to prevent the Argentine invasion. On the night of April 1, the president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, promised Thatcher to speak with the military junta to prevent the attack. However, his telephone conversation with Leopoldo Galtieri was fruitless.

British resistance

Cumberland Bay with King Edward Peninsula and Inlet and Grytviken.

The 2nd of April

On April 2, Astiz announced to the Argentines who were in Port Leith that his country had recovered the Malvinas.[13] Receiving the order to execute Operations Order No. 1/82 "S".
After learning of the fall of Port Stanley, Mills took urgent action: his men fortified the beach at King Edward Point, near the entrance to the bay, with wire and landmines and prepared defenses around the BAS buildings. HMS Endurance, which was a few miles offshore, provided communication between the small British detachment and London. Mills was authorized to open fire in self-defense after issuing a warning. A later statement from the British government instructed the marines "not to resist beyond the point where lives might be needlessly lost."
Due to inclement weather, the ARA Guerrico only entered Cumberland Bay at 17:00 on April 2, so the plans of the Argentine forces for that day in South Georgia were frustrated and Trombetta postponed them until on April 3. These plans consisted of the landing of Astiz's special forces at Hope Point, near Grytviken, to ensure the arrival of the ground forces teams, transported by helicopter. The ARA Guerrico was to provide naval fire outside the bay, but the corvette's arrival was delayed by a storm, so a new course of action was decided for the next day. According to the new plan, the first landing was to be made by the Alouette helicopter from the ARA Guerrico, followed by three waves of marines in the Puma from the ARA Bahía Paraíso. After sending a radio message demanding the surrender of the British, Trombetta had to order the ARA Guerrico to make an advance on the Capitán Vago cove where the port of Grytviken is located, just opposite King Edward Point. The corvette was only authorized to use its firearms at the request of ground forces. Astiz's men had to remain in the rearguard aboard the ARA Bahía Paraíso. All forces involved had to avoid enemy deaths for as long as possible. Freedman believes Trombetta made those provisions thinking he would meet only the BAS team. Apparently, the oversight at that point was due to the absence of HMS Endurance, which made him think that he would only deal with the BAS people, Trombetta ordered the corvette ARA Guerrico to approach the coast, send the Alouette helicopter on reconnaissance, and transport the first group of Marines in the other helicopter, a Puma.
During the night, the two Argentine ships established contact and remained in nearby waters, with the corvette in Stromness Bay.

April 3

On April 3 at 5:00 Luna received a naval message stating that HMS Endurance was in Grytviken with 22 marines. However, Trombetta thought that the landing area would be free of enemies, which they would find on the polar ship. At 7:35, with better weather conditions, the corvette arrived at Puerto Leith and transferred the marines to the ARA Bahía Paraíso, while the Astiz commandos were reembarked, leaving the workers protected on land by men from the ARA Bahía Paraíso under the orders of Lieutenant Cortez.
At 11:10 from the ARA Bahía Paraíso the surrender of Grytviken was demanded with a message in English, repeated 3 minutes later. The message stated that Rex Hunt had surrendered, not only in the Falklands, but also in his quarters, which was false.13 Lieutenant Mills received and then relayed the message to HMS Endurance, with the intention of buying time. . At the same time, he invited the BAS personnel to take cover inside the church premises. The British soldiers did not accept the surrender. By then, the Alouette was flying over Grytviken reporting that no possible resistance was observed and the ARA Guerrico made its first entry into the inlet. According to Mayorga, Captain Carlos Alfonso, commander of the corvette, was hesitant to expose it to such narrow waters. Mayorga also validates Freedman's speculation about Trombetta's incorrect assumptions regarding British military presence around the port, citing an official report. Trombetta also had some reservations about the corvette's adequate combat readiness, since she had been in dry dock until just a few days before leaving her home base in Puerto Belgrano.


Remains of the Argentine Puma helicopter.

Helicopter shoot down

At 11:25 Grytviken was ordered for the base personnel to go out to a visible place, warning that there would be a marine infantry landing and 10 minutes later from the corvette they noticed the presence of armed personnel.
The Puma grounded the first group of 15 Argentine marines (including Lt. Luna) with a machine gun at 11:41 at King Edward Point, opposite Shackleton House, where the Royal Marines were entrenched. . By then, the corvette knew that the Marines' deployment area was on the north shore of the mouth of the inlet. The second wave of marines left from the ARA Bahía Paraíso aboard the Puma at 11:47, formed by Lieutenant Giusti with 14 other marines and a machine gun. The commander of the Argentine group already on the ground, Lieutenant Luna, requested via the ARA Guerrico - he did not have direct communication with the ARA Bahía Paraíso - that the second wave be the one that should arrive third equipped with 60 mm mortars, but the Marines were already in flight. The landing took place to the east of Luna's position, well within sight of the British detachment.30 The helicopter was within gun range of Mills and his men at that time. The aircraft was hailed by intense fire from automatic weapons, but the pilot was able to cross the bay and made an emergency landing on the southern coast of the bay, on the shore opposite King Edward Point (or Punta Coronel Zelaya). The conscripts Mario Almonacid and Jorge Néstor Águila died and four others were wounded, the rest were out of combat position, but machine gun fire was opened on the hospital, wounding a marine in the arm. At the same time, Luna's troops began their march towards the Shackleton house, but once the helicopter was shot down, the British fired heavy fire on them. In view of that, Luna requested fire support from the ARA Guerrico.

Attack on the ARA Guerrico

The corvette then made its second advance on the inlet and at 11:55 opened fire. To his commander's disappointment, the 20mm guns jammed after his first shot, and with the 40mm he could only fire six volleys. The 100 mm cannon was disabled after the first shot. Completely exposed, the ship had no other option but to move away and turned into the cove, opening fire with its weapons located on the other side of it. The British directed their fire on the ship at 11:59. The corvette was hit by small arms fire and by a Carl Gustav 84 mm anti-tank rocket launcher. According to Mills, his men opened fire from a distance of 550 m. The attack killed Lance Corporal Patricio Guanca and wounded five other sailors, damaging power lines, a 40 mm cannon, an Exocet rocket launcher, and the 100 mm gun mount. When the corvette passed in front of the enemy position again to move away, it again received intense fire. Argentine sources acknowledge that more than 200 projectiles hit the corvette.
Meanwhile, the Alouette had been transporting the other 10 marines, out of range of British guns, even though it was a reconnaissance helicopter and not a troop transport.13 As the damaged ARA Guerrico headed out of the bay , the Argentine troops resumed the exchange of fire with Mills' marines. Once out of range of the British guns, from the vicinity of Hobart Rock, the corvette resumed fire with its 40-millimeter guns, repaired and back in service.33 This convinced Mills that everything was finished and ordered his marines to cease fire. This happened at 12:48, according to Mayorga. At 1:00 p.m. Mills approached the Argentine positions waving a white cape and surrendered, receiving the order to have his subordinates leave individually. Mills and his men were taken into custody by Astiz's group, who had remained in reserve during the battle. At 1:35 p.m. it was reported that the British flag had been lowered. HMS Endurance dispatched one of her Wasp helicopters to Cumberland Bay. The helicopter landed there and detected the Argentine corvette and the transport ship in the inlet, but found no signs of combat. HMS Endurance remained in the waters off South Georgia until 5 April. In the afternoon, 13 BAS civilians who were scattered in the vicinity were arrested. At 11 p.m., Grupo Alfa replaced Lieutenant Cortez and his men in protecting the workers in Port Leith.


ARA Guerrico.

Consequences

The corvette ARA Guerrico, with a loss of 50% of its firepower due to combat, departed Grytviken together with the ARA Bahía Paraíso at 3:15 on April 4, heading for Río Grande.35 The latter transported British marines to Río Grande, from where they were sent by plane to Montevideo,13 arriving in the United Kingdom on April 20. The Argentine forces desisted from attacking the BAS base on Bird Island, remaining there and in Schlieper Bay, Lyell Glacier and Saint Andrews Bay, 15 British BAS who remained outside Argentine control until the British recovery of the islands. . The Argentine Navy left a detachment of 55 marines on the islands, along with the 39 scrap metal dismantling workers who remained in Port Leith.34 South Georgia was retaken by British forces on April 25, 1982, in the course of Operation Paraquat.

Awards

• Lieutenant Mills received the Distinguished Service Cross.
• Captain Nick Barker of HMS Endurance was awarded the Order of the British Empire in the rank of Commander.
• The main artillery corporal Francisco Solano Páez was awarded the Argentine Nation medal for Valor in Combat.
  

Bibliography

-Freedman, Lawrence: The Official History of the Falklands Campaign: The origins of the Falklands war. Routledge, 2005. ISBN 0-7146-5206-7 
-Freedman, Lawrence and Gamba, Virginia: Señales de Guerra. Javier Vergara Editor, 1992. ISBN 950-15-1112-X 
-Insight Team Sunday Times (1982). War in the Falklands: the Full Story. The Sunday Times. 
-Contraalmirante Horacio A. Mayorga: No Vencidos. Ed. Planeta, Buenos Aires, 1998. ISBN 950-742-976-X 
-The Argentine Invasion of South Georgias 

 

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