Hero Returns from the Dead.

Since the early 19^th century Argentina had claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, which lie 480 km east of its coast, but Britain seized the islands in 1833, expelling the few remaining Argentine occupants, and since then consistently rejected Argentina’s claims. In early 1982 the Argentine military junta led by Lieut. Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri gave up on long-running negotiations with Britain and instead launched an invasion of the islands. An elite invasion force was trained in secrecy, but its timetable was shortened on March 19 when a dispute erupted on British-controlled South Georgia Island, where Argentine salvage workers had raised the Argentine flag, 1,300 km east of the Falklands. Naval forces were quickly mobilized.

Argentine troops invaded the Falklands on April 2,1982, rapidly overcoming the small garrison of British marines at the capital of Port Stanley; they obeyed orders not to inflict any British casualties, despite losses to their own units. The next day Argentine marines seized the associated island of South Georgia. By late April Argentina had stationed more than 10,000 troops on the Falklands, although the vast majority of these were poorly trained conscripts, and they were not supplied with proper food, clothing, and shelter for the approaching winter.

At the time I was 28 and remember well the response to the invasion. The British government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, declared a war zone for 320 km around the Falklands. The government quickly assembled a naval task force built around two aircraft carriers, the 30-year-old HMS Hermes and the new HMS Invincible light carrier, and two cruise ships pressed into service as troop carriers, the Queen Elizabeth II and the Canberra. The carriers sailed from Portsmouth on April 5 and were reinforced en route.

On April 25, while the British task force was steaming to the war zone via Ascension Island, a smaller British force retook South Georgia island, in the process capturing one of Argentina’s vintage U.S.-made diesel-electric submarines. On May 2 the obsolete Argentine cruiser General Belgrano (purchased from the United States after World War II) was sunk outside the war zone by a British nuclear-powered submarine. Following this controversial event, most other Argentine ships were kept in port, and the Argentine navy’s contribution was limited to its naval air force and one of its newer German-made diesel-electric submarines. The latter posed more of a threat to the British fleet than was expected, launching torpedo attacks that narrowly failed.

Meanwhile, the British naval force and the land-based Argentine air forces fought pitched battles. Argentine aircraft consisted mainly of several dozen old U.S. and French fighter-bombers armed only with conventional high-explosive bombs and lacking electronic countermeasures or radar for acquiring targets. The Falklands were at the extreme edge of the Argentine aircraft’s combat radius, the planes could take only one pass at the task force. British ships therefore remained out of range except when closing in to attack Argentine positions.

In the ensuing battles the Argentines lost some 20–30 percent of their planes. Thus weakened, the Argentines were unable to prevent the British from making an amphibious landing on the islands.

The British landed unopposed on May 21, but the Argentine defenders, some 5,000 strong, quickly organized an effective resistance, and heavy fighting was required to wear it down. The Argentine air force, meanwhile, kept up their attacks on the British fleet, sinking two frigates, a destroyer, a container ship carrying transport helicopters, and a landing ship disembarking troops. In addition, they damaged several other frigates and destroyers. Nevertheless, they were not able to damage either aircraft carrier or sink enough ships to jeopardize British land operations. They also lost a considerable portion of their remaining jets as well as their Falklands-based helicopters and light ground-attack planes.

During this time, I cut a clip from the NZ Herald that was titled “Hero returns from the dead.” It was about a British soldier who spent a perilous month-and-a-half hiding in a hut, convinced the battle for the islands was still raging, when in fact it was over.

Back home in Lancashire, his heartbroken family had been told the news that all servicemen’s relatives dread – he has been posted “missing, presumed dead.”

In his hometown of Halton, 300 people attended a memorial service, paying their last respects to the local hero who had sailed off to war on the QEII.

Then at the weekend, the incredible happened – Scots Guardsman Philip Williams (18) walked into a farmhouse at Bluff Cove, thin, tied and suffering amnesia. A few hours after he knocked on the farmhouse door, Colonel Peter Dew of the King’s own Borderers tapped on the door of the Williams home, at 7:15am. You can imagine the elation of the Williams family.

The ministry of defence said the guardsman was last seen as a part of a stretcher party near Mt Tumbledown on June 14, just before the Argentinian surrender. He was separated from his comrades in foul weather and poor visibility and ended up completely lost. He managed to reach high ground and sheltered for three bitterly cold days and nights, living off his 24-hour ration pack.

Then he made his way down to a beach, and found a deserted hut filled with discarded rations and equipment. He lived there for over a month, only leaving to avoid what he thought were enemy patrols. The ‘patrols’ were probably members of some of the 14 search missions sent out to locate him.

Finally, he reached a crisis when there was nothing left to eat. One report says that he even tried a diet of worms. It was then that he followed some power wires that led to the Kilmartin’s farmhouse.

Like Philip, this world has been lost in the wilderness, wandering around eating discarded rations and the worms of sin. Many are oblivious to the fact that the battle with the enemy (satan and his cohort) has been fought and won and the victory has been celebrated.