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Margaret Thatcher: "The House meets this Saturday to respond to a situation of great gravity
. We are here because for the first time for many years, British Sovereign territory has
been invaded by a foreign power. After several days of rising tension in our relations with
Argentina, that country's armed forces attacked the Falkland Islands yesterday and established
military control of the Islands. The Government has now decided that a large task force will
sail as soon as all preparations are complete." So the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher,
had made it plain, Britain really was going to send a huge Task Force eight thousand miles
down to the South Atlantic to drive the Argentine Army out of the Falkland Islands. As the first
ships left Portsmouth harbour, huge crowds turned out to cheer them on their way. Not
since another "day that shook the world" - the 1956 invasion of Suez - had such a massive
British force set out to sea. No one knew at this stage what lay ahead for
the fleet. But the Argentine occupation of the Falklands, a British dependency for more
than a hundred and fifty years, and the sight of the small band of Royal Marines on the
islands being forced to the ground at gunpoint by Argentine soldiers, had caused great indignation.
At the very least, there was a determination among those heading south on the ships that
the Argentines should be given a "bloody nose". We know now that it came to much more than
that. But on that April day, as the ships eased out of Portsmouth harbour, there was
nothing but patriotic fervour. The aircraft carrier "Hermes" was to be the
fleet's flagship. Ironically she was destined to be scrapped. But hauled out of retirement
now, with her decks crammed with Harrier jump jets, she was to prove a formidable fighting
force. There were those who doubted that a war could
be fought at such a great distance from home. But their fears proved unfounded. Three months
later Argentine troops on the island surrendered. The Falklands were back in British hands.