Friday, May 14, 2010

Pebble Island Raid 1982

In the evening of May 14, 1982 an SAS raiding party landed on Pebble Island in the Falklands.

There target was an grass airfield on the north side of the island that was the base for a squadron of Argentine turboprop attack planes. But the real objective of the raid was to knock out the radar at the air base because it might detect the British invasion force that was due to move into Falkland Sound in a few days.

The raid was a complete success, with all 10 aircraft and the radar station destroyed with no fatalities for the British side. Argentine casualties are not reported in the sources I have, but at least one Argentine officer was killed trying to lead a counterattack against the raiders.

If there's one form of warfare that the British seem to always excel at it's the special forces raid. They pretty much invented the modern commando, but British raiding goes back way before that to the famous "cutting out" expeditions by Royal Navy landing parties.

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