The 200-mile Maritime Exclusion Zone (MEZ) announced by the British government the previous week came into force on Monday 12 April 1982 (Easter Monday), meaning that Argentine shipping within the boundaries of the zone around the Falklands could be attacked at any time.
Nuclear submarines HMS Spartan and HMS Splendid were already in position and seeking to pick up contacts from the enemy fleet – at this point Spartan was in the vicinity of Port Stanley, the Falkland Islands’ capital.
Both submarines were under instructions that they should not seek to engage with or sink enemy shipping at this point as their presence alone was enough to deter Argentine commanders from leaving their ships exposed.
The South Georgia Task Group, led my HMS Antrim, was on its way to rendezvous with ice patrol ship HMS Endurance in a bid to retake South Georgia first, while the rest of the Advanced Group, from which the South Georgia Task Group was drawn, was getting stuck into the logistical puzzle required to ensure that men and materiel, hurried loaded onto ships back in the UK, were in the right place and accessible at the right time when the main body of the fleet continued on passage south.
Further south, HMS Endurance met with RFA Fort Austin to take on supplies and to transfer a party of special forces troops on board.
Argentine forces were also on the move now, with Task Force 79 starting to form up and practice for potential engagements with the British.
Aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo was exercising both her own air group and with land-based attack aircraft, three frigates were active near the Falklands and the Argentines had two submarines of their own on patrol to the north of the Falklands.
* These posts can only give a brief sense of what was a complex and fast-moving situation 40 years ago, and cannot cover the involvement of every ship, squadron and unit in detail – for a much more comprehensive account see naval-history.net at https://www.naval-history.net/NAVAL1982FALKLANDS.htm
Today’s image from the Imperial War Museum collection (© IWM CT 93) is of ice patrol ship HMS Endurance, taken in Antarctic waters almost a decade before the Falklands Conflict.
