On Friday 30 April 1982 the United Kingdom formally declared a Total Exclusion Zone (TEZ) of 200 miles radius around the centre of the Falkland Islands had been put into effect.
In this zone, which was step up from the Maritime Exclusion Zone (MEZ) brought in on 12 April, any ship or aircraft from any nation could be fired upon by UK vessels or aircraft without warning.
In order to enforce the TEZ, the British Carrier Battle Group (CVBG) completed its final major group replenishment at sea in the late morning of 30 April, and by the evening had turned west and began to enter the zone.
During that period the Argentine factory trawler Narwhal was detected by a Sea Harrier on patrol – the ship appeared to be spying on the Battle Group as its movements mirrored those of the British warships.
On this occasion the ship remained distant from the group, but another encounter in May would prove fatal for the Argentine ship.
And still ships were leaving the UK to bolster the Task Force.
On 30 April patrol ship HMS Leeds Castle set off in the wake of her sister HMS Dumbarton Castle, departing Portland for the South Atlantic.
Also setting out at the end of this week was the little RMAS mooring, salvage and boom vessel Goosander, leaving Rosyth to take up the task of laying out and maintaining moorings at Ascension Island.
Towards the end of 30 April, Operation Black Buck 1 got under way.
This saw the first of a series of 11 RAF Victor tankers and two Vulcan bombers take off from Ascension shortly before midnight on the first bombing raid of the Conflict – and the longest such mission ever undertaken by any air force.
One of the two Vulcans dropped out soon after take-off, as did a tanker, leaving just one bomber to completed the long-range operation to strike the runway of Stanley Airfield on 1 May.
Today’s image from the Imperial War Museum collection (© IWM RAF-T 5726) is of an RAF Avro Vulcan, the type of aircraft that took off on the night of 30 April on Operation Black Buck 1, the first British bombing raid of the Falklands Conflict.
* 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
