‘In military terms, the Falklands war is turning into a worse fiasco than Suez,’ announced Peter Kellner, the New Statesman’s political editor, adding that The Times ‘in superficially more measured tones’ was as guilty as the rest of ‘the jingo press’ in getting Britain’s servicemen into this mess.43 As news of the Sheffield’s casualties slowly emerged, there was a palpable ‘told you so’ from those who thought going to war ridiculous. The Times published a letter from the acclaimed professor of politics Bernard Crick lambasting ‘the narrowly legal doctrine of sovereignty’ that had produced the ‘atavistic routes of patriotic death when our last shreds of power lie in our reputation for diplomatic and political skill’. Instead of making war, Britain should work ‘in consort’ with the EEC and its friends to put ‘pressure on the USA to control its other allies’.44
Conspiracy theorists soon suggested that the Belgrano had been sunk in order to derail a peace plan being proposed by Peru. Thatcher later stated that she knew nothing of the Peruvian proposals (which envisaged handing the islands over to a four-power administration) when the order to sink the cruiser was given and, in any case, Buenos Aires proceeded to reject the proposals. The Times did not think much of the Peruvian plan, sniffing that it promised to turn the Falklands into ‘some latter-day post war Berlin’.45 But the Belgrano’s sinking created an international outcry. President Reagan begged Mrs Thatcher to hold off further action. The Irish Defence Minister declared Britain ‘the aggressor’. The Austrian Chancellor opined that he could not support Britain’s colonial claims over the islands. At home and abroad, Thatcher’s critics demanded she return to the United Nations for a diplomatic solution. But with the South Atlantic winter setting in, and Galtieri scouring the world’s arms market for more Exocet missiles, prevarication was not what the Task Force wanted.46 The Times was deeply sceptical of further diplomatic overtures. Nonetheless Pym got to work with Perez de Cuellar, the UN Secretary-General, on a plan to place the islands under the interim (though some concluded indefinite) jurisdiction of the United Nations. Nigel Lawson later wrote that he thought the plan would have commanded a Cabinet majority.47 Instead, on 19 May, the Argentine junta rejected the proposals. Pym wanted to try again, but his colleagues overruled him. On 21 May, British troops went ashore at San Carlos Bay. The liberation had begun.
The following morning The Times led with ‘Troops gain Falklands bridgehead’ above a photograph of three Royal Marine Commandos running the Union Jack up a flagpole. The image had not quite the vivid urgency of the US Marines planting Old Glory at Iwo Jima, but, compared to the paper’s front-page treatment of the campaign until that moment, it was positively dramatic. The day before the landing, Sir Frank Cooper, the permanent under-secretary at the MoD, had deliberately misinformed a press briefing that British strategy would take the form of a series of smash and grab raids at various locations around the islands rather than a single D-Day-style landing.48 All the papers, including The Times, advised their readers accordingly. Thus, news that there was a major invasion thrust in San Carlos Bay came as a complete surprise. The intention behind Cooper’s misleading briefing was to throw the Argentinians off the scent. Amphibious landings were precarious at the best of times and if the defending force had guessed the location, the outcome could have been in the balance. Instead, it would take time for the Argentinians to work out that what was going on in San Carlos Bay was something more than one of the smash and grab raids authoritatively traced throughout the British media to a ‘senior Whitehall source’.
Although the landing went unopposed, talk of success was premature. The RAF’s failure to gain commanding air superiority and the bravery of the Argentine pilots made it far from certain that the campaign would succeed. The Times reported an MoD briefing that five – unnamed – warships had been hit together with the Argentine claim that they had sunk a Type 42 destroyer and a Type 22 frigate. Such sketchy detail caused considerable anxiety to all those with loved ones in the Task Force and appeared to be another instance of the press having to deal with a MoD that was self-defeating in its dilatory release of vital information. But on this occasion, it ensured a better initial headline: Fleet Street led with the good news that British troops were ashore, rather than the battering the naval armada was receiving. Only later did it emerge that HMS Ardent and, subsequently, HMS Antelope, had been lost.
Frustrated in his bid to land with the troops, Witherow had got himself transferred to what less intrepid reporters might consider a precarious posting – on board an ammunition ship moored in the ‘bomb alley’ of San Carlos Water. In view of the highly inflammable cargo, he was cheerily assured that if the ship was hit, he wouldn’t need a lifejacket but a parachute. ‘The bombs came within fifty metres. We were feeling a bit nervous,’ he recollected; ‘whenever the planes came in, everybody let loose, bullets, guns, missiles.’ It was a perfect spot to observe the Argentine air force’s finest hour. Night-time offered little relief. Fears that Argentine divers might lay mines necessitated the dropping of depth charges: ‘You would be lying in your bunk at 4 a.m. right next to the waterline,’ Witherow recalled, ‘when suddenly BOOM!’49
With the bridgehead on East Falkland secured and the British troops beginning to move inland, Witherow became increasingly frustrated. Having journeyed down with the Navy, he had not had an opportunity to make the now imperative links with the Army that those journalists who had travelled later with the troop ship Canberra had established. Most prominent in this group was Max Hastings of the London Evening Standard. With Hastings and the Army were Michael Nicholson of ITN and the BBC’s Brian Hanrahan who were able to file voice reports (pictures would have to wait) from the beachhead. Eventually, Witherow and the other four journalists on the ammunition ship were helicoptered onto East Falkland. But within hours, they were told they were too inadequately clothed to proceed with the troops and were going to be sent back to the ship. Deciding anything was better than skulking on a floating powder keg, they attempted to hide behind some bales of wool. They were discovered and escorted from the island. Next they were put on board HMS Sir Geraint, a logistical support vessel that promptly sailed back out to sea. For several days Witherow and his companions wondered why their ship appeared to be taking a peculiar course, circling round the aircraft carriers. Eventually they realized the Sir Geraint was trying to draw an Exocet missile attack upon itself so as to save the carriers. Having placed the press corps on, respectively, an ammunition ship and a decoy for air assault, it was clear what the Royal Navy thought of their travelling journalists. The land campaign had been going for two weeks before Witherow was next permitted to step ashore with 5 Brigade.
By then the most famous land battle of the war, Goose Green, had been won. Without air support and with little in the way of artillery, 2 Para had attacked and overcome an entrenched enemy nearly three times their size, taken 1400 prisoners and freed 114 islanders shut up in a guarded community hall. It was an impressive feat and earned a posthumous Victoria Cross for Colonel ‘H’ Jones, the commanding officer who fell with seventeen of his men. But not everyone had played his or her part. With a level of ineptitude far surpassing their usual reticence, the MoD in London had announced the capture of Goose Green eighteen hours before it happened. The BBC’s World Service reported the news that the attack was about to take place. In the meantime, the Argentine troops rearranged their defences to guard against an assault from exactly the direction 2 Para were approaching – supposedly in secrecy.50