ABSTRACT
Other than the air attacks, the Argentine response to the British landing had been remarkably passive. Claims were being made that British forces were trapped on the beachhead but there was nobody there to trap them. In Buenos Aires there was some expectation that following the landings Darwin could be attacked but General Menendez appeared to be more concerned about developing a blocking line along the axis Long Island Mountain-Mount Kent-Mount Challenger. While the Navy observed that it had ‘contributed its quota of blood’ and the Air Force was testing ‘its men and materiel on a daily basis’, the Army was accused of having an attitude of ‘static defence’, which should it continue ‘will make the men wilt in their own positions’. An offensive attitude was needed for purposes of morale if nothing else. Yet Menendez appreciated that he lacked intelligence, mobility and local air superiority. His men had no means of reaching the bridgehead safely and if they did they would be cut down by superior British firepower. Meanwhile by sending the bulk of his troops to the west he would leave Stanley vulnerable to a second landing using the extra forces coming on the QEII. 1 The position of the West Falkland garrison was becoming fraught, with rations running out-possibly completely by 10 June. At this stage, the Commander of the Argentine Garrison still believed he had to defend both East and West Falkland. The Navy also saw only danger in venturing out. Both 209 submarines had defects and could not get to the TEZ, although the British still assumed that they would and that a major Argentine effort to make all surviving submarines operational was underway. The best Argentine hope lay in disrupting the British force by air strikes. Whether intended or not, sinking the Atlantic Conveyor had undermined the mobility of the British troops and had also delayed establishing a Harrier base ashore.
