HMS Endurance

Commanding a ship can be a lonely  business. When things are going well there is nothing more satisfying. I had been fortunate enough to command a number of ships,but never before had I felt so alone and betrayed.

'This is the worst day of my life,' I wrote in my diary. Why had the MOD not listened to my warnings? Why hadn't the government repeated the strategy of 1977and sent a smal deterrent force to the South Atlantic? It had worked then. Why not now?

The Argentine amphibious force had landed on the Falkland beaches near Port Stanley. It was highly likely that another landing would take place on South Georgia, 400 miles away. HMS Endurance was  half way between the two areas, heading towards the Falklands. Our small ship stood alone as the only British presence in the South Atlantic. This was the culmination of years of political bungling, diplomatic misunderstanding and disasterous intelligence assessment.