 The flag is hoisted by the 40 Commando, Royal Marine at Port HowardÌý ©
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On 14 June, at 9.30 pm local time, Major General Mario Menendez, with some 8,000 troops in the Port Stanley area, surrendered all Argentinean forces in the Falkland Islands to Major General Jeremy Moore.
At no point was British success a foregone conclusion, but in the event the war had been won quickly and – crucially – before it became unpopular at home. This was despite Britain losing 255 killed in action in just six weeks, a far higher rate of fatality than in Iraq, which at the time of writing stands at 148 service personnel killed in four years. In all, the toll for the war stood at more than nine hundred, with 655 Argentineans and three civilian islanders also losing their lives.
The British victory ensured that the Falkland Islanders were able to live under the government of their choice. And an unforeseen, but welcome outcome was the fall of Argentinean dictator Leopoldi Galtieri's junta, and the restoration of democracy to Argentina.
On a broader scale, it is now known that the Soviet Union was given cause to reassess its view of Britain. Shaken by the outcome of the Falklands conflict, the Soviets were shown that morale in a key Western country was not as low as they had imagined. Hitherto Britain had increasingly been seen as weak and vacillating – a key ingredient in the Argentinean decision to invade the Falklands.
It was suddenly very different. A national humiliation had been speedily reversed, British self-confidence had been restored and pride in the nation’s armed forces was seemingly boundless.
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