Operation Journeyman

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The operation journeyman was a military operation of the Royal Navy in November 1977, whose aim was an Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands to prevent. This was preceded by the fact that Argentina had established the research station Corbeta Uruguay on the South Sandwich Islands , which the British government did not regard as a research project, but as an attempt to establish a military base.

Under the leadership of the nuclear powered submarine HMS Dreadnought , the British Prime Minister James Callaghan dispatched the frigates HMS Alacrity and HMS Phoebe and the auxiliary ships RFA Resource and RFA Olwen to the Falkland Islands.

The deployment order for the ships involved was formulated very cautiously: They should only be used for self-defense and in any case only as a second weapon. The use of weapons was in no case allowed to exceed the weapon potential of the attack and was to be stopped immediately if success was evident and not to be carried out as retaliation. The commander of the HMS Dreadnought even had orders not to react to a direct attack with armed force, but to withdraw from the danger zone.

The Argentines stayed on the southern Sandwich Islands until 1982, but at the same time no invasion took place in 1977, which the British see as a success of Operation Journeyman. David Owen , Secretary of State under James Callaghan, later ruled that the 1982 Falklands War could have been prevented if Margaret Thatcher's government had acted with similar speed and determination.

The Argentines were unofficially informed of the fact that Operation Journeyman was about to be carried out. The secret files of the operation were released in 2005.

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