- Operation Mikado
-
Argentine Navy Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard
Operation Mikado was the code name of a military plan by the United Kingdom to use Special Air Service troops to attack the home base of Argentina's five Etendard strike fighters at Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego during the 1982 Falklands War.[1]
The aim of the operation was to destroy the Exocet missiles and the aircraft that carried them, and to kill the pilots in their quarters. Two plans were drafted and underwent preliminary rehearsal: a landing by approximately fifty-five SAS in two C-130 Hercules aircraft directly on the runway at Rio Grande; and infiltration of twenty-four SAS by inflatable boats brought within a few miles of the coast by the submarine HMS Onyx.
A helicopter reconnaissance mission on Río Grande was launched as a prelude to the main operation from HMS Invincible on 16 May, but after detecting an Argentine radar signal, the crew of the SH-3 Sea King and members of the SAS fled to Chile, where they destroyed their aircraft.[2] According to Argentine sources, the helicopter was tracked by the radar of the destroyer ARA Bouchard, who sent a message to her sister ship ARA Piedrabuena, patrolling on the north, and then to the air base of Río Grande.[3] Members of the Argentine 24th Regiment of Infantry claimed in 2007 that they hit the helicopter with small arms fire amid thick fog south of Rio Gallegos.[4]
Neither of the proposed plans was implemented; the earlier airborne assault plan attracted considerable hostility from some members of the SAS, who considered the proposed raid a suicide mission.[5] Ironically, the Rio Grande area would be defended by four full-strength battalions of Marine Infantry of the Argentine Marine Corps of the Argentine Navy, some of whose officers were trained in the UK by the SBS years earlier.[6]
Falklands War campaignArgentine Invasion – South Georgia – Occupation – Paraquet – Black Buck – Belgrano – Sobral – Sheffield – Pebble Island – Mikado – Sutton – San Carlos – Ardent – Seal Cove – Antelope – Atlantic Conveyor – Coventry – Goose Green – Mount Kent – Top Malo House – Bluff Cove – Many Branch Point – Mount Harriet – Two Sisters – Glamorgan – Mount Longdon – Wireless Ridge – Mount Tumbledown – Port StanleyAfter the war, Argentine marine commanders admitted that they were waiting for some kind of landing by SAS forces but never expected a Hercules to land directly on their runways, although they would have pursued British forces even into Chilean territory in case of attack.[7]
References
- ^ The SAS VS The Exocet from www.eliteukforces.info
- ^ Anderson, Duncan (2002). The Falklands War 1982. Volume 15 of Essential histories. Osprey Publishing, p. 43. ISBN 1-84176-422-1
- ^ Mikado: la operación que no fue Clarín newspaper, 31 March 1996 (Spanish)
- ^ La compañía fantasma que le disparó al misterioso Sea King Clarín newspaper, 21 May 2007 (Spanish)
- ^ SAS 'suicide mission' to wipe out Exocets from telegraph.co.uk
- ^ Middlebrook, p. 75.
- ^ La Infantería de Marina de la Armada Argentina en el Conflicto del Atlántico Sur, ISBN 987-43-3641-2. (Spanish)
Categories:- Military operations of the Falklands War
- Cancelled military operations involving the United Kingdom
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