Operation Mikado
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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 the five Etendards at Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego during the Falklands War.[1]
The aim of the operation was to destroy the 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 submarine. Neither plan was implemented; the earlier airborne assault plan attracted considerable hostility from some members of the SAS, who considered the proposed raid a suicide mission.[2] 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.[3]
After 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 if they were attacked.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ www.eliteukforces.info
- ^ telegraph.co.uk SAS 'suicide mission' to wipe out Exocets
- ^ Middlebrook, p. 75.
- ^ La Infantería de Marina de la Armada Argentina en el Conflicto del Atlántico Sur, ISBN 987-433-641-2
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