The opening move of the air war was made by the British RAF. A specially prepared lone RAF Avro Vulcan B2 bomber # XM607, supported by a squadron of tankers, attacked the Port Stanley airfield after a record breaking eight thousand mile flight on May 1st. The bomber dropped twenty one bombs of which only one struck the runway. This minor strike was a major strategic accomplishment as it prevented high performance Argentine jets from using the strip. This meant that the Argentine air force would be unable to maintain a presence in the combat zone due to its aircraft having to fly from the mainland and unable to loiter or refuel.
With its carrier bound to port the Argentine navy's newly equipped French-made Dassault Super Étendard squadron began stalking the British task force from land bases. On 4 May 1982 a single aircraft piloted by Captain Augusto Bedacarratz firing an Exocet cruise missile sank the HMS Sheffield making it the first Royal Navy vessel sunk in action in almost forty years. A second attack using the last of the Exocets in the Argentine inventory sank the 14,950 ton merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor on May 25th. All the British task forces army helicopters but two were destroyed with the ship. The loss of these helicopters meant that British troops had to march across the Falklands to capture Stanley. The ship also carried all of the Task Force's Mars bars which were also considered a blow.
Mirage fighter bombers and A4 Skyhawk strike planes flying at maximum range from land bases in Argentina attacked the British Task Force at San Carlos harbor as soon as their location became known. In three weeks of air attacks they sank the destroyer HMS Coventry and the frigates HMS Ardent and Antelope. The royal navy ships Antrim, Broadsword, Glasgow, Brilliant, Avenger, Arrow, Argonaught, Plymouth, Sir Galahad, Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristan were also damaged by air attacks but remained afloat. The attack on the Sir Galahad was particularly damaging, killing 51 British servicemen, mostly of the Welsh Guards battalion.
Several of the British ships only escaped finding a home on the bottom of the ocean due to the fact that many of the Argentine bombs did not explode. It was determined that the cause of these duds was due to the fact that the strike craft flew so very low (as close as fifteen feet from the wave tops) that their bombs didn't have a chance to arm themselves in the brief fall from the aircraft to their targets.
The Air-to Air combat award goes to the thirty-six British Harriers deployed with the task force. These fighters shot down 31 Argentine aircraft with no air-to-air losses themselves. A total of 109 Argentine aircraft were shot down, captured, or destroyed on the ground.
Both sides received help from their allies to fight the air war. Peru, Venezuela and Brazil sent aircraft supplies like long range air fuel tanks, spare parts and ten Mirage5B jets to Argentina to replenish combat losses while the United States supplied the British with 100 new Sidewinder-L air to air missiles from NATO stores and satellite reconnaissance information.
Some sources state that Argentina captured seven members of the British Secret Air Service in Argentina who provided intelligence information on Argentine Air Force plane departures to the British fleet.
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