ADMIRAL SIR JOHN ‘SANDY’ WOODWARD

REPUTATIONS

Michael E Haskew reviews the career of the fighting commander of the Royal Navy Task Force that liberated the Falkland Islands.

FRANK AND FORTHRIGHT NAVAL COMMANDER

Woodward (left) as he arrived aboard HMS Hermes to assume command of the Falklands task force. (PA ARCHIVE)

As part of a monumental military task, it was the defining few weeks of his 43-year career in the Royal Navy. The location was the South Atlantic, and Rear-Admiral John Forster ‘Sandy’ Woodward faced command decisions from which he could not simply shrink away. A war was on, and the British armed forces, land, sea and air, were thousands of miles from home. Their mission was straightforward – eject the Argentinian invaders who had seized the sovereign British territory of the Falkland Islands, roughly 300 miles (480km) off the coast of the South American nation.

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