The Falkland Islands; Georgetown man recalls the war that wasn't

When one speaks of a veteran, most assume it's someone who fought in one of the two world wars. Georgetown resident Don Marshall is a veteran, yet he never saw action in either of the two world wars. In fact he wasn't even born at the time. Marshall is a veteran of a much more recent conflict. He fought in the Falklands. The Falkland Island conflict was a relatively short war, triggered by the occupation of the island of South Georgia by Argentina March 19, 1982, followed closely by occupation of the Falkland Islands (off the coast of Argentina) shortly after. After almost three months, it ended with Argentina surrendering, June 14, 1982. War was not declared by either side. In fact, the initial invasion was considered by Argentina as reoccupation of its own territory, but Britain saw it as an invasion of a British dependency. But whether war was officially declared or not, for Don Marshall, the Falklands conflict was certainly a war. At the age of 22, Marshall was an air engineer mechanic (AEM) aboard the frigate HMS Antelope, a 10 year-old, 384 foot long warship in the British navy. She was sailing off the coast of England when Argentina invaded the Falklands April 2. "We were doing exercises when we were deployed. As soon as the Argentines invaded the Falklands we got a message out of the blue," said Marshall, "We were told to drop everything, and stop playing war games-- we may have to do real war games." "We immediately headed to Plymouth and spent the whole weekend taking on stores, round the clock, storing for war-- everything, food, weapons, everything to deploy the ship for war." The ship sailed for the Ascension Islands and her main job was patrol, establishing a staging point at Ascension for the rest of the British navy and troop ships to catch up, and then work from. See CHESS, pg. 3