Qualla: Pebble Island raid

Pebble Island raid: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit chris lovelock, CC BY 2.0. The plan was as old as the regiment itself: slip in by night, blow up the enemy's aircraft where they sat, and vanish before sunrise. Forty years earlier the newly formed SAS had perfected exactly this trick against German planes in the North African desert, and on the night of 14 May 1982 their successors revived it on a windswept scrap of the Falklands. Pebble Island is a small place, barely four miles across at its widest and forty square miles in all, lying off the north coast of West Falkland. The Argentines had turned its grass airstrip into a forward base, and the reconnaissance aircraft flying from it threatened to expose the British landings being planned just to the east. Forty-five men of D Squadron, 22 SAS, were sent to make the problem disappear.

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Image: chris lovelock | CC BY 2.0

Pebble Island raid: A Shrinking Window

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ken Griffiths, CC BY-SA 3.0. It almost did not happen on the scale intended. Eight men of the Boat Troop had paddled ashore by folding canoe on 10 May to scout the airfield, and they brought back unwelcome news: fierce headwinds would stretch the helicopter flight from HMS Hermes and shrink the time on targe...

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Image: Ken Griffiths | CC BY-SA 3.0

Pebble Island raid: Charges in the Cockpits

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Armada Argentina, CC BY-SA 2.0. Three Sea King helicopters set the squadron down six kilometres from the strip, and the Mountain Troop crept in toward the parked aircraft. They passed within sight of an Argentine sentry without being spotted and went methodically to work. The method was brutally simple: smash t...

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Image: Armada Argentina | CC BY-SA 2.0

Pebble Island raid: The Mine in the Dark

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ken Griffiths, CC BY-SA 3.0. The defenders barely fought back. By the Argentine account, the marines stayed in their shelters through Glamorgan's bombardment, unable to tell a commando raid from a full invasion and reluctant to come out into the shellfire. Only as the SAS regrouped to leave did the single se...

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Image: Ken Griffiths | CC BY-SA 3.0

Pebble Island raid: Eleven Aircraft and a Lost Friend

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ken Griffiths, CC BY-SA 3.0. By dawn, eleven Argentine aircraft lay wrecked on Pebble Island: six Pucara ground-attack planes, four Turbo Mentor trainers pressed into the light-attack role, and a single Skyvan transport, along with the shattered ammunition and fuel dumps. Not one British life had been lost i...

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Image: Ken Griffiths | CC BY-SA 3.0