P&O's Canberra in the Falklands War

Last year, I showed Trevor Lane, the Staff Captain (second in command) of the Queen Mary 2, an article that I had written about Queen Elizabeth 2’s participation in the Falklands War of 1982. http://beyondships.com/QE2-Falklands-1.html The article was based upon research that I had done as well as conversations that I had had over the years with people associated with QE2.

Trevor mentioned that he had been in the Falklands as well - - as the navigator of P and O’s legendary Canberra. I asked Trevor to tell me about his experiences and the story was so interesting that I put it together into an article that has just been published by the Navy League of the United States, New York Council. A copy of it is also posted on my website. http://beyondships.com/PO-Canberra-Falklands.html

Canberra, like QE2, had been built as an ocean liner. However, when the ocean liner era came to an end in the early 1970s, she was converted into a cruise ship. In that capacity, she developed a large and adoring following in the U.K. As a result, when the Falklands War erupted in 1982, she and QE2 were the leading ships in the British merchant marine.

The reason these two ships became involved in the war was that Britain had to move an army some 8,000 miles from home in order to retake the Falkland Islands from Argentina, a British possession in the South Atlantic, which Argentina had seized by force. Since there were no nearby friendly airports, the troops, their equipment and their supplies had to be transported by sea. There were no military ships capable of performing this task because no one had foreseen that such a situation would ever arise. The assumption was that the next war would be fought against the Soviets in Europe and thus the Royal Navy would not have to face a situation not unlike that in the Pacific Theater in World War II.

Thus, Canberra and QE2 were crucial to the British strategy. If either ship had been destroyed or unable to participate, the outcome of the war would have been entirely different.
One of the most interesting aspects of this is that most of the men and women who sailed these ships were not military people but rather members of the civilian crew. Like Trevor, they volunteered to go with their ships out of a sense of duty, not only to their country, but to their shipmates. Trevor’s story both describes Canberra’s involvement and presents a fascinating perspective on the events.