Page 41 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

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ActA
There was also an urgent requirement for gazetteers of the Falklands and Argentina.
In 1943 a Naming Committee had been established by the Governor to assist the Royal
Engineers in their systematic survey of the Islands. At the time of the Argentine invasion
a gazetteer of almost 3,000 place names compiled from DOS 453 maps and published
by British Antarctic Survey in 1972 was in use. In the week following the invasion
Military Survey hurriedly produced an updated gazetteer (GSGS 5442) with over 3,000
entries for the Falklands (including variants) and 830 for South Georgia and the South
Sandwich Islands. Sources used were the 453 series maps (including second editions of
sheets 14 and 15 from 1979), hydro charts, manuscript additions on the series 453 sheets
made in the 60s and 70s by administrators in the Islands and Argentine 1:500,000 sheets
from 1968 and 1974. Given the hurry with which it was produced, not surprisingly the
gazetteer contained several deficiencies. A second edition, revised and expanded, was
produced three weeks later on 28 April. Unnecessary duplications were removed and
coverage of the Dependencies expanded to over 1,000 entries. The gazetteer contained
variant names (mostly those found in Argentine sources) and these were cross-referenced
to the main entries. This was crucial because the Argentineans had different names for
over 200 major geographical features of the Islands and frequently these were not simple
translations of the English name that could be easily deduced. For example, when the
Argentines reported on 1 May that a Mirage had hit a destroyer near Puerta Enriqueta,
the gazetteer told you that this was the Argentine version of Port Harriet. During the
conflict the Argentines employed five different names for Stanley, settling on Puerto
Argentina only on the 21 April. In early June the Plaza of the English in Buenos Aires
was renamed the Plaza of the Air Force!

The Other Side of the Hill: The Argentines
DOS maps of the Falklands were on public sale and carried a note “Agents for the sale
of this map are Edward Stanford 12/14 Longacre London”, advice that the Argentineans
followed, as they spent £2,000 buying up stocks of these maps from Stanfords prior to
the invasion: apparently without anyone in Britain attaching any significance to the fact.
They also captured DOS maps during the invasion and reprinted them in Argentina. On
his surrender, the Argentine commander General Menendez had a DOS 1:50,000 map
with him – ungridded. Clearly, the Argentineans did not use a ruler and a pencil to join
up the grid ticks - which is precisely what the Commandos under Thompson did in the
early days before the gridded versions reached them. Not only was mapping inferior on
the Argentine side it was also scarce. One conscript afterwards lamented: “I hadn’t the
slightest idea…where I was…As soon as they had landed they had had an idea of where
they were, they knew which hill was which. I, on the other hand, had no idea…We didn’t
even have basic geography….You want to see a map, at least to find out where you are”.

Conclusion
The feedback on the mapping was that it was well received. However, the 50ft contour
on the larger scale maps gave an over generalised impression of the ground - a 30ft cliff
could be a serious hazard in the dark. Also the conventional sign for rock outcrops