Here's the letter -
The effects of bombing Stanley runway
Sir - I must balance some well-honed RAF myths with facts ("Bombing Argentines with all the lights on 'just wasn't cricket' ", report, April 30).
Bombed or not the Stanley runway was never long enough to accept fast jets. Until the last night of the war Stanley runway was used continually by enemy Hercules aircraft and often by their Pucara ground attack aircraft.
The Argentine Air Force did not move its mainland-based aircraft further north "so they couldn't take part in the fighting": further north is closer to Ascension Island, whence the Vulcan bombers operated.
Throughout the war those of us on the ground and at sea continued to suffer the consequences of fast jets operating out of Rio Gallegos, a mere 304 nautical miles from Falkland Sound. I have been to Rio Gallegos: it has a very long runway indeed and would have taken considerably more than a couple of inaccurate Vulcan bombing raids to have closed it.
Immediately after the Argentine surrender, I and a Falkland Islander drove the length and breadth of the Stanley runway looking for signs of damage and repair. There were none and the concrete was in as good condition as when I had been responsible for its security in 1978 and 1979.
My friend and I marvelled, not for the first time, at the inventiveness of the Argentine engineers. Certainly the RAF's bombing operations against Stanley airport were strategically useful but of little tactical value to us actually in the Falklands.
War is not cricket. Perhaps the RAF of 1982 had not heard Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher's dictum: "The essence of war is violence, and moderation in war is imbecility."
Lt Col Ewen Southby-Tailyour, Ermington, Devon