By Captain Peter Hore*
ADMIRAL Sir John ‘Sandy’ Woodward, who has died aged 81, commanded the carrier battle group, Task Force 317.8, during the Falklands War in 1982. In March 1982 Woodward was a rear admiral and as Flag Officer, First Flotilla commanded a group of ships on their spring exercise off Gibraltar. On March 29, as the news from the South Atlantic worsened, Woodward joined the Commander in Chief Fleet, John Fieldhouse in his temporary flagship, the destroyer Glamorgan. That evening, with Captain Mike Barrow, the captain of Glamorgan, they discussed ‘what if’ the Falkland Islands were to be invaded and they were asked to re-take them.
