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Although there were reports that the U.S. had warned the British about the invasion ten days before the landing, British officials insist—and their U.S. counterparts agree—that they became convinced of the reality of the impending attack only on March 31, just two days before the assault, when there were no British forces in striking distance to resist. To confuse the issue slightly, Thatcher later admitted obliquely that a British submarine was "about" in the waters, but it could hardly have prevented the invasion.
As the Falklands' British Governor, Rex Hunt, recounted the story of the actual fighting, a tiny force of Royal Marines battled determinedly and well for several hours against an overwhelming force of Argentine troops who stormed the tiny (pop. 1,050) settlement of Port Stanley. The marines finally laid down their arms at Hunt's command. He disputed Argentine claims that the assault resulted in only one Argentine dead and two wounded; at least five and possibly 15 invaders were killed, Hunt said, and 17 were wounded in the fighting.
Hunt painted a vivid picture of his own quixotic departure from the Falklands. He refused to shake hands with the Argentine general commanding the invaders, an attitude, his adversary said, that he found "very ungentlemanly." Retorted Hunt: "I think it very uncivilized to invade British territory. You are here illegally." Donning his ceremonial uniform and plumed hat, Hunt was then chauffeured to the Port Stanley airport in his official limousine (the same Austin model used as a London taxicab), with a small Union Jack fluttering defiantly from the hood. Said Hunt in London: "I am still Governor. We must do what we can to go to the rescue of the Falkland Islanders."
The day after the attack, as the Argentines launched a mopping-up operation against 22 marines on the island of South Georgia, the full storm of recrimination broke over the Thatcher government. In the first emergency weekend sitting of Parliament since the Suez Canal crisis of 1956, both the opposition Labor Party and even many Conservative backbenchers called for the resignation of Foreign Secretary Carrington, Defense Secretary Nott, the man ultimately responsible for British military preparedness, and of Thatcher herself.
Laborites scathingly declared that Britain had been humiliated by a "tinpot dictator" and a "two-bit Mussolini." Critics blamed the government for misjudging Argentine intentions and for failing to keep a British naval squadron "over the horizon" from the Falklands during times of tension, to discourage adventurism in Buenos Aires.
Lord Carrington took the criticism to heart. Prior to the emergency Commons session, he had told Thatcher of his intention to resign. The amiable and popular Foreign Secretary, who earned worldwide admiration for his 1979 negotiation of an end to the Rhodesian civil war, was unafraid of political criticism but felt strongly that his resignation was a matter of honor. Thatcher and Deputy Tory Leader William Whitelaw tried hard over the April