Word: grytviken
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...Britain's elite Special Boat Squadron, an ultra-secret frogman-commando unit, had slipped quietly ashore on the island. Their mission was to scout Argentine troop emplacements and estimate the size of the opposing force. The scouts reported that the Argentine troops at the South Georgia harbor of Grytviken, the site of an abandoned whaling station, numbered no more than...
...Sunday, as two helicopters ferried reconnaissance units to the 100-mile-long island, the British had a stroke of luck. Some five miles from South Georgia, the chopper pilots spotted the Argentine submarine Santa Fe moving toward Grytviken. The British fired at the sub, a diesel-powered craft built in 1944 by the U.S., with machine guns and rockets. They scored at least three hits on the vessel, which began leaking oil and giving off smoke. The stricken Santa Fe limped into Grytviken harbor to beach itself. As about 50 Argentine troops poured off the vessel...
British naval guns pounded the area around Grytviken to clear a landing zone for helicopters, taking care, meanwhile, to avoid hitting Argentine troop concentrations in order to minimize casualties. When the Royal Marines, backed by a few army troops, finally came ashore, the initial firefight was reportedly brisk and brief. Within two hours after the landing, a white flag was hoisted by the Argentine commander at Grytviken, and a short while later the blue and white Argentine flag was hauled down. After securing Grytviken, the British were able to make radio contact with a second garrison of 16 Argentine soldiers...
...command of the Ross was Captain Oscar Nilsen, who began his whaling under the man who saved the industry from extinction. Modern whaling dates back to Christmas Eve, 1904, when Captain Carl Anton Larsen of Sandefjord, Norway, brought the first whale oil of the season into Grytviken, a bleak whaling station on the Island of South Georgia east of Cape Horn. Captain Larsen, already an oldster in the trade, realized that whaling was doomed unless new grounds were discovered. The Arctic, hunted for centuries, was nearing exhaustion. With great difficulty he raised enough capital for an expedition to the Weddell...
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