Mario Benjamin Menéndez (3 April 1930 – 18 September 2015) was the Argentine governor of the Falklands during the 1982 Argentine occupation of the islands. He also served in the Argentine Army. Menéndez surrendered Argentine forces to British armed forces during the Falklands War.
Menéndez attended the national military college. As a full colonel serving in the 5th Infantry Brigade, he participated between July 1975 and January 1976 in Operativo Independencia, a counter-insurgency campaign against the People's Revolutionary Army operating in Tucumán Province. He later commanded the 6th Mountain Brigade in Neuquén Province. In March 1982, Menéndez (according to historian Max Hastings and columnist Simon Jenkins) was a general in the Argentine Army, and the commander of the Buenos Aires first corps.
According to his memoirs, Menéndez was also a member of the Military Committee in Buenos Aires that addressed the Argentine president on a weekly basis on a range of issues, including foreign diplomacy, military training and the military budget.
On 2 April 1982, Argentine forces invaded the British territory of the Falkland Islands, and gained control. On 3 April, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announced that British forces had been dispatched to recapture the islands. Menéndez arrived in Stanley (the capital of the Falkland Islands) on 7 April, to take over the governorship of the Falklands. One book described him as a "competent soldier". Menéndez competed with the senior representatives of the Argentine navy and air force for dominance; a competition which was formally concluded on 26 April when Menéndez appointed himself head of the Malvinas Joint Command, an action approved by the Argentine government. Two Argentine brigadier generals commanded forces in the Falklands. They were both senior to Menéndez, and treated his orders as suggestions. Menéndez opted for a strategy of attritional warfare, fighting tactically from fixed positions against any British forces that made a landing upon the Falklands, rather than a more technically complex war of manoeuvre. The plan was later criticised, but historian Duncan Anderson contended after the war that the plan "suited admirably the capabilities of the soldiers he had at his disposal".
British troops landed on the islands in May and inflicted a number of defeats upon the Argentine defenders during the course of the month. When British forces won at the Battle of Goose Green on May 29, "the gloom and despondency that gripped Menéndez and his headquarters soon infected many Argentine officers". However, in a bold move, Menéndez in late May assembled all his army, national gendarmerie and airforce special forces with a "plan to plant a north-south screen to strike at the British logistics line of communication and capture British soldiers." They were ambushed by the Special Air Service and Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre patrolling Mounts Kent and Simon and had a Puma helicopter shot down. Ten Argentine commandos were killed and 23 were injured or taken prisoner in the heli-borne offensive. Brigadier Julian Thompson commented:
"It was fortunate that I had ignored the views expressed by Northwood that reconnaissance of Mount Kent before insertion of 42 Commando was superfluous. Had D Squadron not been there, the Argentine Special Forces would have caught the Commando before deplaning and, in the darkness and confusion on a strange landing zone, inflicted heavy casualties on men and helicopters."
In the first week of June, as British forces prepared to assault a number of hills near Stanley, Menéndez was pressured to try to attack the Falklands settlement of Fitzroy, which had recently come under British control, but he decided to stay on the defensive. In the documentary Falklands: "How Close to Defeat? on the Discovery Channel, Brigadier Julian Thompson, the commander of 3 Commando Brigade in the Falklands acknowledged that an Argentine counterattack at this point would have "slowed the British advance, caused heavy casualties and I think in my opinion might well forced the international opinion to lean on the British government to say you got to come to some sort of agreement". The 5th Marine Battalion commander, Frigate Captain Carlos Hugo Robacio says in the documentary:
"I wanted to counterattack, we had a plan and the troops were ready to go. We were planning to do it at night, but the authorisation never came. The general told me in all honesty, 'I cannot support this with the logistics that we have.' I think I should've disobeyed orders and counterattacked. We were only one step away from winning the war if we had at least tried. We should've taken that last step."
After the hills were captured by the British, Menéndez considered withdrawing his forces from Stanley, and holding the main airfield, Port Stanley Airport, located on a peninsula east of the town.
A Buenos Aires based diplomat said after the British landings:
"[Menéndez] will never surrender in the Falklands unless he's satisfied that Argentina's honour will be respected. If it's at risk, he'll fight on, maybe even after his own people tell him it's time to stop."
In the final days of the fighting, Menendez visited the local hospital and in an interview aired on Argentinian television station C5N said that the sight of the wounded and the military surgeons busy at work on them, left an indelible mark on him.
On 14 June, Menéndez spoke with Lieutenant-General Leopoldo Galtieri-the President of Argentina-by radio regarding the situation. Galtieri said that Menéndez should counter-attack against the British forces with all of his soldiers, and told him that the Argentine military code stipulated that a commander should fight until he has lost 50% of his men and used 75% of his ammunition. He also added "the responsibility today is with you", which Duncan Anderson argues was the point at which Menéndez's morale finally broke. Menéndez replied, "I cannot ask more of my troops, after what they have been through...We have not been able to hold on to the heights...We have no room, we have no means, we have no support...". Anderson said that Menéndez was then psychologically isolated, and believed he had been deserted by his government, and started communicating almost gratefully with a Spanish-speaking British officer who had got in touch with him by radio. Menéndez agreed to meet with representatives of the commander of British land forces on the islands that afternoon, and Menéndez surrendered his forces in the evening. Private Milton Rhys, an Argentinian conscript of British descent who was present in the radio room, reported that soon after the conversation a mortar round landed in the back patio, knocking General Menéndez into a door and spraying the room with shrapnel.
Fear of massacre of civilians prompted surrender
According to more recent work by historian Hugh Bicheno, the end of the protracted fighting in the Tumbledown sector came about over real fear of Falklands civilians being massacred by angry Argentine troops as they hastily prepared for house-to-house combat. The Argentine ground forces commander, Brigadier-General Oscar Luis Jofre is quoted in Razor's Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War as saying that as street fighting became inevitable, his Brigade Operations Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Eugenio Dalton warned him:
"Many soldiers are in a strange state and the kelpers are bound to get hurt. One 3rd Regiment Platoon has been told to go into the houses by a fanatical lieutenant, who has ordered the men to kill the kelpers. Something awful is happening".
General Jofre is quoted as saying:
"I'll never forget that moment. It was like a lightning bolt had hit me. I was no longer in control. We've had it. The lives of the kelpers are being risked. I told General Menendez and he realised that there was no question of fighting any further. Menendez told me he wanted to talk to Galtieri to arrange a ceasefire. I agreed. It was all over".