The officer in charge of a failed SAS mission into Argentina during the Falklands War has spoken of his anguish over the aborted raid.

Captain Andy Legg led a team of eight men in Operation Plum Duff, part of the response to the sinking of HMS Sheffield by an Exocet missile in May 1982.

In the conflict’s sole incursion of British troops into mainland enemy territory, the crew was to land a Sea King helicopter in Argentina to find the base of the Super Etendard aircraft that carried the missiles.
The mission was partly in response to the sinking of HMS Sheffield (
Image:
PA)

But bad weather, lack of rations and an unusable map forced Capt Legg to abort and the team were taken back to the UK from neighbouring Chile.

Operation Plum Duff stayed shrouded in secrecy but now Capt Legg, 64, has opened up about it for the first time. He said: “We had no intelligence about the target drop zone or the enemy forces around the area.
Legg thought invading Argentina was not "very sensible" (
Image:
Facebook/BNPS)

“All we had was an old aerial photograph and a ropy old map.

“No blame was attached to me but inside I felt bad because some of our colleagues had been killed in the South Atlantic yet nothing happened to us.”
Legg is selling his medals for an estimated £40,000 alongside the mission map and his SAS beret (
Image:
Woolley&Wallis/BNPS)

He added: “I didn’t think it was very sensible to invade Argentina but we got on and did as we were told.”

The married dad-of-four, from the Isle of Wight, is selling his medals for an estimated £40,000 alongside the mission map and his SAS beret at auction in Salisbury, Wilts, in May.