Operation Paraquet was the code name for the British military operation to recapture the Island of South Georgia from Argentine military control in April 1982 at the start of the Falklands War.
The official name "Paraquet" is an alternative spelling of Parakeet, but the operation is perhaps more widely known as Operation Paraquat, an unofficial name adopted by troops in the South Atlantic who feared the operation would prove as lethal to them as the weedkiller Paraquat. This view prompted the exclamation "kill Paraquat before it kills us."
The operation, a subsidiary of the main Operation Corporate (recapture of the Falkland Islands from Argentina) was successful, leading to the island being restored to British rule on 25 April 1982.
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Famous quotes containing the word operation:
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)