Earlier, in January 1955, Argentina had established the summer station, Teniente Esquivel, at Ferguson Bay on the southeastern coast. That station was evacuated in January 1956 because of a volcanic eruption on the neighbouring Cook Island.
The Corbeta Uruguay base was established in 1976 by the military dictatorship governing Argentina to reinforce the Argentine territorial claims to British territory in the South Atlantic. The British government became aware of the base in December 1976 but sought a diplomatic solution to the issue until 1982.
Corbeta Uruguay remained manned by Argentine personnel until 20 June 1982, when British forces sent a task force to end the Argentine presence, after victory over Argentina in the Falklands War. After the garrison at Corbeta Uruguay surrendered, the facility was left unmanned. In December 1982, it was mostly demolished by the Royal Navy after a patrolling warship, HMS Hecate, discovered that someone had taken down the Union Flag from the base flagpole and run up the flag of Argentina.[2]
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Corbeta_Uruguay, and is written by contributors.
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