Winston Churchill dispatched 1,700 troops to the Falkland Islands in 1942 out of concern that the Japanese were planning to invade the territory and interfere with critical sea routes in the South Atlantic.

Documents held at the National Archives, cited by Kyodo News, indicate that Churchill realised the strategic importance of the islands to Britain's war effort after Japan's attack on US forces at Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941.

Playing on Argentina's desire to reclaim the islands, the Japanese ambassador to Buenos Aires had promised the government that Japan "would see that the Falklands are returned to Argentina," according to documents in the archive from Esmond Ovey, the British ambassador.

In a subsequent exchange dated December 26, the Admiralty had sent a coded message to the commander in chief of British forces in the South Atlantic warning that "The Japanese have given out that they will shortly be running a convoy to Argentina and that they will capture the Falkland Islands and present them to the Argentinians."

In a message to senior defence officials in London dated April 1, 1942, Churchill stated, "It would be a very serious thing to lose the Falkland Islands to the Japanese and no comfort to say that it would hurt the United States more than ourselves.

"The Falkland Islands are very well known and their loss would be a shock to the whole Empire," he wrote. "They would certainly have to be retaken."

Requests for assistance from Canada were turned down, while the United States ignored suggestions that it would be in Washington's best interests to garrison the islands.

To ensure that a seaborne invasion to recapture the islands - which Britain was ill-equipped to carry out in 1942 - was not required, 1,700 men of the 11th battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment were posted to the Falklands.

"The object of the reinforcement would be to make it necessary for the Japanese to extend their attacking forces to a tangible size," Churchill wrote. "This might well act as a deterrent."

The Japanese threat to the islands failed to materialise and, by late 1944, the troops had been dispatched to different theatres of the conflict.

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Churchill sent troops to Falklands to ward off Japanese