Major General Geoffrey Field, who has died aged 77, was Commander Royal Engineers (CRE) during the Falklands war.

In April 1982, Argentine forces invaded the Falkland Islands. Field was in command of 36 Engineer Regiment, which was dispatched to the South Atlantic as part of 5 Infantry Brigade.

Field, who had served in a commando brigade with Major General Jeremy Moore, the Commander Land Forces (CLF), was in command of all the Sappers. He remained with the CLF throughout the campaign, either embarked in the command ship, Fearless, or, later, in the Tac HQ ashore at Fitzroy.

Sapper reconnaissance teams, carrying satchel charges and Bangalore torpedoes, were often well forward. Where the Argentinian positions included barbed-wire obstacles, their job was to get the assault troops through these and, if all else failed, they were trained to throw themselves across the wire and let the infantry run over their backs.

Enemy aircraft came in so low that many of their bomb fuzes failed to arm and bomb disposal units had the hazardous task of dealing with unexploded 1,000 lb bombs on board several of the ships. Once ashore, in conditions of low temperature, wind, rain and mud, engineers were soon fully stretched, improving landing beaches, setting up water points, digging in command posts using armoured amphibious tractors, and checking buildings for mines and booby-traps.