The Falklands War

The British had taken most of the hills overlooking Port Stanley by the morning of 14th June 1982 – and 2 Para had been ordered to halt on their position on Wireless Ridge. They were waiting for the SAS and the Royal Marines who were raiding from the north of Cortley Hill Ridge, a long narrow piece of land running from Moody Brook to the northern arm of Stanley harbour. That opeation was more of a hindrance than a help to 2 Para because the SAS run into trouble and had to be supported by the artillery that had been clearing the ground for the paras. Cortley Hill ridge was manned by the Argentinian B Battery of the 101st anti-aircraft regiment. They had eight Hispano-Suiza 30mm guns and a few 12.7mm machine guns which had been used against aircraft, but now Brigadier Jofre ordered them to swivel horizontally to provide ground defence. He’d also moved a few mortars into the position along with a Marine infantry platoon to back them up. The SAS raiding party was heading their way but were forced to paddle past the Argentinian hospital ship Almirante Irizar. A member of the ship’s crew was as commando-trained soldier and without thinking about the Geneva convention and rules of war, grabbed a radio and called the anti-aircraft battery on the hill – warning of the SAS raid. Subsequently the SAS raiding party was driven off with three wounded and boats damaged. Argentina still claims the Malvinas. The British at some point will have to reassess their ownership based on the kelpers self-determination. This series was scripted in 2022, and as I sit here, the United Nations is revisiting the whole idea of who owns the wind-swept islands. This is a complex matter because the UN General Assembly is muttering about colonialism which is what London is accused of perpetuating. The conscripts and professional soldiers on both sides remember this war like it was yesterday – some of the Argentinians want their ashes scattered on places like Mount Kent when they die. Hundreds of British servicemen still suffer the physical and mental scars. The people of the islands want to run their own show, like a woman who told one Argentinian that she was 40 but looked 60 because of how tough it was to live on these islands. “We feel that the country belongs to us, not to England, not to Argentina.. life is very hard.. nobody has ever cared about us…”Which you can say if you’ve followed this story – is true. They only began caring when geopolitical issues came to the fore and in the future, both sets of countries may find these people much harder to deal with than they were in 1982.    

We heard how the assault of Two Sisters and Mount Harriet went last episode, both  were taken within 2 and a half hours – but 3 Paras attack on Mount Longdon was a different proposition. It’s a steep sided hill about a mile long running almost west to east, it’s main ridge above 600 feet in places and overall, about 300 feet on average above the surrounding ground. This hill formed only a small part of the Argentinian 7th Regiment and its commander Lieutenant Colonel Ortiz Gimenez overlooked the sector named Plata – or silver. It stretched from Mount Longdon eastwards as the northern Arm of Stanley Harbour nearly seven miles away. The Argentinians did not build deep defences here, and 7th Regiment was stretched along its ridge. The Summit of Mount Longdon was held by only one company – Bravo – with three platoons – but behind them was another platoon of the 10th Engineer Company which was fighting as infantry. There were also eight heavy 12.7mm machine guns manned by marines. The British later claimed there were commandos amongst the Regiment, but this is wrong. So 3 Para moved quickly to the rising ground, when a corporal of 3 Company stepped on a mine. It shattered his leg but he survived, while the Argentinians realised they were being attacked and opened fire. 3 Para had expected to find a single company protecting Longdon, but as we heard there were four.The first troops in action on the 13th were 30 men of the headquarters company of the Scots Guards, commanded by Major Richard Bethell. He was a 32 year-old former SAS officer, and looking forward to the action. His role was to create a diversionary attack along with the Blues and the Royals, south east of Mount Harriet. Bethell had already survived a mine blast after his land rover triggered one on a road during the previous days patrols. They advanced in the dark towards Tumbledown. It is a rocky ridge about a mile and a half long but very narrow, and 750 feet high at its most prominent point. It dominated the area of open ground and was the key to unlocking Stanley – and probably the end of the war. 

We pick up after the sinking of the Galahad and the debacle at Fitzroy and Bluff Cove. The British war cabinet was plunged into an argument over information. New Brigade commander Moore had panicked and sent a message that he’d lost 900 men – we know it was 51. The Argentinians naturally believed the 900 figure and also thought that the British attack had been stunted.It hadn’t, but London ironically gained as it lost. The Ministry of Defence faced the media and responded that the casualties had been heavy and that this may delay an attack on Stanley. The war cabinet was under extreme pressure to make the casualty list public, but they were refusing. It would only be released after the end of the war, further confusing the Argentinian military who wanted to believe that the English would not finally retake the Falklands. As Margaret Thatcher’s ministers sweated under the glare of public opinion, it was fortunate for this government that the Falkland’s War was so brief. The graphic pictures reaching the British public had shocked the nation, one in particular of a sailor on a stretcher with a bloody stump where his leg had been blown off.The Navy had always been against reporters embedded amongst them, now they conducted a mini told you so campaign. And yet, the pictures helped the British public understand the difficulties of the campaign, and their support increased instead of waning.  However, the attempt at opening up another front for 5 Brigade instead of focusing on the main job at hand – to take Stanley – was a mistake. Apologists for the British army point out that it could have been worse, which is rather monty pythonesque – and no solace to the families of the 51 men whose lives were thrown away, nor the shoddy communication that bedevilled the British Falklands campaign.  Brigadier Thompson’s 3 Brigade was lining up to deal with Stanley, and in the end, 5 Brigade’s involvement slowed things down. The political future of a vast area of the South Atlantic was going to be decided on the outcome of a series of battles on hills with innocuous sounding names like Mount Longdon, Two Sisters, Tumbledown, Wireless Ridge, Mount William, Sapper Hill. 

It was 30th May and the rusty liner the Canberra headed back into San Carlos water. On board were reinforcements from the 5th Infantry Brigade including the Gurkhas, the Scots and Welsh Guards. They had been collected from the QE2 liner which had docked at South Georgia with the Guards and the Gurkhas, from where they were collected by the Canberra. Also on board was the new commander, Major-General Jeremy Moore who was to take over from Brigadier Jeremy Thompson. The command post at San Carlos was the outside lavatory and cloakroom for the Port San Carlos Social Club in better times – and Moore surveyed his new HQ then headed out to talk to the troops.  The lack of Sea King helicopters meant the British forces were back on their transport equipment number ones, their boots. It was 3 Commando’s Brigades’ fate to continue to march across East Falkland, towards the chain of hills surrounding port Stanley. 45 commando had left San Carlos with 3 Para on the 27th May, and were plodding doggedly over the hills, marshes and streams towards Douglas settlement. That night, at ten pm, they collapsed into sleep after the 13 mile route march, across terrain that left 15 men injured – sprained ankles, pulled muscles, cracked bones. Meanwhile, Brigadier Thompson was worried. He knew that Mount Kent was strategically important and wanted it populated by British troops before the Argentinians woke up to its crucial role – should they send artillery spotters here the British would be vulnerable to observed artillery fire. For the next week, the Royal Navy devoted most of its attention to the problems of the 5 Brigade. On the afternoon of 3 June, the Welsh Guards began their long march to Goose Green from San Carlos, walking for 12 hours before the whole exercise was abandoned. The Guardsmen were not ready for this heavy going, and they were too heavily laden – and their snotracs broke down every few miles. Back they marched over Sussex Mountain. 3 Brigade sneered at the news – what a contemptable start they thought. Remember they were on the hills above Stanley, and now forced to hang around the freezing mountain waiting for 5 Brigade to get its act together. It was now that the fate of so many men was decided – the only other way for these soldiers to get to Fitzroy at speed was by sea – and to a scene of a tragedy that would be the worst loss of life in any single engagement for the British during the entire Falklands War. 

The night of 27th May 1982  was cold and rainy, and waiting for the British on the mile-wide isthmus to the north of the settlements of Darwin and Goose Green were one hundred Argentinian conscripts making up two platoons of 12 Regiment A company, a dozen or so Argentinian reconnaissance soldiers, First Lieutenant Jorge Manresa, three officers and 14 NCOs.  Manresa’s men weren’t in a good place. They were part of the extension of the defensive position ordered by their commander back in Stanley and it was no where nearly as well laid out as the second line of defence behind them.  They had a 120mm mortar with its tube welded to its base plate, two other 81mm mortars and two 7.62mm machine guns. The newly dug positions were about a mile and half ahead of the much better constructed main line. At 6pm on the 27th, the British 2 battalion Charlie company began to advance towards the start line in intermittent rain. For the next three hours they probed down the track, led by engineers of 59 squadron who faced the biggest hazards initially – being blown up by mines and boobytraps. They waded waist-deep in streams in the darkness to ensure that the three bridges between Camilla Creek and the start line were clear of mines, then lay shivering in the dark as the assault companies headed their way.At 2.35am A Company crossed the start line in a classic infantry formation, two platoons forward and one behind.  At 2:35am HMS Arrow opened fire, firing a total of 22 star shells and 135 rounds of 4.5" high-explosive shells during a 90-minute bombardment, signalling the start of the attack. The rest of the battalion moved off at 10pm, listening to the crump crump of naval gunfire support.Still, it took a firefight until first light before the first line was broken, and the British were still two miles short of the Goose Green Settlement – they’d just arrived at Darwin. But that is further north of Goose Green, about a mile and a half away and both were located on the east side of the isthmus, the right as you look at the map.  Then dawn broke, and the battle began to swing away from the British. They were caught in the open, on gently sloping ground, with the only shelter being little contours in the landscape and a ridge that was a great target.  

As we heard in Episode 15, the British were ascendant, but they’d paid a high price.Twenty-six Argentinian planes had been shot down since the landings at San Carlos, ten British ships had been damaged by unexploded bombs, so imagine the carnage had these been fused properly. Five ships had been sunk – HMS Sheffield, Ardent, Antelope, Coventry and the SS Atlantic Conveyor. One more would go down before the end of this short war. Back in the U.K. the cabinet was muttering about action and naturally, this pressure on the leadership in the Falklands became unbearable. Their gaze switched to the south, instead of the east where Port Stanley stood. It turned to Darwin and Goose Green. Then on the morning of 23rd May, 2 Para received a warning order from 3 Commando Brigade – three of the four companies were to carry out a large-scale raid on the Argentinian positions at Darwin and Goose Green. One company would remain behind at Sussex Mountain. The officers were not happy about the plan. Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Jones, or H as he was known, pointed out that they were advancing in exactly the opposite direction to the main strategic goal, Stanley. H was also unhappy about the plan itself, they were going to attack strongly held enemy positions from the obvious direction, the north, without full air and artillery support. He asked that 3 Para be moved by chopper or by sea to the south. No said the brigade commander, Julian Thompson. The loss of the Chinooks on the Atlantic Conveyor made any move of this sort impossible.  So on the afternoon of 24th May 1982, Delta company led off the long march to secure its first objective known as Camilla Creek House. That was eleven miles down the route, and following Delta company would be the remainder of the battalion. Camilla Creek house overlooked the Goose Green Settlement, it was the obvious strategic point. At seven that night the attack was cancelled – poor weather meant that their supporting artillery could not be moved. D Company had to march back up Sussex Mountain, back to their waterlogged trenches and cold nights. Two days later on the 26th May, Lieutenant Colonel Jones was summoned to another urgent meeting at Brigade HQ – 2 Para were now heading to Goose Green once more. What Jones didn’t know was that Brigadier Thompson was trying to stop the assault – he’d phoned the war cabinet back in the U.K. and tried to convince his superiors that the southern isthmus was no real danger on his flank – he could easily hold them back while he marched on Stanley. He was worried that what was a form of sideshow would go horribly wrong. But he failed. Thatcher and her cabinet wanted blood as quickly as possible, it was a political imperative because she was aware that public opinion had shifted after the loss of so many ships – and the fact that since the landing at San Carlos, the British had appeared to have frozen at the Bay. There were a few significant failings that began about now – and one involved intelligence. As you’re going to hear, 2 Para were sent into battle against a far bigger force because intelligence had got a few things badly wrong. They suggested that the Argentinians defending the settlement had a weak battalion, probably fewer than 600 men,  and Thompson believed the 450 men of 2 Para were enough. Once his attempts at stopping this assault failed, he was determined to make it a swift victory. Unfortunately, there were close to 4 times that number of Argentinians waiting for his men. 

The British landings at San Carlos were both a threat and an opportunity for the Argentinians. Obviously allowing the British a toehold on east Falklands was a strategic danger, but now they could concentrate their air attacks on the landing zone, and the ships providing support.In their first sorties, the Argentinian air force flew over open seas, searching for targets and burning up precious fuel. Now the landings had altered the odds – they could aim at the warships anchored in Falkland Sound, the waterway between the two islands. More importantly, the pilots could make their final approach over land. They’d been exposed over the ocean, its hard to hide from radar over the sea, but now they could fly the last miles over undulating and in some cases, hilly terrain. They would use these mountains and hills to hide from radar – and return to their core training which had been done over land. They’d been forced to learn how to attack ships over open sea as kind of crash course over the past month, so the pendulum of advantage actually swung back towards the Argentinians despite the landings. The damage inflicted on the British Task force had been unbelievable – Ardent was sunk, Argonaut badly damaged, Antrim, Brilliant and Broadsword all damaged by bombs which may have failed to explode, but left the engineers with a headache. They had to be cleared before the ships would be operational. The 21st May attacks had been carried out at sea level and most of the Argentinian bombs had not detonated because their fuses were set for higher altitude releases. They weren’t going to make that mistake again. If the Argentinians had attacked on the day of the landings with properly fused bombs, it was estimated that around 25 percent of the English ships would have been sunk. But the bad news for the English was that there were worse days to come. The Argentinians though, were facing a hail of anti-aircraft fire and missiles when they came in for their attacks. The Skyhawk and Mirage pilots had decided they should fly the last 150 miles at only 10 feet above the water – sometimes the sea spray blinded them and the first order of duty when they arrived back at their bases was to wash down the wings to remove the salt. Then the worst day of all dawned, May 25th – Argentina’s national Day. The British knew that this was going to be the day that the pilots and possibly ground forces would exert themselves – it was a day of pride. 

It’s still D-Day – 21st May 1982, and the British have landed over 3000 troops at the Bay of San Carlos Waters,  now they need to shift thousands of tons of material from ship to shore, something that was going to be sorely tested by the Argentinian Air force. On the morning of 21st May, and the British had made good use of the early morning mist to land their troops virtually unposed as you heard last episode – the only major hitch for the British so far was the retreating Argentinian platoons based at San Carlos and Fanning Head shooting down two Gazelle gunships killing three of the crew. It was a fine day once the mist cleared, perfect weather for the Fuerza Aerea or Argentine Air Force. There was a mistaken arrogance amongst some in the British force that the pilots were second-grade compared to the RAF. Perhaps they should have taken better notice of the Fuerza training – these pilots had been taken under the wing, so to speak, of both the Israeli and French Air forces. At first glance on paper, the Argentinians did have the upper hand, They had a vast superiority in the numbers of aircraft, and bases. But the nearest base – Rio Gallegos was 400 miles away. That was an hour of flight time given the take-offs, landings and low level flying that was conducted in the final phases to avoid missiles. The British had developed a dangerous misconception that their opponents were not going to put up too much of a fight. Soon after they landed on San Carlos, these illusions were laid to rest spectacularly. 

The British were preparing to land their amphibious force on the north western tip of the East Falklands at a place called San Carlos. I won’t go into the long drawn out debate that took place between commanders over alternatives, because its moot considering what happened next. However as you’re going to hear, because they had not managed to take control of the air war, some of the landing and support vessels were going to suffer the consequences. By 15th May, civilians aboard the ships including the press, were handed the Declaration of Active Service placing them under direct military discipline. On the 18th May, the amphibious force lined up with aircraft carrier Hermes and Brigadier Thompson was told that the missiles from rear Admiral Woodward’s ships would provide air cover. Fortunately for the British, on that day the container ship Atlantic Conveyor had arrived carrying twelve Harrier aircraft. These were now flown aboard the carriers, four were RAF GR3 ground-attack aircraft while the others were from the hastily constituted 809 Naval Sea Harrier Squadron.These were flown by pilots from all over the world, Hugh Slade from Australia, Bill Covington from Arizona USA, Al Craig from Germany amongst others. They’d also brought 24 much needed maintenance crew. On the 19th May, four more GR3s landed – having flown in a remarkable single seat air-fuelled flight from Britain via Ascension Island. It was what could be called a condemned man’s final meal, the food on the ships improved dramatically, with steak on the menu for breakfast, lunch and tea. That evening on the Canberra, Lieutenant Colonel Vaux addressed 42 commando, warning that their landing would be unlike any other fighting they’d known. Most had experience of urban warfare, fighting the IRA in northern Ireland. There casualties had taken preference, here they would not.