Guerra Traducción literal google

2009-12-02T08:52:00.001-03:00

The attrition rate had been high but the
Argentines had badly mauled the Amphibious
Group's escorts. Unfortunately for the
Argentines, bad weather over southern
Argentina on 22 May prevented flying until
very late in the day, when two ineffectual
strikes were made. On 23 and 24 May the
Argentine Air Force was back; a total of
33 sorties reached San Carlos and hit another
four warships. As on 21 May, the Argentines
again came in very low: this time not a single
bomb detonated. On the evening of 22 May,
however, a bomb lodged in Antelope blew up
while engineers were attempting to defuse it.
The intensity of the attacks on 21, 23 and
24 May led Woodward to experiment with
forward deployment by sending Coventry and
Broadsword westward to form an early warning
line off Pebble Island. On 25 May they were
soon spotted by Argentine observation posts
who vectored air attacks on to them.
Broadsword was hit by a bomb, which once
again failed to explode, but Coventry was less
fortunate, suffering three direct hits which
killed 19 of the crew and sank her. Meanwhile
in late afternoon two Super Etendards, their
range increased by refuelling from a KC-130
tanker, picked up a large blip to the north-east
on their radar. Believing they had located
Hermes the Argentines loosed their Exocets
and hit Atlantic Conveyor, a 28,000-ton
container ship loaded with supplies and three
Chinook and six Wessex heavy-lift
helicopters. Fires spread throughout the ship,
detonating cluster bombs, and killing 12 of
the crew, including her master, Captain Ian
North. The smoking hulk drifted for several
days before she foundered.
By the evening of 25 May, British
commanders were becoming increasingly
worried. In the previous four days Argentine
air attacks had sunk or damaged eight
warships and transports, losses of an
intensity not experienced since the
evacuation of Crete in June 1941. But the
attacks of 25 May proved to be the high
water mark of Argentina's air campaign.
Further raids were made against the actual
beachhead on 27 and 29 May. These caused
casualties and inflicted some degree of
damage, but nothing like the incessant
attacks of 21, 23 and 24 May was seen again.
Argentina, quite simply, was running out of
aircraft and pilots. As early as 23 May
casualties had caused the withdrawal from
action of the highly skilled 3rd Naval Fighter
and Attack Squadron. By 29 May some
90 sorties had reached the operational area
of which 21 had been shot down, 12 by
Sea Harriers. By a process of slow attrition
the British were establishing a degree of air
superiority over the islands.
While the air battle raged, 3 Commando
Brigade was busy establishing a beachhead.
An amphibious operation of this sort,
without a proper rehearsal, enough purposebuilt
ships or air superiority, violated many
of the lessons that had been painfully
learned during the Second World War. But in
the event the landing went relatively
smoothly. A navigational error caused some
delay but the landing craft were guided in by
SBS men who had infiltrated San Carlos a
week earlier, and 3,000 men came ashore
with very few accidents. Getting equipment
and supplies ashore proved rather more
difficult. Owing to the speed at which the
ships of the task force had sailed from Britain
there had been no time to store equipment
tactically. The wait at Ascension Island had
given 3 Commando Brigade's logisticians a
chance to sort out the confusion, but when
the task force sailed south again much still
remained to be done. Thompson and Clapp
decided to keep some of the supplies afloat,
in part to give the logisticians the time and
space to continue sorting, in part because
the only place in San Carlos suitable for a
logistic base was a small area around Ajax
Bay. Here a disused mutton factory could
provide some cover, but it would rapidly
become congested. The first Argentine air
attacks wrecked the entire plan. As much as
possible had to be disembarked and big ships
such as Canberra and Norland had to be
returned to the protection of the task force
as quickly as possible. Men worked
frenetically, but when Canberra and Norland
steamed away, they took with them the unit
stores of two commandos and both
parachute battalions, items which ranged
from vital replacement battle batteries to first
line stocks of ammunition not carried on the
men, such as mortar, Milan and Wombat
anti-tank rounds, and a complete resupply of
small-arms ammunition. Also on board the
Canberra were 90,000 rations, enough to feed
the brigade for 18 days.
On 23 May Thompson had received orders
to proceed with the investment of Port Stanley.
To this end, on the following night the SBS
landed at Port Salvador on the north coast of
East Falkland to reconnoitre the area of Teal
Inlet, so that it could be used as a forward
logistic base to support operations against
Stanley. On the same night helicopters took
the reconnaissance elements of D Squadron 22
SAS to Mt Kent, from where Stanley was clearly
visible to the east. This was a preliminary
move to the establishment of a strong position
near Stanley by moving troops by helicopter
across the island. The following evening
Thompson's plans lay in ruins, because the loss
of the Atlantic Conveyor removed at one stroke
virtually all his transport machines.

Given the critical nature of his situation
Thompson would have preferred to wait for
additional helicopters coming south with
5 Infantry Brigade. But the War Cabinet and
Northwood were facing mounting political
pressure. Ever since the British landing the
Security Council had been debating in open
session. On 26 May Ireland tabled a
resolution for an immediate cease-fire.
Although this was watered down to a request
that the Secretary General undertake a new
peace mission, diplomatically the situation
seemed to be moving in Argentina's favour.
Britain might eventually be forced to use her
veto, leaving her diplomatically isolated and
exposed as an opponent of peace.
Meanwhile, backbench pressure mounted
against the government. Questions were
being asked in the Commons about the
landing force's apparent lack of progress. The
Marines and Paras had come ashore on 21 May,
British ships were being sunk, but the
landing force seemed to be content to sit in
the beachhead. Older MPs who had lived
through the Second World War reinforced
the point by invoking memories of the
Germans bottling up the beachheads at
Anzio and Normandy in 1944.
Pressure for immediate action was also
building up from within 3 Commando
Brigade. The paratroop battalions had come
ashore eager and ready for immediate action.
Instead they found themselves being ordered
to dig in on the hillsides. There they waited,
cold and wet, and subject to air attacks. The
spirits of 2 Para improved on 23 May when
their commander, Lieutenant Colonel 'H'
Jones, received orders to prepare a raid on
Darwin-Goose Green to eliminate the Pucara
threat. Lack of helicopters ruled out a move
by air and navigational difficulties ruled out
a move by sea. Much to the annoyance of
the paratroopers, on 24 May Thompson,
who had always regarded the raid as a
diversion from the main effort, ordered its
cancellation.
In London the War Cabinet was not
ignorant of Thompson's logistic problems,
but was increasingly concerned to maintain
the momentum, even if this meant running
serious risks. Acting on the government's
instructions, on 26 May, the day after the
loss of the Atlantic Conveyor, HQ Northwood
gave Thompson direct and explicit
instructions to undertake two major
operations simultaneously: he was to send
2 Para to raid Darwin-Goose Green and an
even more substantial force to invest Port
Stanley. That night 2 Para moved off Sussex
Mountain towards Camilla Creek House and
Darwin-Goose Green, while soon after dawn
45 Commando, followed shortly after by
3 Para, set off for Douglas and Teal Inlet
settlements respectively. All the columns
were heavily laden, and were expected to
march long distances over difficult terrain in
high winds and low temperatures. Their
logistic support, at least initially, depended
on what they could carry supplemented by
whatever the helicopters could land as soon
as they became available. Operations of this
sort could not have been contemplated, let
alone undertaken, with troops less well
trained and less highly motivated than the
paratroopers and Royal Marines.
Reaching Camilla Creek before dawn on "
27 May, Jones sent two reconnaissance
patrols towards suspected Argentine
positions. Jones had only been with the
battalion a short time but he had already
developed a reputation as an aggressive 'fireeater'.
In exercises he always led from the
front, so much so that umpires usually
declared him 'dead'. On the basis of reports
from earlier SAS patrols, Jones believed that
the settlement was defended by at most
500 Argentines, which would be easy meat
for his Paras. As the morning wore on,
however, his patrols reported back very
heavy Argentine movements, the first
intimation that the SAS had been wrong. In
fact, the settlements held 1,500; with added
reinforcements the number was to rise to
1,630. In addition the settlements were in an
ideal defensive position, on a five-mile-long
isthmus that was only about 2,000 yards
wide. The Argentine front was covered by a
mine field, behind which they had
positioned in successive defence lines
11 medium machine-guns, three 105mm
guns, and three 35mm anti-aircraft guns.
Shortly before 1130 as the morning mist
cleared, the Argentines spotted one of the
patrols and opened up with heavy machine
guns. A Harrier strike, delayed by the mist,
eventually allowed the patrols to withdraw,
but Argentine anti-aircraft guns shot the tail
off one of the aircraft, forcing the pilot to
eject. At about this time Jones's HQ tuned
into the BBC and received a dreadful shock.
The announcer stated that 'a parachute
battalion is poised and ready to assault
Darwin-Goose Green'. The BBC's Robert Fox,
who was attached to 2 Para, recalled that
Jones exploded into anger: 'I'll sue John Nott
- I'll sue the MoD -I'll sue Thatcher!' Jones
knew that there was now no prospect of
surprise. There was also little prospect of
adequate fire support. His second-incommand,
Major Chris Keeble, suggested
delay, but Jones would have none of it. He
was 42 years old, he was commanding his
own battalion, and he knew that this chance
was unlikely to come again. 'Chris, I've
waited 22 years for this,' he said, 'I'm not
going to wait any longer.'
Jones knew that his only real chance was
to attack at night, but that this would
impose immense problems on command and
control. All commanders fear that fighting in
the dark will result in friendly fire casualties,
the so called 'blue on blue'. Jones determined
to overcome this by devising a rigid battle
plan with six distinct phases, all of them
carefully timetabled. The first two phases
involved securing the start line. The attack
began at 0230 in pouring rain, with
A Company on the left flank advancing
towards Darwin Hill, and B and D Companies
on the right moving towards Boca House, an
isolated settlement. By 0400 the initial
objectives had been reached and A Company
was now pulling ahead of B and D Companies.
A Company commander, Captain Farrar-
Hockley, radioed Jones for permission to
attack the next objective, Darwin Hill, but
the colonel was worried that a further
advance by A Company would unbalance
the attack. In order to get a clearer idea of
the situation Jones went forward with his
protection party, reaching Farrer-Hockley's
position just as dawn was breaking. When he
saw Darwin Hill loom through the morning
gloom, he must have realised that the delay
he had imposed had been a mistake. He
immediately ordered a frontal assault up
Darwin Hill.
As the Paras moved forward, the
Argentines opened up with everything they
had. Charging up a steep slope, the Para
attack was soon canalised by a gully full of
gorse, into which the Argentines poured a
withering fire. Within seconds the men of
the leading platoon were dead, wounded, or
had gone to ground. Realising that he would
have to get around the Argentine positions,
Jones took his protection party and charged
up a re-entrant to the right of the Hill. He
almost made it. As he single-handedly
stormed an Argentine trench from the rear,
he was cut down by a burst of machine gun
fire from behind. The first part of the battle
had gone badly and Jones had died
courageously, trying to put things right. He
was to be awarded a posthumous VC.
The situation was desperate and the Paras
responded with the grim - some say sick -
humour of the British army. An A Company
radio operator, pinned in the gorse gully by
an almost solid stream of fire, was calling
into his mike 'Kirk to Enterprise, Kirk to
Enterprise, for God's sake Scotty, beam me
up!' A few yards away a corporal, his leg
severed by a burst of machine gun fire, lay
on the ground shouting 'I've lost my leg -
I've lost my leg.' In the soon to be immortal
reply, a young Para lying just behind him
shouted back reassuringly, 'No you haven't
corp - its back here next to me.' About
1,000 yards to the west B Company, too, was
pinned down by heavy machine guns
supplemented by direct fire from anti-aircraft
guns. Because movement was for the
moment impossible the Paras decided not to
waste time, but instead cooked and ate
breakfast while shells and bullets screamed a
few feet overhead. Crawling up to the
position Robert Fox found the scene almost
surreal - the Paras were joking and chatting
as though they were on a picnic, not in the
middle of a battle.
Major Chris Keeble was now in command.
As he went forward 2 Para's RSM called him
back. He looked Keeble in the eye and said,
'You, sir, are going to do fucking well!' Keeble
recalled that as he made his way forward he
felt like a million dollars. A Company was
clearly in a mess. Keeble therefore
concentrated on the right flank. B Company
managed to pull back from exposed positions
on the left of Darwin Hill, and worked south
to attack Boca House, which they bombarded
with Milan wire-guided anti-tank missiles.
Further west, Major Phil Neame pulled
D Company down a low cliff on to a narrow
beach. Protected by the cliff from Argentine
fire Neame now led his Paras in single file
along the narrow beach, until they could
attack the Boca House positions in the flank.
At about 1400 B and D Companies managed
to push south again, taking a few yards at a
time. To their left, A Company was
pulverising Argentine positions on Darwin
Hill with Karl Gustav anti-tank rockets, and
then attacking the shaken defenders with
grenades and bayonets. Argentine aircraft,
Aermacchis and Pucaras, swept down,
straffing with rockets and cannon. The Paras
fired back with machine guns and Blowpipe
missiles, downing an Aermacchi. Soon a
Pucara, armed with napalm, was down as
well, crashing near some Paras. The liquid
sprayed from ruptured tanks, drenching
everyone, but mercifully did not ignite.
By 1500 B Company had reached the northwestern
edge of the airfield, where it was
again pinned down by intense direct fire
from the Argentine's 35 mm anti-aircraft
guns. At 1535 two Harriers arrived, dropped
cluster bombs on the Argentine positions,
and B Company, supported on its left flank
by D Company, pushed to the middle of the
airfield, C Company moving up in reserve.
By dusk the Paras were only 400 yards from
Goose Green; by now Argentine 105mms
were firing with their barrels vertical.
The night of 28/29 May seemed
interminable, both for Keeble and for the
Argentine ground-force commander,
Lieutenant Colonel Piaggi. The Paras had
now been awake for about 40 hours and had
been fighting for about 14 hours. They had
exhausted their own ammunition hours
earlier, and had kept the battle going by
using captured Argentine ordnance. Some,
indeed, had abandoned their own submachine
guns and Self-Loading-Rifles (SLRs)
for the Argentine FN30, which could be
converted to fully automatic by the flick of a
lever. The Argentines were also exhausted.
Despite their overwhelming numerical
superiority, they had been forced back
steadily throughout the day. That night most
Paras thought they had lost the battle, but
decided to carry on as though they hadn't.
The Argentines also thought they had lost
the battle and decided the sensible thing to
do was surrender. The British had suffered
17 dead and 33 wounded, the Argentines
55 dead and 86 wounded. In addition,
1,536 physically uninjured Argentines
became prisoners of war.
The battle of Darwin-Goose Green defied
the logic of force ratios. The British never
achieved more than parity at the point of
attack and overall were heavily outnumbered
by the Argentines, who were well dug in,
equipped with automatic weapons, supplied
with large quantities of ammunition, and
supported by mortar and artillery fire and
ground attack aircraft. Moreover, the
attacking British, at the end of a long supply
line, frequently ran short of ammunition,
and were able to maintain the attack only by
re-equipping themselves from Argentine
positions as they overran them. The
surrendering Argentines could not at first
believe they had been defeated by a force less
than one-third the size of their own. Piaggi
was particularly mortified because he had
reported to Stanley at one stage that he was
being attacked by the entire British brigade.
The logic of war dictated that the
paratroopers should not have won, but they
did. The victory depended on unquantifiable
factors - leadership, training, morale, esprit
de corps, and fighting spirit. In Britain news
of the battle led to a massive upsurge in
parliamentary and national morale: the last
time Britain had celebrated a crushing
victory was in 1945. Elsewhere the news was
greeted with disbelief and then, as the facts
became irrefutable, with incredulity. Britain's
international prestige rose steadily. The
battle had a profound effect on the conduct
of the campaign. The gloom and
despondency that gripped Menendez and his
headquarters soon infected many Argentine
officers, though most conscripts remained
unaware of the scale of the defeat. Two Para's
attack also served to confirm Menendez's
preconception that the drive on Stanley
would come from the south, probably along
the axis of the Fitzroy-Stanley track. On
29 May he ordered 4th Infantry regiment
to occupy Two Sisters and Mt Harriet,
which would cover an advance from the
south-west.
During the battle for Darwin-Goose
Green, the Argentines had moved reserve
forces positioned in the Mt Kent area to
reinforce Piaggi's increasingly beleaguered
soldiers. Unknown to the Argentines, this
move allowed 22 SAS, which had been
infiltrating on to Mt Kent since the night of
24/25 May, to secure much of the area
without a fight. By 29 May, when the
Argentines finally discovered that the
British had seized a mountain that
commanded splendid views of their
positions to the west of Stanley, the British
were firmly established. That night two
large Argentine special force patrols
attempted to recapture the mountain.
Ambushed by the SAS, the Argentines
fought all night, losing two dead and six
captured. The following night the Tactical
HQ of 42 Commando with K Company, the
Mortar Troop, and three light guns flew to
reinforce the SAS. A search through
abandoned Argentine positions on the
mountain yielded an invaluable prize; a
map that showed the location of every
Argentine unit and the boundaries within
which it was expected to operate. It was
clear from the dispositions that Argentine
attention was fixed on the southern axis.
In the meantime 45 Commando and
3 Para had been marching towards Teal Inlet.
The leading elements of 45 Commando
reached Douglas settlement at about 1300 on
28 May while 3 Para arrived at Teal Inlet at
2300 the same evening. Early the following
morning they were joined by a troop of light
tanks from the Blues and Royals. The move
secured the shoreline of Port Salvador which
at one point, Estancia Bay, lay only 15 miles
north-west of Stanley. On 30 May, however,
two Argentine UH-1 Iroquois helicopters
deposited a patrol of 16 men at Top Malo
House which sat athwart the main line of
communication between Teal Inlet and
Estancia Bay, from where they would have
a good view of British operations. It was a
daring move but it had been spotted by a
British observation post. Soon after dawn on
31 May 19 men of the Royal Marines
Mountain and Arctic Warfare cadre landed
by helicopter in a valley out of sight of Top
Malo House and moved stealthily on the
Argentine position. A fierce firefight ensued,
in which every member of the Argentine
patrol was killed or captured.
On the night of 31 May/l June an LCU
conducted an improvised sweep of the main
channel through Port Salvador. The
following night Sir Percivale made the first
logistic run from San Carlos, bringing with it
a Royal Corps of Transport Mexeflote to land
supplies at Teal Inlet. A round trip from Teal
to 3 Para's positions was about 15 miles, as
opposed to 100 miles from San Carlos. The
whole business of supply was speeded up,
but life for the troops investing Stanley
remained unpleasant. Vincent Bramley, a
3 Para Lance Corporal, recalled that

within two weeks we looked like a rag and
bone army. Our faces were drawn with the loss
of weight, our uniforms matted and soaked, we
were hungry for solid food, and our boots, badly
and cheaply made, were falling to pieces.

The men tried to dig weapons' pits into
the peat, and found that very soon they were
half full of water. At night the temperature
fell to below freezing, there were frequent
snow squalls, and the wind never seemed to
drop below about 15 knots. Once men
became wet they stayed wet. There was water
aplenty, but all of it was heavily polluted
with peat. The men drank it nevertheless -
there was nothing else - and the result was
that virtually everyone suffered from chronic
diarrhoea, to the extent that most cut the
seat out of their trousers. Trench foot, a
condition associated with the wetter parts of
the Western Front during the First World
War, soon became widespread.
On 30 May Major General Jeremy Moore
and his staff had arrived at San Carlos.
Moore approved Thompson's existing plans
and Thompson, reverting to the command
of 3 Commando Brigade, removed himself
and his HQ to Teal Inlet the following day.
Pressure on Moore to bring operations to a
speedy conclusion was now intense. On
31 May President Reagan phoned Mrs
Thatcher to voice his worries over the tide of
hostile opinion that seemed to be sweeping
Latin America, an indication that American
support was becoming less steadfast. In New
York, Britain's ambassador to the United
Nations, Sir Antony Parsons, was facing yet
another ceasefire resolution, this time from
Panama and Spain. Parsons managed to
delay the vote in the Security Council until
4 June, when the resolution was supported
by nine countries, including China and the
USSR, with four abstaining. Britain was
forced to use her veto, and was supported by
the United States. Almost immediately,
however, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, the US
ambassador to the UN, announced that were
it possible to do so, she would change the
American vote from a no to an abstention.
With Britain's international strategy
apparently in the process of unravelling,
Moore rushed ahead with the deployment of
5 Infantry Brigade, which had arrived in San
Carlos on 2 June after cross-decking from the
QE2 in Cumberland Sound on the coast of
South Georgia. Moore had travelled south
aboard the QE2 with 5 Infantry Brigade's
commander, Brigadier Tony Wilson: during
this time it was agreed that 5 Infantry
Brigade would join in the attack on Stanley
by coming from the south. Moore intended
initially to move 5 Infantry Brigade by
helicopter to Goose Green, a first step to
opening up the southern axis of advance
via the settlement of Fitzroy. However,
5 Infantry Brigade had set sail with painfully
inadequate logistic assets. They would only
be able to move with the aid of logistic
support removed from 3 Commando
Brigade. Virtually all the task force's
helicopters were committed to the build-up
and sustainment of 3 Commando Brigade in
the Mt Kent area.
Some helicopters were made available on
2 June to airlift the l/7th to join 2 Para at
Goose Green. The rest of the brigade would
have to march. The Welsh Guards set out on
3 June but after 50 minutes their officers,
realising their men were already exhausted,
called a halt and returned to San Carlos. In
the meantime a patrol from 2 Para had
flown in a Scout helicopter 20 miles due east
of Goose Green to Sun Inlet House, from
where they had telephoned Fitzroy, and
learned from the islanders that the small
Argentine garrison had withdrawn. On
hearing this news Major Chris Keeble
immediately commandeered the Chinook
that had been seconded for logistic work to
5 Infantry Brigade for the day, and airlifted
two companies and the headquarters of
2 Para to Fitzroy. This move, implemented
without the knowledge of Moore's
headquarters, posed severe problems.
Although some Sea King helicopters were
detailed to lift the rest of 2 Para to Fitzroy
settlement and nearby Bluff Cove, there was
no means immediately available of
sustaining, let alone reinforcing, 2 Para, who
were left with little ammunition and no air
cover in an advanced position overlooked by
an Argentine observation post.
With helicopters at a premium, the only
way for Wilson to move the bulk of the
brigade was by sea. The large amphibious
ships Fearless and Intrepid could easily have
carried out the move in a single lift, but the
navy was reluctant to risk these ships so
close to Stanley. As a consequence, on the
night of 5/6 June, Intrepid carried only one of
5 Infantry Brigade's battalions, the 2nd Scots
Guards, and then only as far as Lively Point,
about halfway between San Carlos and
Fitzroy. Here the Scots Guards transferred to
Intrepid's four landing craft under the
command of Major Ewan Southby-Tailyour
for the remainder of the voyage, while
Intrepid put about for the comparative safety
of San Carlos. At first sea conditions were
relatively good, with poor visibility. But the
weather deteriorated as the landing craft
rounded Lively Point. The frigate HMS
Cardiff, returning from bombarding Stanley,
sighted the landing craft. She had not been
informed of friendly movements in the area
and thus fired a star shell to illuminate the
craft before attacking. A rapid exchange of
terse signals by Aldiss Lamp only narrowly
averted what might have been a serious
friendly-fire incident.
Back in San Carlos, the following
afternoon the Welsh Guards embarked in
HMS Fearless. Commodore Clapp, Brigadier
Wilson and Major Southby-Tailyour, who
had flown by helicopter back from Bluff
Cove, had together formulated a plan.
Fearless was to carry only two landing craft,
leaving two at San Carlos for logistic
offloading. Off Lively Point, Fearless was to
rendezvous with Southby-Tailyour's four
landing craft, which would sail from Bluff
Cove to meet her. But when Southby-
Tailyour flew back to Bluff Cove he
discovered three of his landing craft were
missing: not until the following morning did
he learn that 2 Para had commandeered
them to move supplies to Fitzroy. When
Fearless reached the rendezvous point at 0200
on 7 June and could not find Southby-
Tailyour's landing craft, her captain had no
alternative but to launch the two landing
craft he was carrying, and to return to San
Carlos with the remainder of the Welsh Guards.
On the afternoon of 7 June the remainder
of the Welsh Guards embarked on Sir
Galahad and she sailed that night, arriving at
Fitzroy at 0800 on the following morning.
The officers in charge were under the
impression that they should have been
landed further east at Bluff Cove, where the
rest of the battalion had bivouacked, and
refused to disembark. They were reluctant to
be separated from their heavy equipment,
and they could see no point in subjecting
their men to a tiring overland march when
Sir Galahad was due to sail to Bluff Cove later
in the day. Major Southby-Tailyour urged
them to come ashore at any event and wait
on the beach while unloading was under
way: but they again refused because the only
landing craft available were already loaded
with ammunition. Early in the afternoon an
unloaded landing craft became free: it was
on the point of embarking the Welsh Guards
when it was commandeered by a Lieutenant
Colonel of the RAMC to move his
ambulance teams ashore.
During the five hours Sir Galahad had
been at anchor, an Argentine observation
post 10 miles away on Mt Harriet had
radioed details of this and other British
shipping movements (Sir Tristram was also
unloading supplies in Fitzroy) via Stanley to
mainland Argentine air force units. Mainland
air bases scrambled eight Skyhawks and six
Daggers, of which five Skyhawks and five
Daggers reached the islands. Flying up
Falkland Sound before turning to attack
Fitzroy from the west, the Daggers spotted
and bombed HMS Plymouth, scoring four
direct hits, none of which detonated. Two
Sea Harriers on routine patrol south of
Fitzroy turned north-west in pursuit of the
Daggers. Meanwhile the Skyhawks flew on to
Fitzroy. The British had already set up four
Rapier missile launchers, but the launcher
covering the harbour had been damaged in
transit and was out of action while a new
sighting mechanism was being fitted. The
Skyhawks hit Sir Tristram with two bombs,
one passing straight through the ship
without detonating, the other exploding on
the vehicle deck and killing two crewmen.
The attack on Sir Galahad was launched from
a higher altitude than usual. Three bombs
crashed into the ship, their casings burst
open, and the explosive contents burnt
fiercely, creating fireballs. For the British this
was the single bloodiest incident of the war:
46 men died on Sir Galahad and another
150 were injured, some very seriously. Two
hours later the Argentines were back. Four
Skyhawks, attempting to attack Bluff Cove,
were driven off by intense ground fire
from the Scots Guards, who discharged
18,500 rounds in just 45 seconds. Swinging
around on Fitzroy, the Skyhawks
encountered a barrage of at least seven
Rapier missiles, and broke off the attack. Yet
another flight of four Skyhawks spotted the
landing craft Foxtrot Four halfway between
Goose Green and Fitzroy and launched a
devastating attack, killing six of the crew.
The landing craft was saved from almost
certain destruction by the arrival of two Sea
Harriers, which promptly shot down three of
the Skyhawks with Sidewinders.
Meanwhile on the northern side of East
Falkland, 3 Commando Brigade's build-up
was continuing unabated. Patrols from

Sir Galahad at Bluff Cove, 8 June 1982. With nearly
200 casualties the attack on Sir Galahad was the single
most costly incident of the war for the British. An
accretion of errors combined with plain bad luck to
leave the ship exposed to Argentine attack for more
than four hours. (Rex Features)

3 Para and 45 and 42 Commando had
pushed into the hills and mountains ringing
Stanley to the west and had largely
confirmed the dispositions outlined in the
Argentine map captured on Mt Kent. By the
evening of 6 June Thompson believed he
had enough information to launch an attack
on Argentine positions on Mt Longdon, Two
Sisters and Mt Harriet on or about 9 June.
Logistics continued to be a problem,
particularly the stockpiling of artillery
ammunition. For an assault Thompson
reasoned that each of the task force's 105mm
guns required 500 rounds, making a total of
15,000 rounds, the movement of which
would require at least 315 Sea King flights.
Thompson also believed that 3 Commando
Brigade's assault should be supported by
5 Infantry Brigade: the attack of 8 June
meant that there would be a delay. On
9 June Major General Moore visited
3 Commando brigade HQ and agreed with
Thompson's plan of attack. 3 Commando
Brigade was to be reinforced, with 2 Para
reverting to Thompson's command, and
with the attachment of the Welsh Guards,
brought up to strength by two companies of
40 Commando. 3 Commando Brigade was
to attack from the west on the night of
10/11 June, while on the following night
5 Infantry Brigade would attack from the
more obvious south west.
In Stanley Menendez's attention remained
fixed on the south-west route: the activity at
Fitzroy and Bluff Cove had served to confirm
his conjectures. In Britain the War Cabinet
had allowed press speculation about the
extent of British casualties to run riot,
creating the impression both in Britain and
Argentina that they had been very heavy.
Menendez came under pressure to attempt
an attack towards Fitzroy but firmly resisted.
He would remain on the defensive, although
he believed the British attack had been
seriously delayed.
Menendez had some 9,000 men under
his command, of whom about 5,000 were
in combat units. The 25th, 6th and
3rd Regiments were stationed along the
coast, while the 5th Marine Regiment
deployed on Tumbledown, Mt Wilson and
Sapper Hill. The 4th Regiment, dug in on
Mt Harriet and Two Sisters, covered the
approach from Fitzroy and Bluff Cove. Only
the 7th Regiment on Mt Longdon and
Wireless Ridge was in a position to oppose
an attack coming from the west or northwest.
By this time air support had virtually
vanished. The last Aermacchi flew to the
mainland on 30 May and the last two
serviceable Chinooks left for the mainland
on 9 June. Mainland units had now lost
36 aircraft, and could now only conduct
hit-and-run raids. Artillery support, however,
remained formidable: 42 105mm and
three 155mm guns with approximately
10,000 rounds stockpiled by the guns and
more in dumps elsewhere.
The morale and condition of Argentine
troops varied enormously. Those based in
Stanley, mainly administrative units and air
force personnel, enjoyed warm dry
accommodation, showers and hot food.
Moreover, because they lived amongst the
civilian population of Stanley, they were not
subjected to shelling and bombing. The troops
dug in along the coast had experienced aerial
and naval bombardment and were more
exposed to the elements, but food was
plentiful and they were able occasionally to go
into Stanley. But the situation was very
different for the troops deployed just seven
miles away from Stanley on the hills and
mountains to the west and south-west. The
first snow had fallen on 1 June and at night
temperatures fell to minus 12"C. Some stood
up to it better than others. The 5th Marine
Regiment (usually based in Tierra del Fuego)
coped reasonably well but the 4th Regiment,
conscripted in sub-tropical Correntis province,
suffered particularly badly. Many conscripts
had little idea of fieldcraft and lived in
unsanitary, waterlogged trenches - diarrhoea,
frostbite, trench foot and exposure were
common. The biggest problem was food.
Although hundreds of ISO containers in
Stanley stood filled with provisions, the
Argentine logistic command proved incapable
of organising an effective distribution system
for troops just seven miles to the west, who for
days at a stretch received nothing more than
cold, dehydrated rations. Some administrative
troops at a large Argentine depot at Moody
Brook moved food forward on their own
volition, charging the conscripts exorbitant
prices for rations with which they should have
been issued. Conscripts responded by forming
scavenging parties which pilfered from the
depots by night. But movement to and from
front-line positions was dangerous - every
night British patrols penetrated deeply behind
Argentine positions, while British field artillery
and warships kept up harassing fire, which by
10 June had killed 17 Argentines. The morale
of the front-line troops was fragile rather than
bad. Most had developed a great hatred of
administrative units and of their own senior
officers, but the shared privations and the long
wait in the trenches tended to bond rather
than disunite the young conscripts. They now
had more rather than less unit cohesion, and
by and large were in reasonable physical shape
even if uncomfortably dug in. They were also
formidably armed.
By the evening of 10 June 3 Commando
Brigade was ready to attack. The artillery had
stockpiled 11,095 shells and additional fire
support was to be provided by automatic
4." guns of four warships, each gun capable
of laying down fire equivalent to a battery of
six 105mm guns. In all, these ships carried
1,400 rounds. The attack was to develop
from north to south - 3 Para at 2000,
42 Commando at 2030 and 45 Commando
at 2100. Three Para's commander, Lieutenant
Colonel Hew Pike, had been studying the
problems of taking his objective, Mt Longdon,
for some days. Battalion HQ had built a
model of the terrain, and from this it was
clear that there was no easy way of taking
the feature. From the Paras' positions on the
western side of the Murrell River, Mt
Longdon appeared to be a peak about
500 yards wide, rising to a crest which
towered almost 500 feet over the
surrounding moorland. From the eastern side
of the peak a narrow ridge some 300 feet
high ran back 2,000 yards to a second peak,
beyond which lay Wireless Ridge and Port
Stanley. Any attempt to attack from the right
flank was ruled out, because just to the south
over a shallow valley lay Mt Tumbledown,
which intelligence had indicated was
strongly defended by Argentine Marines.
Tumbledown was not due to be attacked
until the following night, which meant that
3 Para would be caught in a murderous
cross-fire. The alternative, an attack from the
north, seemed a better prospect, though the
northern side of Mt Longdon was steep, in
some places ascending in sheer cliffs 100 feet
high. Pike decided that he would try a silent
approach at night from the north and the
west, in the hope that his Paras would reach
the lower slopes of Longdon before the
Argentines detected them.
From his forward observation post Pike
could see that Longdon was a formidable
natural obstacle, but he could not see how
truly terrible it was. Glaciation, and wind and
water erosion had worn into the western peak
a network of crevices and gorges which looked
like the streets and alleys of a medieval stone
village, while the actual peak resembled a
bombed-out church. The sides of alleys and reentrants
were riddled with caves, making
Longdon a paradise for the defender, a
veritable cut-down version of Monte Cassino.
The Argentines had improved many natural
features by tearing up a disused tram line,
which ran along Stanley Harbour, and using
the iron rails to construct top cover - alternate
layers of limestone and peat - which had the
same protective qualities as compound
armour. In addition, Argentine engineers had
placed hundreds of anti-personnel mines
along all the obvious approach routes. More
than 300 Argentines were dug in on Longdon,
including a reinforced platoon of the
5th Marines. They had carefully positioned
eight 50 calibre heavy machine guns, had a
number of 120mm mortars and 105mm
recoilless rifles, and could call on indirect fire
support from the artillery in and around
Stanley.
Shortly after midnight on 11/12 June
3 Para's A and B Companies crossed the
startline and began their advance. The night
was cold with snow in the wind, but soon
the men were sweating. Everyone was
carrying extra grenades, rockets and rifle and
machine gun ammunition, making the
average load about 100 lbs. At first thick
clouds obscured the moon, but with 500 yards
left to cover the clouds parted and moor and
mountain were bathed in pale light. Luck
remained with them for a little while longer
but then a 4 Platoon section commander,
Corporal Brian Milne, stepped on an antipersonnel
mine, which blew off his foot. At
first only a few Argentine positions opened
fire, which suggested that the bulk of the
defenders were asleep, and which gave the
British a few precious moments to get to the
base of the mountain. Here they began to
move through the maze of alleys, detecting
and destroying some Argentine positions,
but being caught in frequent cross-fire as
bypassed positions opened up to the rear.
Casualties began to mount, officers were hit,
and B Company was soon pinned down.
With officers now dead and wounded,
4 Platoon Sergeant Ian McKay gathered
together four survivors and attacked up the
mountain, storming position after position.
His companions were soon dead or wounded
but McKay pressed on alone over the summit
to the northern side of Mt Longdon, where
his body was found the following morning,
surrounded by dead Argentines. He was to
receive a posthumous Victoria Cross.
Meanwhile A Company, attacking on the
northern side of the mountain, had run into
a heavily defended spur and had gone to
ground. Pike withdrew A Company, called in
artillery support, and pushed them through
B Company. The Paras began moving again,
storming Argentine bunkers one after
another, until they controlled the western
peak. They now moved eastward, intense fire
from Tumbledown to the south forcing them
to keep to the northern side of the ridge. A
soldier of 3 Para remembered that this phase
of the battle

was just like being on a machine gun
firing range and everyone was using us as a
target. We could see lads going down. I
thought, 'Oh my God, this is real.' I'd never
seen anything like it before - blokes were
being killed, losing limbs and having their
intestines blown out.

British artillery fire was now coming
down in support, and gradually the
Argentines were forced into a grudging
retreat from the eastern peak. 3 Para had
been fighting for 10 hours, the men were
close to exhaustion, but it wasn't over yet.
Argentine artillery zeroed in on Longdon,
and for the next 36 hours the Paras were
subjected to the most sustained artillery
barrage experienced by the British army
since the summer of 1953 in Korea. Taking
and holding Longdon, the Argentine's best
natural defensive position, cost the Paras 23
dead and more than 50 wounded. Though
some conscripts had given up without a
fight, most Argentines resisted tenaciously.
The majority of the 50 prisoners taken by
the Paras were wounded and the British
found at least 50 dead.
To the south of Mt Longdon, the Royal
Marines of X,Y and Z Companies of
45 Commando had crossed the Murrell River
about half an hour after 3 Para had begun its
advance, and moved towards Two Sisters. This
ridge, with its western and eastern peaks, was
potentially a very strong position, along which
some 300 Argentines with mortars and heavy
machine guns had dug in. The Marine's
commander, Lieutenant Colonel Andrew
Whitehead, intended that X Company should
put in a frontal attack on the westernmost
peak to attract the attention of the defenders,
while Y and Z Companies came in from the
north and hit the Argentines in the right
flank. After only a few hundred yards, the
heavily laden men of X Company (in addition
to their kit they were carrying 40 Milan
missiles, each weighing 30 lbs) found
themselves in a maze of bogs and stone cliffs,
some 50 to 80 feet high. Men were soon
slipping and falling, and one Marine crashed
down a 30-foot cliff and was knocked
unconscious, though the second-in-command
managed to revive him. Meanwhile Y and
Z Companies, coming from the north-west
over relatively open moorland, had made
much better time. Directly to the north,
3 Para's attack on Mt Longdon was now under
way, tracer bullets and exploding mortar
bombs lighting the sky. Now well behind
schedule, X Company moved up the western
peak, but about halfway up ran into fire from
two machine guns. The Marines lobbed mortar
bombs onto the Argentine positions, but after
a few rounds the base plates of the mortars
dug into the peat, making it impossible to aim
the weapons. There was no artillery available,
so X Company fired its Milan anti-tank
missiles at the Argentines, as infantry threaded
their way through a maze of boulders to close
on their positions.
On the northern slopes of Two Sisters,
Y and Z Companies had managed to avoid
being hit by an Argentine artillery
bombardment, but had been pinned by the
fire of 50 calibre heavy machine guns.
Argentine mortar bombs now landed just to
the rear of Z Company, and the Marines,
realising they were bracketed, rose to their feet
and shouting the Company war cry 'Zulu!
Zulu!' charged up the slope. Y Company
joined in the fight, overrunning an enemy
machine gun post. Many of the defenders now
panicked and some 250 withdrew hurriedly
towards Tumbledown. They had suffered
10 dead and 54 wounded. The attacking
companies of 45 Commando had overcome a
force equivalent to their own strength after
suffering only four dead and 10 wounded.
One and a half miles south of Two Sisters
lay Mt Harriet, from which the Argentines
could dominate the south-western approach
to Port Stanley. Visibility was excellent,
observers having a bird's-eye view down to
the coast, a little more than two miles to the
south, while on a clear day they could see as
far as Fitzroy and Bluff Cove. The feature,
about three-quarters of a mile long,
comprised a steep 700-foot horseshoeshaped
peak, with sheer cliffs to the west,
and a box canyon to the east. Running
several hundred yards further east was a
ridge topped by a spine of rocks. About
three hundred Argentines had dug in along
the ridge, using the stony spine as a
battlement. From his forward observation
post on Wall Mountain, Lieutenant Colonel
Nick Vaux, the commander of 42
Commando, could see that an attack due
east would come up against Mt Harriet's
most difficult aspect, cliffs which in places
were between 50 and 100 feet high. If he
went north he ran the risk of a 'blue on
blue' with 45 Commando, then moving on
Two Sisters. He therefore decided to launch
a diversionary attack due west with
J Company, while he sent 42 Commando's K
and L Companies on an outflanking march
to the south-east. Moving across heavily
mined terrain on previously reconnoitred
routes, K and L Companies skirted the
northern shores of Port Harriet inlet, before
they turned north-west to attack Mt Harriet
from the south-east, the one direction the
Argentines were not expecting.
The Royal Marines had luck on their side.
Vaux had been able to secure artillery
support for his diversionary attack, and this
attracted the attention of the Argentinians.
In addition, the battle for Longdon had
begun seven miles to the north, so that
many of the soldiers had turned around to
watch the explosions and tracer fire. About
700 yards south-east of Mt Harriet, K and
L Companies formed up on a wire fence and
pushed forward. The Argentines were caught
by surprise. The Royal Marines stormed
through the barrier, sending most of the
startled defenders running to the west. The
British pursued them, pushing the
Argentines into the box canyon on the
eastern side of Mt Harriet, from where
there was no escape. The defenders soon
appeared amongst the rocks waving pieces
of white cloth. In all, the British took
250 prisoners, and found a further 10 dead
in the rocks. 42 Commando had suffered
just 11 casualties, of which only one was a
fatality.
At the main command post in Stanley,
the field commander for the Stanley area,
Brigadier General Joffre, had attempted
to launch a counter-attack against
Mt Longdon. At 0300 a company of the
3rd Regiment defending the coast south of
Stanley was ordered to move north to
Moody Brook, and thence by a track to
Mt Longdon. The first part of the move, a
distance of only four miles, took five hours;
dawn was breaking as they prepared to set
off along the track and the move was
cancelled. Joffre had already ordered
Argentine artillery fire down on Longdon,
Two Sisters and Mt Harriet, and his guns
maintained a heavy barrage throughout the
morning. British warships had bombarded
suspected Argentine artillery positions
throughout the night without success,
bringing their fire ever closer to the
western edge of the town; indeed one shell
had landed in the town, killing three
Falkland Islanders. It was against these
warships that the Argentines scored their
solitary success of the night. One of the
bombarding ships, HMS Glamorgan,
remained on station later than intended to
support the attack on Two Sisters. In order
to clear Stanley by dawn, her captain took
her just within range of a land-based
Exocet launcher, and she suffered a direct
hit on the stern. Thirteen crewmen were
killed and Glamorgan was out of action for
the final hours of the war.
Moore had originally planned to launch
the second phase of the attack, the assaults
on Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge, on the
night of 12/13 June. But British artillery
had expended so much ammunition that
by this stage none of the 30 guns had more
than a few rounds left. It would take a full
day's flying by Sea Kings to restock to just
300 rounds per gun, barely sufficient for
the coming battle. Moreover, many of the
guns needed to be re-sited. They were too
far to the west to give effective support for
the new attacks without using supercharge,
which would shake the lay of the gun and
make fire inaccurate. In addition, in many
places the ground was so soft that after as
few as 30 rounds some guns had sunk up to
the layer's seat, and had simultaneously
moved back as much as 10 yards. The
resiting of the guns was disrupted by
11 Skyhawks sweeping in from the
mainland. Fortunately for the British their
target was not the heavily laden Sea Kings
but 3 Commando Brigade's Headquarters,
upon which they made seven separate
unsuccessful attacks. Brigadier Wilson had
also requested a 24-hour delay to enable
5 Infantry Brigade to conduct a more
detailed reconnaissance of its objective. For
all these reasons Moore decided to
postpone the second phase of the attack
until the night of 13/14 June.

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