The 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The Argentinians invaded the Falklands on 2nd April 1982 and as you heard last episode, the main force took the islands after a short firefight at Government House which left one Argentinian dead and two wounded and one Royal Marine wounded in the arm there.

The Army’s 25th Regiment was already flying in from the mainland airfield of Comodoro Rivadavia to replace the marine landing force. It would be followed by the 9th Engineer Company, and these two units would constitute the first Argentine Garrison in the Falklands.

Four of the important planes in the coming conflict, the Pucaras, of the 3rd Attack Group then carried out a fly-past and landed at Port Stanley airfield. The Argentinian 25th Regiment to be the main force in the garrison and they were chosen because they were the closest unit to the islands. Some have said they were chosen symbolically as superior troops selected from various units but Argentinians say this was false information.

They were a normal unit with professional officers and NCOs but all the privates were conscripts. This was going to have a bearing on what happened when the fighting started later. The British were sending professionals, whereas the Argentinian backbone of soldiers were all conscripts and in the coming hand-to-hand battles in trenches, this would be a telling difference.

The Falkands British officials were removed on the same day, including most of the Royal Marines which were quickly rounded up. Their commanding officer, Major Norman, later said that his men were treated well by the captors – except when the Argentinian 2nd Marine Infantry Battalion arrived. They weren’t involved in any fighting and yet had set out to humiliate the British troops. While this was going on, Argentina erupted in a day of ecstasy. A communique announced that the fifty two year-old commander of the Buenos Aires first army corps, General Mario Benjamin Menendez had been appointed governor of the Islas Malvinas. At a rally later outside the Casa Rosada presidential palace, General Galtieri told a jubilant crowd that the three commanders in chief of the junta had interpreted the will of the people. His voice constantly broke with emotion at the spectacle before him. Not since the days of Peron had a soldier been so well received. A few days before, this police had shot civilians in the same Plaza, now the square was filled with thousands weeping tears of joy.

In London, the 2nd April was a brilliant spring day – but Westminster and Whitehall were in shock – chilled to the bone by the news. Everyone was talking in hushed tones. It was only hours before that Margaret Thatchers’ cabinet had been discussing methods of deterrence and now these ideas were moot. What was even more incredible, is that throughout Friday morning long after the Argentinians had seized Port Stanley, the British establishment was incredulous about a full invasion. Their communications had been difficult with the Falklands for a number of reasons – including the weather – and they were monitoring the Buenos Aires celebrations with a sense of disbelief.

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