Line of Fire (40/41) : The Liberation of Port Stanley "1982"
For educational purposes
June 1982 saw the final battles of the Falklands War. For the servicemen of the British Task Force, the campaign to defeat a determined enemy had been difficult and costly, but now the capital Stanley, the final prize, lay within their grasp.
This documentary tells the story of the drive to liberate Port Stanley, during which battles such as those at Tumbledown and Mount Longdon found their way into the pages of British military history.
June 1982 saw the final battles of the Falklands War. For the servicemen of the British Task Force, the campaign to defeat a determined enemy had been difficult and costly, but now the capital Stanley, the final prize, lay within their grasp.
This documentary tells the story of the drive to liberate Port Stanley, during which battles such as those at Tumbledown and Mount Longdon found their way into the pages of British military history.
Transcript
00:00In April 1982, Argentina launched a surprise attack on the British-administered Falkland
00:10Islands. Known to them as the Malvinas, the Argentines had disputed the British claims
00:16to the islands for years. But now, with the Junta needing to distract the population from
00:21a deteriorating internal situation, it made its move. British retaliation on a military
00:29front was seen as almost impossible because of the huge distance between Britain and the
00:34islands. However, the Argentines had misjudged the situation, and Britain launched a task
00:46force to the South Atlantic on a campaign that would come to be seen as Britain's last
00:51colonial war. By the end of May, the British had established themselves back on the islands
01:04and had their first land victory at Goose Green. However, the decisive battle in this
01:09war was always going to be the fight for the capital, Stanley.
02:09In May 1982, a heavily armed Argentine fighting patrol trudged along the banks of Moody Brook
02:16between Mount Longdon and Two Sisters, and passed through the western outposts of the
02:21Argentine Port Stanley defences. They now checked their weapons, tightened the straps
02:26on their equipment, and moved cautiously along a jeep track towards the lower slopes of Mount
02:32Kent, the 1,700-foot-high peak which dominated the Port Stanley area. These men were older than
02:41the 18-year-old conscripts who comprised the bulk of Argentine forces in the islands. Their
02:46black woollen caps, night-vision goggles, and can-creamed faces marked them out as special
02:52forces. As they climbed the lower slopes of Mount Kent, cliffs, stone runs, and crevices
03:00canalised their movement to a single track. It was understandable, perhaps inevitable,
03:07but it was the wrong thing to do. Suddenly, the slopes were bathed in the brilliant flickering
03:18light of parachute flares, and the silence was shattered. Argentines fell dead and wounded.
03:33It should have been a rout, but these were professional soldiers, not teenage conscripts.
03:39Recovering from their surprise, the Argentines fought back all night long. With dawn approaching,
03:49and their ammunition almost gone, they pulled back to the safety of the Stanley perimeter,
03:54leaving eight of their comrades behind, of whom two were dead.
03:58Unknown to the Argentines, on the night of the 24th and 25th of May, two days before the Goose
04:13Green battle, troopers of D-Squadron 22 SAS had landed by helicopter on the western slopes of
04:20the mountain. The only Argentine force in the area, a helicopter squadron based at the foot
04:26of the mountain, had been strafed and bombed by Harriers from Invincible and Hermes several days
04:31earlier. The survivors had evacuated to Stanley, leaving the wreckage of their machines on the
04:37improvised airfield. More SAS infiltrated up the mountain over the next few days. From the summit
04:48of Mount Kent, the SAS commander, Colonel Michael Rose, had a bird's-eye view, not only of the outer
04:55rim of the Argentine defences, but he could also see into the streets of Stanley. Fifty miles to
05:03the west, long columns of three para and forty-five commando Royal Marines, heavily laden
05:09with bergens, weapons and extra ammunition, had begun trudging eastward across stone runs and
05:15through peat bogs. Para slang for cross-country marching was tabbing, while the Marines called
05:23it yomping. The task force commander, Brigadier Julian Thompson, had intended to transport them
05:30to Mount Kent by helicopter, but on the 26th of May, an Argentine Exocet missile had sent the
05:37container ship Atlantic Conveyor and all but one of the task force's heavy-lift Chinook helicopters
05:42to the bottom of the ocean. Thompson wanted to delay the move on Stanley. He felt that an advance
05:49on foot was asking too much of his men, particularly after a long sea voyage. But HQ at Northwood told
05:56him to get on with it. In fact, they said if he didn't want to do it, they would appoint someone
06:01who would. The main difficulty insofar as the War Cabinet was concerned, was the fear that Al Haig's
06:08peace missions actually might come up with a compromise which would be very difficult for
06:14Britain to refuse. A compromise which, for example, would allow Argentina to maintain a presence on
06:19the islands. And Mrs. Thatcher was determined that this was not going to happen. This would be seen
06:25to be rewarding aggression. This would be tantamount to a defeat. Northwood was under intense
06:32pressure from Thatcher's government. And in the same way, Thatcher was conscious of a deteriorating diplomatic
06:40situation, particularly in South America, and wavering American support. And so Northwood knew
06:49that they were working within a window of opportunity, and they had to seize it. And there
06:55was enormous pressure on them, and they put the pressure in turn on Moore and Thompson. This is a
07:02difficulty in all wars. When you're actually trying to run a war from 8,000 miles away from your
07:07capital city, you're not going to be in full control of the military picture. It's going to
07:13be the ground force commanders that best know the tactical picture. But there are political
07:19implications of lying in wait, expecting perhaps the enemy to react quite soon. You need to get to
07:27your objective as quickly as possible. That was Northwood's job, to pass down from the war cabinet
07:32the political necessities of the campaign. As the men tabbed and yonked, the weather alternated
07:39between brilliant sunshine, sleet and drenching rain, the wind never dropping below 15 knots. The
07:47ground underfoot often comprised of peat bogs, interspersed with ridges of sharp stones. The
07:55heavily laden men, some were carrying upwards of a hundred pounds, sank up to their ankles in the
08:00soft and springy peat, so that their boots were soon soaked through. After dark, the temperature
08:08dropped to below freezing, and the rain fell as sleet, driven into the faces of the exhausted men.
08:14It's always a difficult business, getting soldiers to actually march across open country,
08:23when they don't have air support, in weather conditions, which could only be described as
08:28variable. You're going to expose your troops to the wind, the rain, the elements, and there's
08:35absolutely no guarantee that at the end of the march, you're going to be able to let them dry
08:40off, you're going to be able to resupply them, you're going to be able to keep them. You were
08:45dealing with soldiers who were being pushed to their physical limits, who because of the lack
08:51of fresh water, drinking out of the peat bogs, were suffering from diarrhoea, who were picking up all
09:00the illnesses that we'd last seen in the First World War. Trench foot, hypothermia, an incredible
09:09achievement. On the 30th of May, two Argentine UHI Iroquois helicopters flew low over the northern
09:18slopes of Mount Kent. Almost skimming the ground, the Argentines flew over three Paris positions,
09:24and onto Top Marlow House, which lay in a valley about five miles to the west. Operating from Top
09:31Marlow House, the Argentines would have good views of the movement of British forces towards Stanley.
09:37It was a daring move, but it had been spotted by a British observation post. Early the following
09:46morning, Captain Rodney Boswell and 18 men of the Royal Marines Arctic and Mountain Warfare
09:51cadre crammed into a Sea King helicopter. Boswell later recalled that the pilot flew lower and
09:59faster than he had ever flown before, to land the cadre about two miles from Top Marlow, in a shallow
10:05valley out of sight of the house. The first the Argentines knew of their presence was when six 66
10:15millimeter rockets smashed through the walls, quickly followed by two more. An Argentine
10:33sentry opened fire, wounded one of the cadre, but was himself shot by a Marine with a sniper's rifle.
10:47Clouds of smoke from the burning house drifting in front of the Argentine positions gave the
10:52Marines their chance. Keeping up a withering fire, they closed with the enemy. After a few
10:59minutes, the Argentines had had enough. They stood up and threw down their weapons.
11:06The Marines had lost three wounded, the Argentines five dead and twelve captured,
11:12of whom seven were wounded. The bite and hold campaign was one that was very fruitful. By
11:28bite and hold I mean a movement forward, biting and holding a key terrain feature,
11:32such as a mountain or a ridge line or a plateau, and then consolidating, bringing up your logistics,
11:39consolidating the position perhaps with more troops. That was absolutely essential and of
11:46great importance to the British and they do that very successfully. Mount Kent and Marlow
11:51has a very good example of that. Also, this attritional-like campaign with the Argentines
11:57losing key positions, getting rid of their intelligence-gathering ability, their forward
12:03observation officers, their patrols, meant that that news eventually filtered back and it had a
12:09great morale effect upon the enemy. Equally, of course, it kept the British blood up, it kept
12:14them interested in the enemy. This bite and hold meant that it wasn't one great battle when they
12:19would put one great push in, perhaps lose a lot of casualties, and may well have failed. They
12:24actually knew that by biting and holding they could have this effect on the enemy and they
12:28could very slowly creep towards the Argentines' centre and their main objective of Port Stanley.
12:35Meanwhile, British reinforcements were arriving in the South Atlantic.
12:41On the 30th of May, 5th Brigade, which had sailed from Southampton on the 12th of May aboard the
12:51QE2, anchored off Gritvicken in South Georgia, and cross-decked to Canberra for the 700-mile
12:57voyage to the Falklands. On the 1st of June, 5th Brigade began landing at San Carlos.
13:05Here, the task force commander, Major General Jeremy Moore, set up his headquarters, while
13:17Thompson, reverting to the command of 3 Brigade, moved his headquarters to Teal Inlet. Political
13:24pressure on Moore to press on and take Stanley was now intense. On the 31st of May, President
13:33Reagan had phoned Mrs. Thatcher to voice his worries over the tide of hostile opinion that
13:38seemed to be sweeping Latin America, an indication that American support was beginning to crumble.
13:46In addition, Admiral Woodward reminded the land commanders that he would not be able
13:50to keep his ships on station much after the middle of June. It was now a race against
13:55time. Between the 31st of May and the 8th of June, elements of 3 and 5 Brigades moved
14:05to encircle Stanley. 42 Commando was moved by helicopter to Mount Kent, 2 Parra was moved
14:15by helicopter to Bluff Cove, while 2 Scots Guards and Welsh Guards were transported in
14:21LSLs to Bluff Cove and Fitzroy. Through a combination of errors of judgement and plain
14:33bad luck, 2 companies of Welsh Guards remained on Sir Galahad while she was at anchor in
14:38Fitzroy for more than 5 hours on the 8th of June. All the time, under observation from
14:44Argentine occupied Mount Harriet, only 10 miles away.
14:51Early in the afternoon, 5 Argentine Skyhawks screamed down on Bluff Cove. They hit Sir
15:00Tristram with 2 bombs, one passing through the ship without detonating, the other exploding
15:05on the vehicle deck. Most of the Skyhawks concentrated on Sir Galahad. 3 bombs crashed
15:17into the ship, their casings burst open and the explosive contents burned fiercely, creating
15:23fireballs. For the British, this was the single bloodiest incident of the war. 46 men died
15:30on Sir Galahad and another 150 were injured, some very seriously.
15:37Surgeon Commander Rick Jolly's diary for the 8th of June recorded the deepening crisis
15:41at the makeshift hospital at Ajax Bay. Slowly, things degenerate into a nightmare. As night
15:49creeps over the horizon, load after load of helicopter casualties begin to arrive at Ajax
15:54Bay. Each patient seems worse than the last, until soon the triage and resuscitation areas
16:00are completely choked. Helicopters continue to clatter in and stretcher-borne casualties
16:05keep appearing in the main door. No one knows how many are coming, only that we've had over
16:11120 victims of the bombing, mostly with burns.
16:18The disaster at Bluff Cove shows the danger of launching an inexperienced brigade, in
16:28this case Five Brigade, on an operation like this. In every respect, Five Brigade was an
16:38ad hoc formation. It had been hastily put together with Scots Guards, the Welsh Guards,
16:47the Gurkhas. It was asked to do something that it wasn't trained or fit enough to do.
16:55The Welsh Guards attempted to march. They'd just come straight from ceremonial duties
16:59in London, and it was simply beyond them. They really needed the same sort of training
17:04that the paras and the marines had had before they were subjected to such an environment.
17:09And so most of the movement had to be conducted by ships. And of course, this exposed the
17:16movement, because we didn't yet have air superiority, to Argentine air attack.
17:24In the aftermath of the war, British commentators argued that the Bluff Cove disaster had one
17:29positive effect. It served to focus the attention of the Argentine commander on the south-western
17:35approach to Stanley. There is, however, little evidence to support this.
17:46By the 10th of June, Menendez's forces were in all-round defence. The 25th, 6th and 3rd
17:53regiments were stationed along the coast, to deal with a direct amphibious assault on
17:57Port Stanley. The Argentine 7th regiment had dug in on Longdon, and faced directly west.
18:05It was supported by a heavy weapons platoon of the Argentine 5th Marines, a regular unit
18:10which was equipped with 8.5 calibre heavy machine guns. To the south, the remainder
18:16of the 5th Marines had dug in on Tumbledown, while to the south-west, the 4th regiment
18:21had dug in on Mount Harriet and Two Sisters.
18:34Before the British blockade had become effective, the Argentines had shipped more than 30,000
18:39mines to the islands. Their engineers had sewn these along all the more obvious approach
18:44routes and landing sites. By this time, the aerial war of attrition with the Harriers
18:50had reduced the Argentine Air Force to hit-and-run raids from mainland bases. But support from
18:55artillery remained formidable. Menendez had at his disposal 42 105mm guns and three 155mm
19:05guns, sighted throughout Port Stanley, usually close to the homes of Falkland Islanders,
19:11where they knew the British would not try to hit them with counter-battery fire.
19:18This was criticised severely after the war, particularly by the British. They said, you
19:23know, the Argentines were static, they were ineffectual, they didn't patrol to any great
19:28extent, they should have actually manoeuvred against the British. Why didn't they come
19:32out and hit them when they were in the San Carlos beachhead? Why didn't they reinforce
19:36Darwin Goose Green more effectively? Well, that's all very well and good if you're dealing
19:41with first-rate regular soldiers of a European army. You would expect that from the French
19:47or the British, or for that matter, the Americans. But this was well beyond the capacity of Menendez's
19:5418- and 19-year-old conscript soldiers. He knew the capabilities of his soldiers and
19:59he knew that to actually try and manoeuvre in the open against the British using his
20:04semi-trained battalions of 19-year-old conscripts would be to invite defeat in detail. The British
20:09would have simply chopped them up. He was rather like Slim at Kohima or Montgomery at
20:15Alamhalfa. He was going to fight a defensive battle. It was the most intelligent way that
20:20he could actually conduct operations. He did his very best to minimise their weaknesses.
20:28The morale and condition of Argentine troops varied enormously. Because of supply problems,
20:34most frontline troops had developed a great hatred of administrative units and their own
20:38senior officers. But the shared privations and the long wait in the trenches tended to
20:43bond rather than disunite the young conscripts. They now had more rather than less unit cohesion,
20:51and by and large were in reasonable physical shape, even if uncomfortably dug in. They
20:56were also formidably armed.
21:05By the evening of the 10th of June, the British were ready to attack. The attack was to develop
21:12from north to south. At 20-hundred hours Zulu, 3 Para was to move on Mount Longdon. At 20-30,
21:274-5 Commando was to assault Two Sisters, while at 21-hundred hours, 4-2 Commando was to attack
21:34Mount Harriet. 3 Para's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Pike, had been studying the battle
21:42problems of taking his objective, Mount Longdon, for some days.
21:48From the Para's positions from the western side of the Moral River, Mount Longdon appeared
21:53to be a peak about 500 yards wide, rising to a crest which towered almost 500 feet over
21:58the surrounding moorland. From the eastern side of the peak, a narrow ridge some 300
22:04feet high ran back 2,000 yards to a second peak, beyond which lay Wireless Ridge and
22:10Port Stanley. Pike ruled out any attempt to attack from the right flank, because just
22:20to the south, over a shallow valley, lay Mount Tumbledown, which intelligence had indicated
22:26was strongly defended by Argentine marines. The alternative, an attack from the north,
22:32seemed a better prospect, that the northern side of Mount Longdon was steep, in some places
22:37ascending in sheer cliffs 100 feet high. Pike decided that he would try a silent approach
22:45at night from the north and the west, in the hope that his Para's would reach the lower
22:50slopes of Longdon before the Argentines detected them. From his forward observation post, Pike
22:59could see that Longdon was a formidable natural obstacle, but he could not see how truly terrible
23:04it was. Glaciation and wind and water erosion had worn into the western peak a network of
23:11crevices and gorges, which looked like the streets and alleys of a medieval stone village.
23:18The sides of alleys and re-entrants were riddled with caves, making Longdon a paradise for
23:23the defender. More than 300 Argentines were dug in on Longdon, including a reinforced
23:31platoon of the 5th Marines. When three Para's A and B companies crossed the start line and
23:42began their advance, every man was sure that success depended on achieving surprise. Thick
23:48clouds obscured the moon, and the high wind drowned out the sound of their footsteps and
23:53the occasional clank of poorly secured equipment.
24:00When only about 500 yards from the base of the mountain, the clouds cleared, and the
24:08moorland was bathed in pale light. They pressed on for another 400 yards or so, scarcely able
24:17to believe that Argentine lookouts had not spotted them. At this point, Corporal Brian
24:23Milne, a 4th platoon section commander, stepped on a mine, which blew off his foot.
24:31The Para's opened fire on Argentine pup tents, killing a lieutenant as he struggled out of
24:41a bunker. An Argentine survivor, Oscar Carrizo, later recalled that the whole place was alive
24:49with tracer bullets. They whizzed past my head and whacked into the rocks and the ground.
24:56I ran for cover and crawled into a bunker with a sergeant. Outside, the English were
25:01running past screaming to each other and firing into tents and bunkers. The Para's were soon
25:08in a maze of alleys. They detected some Argentine positions, but were frequently caught in crossfire
25:15as bypassed Argentine positions opened up in the rear. Casualties began to mount, officers
25:21were hit, and B Company's attack began to lose momentum. With officers now dead and
25:28wounded, 4th platoon sergeant Ian Mackay gathered together 4 survivors and attacked up the mountain,
25:35storming position after position. His companions were soon dead or wounded, but Mackay pressed
25:40on alone over the summit to the northern side of Mount Longdon. His body was found the following
25:52morning, surrounded by dead Argentines. He was to receive a posthumous Victoria Cross.
26:08Meanwhile A Company, attacking on the northern side of the mountain, had run into a heavily
26:13defended spur and had been pinned down. Pike withdrew A Company, called in artillery support
26:20and pushed them through B Company. The Para's began moving again, firing anti-tank rockets
26:26directly into Argentine bunkers and then storming them with grenade and bayonet. Remorselessly,
26:34they hacked their way upwards until they controlled the western peak. They now moved towards the
26:40eastern peak, intense fire from Tumble down to the south forcing them to keep to the northern
26:45side of the ridge. The Argentines kept up a heavy bombardment for the next 36 hours,
26:52which severely tested the nerves of the exhausted Para's. Taking and holding Longdon, the Argentine's
27:00best defensive position, cost the Para's 23 dead and more than 50 wounded. Though some
27:07conscripts had given up without a fight, most Argentines resisted tenaciously. The majority
27:14of the 50 prisoners taken by the Para's were wounded and the British found at least 50
27:20dead. The Argentine conscripts often fought to the bitter end and there is a certain myth
27:29that he just needed to see a British soldier and would lay down his weapon. This is especially
27:35the case when he was cornered. If he had no possibility of fighting his way out of a situation,
27:42then he would often fight to the death, his own death or the death of those that were
27:48trying to overwhelm him. We talk about how poor the resistance was in some cases, but
27:57we also must acknowledge how brave and determined these poorly trained young men resisted against
28:05professional soldiers. To the south of Mount Longdon, the Royal Marines of X, Y and Z companies
28:12of 4-5 Commando had crossed the Murrell River about half an hour after 3 Para had begun
28:17its advance and moved towards Two Sisters. This ridge, with its western and eastern peaks,
28:24was potentially a very strong position, along which some 300 Argentines with mortars and
28:29heavy machine guns had dug in. The Marines commander, Lt. Col. Andrew Whitehead, intended
28:36that X company should put in a frontal attack on the westernmost peak to attract the attention
28:41of the defenders, while Y and Z companies came in from the north and hit the Argentines
28:46in the right flank. But the advance of X company soon fell behind schedule. It took 6 hours
28:54for them to move into position, rather than the 3 their company commander had estimated.
29:01When X company finally moved up the western slopes of Two Sisters, it ran into heavy Argentine
29:07machine gun fire. There was no artillery available and mortar bombs proved ineffective. So X
29:14company fired its anti-tank missiles at the Argentines as the Marines threaded their way
29:20through a maze of boulders to close on their positions.
29:26By this time, Y and Z companies were on the northern slopes of Two Sisters. They too had
29:32been pinned down by the fire of .5 caliber heavy machine guns, and now mortar bombs landed
29:38just to their rear. Realising they were bracketed, the Marines of Z company rose to their feet
29:45and shouting their war cry, Zulu, Zulu, charged up the slope. Y company joined in the fight,
29:52taking enemy positions at the point of the bayonet. Many of the defenders now panicked
29:57and about 250 fled towards Tumbledown. They had suffered 10 dead and 54 wounded.
30:07One and a half miles south of Two Sisters lay Mount Harriet, from which the Argentines
30:12could dominate the southwestern approach to Port Stanley. Lieutenant Colonel Nick Vaux,
30:18the commander of 4-2 Commando, decided to launch a diversionary attack due west with
30:23J company, while he sent 4-2 Commando's K and L companies on an outflanking march across
30:29heavily mined terrain to the southeast.
30:33The diversionary assault by J company was something that was meant to attract the Argentine
30:41attention, whilst another 2 companies then moved in and caught them by surprise. Also,
30:46of course, the surprise element came from the fighting that was going on at Mount Longdon.
30:51A lot of Argentine troops were actually watching that fight and allowed the British to, if
30:57you like, creep up on them.
30:58And of course they were completely surprised when the Royal Marine Commanders came crashing
31:03through the rocks and in amongst them. And they panicked. And there was resistance, but
31:09it was pretty ineffectual resistance. And they ran. And they didn't run to the east,
31:15to the safety of Port Stanley. They ran to the west. And of course they were boxed up
31:21into a canyon at the western end of Mount Harriet. And there, of course, they were trapped
31:29by fire from Mount Challenger, from the Marine firebase.
31:34In all, the British took 250 prisoners and found a further 10 dead in the rocks.
31:444-2 Commando had suffered just 11 casualties, of which only one was a fatality.
31:56Moore had originally intended to launch the second phase of the attack, the assaults on
32:00Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge, on the night of the 12th and 13th of June.
32:04But Brigadier Tony Wilson, commander of 5 Brigade, requested a 24-hour delay to enable
32:10his officers to conduct more detailed surveys of their objectives.
32:14Moore was only too happy to grant an extension. The battles of the 11th and 12th of June had
32:20produced major supply and fire support problems, which would take some hours to resolve.
32:26On the evening of the 14th of June, three battalions moved to resume the attack.
32:35When Moore and Thompson met, they had to work out how they were going to use their forces.
32:39They had two brigades. There was 3 Commando Brigade and 5 Brigade.
32:43Now the problem with 5 Brigade is that it had never trained before as a brigade.
32:48And at least two of its battalions, the Scots Guards and the Welsh Guards, had been on ceremonial duties.
32:54They had not been trained up for this sort of operation.
32:58Nevertheless, these sorts of operations are often dictated not simply by purely military considerations,
33:06but also by military politics. And it was very important that all the battalions down there
33:12were given at least one crack at the enemy.
33:15But there are also other reasons as well, practical reasons, that those battalions,
33:21the Gurkhas, the Scots Guards and the Welsh Guards, have got an awful lot of fighting left in them.
33:27Whilst the Commandos and the Paros have actually been exhausted in crossing and fighting
33:34the inhospitable terrain of East Falkland on their way to Stanley.
33:38So the final battles are really fought as a joint effort between the two brigades.
33:44I think that really does reflect the way in which the division had been fighting
33:48ever since they actually landed at St Carlos and indeed Fitzroy.
33:53The main effort this time was to be by five infantry brigade,
33:57with 2nd Scots Guards assaulting Tumbledown and the 1st and 7th Gurkhas following through to Mount William,
34:04which was a spur stretching south-east of Tumbledown.
34:12Meanwhile, 2 Para, which had acted as 3 Commando Brigades reserve on the 10th and 11th of June,
34:17was to attack Wyler's Ridge.
34:21The initial plan was to go in again the next night, but five brigade were not ready.
34:27They needed more time and so it was delayed another 24 hours.
34:33And this time you had the Scots Guards going in for Tumbledown,
34:40the critical area defended by the cream of the Argentinian force,
34:47the Gurkhas going through for Mount William, but key to it all was Tumbledown.
34:54If you took out Tumbledown, the rest of the jigsaw puzzle would fall apart.
35:00Ideally, of course, you don't give the enemy a chance to regain their composure,
35:06no chance to take the initiative,
35:09but pure tactical and military necessity meant that they had to build up the resources
35:15to strike a final blow towards Port Stanley.
35:18They did that extremely well, but it did take time.
35:23Tumbledown Mountain was a rocky ridge beginning 3 miles west of Stanley
35:27and extending 1.5 miles further west.
35:31The northern edge of the ridge ended in steep cliffs,
35:34making any assault from this direction difficult.
35:39The approach from the southwest was much easier.
35:44Tumbledown and Mount William were the keys to the defence of Stanley
35:48from any attack from the west or southwest.
35:54Consequently, it was here that Menendez had dug in his best unit, the 5th Marines,
36:00who could call on very considerable artillery support, positioned only some 5 miles away.
36:07G Company had been creeping up the western end of the ridge without being detected
36:11and succeeded in occupying about one third of Tumbledown.
36:16Major John Kisney's left flank company then took over
36:19and for 30 minutes continued the advance unopposed.
36:23About halfway along the ridge, they ran into the main Argentine positions.
36:27Hit by a wall of fire, they went to ground, unable to move.
36:32Kisney attempted to call down artillery, but his efforts were unsuccessful.
36:38It was very dark that night. The wind was howling. It was intensely cold.
36:43Kisney recalls that eventually he managed to get through to the gunners
36:49and eventually a shell came in.
36:52But he recorded that instead of the deafening crash he'd been expecting,
36:57there was a rather apologetic little plop,
37:00and he realised at this point that that fire support was going to be problematical.
37:05There was no forward observation officer. He'd actually just gone astray.
37:09He couldn't be found.
37:11And what John Kisney tries to do is to wait three hours to try and find out
37:16exactly what has happened to him, but also to use his own initiative
37:20to get his men to bring up some firepower themselves, some Milan, for example,
37:26to deal with the problems themselves.
37:29It's only when they do that, that after three hours,
37:32they actually get the momentum going again.
37:34Kisney sent his 13 platoon to collect up as many rocket launchers
37:38and machine guns as they could find and work their way along the left flank.
37:44With Kisney in the lead, 14 and 15 platoons attacked.
37:51SHOUTING
38:03Tumbledown was a series of false crests.
38:06As they reached one, another appeared.
38:11In this manner, they covered another 800 yards.
38:14Positions were overrun, prisoners were taken,
38:17and Kisney had to detach more and more men to escort them to the rear.
38:23When he finally reached his objective, a rocky ledge which was the highest part of the ridge,
38:28Kisney had just six men with him.
38:31They stood stock still, looking down at the streetlights of Stanley spread out below them.
38:39It had taken the Scots Guards 11 hours to push 5th Marines off Tumbledown.
38:45The guards had lost 7 killed and 40 wounded.
38:48The 5th Marines, some 30 killed and 14, mainly wounded, captured.
38:56This was the creme de la creme of the Argentinian forces on the Falklands.
39:04And they weren't going to give up lightly.
39:08They fought the Scots Guards every inch of the way.
39:12And this was where you saw professionals versus professionals.
39:19And you recognised that in the end, in that most difficult of operations,
39:26an attack by night, the hard training, the preparation,
39:33the drills that the sections and platoons had carried out, worked.
39:38Meanwhile, 2 Para, now under the command of Lieutenant Colonel David Chaundler,
39:43had been advancing on Wireless Ridge, which extended east-west about a mile to the north of Tumbledown.
39:51The Argentines here were the 7th Regiment, some of whom were survivors of the battle for Mount Longdon.
40:00In all, about 500 were dug in.
40:042 Para were provided with a diversion.
40:08Loaded into Royal Marine Rigid Raiders, D and G squadrons of the SAS sped across Herndon Water,
40:15an inlet to the north of Stanley Harbour,
40:18and came under intense fire from both the eastern slopes of Wireless Ridge
40:22and from massed anti-aircraft batteries north of Stanley.
40:27It was almost miraculous that the SAS were able to put about and escape with only 3 casualties.
40:36The main attack on Wireless Ridge was supported by the heaviest concentration of firepower the British had massed thus far.
40:44Fire!
40:52During the course of the battle, British field artillery pumped 6,105mm shells onto Wireless Ridge,
40:59while 2 frigates lobbed about 600 4.5-inch shells onto the eastern slopes.
41:05The paratroopers advanced with the support of 2 Scorpions and 2 Scimitars,
41:10which kept up a constant stream of 76mm and 30mm cannon fire and 7.62mm machine gun fire,
41:17until all 4 tanks had to withdraw to restock.
41:22All the mortars of 3 Para were attached to those of 2 Para,
41:26and kept up a near-continuous arc of bombs,
41:29while a machine gun platoon firing in support expended more than 40,000 rounds,
41:34and came close to burning out 3 general-purpose machine guns.
41:39Under this weight of fire, Argentine morale cracked.
41:432 Para met little resistance until D Company reached the highest part of the ridge.
41:49Even here the battle was soon over.
41:54The paratroopers lost 14 men, 3 of whom were killed.
41:59Nearly 100 Argentine dead were found in positions on the ridge,
42:03and another 37 mainly wounded were taken prisoner.
42:08The remainder of the Argentines were now fleeing in broad daylight down the track to Stanley.
42:15To the British, it was suddenly clear that the Argentines were collapsing.
42:202 Para pursued the fleeing mass off Wireless Ridge,
42:24while an SAS team infiltrated onto Seal Point near Stanley Harbour,
42:28directed artillery fire to speed them on their way.
42:32To the southwest, the Gurkhas advanced up Mount William,
42:36and were disappointed that the Argentine garrison had left.
42:40In a daring move, 4-5 Commando were lifted by helicopter to Sapper Hill,
42:45the last position before Stanley on which defence was possible, and occupied it without resistance.
42:55For Menendez, it had been a long night.
42:59At first, he believed that his forces had defeated an armoured thrust from the southwest,
43:04and an amphibious assault from the northeast.
43:07But with the dawn had come the realisation that despite a still considerable superiority in firepower and manpower,
43:14he was not going to be able to hold the British.
43:17Menendez found it very difficult to come to terms with the fact that his army had been defeated in the Falklands.
43:25And this is of course not something that is unique to Menendez.
43:31It's of course apparent throughout military history.
43:35When commanders are faced with inevitable defeat,
43:39the possibility that they could be overrun and slaughtered is very difficult for them to come to terms with that,
43:45especially when all eyes are on them.
43:48And of course he talks to Galtieri regularly on the radio.
43:52He tries to get instructions from Galtieri.
43:54He also wants reassurance that if the worst does come, if he has to surrender Puerto Argentino,
44:00that he's surrender will be regarded as honourable.
44:04And of course this is a reassurance which Galtieri will not give him.
44:08And Menendez on the morning of the 14th of June, 1982, was a man who felt utterly, utterly alone.
44:15He felt abandoned.
44:17And once you feel that way, you have no loyalty to anyone else.
44:21You have no loyalty to a higher authority.
44:23Your loyalty becomes only to your poor soldiers who have been unable to keep the British at bay.
44:31At about 1100 hours he spoke by radio to Galtieri,
44:35who told him it would be dishonourable to surrender while he still had the physical means of resistance.
44:41An SAS team monitoring the conversation heard Menendez break down.
44:46I cannot ask more of my troops after what they have been through.
44:50We have not been able to hold on to the heights.
44:52We have no room. We have no means. We have no support.
44:57Having just been deserted by his president,
44:59Menendez turned almost gratefully to the Spanish-speaking British officer on another radio link
45:04and agreed to meet Moore's emissaries that afternoon.
45:08After preliminary negotiations, the surrender was signed at 21.15.
45:14It was absolutely crucial during the Falklands campaign that the British paid due care and attention to their logistics.
45:24They were coming 8,000 miles to the South Atlantic.
45:27An awful lot depended upon how they got the materials they required from Britain onto the Falkland Islands.
45:36Also, of course, once they got there, how they transported those resources
45:41from the beachhead to where they needed to be.
45:44But there is no evidence to suggest that they were at logistic breakdown by the middle of June.
45:55The real danger was the sustainability of the ships.
45:59Admiral Sir Sandy Woodward recorded quite clearly what his situation was.
46:04The ships were literally being battered to pieces by the South Atlantic winter.
46:09It was that dreadful combination of ice and salt water,
46:12which was degrading the effectiveness of communication systems,
46:16degrading the effect of the early warning systems.
46:19And he knew that the time at which he would have to say,
46:23sorry guys, I'm going to have to go back to Ascension Island, to a warmer part of the ocean,
46:29because I simply can't sustain my ships in these conditions down here, was rapidly approaching.
46:35The estimate was that perhaps they could stay on station for another five or six days at the very maximum.
46:44And so it was success at the 11th hour in terms of logistic and critically naval support.
48:04Transcription by ESO. Translation by —