On the 40th anniversary of the Falklands conflict, senior commanders and ground troops reveal how a series of mistakes nearly cost Britain its hard-won victory over Argentina in the South Atlantic.
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00:00:00The government has now decided that a large task force will sail as soon as all preparations are complete.
00:00:09In April 1982, Britain sent nearly 30,000 young soldiers, sailors and aircrew 8,000 miles to the South Atlantic
00:00:18to reclaim the Falkland Islands after they were invaded by Argentina.
00:00:24I hope you're all well. I will be home soon.
00:00:29The hard-won victory would transform the nation.
00:00:32I think the Falklands War was an extraordinary military achievement.
00:00:35We came back after that war to a different sort of Britain.
00:00:41But success wasn't guaranteed.
00:00:46Speaking publicly for the first time, the then commanding officer of the SAS
00:00:50reveals how close the task force came to defeat.
00:00:53They say it was down to ten minutes that we might well have lost the war.
00:00:59Commanders and ground troops talk candidly, shedding new light on flaws in the operation.
00:01:07The whole command chain was utterly dysfunctional.
00:01:10Some claim that Goose Green, the most famous battle in the war, need never have been fought
00:01:16and was a waste of lives and resources.
00:01:20The orders to attack and capture Goose Green, I mean, I thought it was a stupid thing to do.
00:01:31And how a sudden change in the plan for the land campaign nearly lost Britain the war.
00:01:37They were sitting ducks.
00:01:39It was completely unnecessary and sadly cost 200 casualties.
00:01:44The truth certainly needs to be told about some of the things that went wrong.
00:01:48I mean, how did it happen?
00:01:50With recordings of the negotiations to end the conflict uncovered for the first time.
00:01:56He is prepared to consider surrender.
00:02:00And secret satellite communications from a British undercover mission in Chile.
00:02:05Without this information we would have lost the war.
00:02:09Forty years on, the Falklands War is still giving up its secrets.
00:02:19Everyone happy?
00:02:27Jan Christopher Koops is my name.
00:02:29And I was a second in command for the Prince of Wales' company, the 1st Battalion, Welsh Guards.
00:02:37I was the captain of the rugby team.
00:02:39We had an outstanding team.
00:02:41The one or two really standout players was a chap called Di Graham.
00:02:49Alongside him, Clifford Ellie and Andy Walker.
00:02:54And I could probably name you the whole squad as we're sitting in now.
00:02:59And we had just won the Army Cup.
00:03:03It was the pinnacle of my youthful life.
00:03:07Shortly after that sweet moment of success, we heard the news that the Argentinians had invaded the Falklands.
00:03:19It would appear the sun has set on yet another corner of the British Empire.
00:03:24This one far down in the South Atlantic.
00:03:26Argentina today invaded and seized the Falkland Islands, which had been under British rule for nearly 150 years.
00:03:33At two o'clock in the morning I was telephoned by Jeremy Moore, my boss.
00:03:37And he just said, bring your brigade to short notice and sail on Tuesday.
00:03:42This was Friday morning.
00:03:45I was at home and the duty driver knocked at the door.
00:03:49And he says, you've got to get back into camp.
00:03:51I says, why?
00:03:52He says, the Argentinians have invaded the Falklands.
00:03:55And I'm thinking, Falklands, that's got to be a Scotland.
00:03:57Why would they attack Scotland?
00:04:00In 1982, Britain was unprepared to launch a military campaign to reclaim islands 8,000 miles away that few could find on a map.
00:04:14The previous year, we'd just really been hit by the not defence review.
00:04:19It was going to take away our carriers, our amphibious ships, possibly even the Royal Marines.
00:04:23And the discussion went along the lines of, we really need a war against somebody.
00:04:29Just to show the country and the politicians how good we are.
00:04:34If the frantic diplomacy failed, thousands of British troops would need to launch a land campaign on the Falkland Islands to retake them.
00:04:45The task was given to three commando brigade.
00:04:483,000 Royal Marines, backed up by two battalions of paratroopers.
00:04:55But first, the Navy had to transport them to the South Atlantic and land them on the islands.
00:05:01It was the biggest amphibious logistical challenge since D-Day.
00:05:07It was scary.
00:05:10And time was short.
00:05:12It would take at least seven weeks to get a naval task force to the remote islands.
00:05:20And the South Atlantic winter was less than 75 days away.
00:05:26We knew that this was all going to happen 8,000 miles from home, which is an awful long way.
00:05:31We knew that the weather was liable to be dreadful in wars.
00:05:36Things have a ghastly habit of going horribly wrong.
00:05:43In 1982, Michael Rose commanded Britain's elite Special Forces Regiment 22 SAS.
00:05:51He's speaking publicly for the first time about the Falklands War.
00:05:57After 40 years, it's time a full story was told.
00:06:03In 1980, just two years earlier, the SAS had become national heroes when they ended the Iranian embassy siege.
00:06:13But some at the top seemed reluctant to use them in the new crisis.
00:06:17After a couple of days of not hearing from anyone,
00:06:19it became apparent that the Royal Navy had never heard of the Special Air Service,
00:06:23and that we were not on the order of battle.
00:06:25We had to do what we normally do, is make our own way.
00:06:28I telephoned Julian Thompson.
00:06:30Mike Rose, who I knew from Northern Ireland days, rang me up and said,
00:06:35do you want us? I said, right, well, come on, join the party.
00:06:39100 SAS would now join the task force on the journey south.
00:06:47With their naval counterparts in the Special Boat Service,
00:06:50they would be inserted behind enemy lines to prepare for the main landings.
00:07:01It wouldn't all be plain sailing.
00:07:09We were badly equipped.
00:07:11We hadn't got enough of many things that we could expect to have going to war.
00:07:16And it was all, what's the expression? A lash-up.
00:07:20That's the naval expression.
00:07:25A very British lash-up was about to be complicated further.
00:07:30Overall command of the task force was assigned to the Royal Navy,
00:07:33working from its headquarters in a bunker deep under Northwood in Middlesex.
00:07:39Now, the trouble with Northwood was
00:07:41they were accustomed to harassing Russian submarines.
00:07:45Now, you can do that very happily by radio,
00:07:48sitting in a bunker in Middlesex,
00:07:50but trying to run an amphibious operation 8,000 miles away
00:07:54is a totally different ballgame.
00:07:56It was a good decision that the Royal Navy should be in the lead,
00:07:59but what Northwood didn't do was turn itself into an integrated joint headquarters.
00:08:03It had no military or air force input.
00:08:06It was inevitable that it was going to be a command-and-control muddle from the start.
00:08:13Admiral John Fieldhouse would oversee operations from the Middlesex bunker.
00:08:18But instead of appointing a single commander in the field,
00:08:21the Navy appointed three.
00:08:24Royal Marine Brigadier Julian Thompson
00:08:27was in charge of the land force comprising three commando brigade.
00:08:32Admiral Sandy Woodward commanded the naval task force,
00:08:36and Commodore Michael Clapp directed the amphibious landings.
00:08:41The whole command chain was utterly dysfunctional.
00:08:44Throughout, there was this feeling of,
00:08:46who's in charge of this bit?
00:08:48You were never sure at any one point who was driving bits of the campaign.
00:08:52We very nearly lost the war
00:08:54because of some extraordinarily bad decisions that were taken by Northwood
00:08:58with regards to the land battle.
00:09:01There was one other choice that would have a profound effect on the campaign.
00:09:08In three commando brigades' wake,
00:09:11would come a second force,
00:09:13Five Infantry Brigade,
00:09:15to provide reinforcements after the landings.
00:09:19It was made up of a battalion each
00:09:21from the Welsh and Scots Guards and the Gurkhas.
00:09:26In April, it was put through its paces
00:09:28by Brigadier Tony Wilson on a training exercise in Wales.
00:09:34So I thought I'd better go and have a look at this lot.
00:09:37And my first impression was,
00:09:39God, what a bloody shambles this lot is.
00:09:41Surely they're not thinking of sending them abroad to fight a real war.
00:09:47We were sitting in Brecon Beacons
00:09:49and the brigade commander appeared and said,
00:09:52we're going to do a brigade attack tonight
00:09:55and I want you to make the plan.
00:09:57And we thought, hang on, he should be giving us the plan.
00:10:02Brigadier Tony Wilson had come out as so indecisive
00:10:06and so incompetent in Wales
00:10:08that they decided that he should be removed from his command.
00:10:11General Bramall, who was the Chief of Defence, overruled that decision
00:10:15because he thought it would be bad for the morale of the brigade
00:10:18to have his brigadier removed.
00:10:20Bramall told me that it was the worst decision he'd taken
00:10:23in 45 years of soldiering.
00:10:25And it was.
00:10:27I would have sacked brigade commander then and there,
00:10:31just on the evidence I saw on this test exercise,
00:10:34let alone what he got up to when he got to the Falklands.
00:10:38MUSIC FADES
00:10:50When we sailed from Southampton,
00:10:52suddenly everybody's waving the Union Jack again
00:10:55and suddenly all the jingoism, it's all back.
00:10:58It's back to Kipling and standing there on the quayside,
00:11:01waving the flags to go off and fight Johnny Foreigner,
00:11:04somewhere on the other side of the world.
00:11:08On board were the men who would launch the initial landing,
00:11:12the marines and paratroopers of 3 Commando Brigade.
00:11:21My name's Suleil Adji.
00:11:23During the Falklands War, I was a private soldier in 3 Para.
00:11:30I thought, when they hear that we're going to come,
00:11:33they're just going to say, let's go home.
00:11:35But when this ship blew its horn and we started to sail,
00:11:38I thought, hang on, I'm probably not going to come back.
00:11:41In fact, I was convinced I was going to die.
00:11:49For years, the army had been mired in the Northern Ireland Troubles.
00:11:53The crisis gave them a chance to fight a more conventional war
00:11:57against an enemy in uniform.
00:11:59All the way down, we kept getting little news snippets
00:12:03of what the politicians were trying to do and head off this war.
00:12:08We were hoping the politicians weren't successful.
00:12:11We were all sort of anxious to,
00:12:13come on, let's get down there and get on with it.
00:12:15When I look back now, I think it was great, you know.
00:12:18Oh, Britannia, Britannia, oh-oh-oh
00:12:25Britannia, Britannia, oh-oh-oh
00:12:31As the task force headed south, the SAS made a secret deal
00:12:35with US Special Forces friends
00:12:37to ensure they were equipped with the latest high-tech kit.
00:12:43Before leaving England, I got a call from Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Burroughs,
00:12:47named to everybody as Bucky Burroughs,
00:12:50who was the chief executive officer of Delta Force.
00:12:53Michael, you're going to need some things I've got here.
00:12:55I said, what are they, Bucky?
00:12:56He said, you're going to need portable tactical satellites.
00:12:59I said, yeah, I've seen you demonstrate, they would be incredibly useful for us.
00:13:02He said, I'm going to send you eight or nine of those.
00:13:04The new satellite phones allowed Michael Rose
00:13:07to talk to his commanders in the field
00:13:09and the headquarters in Northwood back in the UK
00:13:12using an American satellite channel.
00:13:14What the Americans did was allow us to use that segment of the satellite.
00:13:18The day the war ended, the satellite was switched off.
00:13:24With the British Army still tapping out
00:13:26some of their battlefield communications in Morse code,
00:13:29portable satellite telephones gave the SAS an invaluable advantage.
00:13:34The tactical satellites we had been lent by Bucky Burroughs
00:13:37was a personal loan to me.
00:13:39There was great pressure for me to hand two of them over to the MAD
00:13:42and I absolutely refused to allow that.
00:13:44They had their naval communications
00:13:46and I was not going to let them interrupt my own communications.
00:13:50CHANTING
00:13:53The British were already facing an enormous challenge.
00:13:56The Argentinians had complete control of the islands.
00:14:19CHANTING
00:14:30For Argentina, the war was a diversion from a vicious internal conflict.
00:14:35John Shakespeare, my name.
00:14:37I was at the British Embassy in Buenos Aires.
00:14:44My name's Nicholas Shakespeare.
00:14:46I was in Argentina as an adolescent.
00:14:50The Argentine military dictatorship were getting more and more brutal.
00:14:55The military persecution of the young and of anybody left wing was going on.
00:15:02I mean, we now know that 30,000 people upwards were killed.
00:15:07I think the armed forces felt very contaminated
00:15:11by what they had done to their population
00:15:13and I think they sought an external adventure that would kind of purify them.
00:15:19Britain was also shaken by its own upheavals.
00:15:23It's very hard to recapture the sense of failure
00:15:27that hung over Britain in the late 70s and early 1980s.
00:15:31We couldn't make cars that anybody wanted to buy.
00:15:34We couldn't make a washing machine
00:15:36that was likely to work to the end of its guarantee.
00:15:40It was politically a very divided time.
00:15:44There were riots in many British cities in the summer of 1981.
00:15:52Polls showed that Margaret Thatcher
00:15:54was the least popular prime minister since 1945.
00:15:59Going to war was a high-risk gamble for Mrs Thatcher.
00:16:03So an early success was essential.
00:16:07The first objective was the recapture of South Georgia,
00:16:11800 miles east of the Falklands and part of its territory.
00:16:19South Georgia was absolutely vital to be taken quickly
00:16:24because it signalled that we meant business.
00:16:30A force including 150 marines and 70 SAS troops
00:16:34who had joined the task force on the way down
00:16:36was assigned to retake South Georgia.
00:16:39The SAS seized the initiative by planning a recce behind enemy lines.
00:16:46They wanted to land on a glacier which was called Fortuna.
00:16:50It's about 4,200 feet up and it was a fairly hostile environment.
00:16:56It took three attempts by three Wessex helicopters
00:16:59to get the SAS troopers onto the glacier.
00:17:03The weather was really quite atrocious,
00:17:05very high winds, up to 80 knots, and there was driving snow and rain.
00:17:10We put the troops on the ground, went back to the ship
00:17:14and thought, thank God for that, we're not going to have to do that again.
00:17:18That night, we had a hurricane come through.
00:17:23It was a disaster.
00:17:26Within 24 hours, the 16 men had to be evacuated
00:17:32in appalling weather.
00:17:35It's really like flying down the streets of Manhattan in thick fog
00:17:39with mountains either side of you.
00:17:41Of the three helicopters that took off on the rescue mission,
00:17:45two crashed.
00:17:48Fully laden with SAS.
00:17:51All survived.
00:17:54After Chris and his crew in the remaining chopper
00:17:57dropped off their load of SAS survivors,
00:18:01they had to return to pick up the rest.
00:18:04We put the survivors, all 12 of them, in the back.
00:18:07The aircraft only takes four people.
00:18:11And we were a tonne overweight and we had to wait for an 80-knot wind
00:18:14to take off to give us a lift.
00:18:17And I have to say, a little bit of me was saying,
00:18:20I wonder how they're going to explain this.
00:18:22We've just lost two aircraft
00:18:24and our first sort of attempt to get on the island has gone badly.
00:18:27When dear old SAS screwed up on Fortuna Glacier,
00:18:33had they lost a lot of people, which they nearly did,
00:18:37I believe it might have propelled the government into giving up.
00:18:44Then luck and quick thinking intervened.
00:18:49And we then picked up a high-powered transmission from something.
00:18:55Now, there aren't many ships in the South Atlantic,
00:18:58especially not that far south,
00:19:00so we started thinking, who is operating this type of transmission?
00:19:04We went to have a look at it.
00:19:08Ian, my first pilot, said, it's a submarine.
00:19:17He was just breaking the surface with his fin.
00:19:22We ran in.
00:19:25We dropped the depth charges
00:19:27and the whole back end of the submarine blew out the water.
00:19:31It totally transformed the situation at South Georgia
00:19:35because with the submarine out of the way,
00:19:37it meant that we could go ahead and do almost what we wanted to.
00:19:40Royal Marines and the SAS went ashore.
00:19:43But before they could engage the enemy,
00:19:46HMS Antrim shelled Argentine positions.
00:19:51And they surrendered without a fight.
00:19:54Margaret Thatcher must have been tremendously relieved.
00:19:57It must have been the first moment
00:19:59when she really felt her judgement vindicated.
00:20:02The White Ensign flies alongside the Union Jack in South Georgia.
00:20:07God save the Queen.
00:20:08What happens next? Thank you very much.
00:20:10Just rejoice at that news
00:20:13and congratulate our forces and the Marines.
00:20:16Rejoice!
00:20:18As Mrs Thatcher celebrated,
00:20:21the SAS were planning to insert patrols onto the islands by helicopter
00:20:25to prepare for the main landings.
00:20:30But official reluctance to help
00:20:32meant they had to use their own initiative.
00:20:36Admiral Woodward, the planning conference,
00:20:38asked me who I was and what my contribution could be,
00:20:40which I told him, and he then said to me,
00:20:42Well, Michael, that sounds absolutely wonderful.
00:20:44Please do the best you can,
00:20:46which, in fact, were the only orders I got through the rest of the war.
00:20:49Unfortunately, his staff didn't pick up on that
00:20:51and give me the logistics support I needed,
00:20:54so I had to sort of wing it,
00:20:56using old contacts and common sense.
00:20:59To get behind enemy lines,
00:21:01the SAS needed the helicopters of 846 Squadron.
00:21:05The squadron commander, by chance, had been at the same school with him,
00:21:09so we had certain things in common,
00:21:11and we found it very easy to talk to each other.
00:21:13Well, there was a daily tasking conference.
00:21:16I tended to take the brief and then go and talk to Mike,
00:21:20and he would tell me what he actually needed.
00:21:22Throw the rule book to the wind, get on with what you know is best,
00:21:25work together, and let's win this war.
00:21:28And that's exactly what we did.
00:21:31Three weeks before the invasion,
00:21:34846 Squadron inserted Special Forces
00:21:37using a new generation of night-vision goggles.
00:21:42SAS patrols were flown on to West Falkland.
00:21:46Others were landed at strategic spots on East Falkland,
00:21:50overlooking Port Stanley,
00:21:52at Darwin Goose Green to monitor the Argentine garrison there,
00:21:57at Bluff Cove, seen as a potential landing zone,
00:22:01and Mount Kent, ten miles from the capital.
00:22:06Ship right ahead on that bearing.
00:22:08Ask sonar to identify each target if we can.
00:22:12One month after the crisis erupted,
00:22:14the conflict escalated dramatically.
00:22:23The British submarine Conqueror sank the battlecruiser Belgrano.
00:22:28323 Argentine sailors were killed.
00:22:36Retaliation was inevitable.
00:22:40It's a right-hand ship. The right-hand ship is Sheffield.
00:22:4420 British sailors died after HMS Sheffield
00:22:47was hit by an Exocet missile.
00:22:51It was a sobering moment of,
00:22:53this is it, you know, it's started.
00:22:57The loss of the Sheffield highlighted
00:22:59the vulnerability of the task force
00:23:01as it closed in on the islands.
00:23:06The manuals say that you should not have an amphibious landing
00:23:09unless you've got air superiority,
00:23:11and here we are without air superiority.
00:23:13To help protect the fleet,
00:23:15a secret weapon was needed.
00:23:18It came in the form of a wing commander
00:23:20from the sales department of the Ministry of Defence,
00:23:23now speaking for the first time about his exploits.
00:23:27My job was to be totally covert.
00:23:29Without this information, we would have lost the war.
00:23:44By sinking the Sheffield,
00:23:46the Argentinian Air Force had proved
00:23:48it could stop the task force in its tracks.
00:23:50Something had to be done.
00:24:00My name is Sid Edwards.
00:24:02I was a wing commander at the time of the Falklands War.
00:24:07I was mowing the lawn in my little house in the Thames Valley
00:24:11when my wife threw the kitchen window open and said,
00:24:14''Darling, there's an air marshal who wants to talk to you from London.''
00:24:18I answered the phone and he said,
00:24:20''How long will it take you to get to Northwood?''
00:24:23And I said, ''About an hour, sir.''
00:24:25And he said, ''Well, make it 45 minutes.
00:24:27I'll be there at the main gate.''
00:24:31When Sidney Edwards met his boss, Ken Hare,
00:24:34at Northwood, he was offered an unusual mission.
00:24:37There were more senior officers than I've ever seen in my life.
00:24:42And then Ken Hare said,
00:24:44''Wing Commander Sid Edwards is going to be going out to Chile.''
00:24:47That was the first time I'd heard that I was going to Chile.
00:24:51And so I was a bit surprised, to say the least.
00:24:55For the first time, Sid Edwards talks about his cloak-and-dagger mission
00:24:59to help protect the task force from Argentinian bombers.
00:25:03The cooperation I got in Chile was absolutely first-class.
00:25:07I was dealing with the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Air Force,
00:25:10working directly with President Pinochet.
00:25:15Britain, now in bed with a dictatorship
00:25:18almost as brutal as the Argentine junta,
00:25:21negotiated access to vital radar warnings
00:25:24of impending Argentine air attacks.
00:25:27I discovered that the radar cover from Punta Arenas,
00:25:31which is in the south of Chile,
00:25:33gave very good cover of the Argentinian airfields
00:25:37in the south of their country.
00:25:39And I thought that would be very good
00:25:41if we could get that information as live as we could
00:25:47directly to the fleet.
00:25:50To pass this intelligence on in time,
00:25:53To pass this intelligence on in time,
00:25:55an SAS team armed with one of Bucky Burris's
00:25:58new portable satellite telephones slipped into Chile.
00:26:04Our soldiers, using their satellites,
00:26:06were able to give a warning of Argentine aircraft
00:26:09heading for the Fulton Islands to hit the fleet.
00:26:11And that allowed the Harrier to be in position
00:26:14when the Argentine Air Force arrived.
00:26:16So in a way, it was a war-winning capability
00:26:19that Bucky actually lent us.
00:26:22Chile's secret contribution didn't stop there.
00:26:25Well, I was asked if we could base
00:26:28a Nimrod intelligence-gathering aircraft in Chile.
00:26:32I passed this request on to the Chilean Air Force
00:26:36and they said, yes, you may,
00:26:38but you can't put it on mainland Chile.
00:26:42So Sid helped put the RAF spy plane
00:26:45onto a Chilean island in the Pacific
00:26:47to eavesdrop on Argentine air movements.
00:26:52Many of the skilled Argentine pilots still got through.
00:26:55But at least now, there were warnings of some of the raids.
00:27:00I personally believe, and it's been confirmed by people
00:27:04with much more knowledge than me,
00:27:06that without this information, we would have lost the war.
00:27:11Argentine aircraft, already on the Falklands,
00:27:14also threatened the task force.
00:27:16With invasion looming,
00:27:18the SAS and 846 Squadron improvised a daring raid
00:27:21to take out a force of Pucara aircraft.
00:27:24How the raid actually came about is revealed for the first time.
00:27:32The Argentine Pucara is an extremely capable ground-attack aircraft
00:27:36and could do a lot of damage to Julian Thompson's troops
00:27:39moving in very open terrain.
00:27:41So it was essential that we diminished the numbers of Pucara.
00:27:46There still remained eight of them in Pebble Island,
00:27:49and so Julian asked me if we could destroy those.
00:27:53The raid on the airfield on Pebble Island
00:27:56was initially vetoed by Admiral Sandy Woodward.
00:27:59To launch the Special Forces helicopters,
00:28:01vulnerable warships would have to come within reach
00:28:04of the Argentinian Super Etendard aircraft.
00:28:11We persuaded Admiral Woodward by talking about a radar
00:28:14which we suspected was on Pebble Island.
00:28:17And so he became obsessed with this radar and said,
00:28:20how can we destroy it?
00:28:22An SAS raiding party was inserted near the Argentine base.
00:28:26In a surprise attack, with the support of naval gunfire,
00:28:3011 aircraft were destroyed.
00:28:38Afterwards, Admiral Woodward had a burning question.
00:28:42So when Admiral Woodward said, and what about the radar,
00:28:45what radar, said the squadron commander?
00:28:48There was never a radar. We made it up.
00:28:50I don't think he quite trusted us after that.
00:28:54After considering several plans,
00:28:56task force commanders decided on a landing in San Carlos water.
00:29:00From there, they would attack the capital port Stanley, 50 miles away.
00:29:06Speed was essential.
00:29:08The South Atlantic winter was looming.
00:29:12Back in the UK, the Welsh and Scots Guards and Gurkhas
00:29:17who made up 5 Brigade were ready to sail,
00:29:20a month after the first flotilla.
00:29:24I think most people were surprised at the two battalions that were sent
00:29:30because both Guards battalions had not really had an opportunity
00:29:37to deal with the survival conditions they were going to face in the Falklands.
00:29:44The Guards tell a different story.
00:29:47We were fit, we were trained.
00:29:49Psychologically, we were prepared for it.
00:29:52The battalion was in good shape.
00:29:57Sailing with 5 Brigade and its boss, Tony Wilson,
00:30:00was Royal Marine General Jeremy Moore.
00:30:03On his arrival in the Falklands,
00:30:05Moore would assume overall command of the land forces,
00:30:08allowing Julian Thompson to focus on the battles to come.
00:30:13Before departing England, Moore was questioned about his strategy.
00:30:20A very senior British Army general said to him,
00:30:22so what are the plans for after the landings have taken place?
00:30:25Jeremy Moore said to him, there are no plans.
00:30:27He said, but there have to be some plans.
00:30:29He said, I shall decide what the plan should be.
00:30:32I shall decide what the plan for onward movement from St. Connors Water
00:30:35will be after I've got to the Falkland Islands.
00:30:37But he didn't get to the Falkland Islands until the 30th of May,
00:30:40when the war was almost over.
00:30:43In the meantime, Julian Thompson and his men
00:30:46pressed on with their own strategy for winning the war.
00:30:5050 days after Argentina invaded the Falklands,
00:30:54British forces were finally poised to attempt the island's recapture.
00:31:00$6,000-$4,000 question is day or night.
00:31:03We decided we'd do a night landing,
00:31:05because landing at night meant we'd be pretty well free of the Argentinian Air Force.
00:31:11The Falkland Islands were now under British control.
00:31:14Landing at night meant we'd be pretty well free of the Argentinian Air Force.
00:31:20With the QE-2 still steaming to the South Atlantic,
00:31:23the Royal Navy began landing 3 Commando Brigade at San Carlos overnight.
00:31:30But as dawn broke, men and supplies were still going ashore,
00:31:35and the cruise liner Canberra lay exposed in San Carlos water.
00:31:40It was the most beautifully blue, clear day you've seen.
00:31:43It was absolutely the worst type of weather for being attacked by jet aircraft.
00:31:55Suddenly, enemy air attacks came in from all directions.
00:32:00And I personally was really frightened,
00:32:04because Canberra was stuffed with ammunition and fuel.
00:32:09And if we'd actually been hit, it probably would have been a serious disaster.
00:32:15There's no laughing or joking now.
00:32:17The noise was deafening. Explosions.
00:32:22It was terrifying. I can just remember gritting my teeth.
00:32:26Every muscle in my body was locked tight.
00:32:33The gun crews, mostly 17 years old,
00:32:36soon had more battle experience than anyone else in the Navy.
00:32:40They start shouting up on the radio.
00:32:42Two hostile aircraft, 50 miles, 5 minutes.
00:32:45Heart rate's getting faster, mouth's getting drier.
00:32:48The adrenaline's picking up now.
00:32:50And these two Mirages come screaming through the sound.
00:32:56They're literally at our eye level.
00:32:59I'm just trying to put a wall of lead down ahead of the Mirage at the right elevation,
00:33:04so it flies through it.
00:33:05So I'm chugging away.
00:33:11And I can hear behind me, deciding.
00:33:13He's jumping up and down like his team's won the cup.
00:33:16And I go, yeah, brilliant, you hit it, you hit it.
00:33:22I'm only 17 and here I am on the bridge of the Canberra,
00:33:25shooting at fighter jets.
00:33:35In four days, the Argentine Air Force sank three British vessels
00:33:39and damaged six others.
00:33:43There was definitely a psychological wobble.
00:33:45I think people were beginning to worry about
00:33:47how long the Navy could sustain losing ships in the way they did.
00:33:51The British ships suffered heavy losses.
00:33:55The ground troops landed unopposed.
00:33:59Took six weeks to sail down there, and every day, twice a day,
00:34:02I'd wax my German paratrooper boots,
00:34:05and I'd wrapped tape around the top
00:34:07so the water wouldn't get in from the top.
00:34:09And I'd go, I'm going to go, I'm going to go.
00:34:11And I'd go, I'm going to go, I'm going to go.
00:34:13And I'd go, I'm going to go, I'm going to go.
00:34:15And I'd go, I'm going to go, I'm going to go.
00:34:17And I'd wrap tape around the top
00:34:19so the water wouldn't get in from the top.
00:34:21And then I ended up in the water.
00:34:23As I was walking, I thought, the boots are good, the boots are good.
00:34:26No, they're not. The water started coming in.
00:34:28So I had wet feet from day one, and I was not a happy soldier.
00:34:34British troops were now 50 miles from Port Stanley.
00:34:38But the small SAS patrol on Mount Kent
00:34:41was just 10 miles from the capital.
00:34:44Such an advanced position, free of the enemy,
00:34:48focused the minds of the land commanders now ashore.
00:34:51Mount Kent is rather like the top of a stairway leading down to Stanley.
00:34:55It's the highest mountain in the area.
00:34:57Once you're up there, it's downhill all the way.
00:35:00So Mount Kent, to my mind, was the key to this whole thing.
00:35:04Julian Thompson and Michael Rose wanted to act fast
00:35:07and move troops up to secure the mountain.
00:35:11And we should have moved on 25 May, four days after the landing.
00:35:16From there, the British artillery could shell all their positions.
00:35:20But the advance to capture Mount Kent was about to stall
00:35:25due to the biggest logistical disaster of the war.
00:35:35I remember thinking and saying to all my fellow officers,
00:35:38the 25th of May is Argentina's national day.
00:35:41It is inconceivable that they won't conduct a big strike.
00:35:45And we were all thinking to ourselves,
00:35:47we've just got to get through till sunset and things will be fine.
00:35:54The biggest British supply ship, Atlantic Conveyor,
00:35:58moved in with a naval escort to unload its cargo.
00:36:03I have to say that I wasn't aware
00:36:05that Atlantic Conveyor was coming in in daylight.
00:36:08Unlike the Royal Naval vessels,
00:36:10the civilian container ship had no anti-missile protection.
00:36:16When the convoy was attacked by Exocet missiles,
00:36:19the warships fired aluminium strips, known as chaff,
00:36:22to attract the projectiles away from their targets.
00:36:27But behind the curtain of chaff lay the Atlantic Conveyor.
00:36:32EXPLOSION
00:36:35And then we heard that Atlantic Conveyor
00:36:37had been struck by one, maybe two Exocets.
00:36:40At the time, we thought it was criminal
00:36:42that Atlantic Conveyor was brought in before sunset on that day,
00:36:46and even today I don't know who made that decision.
00:36:49The ship's supplies were essential to the land forces.
00:36:54Four Chinooks, a lot of Wessex helicopters,
00:36:57all our combat supplies, rations, tents,
00:37:00had all gone down on the Atlantic Conveyor.
00:37:02The whole game was changed hugely.
00:37:04I remember thinking,
00:37:06this is all getting a bit serious.
00:37:09After the loss of five ships
00:37:11and with five brigades still 1,000 miles away,
00:37:14the politicians back home were becoming impatient.
00:37:20Their attention was drawn to the settlements of Darwin and Goose Green,
00:37:24the sites of an Argentine garrison and an airfield.
00:37:28Margaret Thatcher was increasingly saying,
00:37:31look, we have to give something to the people of this country
00:37:34to show what we're doing.
00:37:36War is politics by another means, isn't it?
00:37:38So I sent for H and I said, you're now going to have to capture it.
00:37:42H was Herbert Jones, the commander of Two Power.
00:37:47We all called him H. He was fiercely loyal,
00:37:50he was fun to be with, very proud of the battalion.
00:37:53He was an absolute military fanatic
00:37:57and he was a very good soldier.
00:37:59The attack on Darwin-Goose Green to the south of the beachhead
00:38:02meant delaying the move to Mount Kent, championed by Michael Rose.
00:38:07Good news for the Two Power commander.
00:38:10H Jones came running back saying,
00:38:12ha-ha, you've lost your move and I've got my battle back.
00:38:15Well, it was an absolute shock to me.
00:38:17We were suddenly held up on our main advance
00:38:19and ordered to go and attack Darwin-Goose Green,
00:38:22which was in quite the wrong direction.
00:38:24To go and attack off the line of march an unnecessary target,
00:38:28use up time, use up resources, was completely nonsensical.
00:38:33The plan was that they would have taken Goose Green by first light,
00:38:37but the light had started to come up
00:38:39and I think things had grown to a halt
00:38:41and this particular trench was holding them up.
00:38:44And he was not somebody who would ask people to do something
00:38:48he wasn't prepared to do himself.
00:38:50He was leading a platoon attack
00:38:52and as he approached the machine gun position, he was scythed down.
00:38:56That was taken where they landed initially.
00:39:00It was in his camera when it was returned.
00:39:04It's quite a precious photograph, really.
00:39:1120 pirates were killed in that battle, including my good friend H Jones.
00:39:18Lieutenant-General Jones,
00:39:21Captain Wood,
00:39:23Captain Gates,
00:39:25Lieutenant Farley.
00:39:27People say, retrospectively,
00:39:29that it was a great psychological blow to the Argentines,
00:39:32but the psychological blow was not nearly as great as it would have been
00:39:36had an artillery of batteries from Mankent
00:39:39been closing down every single Argentine defence position
00:39:42with observed artillery fire.
00:39:45With the advance on Port Stanley delayed by the assault on Goose Green
00:39:49and its five brigade prepared to disembark in San Carlos water,
00:39:53the small SAS force on Mount Kent was discovered by the Argentinians.
00:40:00Because we hadn't moved to Mankent when we should have done on 25th May,
00:40:04the Argentines had already flown in some special forces units
00:40:08to knock us off the top of Mankent.
00:40:12Julian Thompson ordered Marines from 42 Commando forward,
00:40:16by helicopter, to take Mount Kent.
00:40:19We were hugging the ground.
00:40:21The helicopter was getting thrown from side to side.
00:40:24Everything's in pitch black.
00:40:26We're going 60km into no-man's land here.
00:40:28Are we going to be fighting for our lives as soon as we jump off?
00:40:32We pile out of the chopper and there's a firefight in progress
00:40:35and tracers streaking all over the place.
00:40:37I was absolutely terrified.
00:40:39I just huddled behind a rock,
00:40:41wondering at what moment I'd meet my maker.
00:40:51By the time we got there,
00:40:53the Argentine special force were almost up onto the ridge
00:40:57from which they could have brought direct fire down onto the landing helicopters.
00:41:01Then, as Julian Thompson said, it would have been game over.
00:41:10..in superior force in the place
00:41:13and the British forces would have been arriving in their most vulnerable form
00:41:18inside the helicopters, subject to the fire of our people from the ground.
00:41:23So it was down to ten minutes that we might well have lost the war.
00:41:29After a fierce fight, the British drove off the Argentinians from the peak.
00:41:34We yonked right up to the absolute summit of the mountain.
00:41:39And through binoculars, we could see the Argentines moving around.
00:41:44For the first time, you thought, maybe we're going to win this thing.
00:41:48We were within reach of Port Stanley.
00:41:50We'd come all this way and suddenly there was this little hamlet
00:41:55with red-roofed houses in the distance.
00:41:58It made you wonder, have we come all this way just for that?
00:42:03The capture of Mount Kent cleared the way for more marines and paras
00:42:07to move up for the final assault.
00:42:10But with a shortage of helicopters from the loss of the Atlantic Conveyor,
00:42:14most of them had to walk.
00:42:17Nobody forgets how large the Falklands are.
00:42:20Taken together, the land mass is the size of Wales.
00:42:25The three para and four-five commander
00:42:27were the only ones that walked across the island.
00:42:31It was about 90km.
00:42:34We all had about 150lb on our back.
00:42:39The ground was terrible.
00:42:42And if you stand on the tufts of grass wrong,
00:42:45you slide off and you can snap your ankles.
00:42:54And that was a march from hell.
00:42:58And that was a march from hell.
00:43:00It really was. It was so hard.
00:43:05With marines and paras now advancing across the north part of East Falkland,
00:43:10Julian Thompson and his team still favoured a swift strike on the capital.
00:43:18But the arrival of Jeremy Moore and Tony Wilson's 5th Brigade at St Carlos
00:43:22put a stop to that.
00:43:25I was about to give orders for our attack
00:43:29when I was told about the move round to the south, and I stopped it.
00:43:36Moore proposed a new plan,
00:43:39moving 5th Brigade along a separate southern route,
00:43:42a so-called Great Leap Forward,
00:43:45allowing them to catch up with the marines and paras.
00:43:49Now scant resources would have to be shared between two brigades.
00:43:55I didn't for the life of me think that I would have to look after
00:43:58the logistics of 5th Brigade as well.
00:44:01I had to divide my very slim resources twice as much as before.
00:44:08And I did get over and see the commander of 5th Brigade
00:44:12to try and bend his ear a bit,
00:44:16and I came away empty-handed.
00:44:18I think that's probably as far as I dare go.
00:44:22We'll tell you everything that we know at this time.
00:44:25I'll also tell you what I intend to find out as soon as I may find it out
00:44:29and how I intend to find it out.
00:44:31And at the end of the day, well, then you'll be right up to speed,
00:44:34totally in my mind, and you'll know exactly what's going on.
00:44:37Tony Wilson said, the intelligence is going to be so good
00:44:40that you'll know the name of the man in the trench opposite.
00:44:43And we all thought, yeah.
00:44:45The only real intelligence we got was off the BBC World Service.
00:44:50And that bloody Edith Wilson took it upon himself
00:44:54to mobilise his brigade and start moving along the south.
00:44:58Crazy thing to do.
00:45:00I've long had my eye on moving as far forward as I could get
00:45:04so that I could get myself poised for whatever comes
00:45:07in what you might call the final phase.
00:45:10And certainly Fitzroy and Bluff Cove
00:45:13were two places that we particularly wanted.
00:45:16I perceive that Tony was engaged in some sort of race
00:45:19with three commander brigades to get his chaps there first.
00:45:23The thing about military set-ups is everyone thinks about their own side.
00:45:27You know, even people on your own side who aren't part of you are the enemy.
00:45:31Brigadier Wilson wanted Fire Brigade to move quickly,
00:45:35but there was little transport available.
00:45:38His first proposal met resistance.
00:45:41John Crossland is one of my favourite officers.
00:45:43I love John Crossland dearly because he's a sort of complete rebel.
00:45:47Tony Wilson wandered in and said, I want you to walk to Fitzroy.
00:45:50And John looked up and said, Brigadier, are you pissed?
00:45:56Well, one of the principles of war is concentrate your force.
00:46:00And we were spreading ours out.
00:46:03And it's like not having enough marmite
00:46:06to put in your bread and butter in the morning.
00:46:08If you start putting marmite on the wrong things,
00:46:11you'll end up with nothing worth eating.
00:46:15The idea that we should attack from case to case
00:46:18with inadequate combat and logistic resources
00:46:21and, most of all, an inability to communicate
00:46:24from the headquarters round to the southern flank,
00:46:27I was shocked when I heard,
00:46:30and I even tried to argue with General Jeremy Moore,
00:46:34who wasn't in a listening mode.
00:46:36And it was the first time I felt, during the entire war,
00:46:40that we might actually lose this war.
00:46:42It was a very silly thing to do, in my opinion,
00:46:45because to start with, the only way down there
00:46:48to take supplies and people was by sea.
00:46:51And it's a 17-hour trip round, so you can't do it in darkness.
00:46:58As 3 Commando Brigade consolidated its positions around Mount Kent,
00:47:035 Brigade began their great leap forward.
00:47:06Most of the troops would need to be moved by ship.
00:47:11But without the knowledge of other commanders in the field,
00:47:15Brigadier Wilson decided to fly to Parra to secure Fitzroy
00:47:19by commandeering the last remaining Chinook helicopter.
00:47:24We shoved as many soldiers as we could into that Chinook
00:47:28and we kept cramming them in, and when they didn't fit any longer,
00:47:32we literally booted them into the helicopter and got them in.
00:47:37My Brigade Recce Troop were on some high ground
00:47:40overlooking Fitzroy, about 10 miles away.
00:47:44And they saw a Chinook landing at Fitzroy.
00:47:47We assumed, because the Argentines had Chinooks,
00:47:51that it must be some kind of raid.
00:47:54And so we started to call down an artillery strike on the helicopter.
00:48:01And the guns were being heaved round from pointing that way
00:48:05to pointing that way.
00:48:07The senior gunner realised that it actually might be our own,
00:48:14so at the last minute the strike was called off.
00:48:18So we nearly lured a fire mission regiment onto our own side
00:48:22because we weren't kept in the picture as to what the hell was going on.
00:48:27But Five Brigade's troubles were only just beginning.
00:48:41By the evening of 7 June, the final shipment of Welsh Guards
00:48:45was being moved to catch up with the rest of Five Brigade.
00:48:51The only way to ferry them round to the southern forward bases
00:48:54was by ship from St Carlos.
00:48:58This meant a 17-hour journey on the unprotected vessel, the Sir Galahad.
00:49:07We were given a clear set of plans.
00:49:09We would be taken around, under cover of darkness,
00:49:12and offloaded into Bluff Cove.
00:49:14Things slightly altered.
00:49:16The medical corps was put on board the Galahad
00:49:19to go round to come off at Fitzroy.
00:49:22This delayed our sailing, as a result of which
00:49:25there was not the possibility of offloading us
00:49:30in or around Bluff Cove, under cover of darkness.
00:49:36By daybreak, Sir Galahad and another supply ship, Sir Tristram,
00:49:40were off Fitzroy, still short of Bluff Cove.
00:49:47250 Welsh Guards on board the Galahad waited whilst ammunition,
00:49:51a medical team and an anti-aircraft unit were unloaded.
00:49:56I remember saying, I thought we were meant to be escorted
00:49:59with some frigate or some ship or something, which weren't there.
00:50:02That was a bit worrying.
00:50:04We were quite shocked that the ships were out there in the open,
00:50:07somewhere where none of us expected the campaign to have gone,
00:50:10to tell you the truth.
00:50:12In plain sight of an Argentinian observation position,
00:50:15and also during daylight.
00:50:17My concern is, why was it taking so long, unloading?
00:50:21I spoke to the commanding officer, I tried to urge him to get off.
00:50:25They were sitting ducks and totally open to Argentinian air attack.
00:50:30He advised us to get off as soon as we could,
00:50:34which my immediate boss understood.
00:50:39Wanted to clarify orders, but at the end of the day,
00:50:44we wanted to get ashore as soon as we could.
00:50:53The Skyhawks came in to attack.
00:50:57And we're out again with our gunfire, chasing them too late.
00:51:16There was a massive explosion, the whole ship rocked
00:51:20and everything went sort of instantly black.
00:51:24There were a load of lads burst through the door
00:51:26and they just shouted, the ship's been hit.
00:51:30We knew nothing until we saw the black smoke
00:51:33billowing out of the landing ship, Sir Galahad.
00:51:37I was physically lifted up
00:51:39and blown probably about eight feet backwards.
00:51:43You breathe in, and you're breathing in this toxic mess.
00:51:48And you shout out to everybody else, get down, get down on the floor.
00:51:52In that moment, you were so vulnerable.
00:51:56You just felt like a child that's been completely
00:52:02immersed in some appalling experience.
00:52:08We were now on our hands and knees.
00:52:10We couldn't go back because we had guys coming in behind us.
00:52:13We couldn't go any further. It was just absolute pandemonium.
00:52:18I remember cheering them on and saying,
00:52:20we're done for, this is us.
00:52:24There was a couple of lads with their heads on fire.
00:52:28Anyone that was in there wasn't surviving.
00:52:31It was just rounds coming at us, bombs.
00:52:47We looked to see if there was any more casualties,
00:52:50but I think anyone in there was gone.
00:52:55Just horrific, really.
00:52:57I'd never seen anything like that before,
00:53:00and probably never seen anything like that afterwards.
00:53:06Sorry.
00:53:11Every boat and landing craft went out to help.
00:53:14The unanswered question was why hadn't they been used five hours earlier
00:53:18to get the men off as soon as they'd arrived?
00:53:25There had been some incredibly heroic acts carried out
00:53:28by a number of guardsmen in the way in which they went back
00:53:32into this blazing inferno to try and help pull people out.
00:53:37The way in which they came together...
00:53:41..to get themselves off that boat...
00:53:45..was outstanding.
00:53:49I think it needs to be recognised.
00:54:03I mean, what were we doing, tracking a thin red line coast to coast?
00:54:07I mean, how did it happen?
00:54:11Had we rolled the attack on 30 May,
00:54:14when Julian Thompson felt he was able to do it,
00:54:17then, of course, we'd have probably won the war in the next two or three days,
00:54:21and we would have never had to suffer the awful losses that we did incur
00:54:25by aiming up a southern flank.
00:54:27This great leap forward was completely unnecessary
00:54:30and, sadly, cost 200 casualties from the attack on Sir Galahad.
00:54:41I was fortunate enough to be the captain of the Welsh Guards rugby team.
00:54:45Unfortunately, on the Galahad,
00:54:48we lost two really prominent members of that side,
00:54:51two outstanding members of that side,
00:54:54in Cliff Ellie and Andy Walker.
00:54:58There hasn't been a day since...
00:55:02..the 8th of June, 1982,
00:55:05that I have not remembered in some way.
00:55:0832 Welsh Guardsmen lost their lives,
00:55:11along with 11 other servicemen
00:55:14and five crew members.
00:55:16150 were wounded.
00:55:21Despite the setback of Fitzroy,
00:55:24the war still had to be won.
00:55:27The advance on Port Stanley was blocked
00:55:30by a ring of mountaintop defences
00:55:32The advance on Port Stanley was blocked
00:55:35by a ring of mountaintop defences
00:55:37and time was running out.
00:55:39Admiral Woodward said that he was unable to sustain the carrier force
00:55:43at sea beyond mid-June.
00:55:45So, in Wellington's words, it was really a very close-run thing.
00:56:03I'd never been so cold in my life.
00:56:07It was a wind chill.
00:56:11But on top of that, every couple of hours,
00:56:14you got a torrential rainstorm.
00:56:21Some people went without resupply of food for three days.
00:56:27The logistic shortfall
00:56:31created by Fire Brigade
00:56:34was a very significant effect on us.
00:56:39I can remember being starving hungry.
00:56:41We were making 24-hour ration packs
00:56:43stretched to two or three days.
00:56:45We were using water out of muddy puddles.
00:56:48Very grim existence.
00:56:51Boats simply were hopeless
00:56:55and trench foot became an increasing issue.
00:57:01In the morning, when I looked at my feet,
00:57:03I couldn't believe it.
00:57:04They were like size 15.
00:57:05They were massive.
00:57:07The pain I was going through was like someone had grabbed your foot,
00:57:10got a needle, stuck it in and started scratching the bone.
00:57:13There was no danger of being defeated by the Argentines.
00:57:16There was a serious danger of being defeated by exposure.
00:57:22If we'd had to go on for another two weeks,
00:57:25probably things would have been different.
00:57:31The next day, British forces began the battle for Port Stanley,
00:57:36attacking the mountaintop defences around the capital.
00:57:40Royal Marines prepared to attack
00:57:42Mounts Harriet and Two Sisters in night assaults.
00:57:46Three Powers' objective was Mount Longdon.
00:57:50The Sergeant Major, Johnny Weeks,
00:57:52what a man, amazing man.
00:57:55He gave his speech and he said,
00:57:58Perhaps you might want to pray to them
00:58:00and some of you might not come back.
00:58:02He gave us the truth, which is what we needed.
00:58:04We knew we were going to go into Hell's Gates.
00:58:08We then set off and it was silent
00:58:11and I could see Mount Longdon, it was a silhouette
00:58:14and it reminded me of Scooby-Doo
00:58:16when you see the haunted castle in the silhouette.
00:58:20My skin was alive, it was prickly, it was really weird.
00:58:24As we got closer, I heard that noise, the explosion.
00:58:32A friend of mine, Brian Mills, stood on the mine
00:58:35and he was in agony and then the whole world lit up.
00:58:42It was pitch black, the sky changed colour
00:58:45with the illuminating rounds, it was just hell.
00:58:49EXPLOSIONS
00:58:51The guy who was just one foot away from me
00:58:54got shot in the eye and went down.
00:59:00The guy was dead before he hit the ground.
00:59:19We were up fighting for a day and a half
00:59:22and then getting bombarded for a day and a half.
00:59:24We couldn't sleep.
00:59:29All of a sudden, this flash just went past my eyes
00:59:32and I dropped down and I looked up
00:59:34and I could see a sniper taking a headshot at me.
00:59:40I was in shock.
00:59:42I couldn't believe it.
00:59:44I looked up and I could see a sniper taking a headshot at me.
00:59:52A lot of the leaders had been taken out
00:59:54and we just pick our own battles, basically.
00:59:57We do what we're trained to do.
00:59:59We actually defeated the enemy
01:00:01by using our initiatives and fighting together.
01:00:04I'll tell you who wins wars, the troops.
01:00:07Generals can make plans.
01:00:09The responsibility for making it work
01:00:11devolves very quickly down to the lowest level.
01:00:14In the battle for Longden,
01:00:16more than 200 British and Argentine troops were wounded
01:00:20and 50 killed.
01:00:22After we defeated the enemy, we had to then look after our dead.
01:00:27It's only right and proper.
01:00:29To pick them up and move them was the worst thing I've ever done.
01:00:35It actually is one of the triggers for my PTSD today
01:00:40cos I keep seeing a certain instant
01:00:43where I had to remove one of our soldiers' helmets
01:00:49and it wouldn't come off.
01:00:51So I got told to kick it off.
01:00:55And when I did, I wasn't expecting to see what I saw.
01:01:00But that haunts me to this day.
01:01:09After more desperate hand-to-hand fighting,
01:01:12the Scots Guards took Mount Tumbledown
01:01:15and Tupara captured Wireless Ridge.
01:01:18The British Army had fought some of its hardest battles
01:01:21since World War II,
01:01:23but another struggle for Port Stanley loomed.
01:01:27We wanted the people to move from their positions,
01:01:31to go out and fight in an offensive manner.
01:01:37To avoid a bloodbath and heavy civilian losses,
01:01:40the Argentine commander, General Menendez,
01:01:43had to be persuaded their situation was hopeless.
01:01:48Michael Rose opened negotiations
01:01:51and relayed them back to London using the portable satellite phone.
01:01:57The General is in consultation with his colleagues on this point
01:02:01and has just returned, so I will come back to you in a moment.
01:02:05Listening to them now after 40 years really makes the hair go up
01:02:09on the back of your head, hearing a sort of voice from 40 years ago
01:02:13who did not know what the outcome of the negotiations would be.
01:02:16No-one's ever listened to them before.
01:02:18He is prepared to consider surrender
01:02:22along the lines of the two points.
01:02:25Was that it?
01:02:31This is me talking now, sitting in the room opposite Menendez,
01:02:35who had a sort of team of people,
01:02:37whereas Menendez having to leave the room
01:02:39and go and talk to President Galtieri about what the next step should be,
01:02:42all I had to do if I needed reassurance or clarification at some point
01:02:46was to pick up the telephone and talk straight back to London.
01:02:49And so I had the moral and psychological advantage
01:02:52during the negotiations from the outset.
01:03:06End of the war.
01:03:19I didn't want it to be a souvenir for any Briton.
01:03:23I threw it into the fire and cried like a boy.
01:03:35I don't believe in fair and unjust wars.
01:03:38I don't believe it.
01:03:40A drop of blood from an Argentine or an Englishman
01:03:43has suffering behind it.
01:03:46And it's not good for the world.
01:03:49It's not good.
01:03:52I have just heard that the white flag is flying over Stanley!
01:03:57It has taken 40 years for some to reveal
01:04:00what they really think about key aspects of the war.
01:04:06I mean, the truth certainly needs to be told
01:04:08about some of the things that went wrong.
01:04:11The Board of Inquiry,
01:04:13the loss of the Tristram and the Galahad,
01:04:16turned out to have been a complete whitewash
01:04:18by saying it was necessary to open up a southern flank.
01:04:22Actually, the opposite is true by 180 degrees.
01:04:26But that remains in the public record today,
01:04:29that the southern flank was essential to the retaking of Port Stanley.
01:04:32Wrong. It was not.
01:04:34And it nearly cost us the war.
01:04:37Lieutenant-Colonel Joe!
01:04:39The order to attack and capture Goose Green.
01:04:42It slowed the whole thing down.
01:04:44I mean, I thought it was a stupid thing to do.
01:04:46And we wouldn't have lost so many people.
01:04:48Maybe H would be alive today.
01:04:50Corporal Hartford! Corporal Sullivan!
01:04:53These lessons do need to be learnt so that it doesn't happen again.
01:04:57It's not about catching people out and slagging people off
01:05:01or anything like that.
01:05:03It's about making a difference in the future, isn't it?
01:05:06The task force returned to a rapturous welcome.
01:05:10And there were all these boats and people and bands
01:05:14and it was fantastic.
01:05:19There was one unexpected cost of the victory.
01:05:25It is estimated that up to 28% of those involved in close-quarters action
01:05:30suffered some form of trauma.
01:05:33I was violent. I was having fights with people.
01:05:36I was getting into trouble.
01:05:38Things that were just nonsensical,
01:05:40things I'd never even dreamed of doing now or before,
01:05:43totally changes your personality.
01:05:4740 years on, it's a long time.
01:05:52But in many ways, it's no time.
01:05:56I've got those families with me now.
01:05:58I've got those guys which I'm sitting here now talking to.
01:06:02They've been with me every day of my life.
01:06:05And will be, sir.
01:06:08And then wherever we go at the end of life, I'll go and join them.
01:06:13There we are.
01:06:17It's the end of the British stiff upper lip.
01:06:20It would have been unthinkable to a previous generation of veterans
01:06:25to talk about their combat experiences.
01:06:28And in a way, it also indicates a breaking down of rigid class divisions.
01:06:39I think the Falklands War was an extraordinary military achievement.
01:06:43I don't think it's just sentimentality
01:06:45to say that we came back after that war
01:06:48to a different sort of Britain from the Britain that we left.
01:06:51And we discovered that even if we weren't very good at making motorcars,
01:06:56we could still win a jolly good little colonial war.
01:06:59It was crazy, but it was wonderful.
01:07:02So I went back to the Falklands in 2002
01:07:05and we looked out, the water was still, and we just started crying.
01:07:11It was uncontrollable crying with our shoulders rocking up and down.
01:07:16I've never felt like that before in my life.
01:07:20The last day, I got up Mount Longdon
01:07:22where the sniper took a headshot at me.
01:07:25I just felt sorrow.
01:07:27I'm so proud of what we did.
01:07:30But the price of having PTSD is quite a high price.
01:07:34But I wouldn't change it. It is what it is, you know.
01:07:37And the thing is, I'm alive.
01:07:39There's 23 of my colleagues who are not alive.
01:07:42So I have to live my life for them, and I do that every day.
01:07:46And support information can be found online at channel4.com.
01:07:52So tomorrow night, veteran homicide detectives
01:07:54try to unravel the mystery of the Falklands,
01:07:56and we're going to find out what they're up to.
01:07:58We're going to find out what they're up to.
01:08:00We're going to find out what they're up to.
01:08:02We're going to find out what they're up to.
01:08:04We're going to find out what they're up to.
01:08:06We're going to find out what they're up to.
01:08:08We're going to find out what they're up to.
01:08:10We're going to find out what they're up to.
01:08:12We're going to find out what they're up to.
01:08:14Detectives try to unravel the truth behind the disturbing case.
01:08:17All New Police Custody USA starts at 10.