Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hello and welcome to Battleground: The Falklands. I'm Saul David, and with Patrick Bishop I'll be talking about the final phase of the battle for Port Stanley. We ended last time with the epic fight on the three mountains surrounding the capital: Longdon, Two Sisters and Harriot, which ended in victory for three para and the marines of 45 and 42 commandos, all from three commando brigade. They're now exhausted and all have suffered casualties, heavy ones in the case of the paras.
The original idea had been that once they had taken their objectives, they would exploit forward to the next features. But the battles have taken longer than expected and the night had not been long enough for them to advance further. While they're drawing breath, it's time for 5 Brigade advancing along the southern flank to get into the battle, pushing across the low open ground and onto the next objective, Mount Tumbledown.
The charge was led by the Scots Guards. They had arrived by ship at Blough Cove unscathed, unlike the poor Welsh Guards who were caught in the Sir Galahad air attack. But they were still drying out and sorting themselves out. Communications with brigade headquarters were, as usual, shambolic. Now, according to the plan that had been handled, they were supposed to advance on tumble-down.
on the night of 12th of June. That's immediately after the three brigade battles. It was, of course, vital to keep momentum going, but it was still a big ask. They'd only just arrived and they needed at least a day to scope out the objective and to shake out, as it's called, that is, to kind of get themselves in fighting order. Their CEO, Mike Scott, tells us now what happened when he discussed things with his commander, Brigadier Tony Wilson. We were very chuffed.
to be selected to go, somewhat to my surprise, but there we were, and we weren't going to question it. There was a nasty suspicion that we were going to be the garrison troops when everybody else had won the war. I mean, you know, if you've got the commandos and the paras, who are probably lethally the best shock troops in the world, well, quite clearly they were going to win.
And then who was going to look after the Falklands afterwards? And who better than the foot guards? Paint everything blue, red, blue, do double century outside government house. However, that was not at the forefront of our minds. We could be doing anything. So we trained as hard as we could, as if our lives depended on it, which of course they did. So that was fine. Okay, let's fast forward to the...
events after you arrived at Bluff Cove. Yeah. When did you first hear about your objective? 7th of June, I was summoned to Brigadier Quarters and the Brigadier gave us a plan. And I stress it was a plan, it wasn't an order. People later said, oh, Mike, you disobeyed your orders. It didn't, it was a plan. And the plan was for us to advance to contact a neo-Nazis
the old military expression, on the track leading from west to east into Stanley in daylight. And if Tumbledown hadn't been taken by the Gurkhas by patrolling, whatever that might have meant, we were to wheel left and attack Tumbledown in the daylight. I didn't say to the brigadier at the time, I don't think this is a good idea,
But I went back to my nearest and dearest, my company commanders, my operations officer, my machine gun officer and so on, and I said, this is the plan. And they were absolutely horrified. Our patrols had found a minefield across the obvious track and the Argentinians had read the same books as us. A minefield is going to be covered with fire. Any obstacle has to be covered with fire.
So the likelihood would be that they would have some ground troops the other side of the minefield, plus they would have direct fire from Tomaldown with the heavy machine guns, and of course mortars and artillery would have registered targets. And I said to the Sapper troop commander who I had with me, very good, very good,
how long will it take to get the battalion through the minefield? And he said, all night. So we would have appeared the far side of the minefield in daylight under all sorts of aggravation from the Argentinians. Anyway, I said to my cronies, it's no good me going back to the Brigadier saying we're not for it. I've got to go back to him and say, with the greatest respect, sir,
We've got another idea. So they put together the idea. It wasn't my idea. I don't have any original thought. But my job was to persuade the brigadier. And the much better idea was for us to assault Tumbledown from the west at night from the safety of the commandeers on Harriet and two sisters.
And meanwhile, at the same time, put in a diversionary attack with some 30 men under Richard Bethel on the track into Stanley to make the Argentinians think, obviously, that that was the way we were going to come. Very obvious to them. And...
I went then back to the brigadier, slightly in trepidation, because brigadiers can easily say to commanding officers, do what you're told or I'll get somebody else. Anyway, he agreed with alacrity. I was then summoned on the 12th of June, about the middle of the afternoon, down to an air group with the brigadier. And he said to me, tonight's the night.
And I got a sinking feeling that this is what was going to happen. At that stage, I knew from my gunner that the 105 guns had basically run out of ammunition because they'd been supporting the commando attacks on Harriet and so on. And they needed to be replenished. There was no way they had enough ammunition to support us. And I said to the brigadier, could we have 24-hour delay?
A, to replenish the guns, and B, I've still got time. There were about two hours of light left. I can go back, get my company commanders, and they can get their platoon commanders up to the saddle between Harriet and Goat Ridge, and we can see Tumult Dan, and we can see to a certain extent our objectives, certainly the
The first phase, G Company's objective, we could easily see, and then a bit of left flank, not the last company through. But anyway, we could see the mountain. And we would then be neatly prepared. We would then have the day to sort ourselves out and attack that night, which was the 13th. I knew that the commandos and the paros who were freezing on their mountains would be exceptionally miffed. That's a polite word of saying it.
And so did the Brigadier, and he must have known that the General would not like it very much either, who were these idle guardsmen sitting around. But he agreed immediately, and so I then was able to whiz back, get hold of the company commanders, up we went, we flew up to the saddle, chatted to the Marine Commandos and Goatridge,
and we could look over and then they had time to bring up their platoon commanders and do the same with them. So we were all content, very happy, got ourselves sorted out, laid out how we were going to our formation to attack that night, have a bit of food, make sure our ammunition was right up to scratch and get ourselves really nicely, nicely balanced. So tell us about the attack.
The attack went very well to start off with. G Company, who was the leading company, got onto their position almost without a shot being fired, to our immense surprise, because I had marked on my map Argentinian heavy machine guns on their position. And then Le Flanc took over and came up against very, very stiff opposition.
And it was a very long night at that stage. One of the things which was brilliant was our radio communications. You know, we always complain about how we lose touch. I wasn't in touch with the diversionary attack because they were basically shielded by Mount Harriet. But Richard Bethel got on with it, who's a highly, highly competent ex-SAS officer.
But I could talk to my company commanders, just like I'm talking to you now. And when they were rustling around, I could talk to their signalers, who I knew. For instance, John Kisley's signal, Lance Corporal Murley. And I could talk to him like I'm talking to you now. We were held up then. And another problem was there was a rogue gun. I think that's what the artillery call it.
There was one gun which they didn't know where it was firing. So they had to stop each gun and fire it individually. And the forward observation officer with John Kisly then had to say where the round was landing. And of course, this is again what the gunners called danger close. It's not a thing they're ever allowed to practice and training because it's right up as close as possible.
And it was very good. The other great advantage was the naval gunfire support, which is incredibly accurate. If you're a very ordinary O-level science person like me, how a ship which is floating about can fire so accurately, it was absolutely amazing.
But of course, I didn't know anything about that. I mean, if you served in Germany and Northern Ireland, you don't actually have too much to do with naval gunfire support. But they were brilliant and that helped. But of course, they ran out of rounds at about one o'clock in the morning and pushed off. So there we were.
But left flank did an incredible amount. And really, the whole hinge of the success of the Battle of Tumbledown rested on John Kisly's shoulders. Remarkable. And then about three or four in the morning, he pretty well cracked his bit. And right flank with Simon Price in command then took over and pretty well polished it off by daylight.
I was well to the rear, but what I could do, rather than charging around in the dark where nobody would see me anyway, what I could do is, as I say, talk to them on the radio and encourage them, basically look after them on the radio. And that seemed to work. Nick Vaux, who listened to our transmissions, was very complimentary about it afterwards.
Not the sort of tone of voice they use in the command days. But so there it was. Say something a bit more about that, about how the difference in style. Yeah, he puts it, he says it sounded rather like as though people had just stepped out of the royal enclosure at Ascot or something like that.
Well, that was Mike Scott. And it's good to hear, I think, him putting a point in favour of Tony Wilson since Wilson's come in from quite a lot of stick both then and since and during the podcast itself. And it's interesting that Wilson agrees very sensibly and very quickly to that crucial 24-hour delay and also the decision to launch the attack at night and not in daytime. You know, Mike Scott certainly thought that they were being sent down to the Fultons as a garrison force, but nonetheless...
doesn't take that for granted and decides they're going to
as he puts it, train as if their lives depended on it, which of course, as it turned out, it would. And the battle that followed was really a huge test of any troops, be they elite forces like the paras and the commandos or regular is not quite the right word, but troops whose physical fitness is not as of paramount importance as it is for the other paras and the commandos. But they equipped themselves incredibly well
And I think partly it's their innate qualities as soldiers, but it's also got a hell of a lot, as Mike says, to do with the morale, the ethos of the unit. Yeah, and you can see again from, you know, he makes the point, doesn't he? This very close bond, unusual in some senses, bond between the upper class officers, landed gentry. I mean, my first book was about the Highland Division and you very much had the same thing in 1940 where they would come from the landed classes.
And their men were just ordinary blokes, working class blokes from cities. And yet by leading by example, they were able to gain the trust and the cooperation of their men in crucial battles like this. Yeah, that's illustrated by the casualty figures, eight killed and 40 wounded on Tumbledown. And of those casualties, 50% were officers, warrant officers and NCOs. So once again, we see this picture of a battle where decisions are being taken at a very low level.
battle-winning choices are made by young men with no huge experience and they get the right ones. So at the end of it, the Scots Guards have done a five brigade, proudly done themselves, proudly added another illustrious victory to their list of battle honours. Yeah, and one name that's not mentioned, but any of the listeners who were around at the time and remember the BBC documentary Tumbledown, that name is Robert Lawrence. And Robert Lawrence was a young platoon commander who actually in an interview very recently describes
going in with the bayonet himself, the bayonet breaking off in a trench when he's attacking an Argentinian and him using the broken bayonet to dispatch the Argentinian. I mean, it's pretty grim stuff, but it absolutely illustrates that the platoon commanders were right up there at the point of the battle leading their men. Yeah, cold steel. I think that's the last time we'll ever hear that phrase used in connection with a platoon commander.
British Army battle. You should never say never, of course, in warfare, but it does have a very sort of primitive, atavistic feel to it. One of the commanders that Cumberbatch Flankey was on, but anyway, John Kisly dispatched three Argentinians, one of them with a bayonet. He went on to become a lieutenant general. He's rather a sort of scholarly, distinguished figure. When one sees him in
It's quite hard to put him in those circumstances. Now, another unit that added to their battle honours that night was the Blues and Royals, equipped with Scorpion and Scimitar armoured cars.
Jeremy Thompson regretted not using them at Goose Green. And during the battle for Mount Tumbledown, a troop of Blues and Royals, commanded by 23-year-old 2nd Lieutenant Mark Corrath, played a key role. I was tasked to do a diversionary attack below Mount Harris and Mount Tumbledown for the Scots Guards on that night of the 13th. I was going with Richard Bethel, Major Richard Bethel, who had effectively a platoon of
headquarter company platoon so they weren't they were cooks and bottle washers effectively but we were going to make a diversion attack below along the road below Tumble Town an hour or so before Scots Guards were to go up over the high ground and
diversionary attack is always a dodgy thing because we're doing exactly what the enemy assumed we were doing there is that one metal road I mentioned between Bluff Cove so I'm looking off to the left I've got a wonderful map which you may or may not have but anyway there's a metal road going from Bluff Cove to Stanley Richard Bethel and I
made a foot recce forward onto some rising ground, looking down that road onto a company of Argentine Marines. And they were well dug in just south of the road. And quite plainly, that wasn't access they expected us to take. Therefore...
As we discovered previously, their artillery was very good with their DF. So that high ground that we were on, which we had to get over, was almost inevitably going to be a DF and a big one. And I could look down and see the mine boxes were empty.
all over the place beside the road, but it was empty. Their lids were off. So everywhere around there, I could only assume was a minefield. And so my aim, therefore, was to lead from the front because I knew exactly where I needed to go and really sort of
use speed to get over that bridge down where the road bent slightly off to the left I could then do effectively a broadside onto the enemy company position, fire Richard Bessel's chaps in and then direct the fire onto Mike William beyond and
make it clear that we were heading towards Dandy. And that was the axe of the attack. What actually happened, because nothing quite happens as planned in war, when we came to
across the star line, I got onto that high ground, and the day, and the night turned to day with star shells absolutely everywhere. But along with those star shells came very, very accurate 155, 105 artillery, and landing on our position, like two or three yards either side of the vehicles. I mean, it's just...
extraordinarily accurate and very, very heavy fire. Luckily, the geometry hit, it went to the peak, and so that absorbed the blast. But coming up to that rise, on the top of the rise, I found there was a whacking great crater in the middle of the road. And so I slammed on the anchors and had a quick scratch of my helmet and ink as to what to do, because it was either a 155 round
which it could well have been, or it was a blown culvert. If it was a blown culvert, it was inevitable that it was going to be mined either side. But I was pointing directly at the enemy at this time, at this point, and I needed to get further down to get that broadside effect that I wanted to achieve. So I remember just telling my gunner and driver to batten down the hatches and left stick, and we went about three or four metres down.
um into the rubble um when i hit a anti-tank mine and we were blown sort of four or five feet in the air we got away with it none of us and i called the two crewmen and they were both fine fine is the wrong word they were distinctly rattled but they were alive so i got them onto the vehicle walked them down the tracks and told them to just get the hell out of it just disappear down the road out of the artillery artillery bombardment um
And I then brought the other vehicles up, one at a time, to where I could direct them to fire on the enemy position. And just to climb on the side of the vehicle and order fire orders, and when the shells came in, I just jumped into a ditch. It was a very handy ditch. But it was, thinking back, it was just...
Bloody dangerous, is the truth of it. And thank God for adrenaline, really. But anyway, we fired on to the positions until I reckoned that it was possible that Major Bessel and his lot could be getting close to...
the company position when I directed the fire into William. And so, yes, it was a very successful attack. Unfortunately, Richard Bessel lost a couple of men there and they got in and amongst the company position. Then when withdrawing, I had a couple of people hurt with anti-personnel mines. So,
It was sad in that respect, because otherwise it was, I think, an extremely successful diversionary attack. Well, that was stirring stuff from Mark Corrath, who went on to say that the Blues and Royals had earlier done good work in an anti-aircraft role at Bluff Cove, shooting down at least one Pekara aircraft and helping to ferry casualties to hospital. Anyway, in part two, we're going to be looking at the final battle of the war, as it turned out, the action...
on Wireless Ridge, which looks down directly over Stanley from the north. And this is where 2PARO went into action for the second time. Welcome back. Now, while the Scots Guards were hard at it on Tumbledown, 2PARO were assaulting the Argentine positions on Wireless Ridge. Now, this is the high ground that looks south across Stanley Harbour to the capital.
This is the second battle, of course, that two para have fought. The first was at Goose Green, where their COO H. Jones was killed. And they're now under the command of David Chawndler, who was flying a desk at the Ministry of Defence in London when the war broke out. So instead of allowing the highly competent second-in-command, Chris Keeble...
who really had taken control of the Battle of Goose Green after Colonel H was killed, who gripped it, as they would say in military parlance, and then got on to win it handsomely. Instead of giving him the command, the decision was made to insert Schoenberg to take over in the most dramatic fashion imaginable. He was flown by C-130 Hercules from Ascension Air.
to the skies over the Falklands, a journey that took 18 hours due to the atrocious weather and required two in-flight refuelings. He then jumped out of the aircraft, parachuted into the scene,
in the hope that he'd be picked up by a small boat which had been sent out from one of the destroyers. Incredibly, the plan actually worked out and he was picked up, taken ashore and sent to take over. What I love about that story, Patrick, apparently it's the first time Chandler had ever parachuted into the sea and he did this in the freezing cold South Atlantic. I mean, it was fraught with danger, almost courting disaster, but as you say, he got away with it. Now,
When he actually arrived in the Falklands, there were no complaints about his leadership. Here's Julian Thompson's assessment of his handling of the battle. I laid out the axes of advance to avoid Stanley, in theory. So I said, you know, you're going to go that way, you're going to go that way. I knew bloody well that if they opened up on us from Stanley, we'd have to go and fight there. I mean, after all, the Argentines hid their 155 guns in Stanley. They hid a lot of their kit in Stanley. I don't think there was any compunction about fighting in Stanley at the other side of it.
and we'd have had to report them back. So it would have been a disaster had we had to fight in Stanley, killing all the people we'd come to rescue.
And, of course, this was a combined attack by five brigade on Tumbledown and my brigade, two para, on Wireless Ridge. It's coming in as a pincer attack, really, Wireless Ridge from the north and Tumbledown coming in from the west. And the battle on Wireless Ridge was a textbook battle, brilliantly fought by two para. They had plenty of fire support. They had two ships in support, i.e. the equivalent of two batteries, plus two batteries of 105s,
plus their own mortars, plus three Paris mortars and Shingen platoon. And they also had the advantage of using the CVRT, the light tanks, which you couldn't have used on the other features because they were too rough. But here, the Weissridge is a rolling country, not as steep as the other places.
And David Chandler fought a beautifully coordinated battle, which was interrupted, I have to say, or nearly interrupted, by a call for help by the SAS, who decided to have a sort of last-minute free-for-all, attacking some oil tanks in Stanley. Why you want to attack an oil tank? You're about to take capture anyway. I have no idea. And they were joined by the SBS in this last hurrah and the raiding squadron.
who were then fired on by a gun mounted on a hospital ship, believe it or not, causing a lot of casualties. And so they asked for help. And I went back into my CP, having been out for a minute, to see my, or hear my chief of staff talking to the SASLO, saying, bloody special forces, you think the whole world's got to stop for you until you will go to your rescue when we can, which won't be right now.
So I wasn't going to order two parrots and stop going that way and go off into the blue at night to find some chaps who'd been wounded some 5,000 or 6,000 metres away. I mean, it would be an absolute tailor-made from blue on blue. So it was a diversion, but a slightly unwelcome diversion.
Julian Thompson there giving, once again, a slightly lukewarm tribute to the performance of the Special Forces. Yes, you very much get a sense that for Thompson in particular, he's not highly appreciative of the SAS's determination to get involved whenever they can. In fact, he describes it as an unwelcome distraction rather than the key part of the plan.
And I think we can see a bit of a trend here with the SAS. Of course, they do some pretty credible things on the island, Pebble Island, the destruction of planes there, which we've discussed earlier, and one or two other things. But they also get themselves into a bit of trouble. And this is another good example of that. Of course, it's interesting that the SBS are also involved in this, and it goes horribly wrong for both groups. Yeah, for all the kind of terrible qualities that the SAS are meant to possess.
There is a sort of tendency to, when in doubt, blow something up or shoot something without actually thinking through whether this is...
of any great value to the overall military effort. And I think we see a little bit of that there. There's also, I mean, the criticism of the SAS, I think, is also something to do with the place they hold in the public's imagination. I was at this gathering, which I've mentioned before, down at Plymouth Forty Commando to commemorate the victory on Mount Harriet a little while ago. People were making some rather sceptical remarks about the SAS.
But I think it's not so much what they achieve. It's this sort of slightly contradictory stance they have of pretending to be tremendously secretive while at the same time managing to hoover up vast amounts of publicity. Yeah, I mean, this very much is something that you got from the Second World War. It's interesting. There's been a new biography of the founder of the SAS, David Sterling, which pretty much takes him down, says he was a great one, killing other people's thunder,
Paddy Mane was the real heart of the original operations, the key to a lot of the early success. And after Mane's death, Sterling pretty much steals a lot of the credit. And you just wonder if the ethos that was begun by Sterling has somehow seeped at least into some of the modern SAS. Yeah, it's interesting. Gavin Mortimer is the author of this book, and he's quite a bold institute to take on this iconic figure. But I think his approach is pretty fair.
I would even actually take a little bit of issue about Paddy Mayne. Paddy Mayne was an amazing soldier, but I think he was also, I think in other circumstances, he might well be classified as an associate. But certainly peacetime did him no favours. He just couldn't exist in a peaceful, tranquil situation. He was a very dangerous man, both to the enemy, but also to those around him. So there's something very theatrical about the SAS from the outset.
And something slightly suspect about the motivations, I think, of the founding fathers, and in particular the case of Sterling, who by all accounts was a pretty hopeless regular soldier. And war brings great opportunities. So it becomes a sort of playground for people like him. Some of them turn it into a great success, as he did in terms of reputation, others not.
Kevin Ryan ended up dead or disgraced. Yeah, now one other thing we should mention to give the SAS some credit actually is their role in trying to prevent a civilian massacre in Stanley. I mean, the real fear of the military commanders, we've already heard Julian Thompson mention it, is that the fighting would have actually gone on into Stanley if the Argentines had kept fighting right to the end. And so to try and prevent this, to give him his due, Mike Rose, the CO of 22 SAS in the Falklands,
and Rod Bell, the Spanish-speaking Royal Marine officer, managed to get onto the open radio link to someone called Alison Blini, who was working in a hospital in Stanley, and through her urged the Argentinians, who they know are listening in, to spare the civilians. But thus far, of course, there's been no response from the Argentinians. It was very easy, actually, living down on Stanley at these flimsy buildings.
to imagine all sorts of horrors if the Argentinians didn't see sense and do the decent thing. You could very easily picture a scene where the civilians tried to flee in the middle of a battle with horrendous consequences.
So really a great concern, live concern at that time. Okay, we've had the overview of the battle from Julian Thompson. We're now going to hear from the ground up from someone we've heard from before, Spud Ely. He gave us an incredibly graphic account of Goose Green. And now he tells us of his memories that night of the attack on Wireless Ridge by graphically describing the effect the massive fire support two-power had on the defenders. ♪
Well, Wireless Ridge was a second battle, two paraforts. It was only a battalion that actually fought two battles in that war. Sea Company's objective was a small pinnacle to the left
of Wireless Ridge. Wireless Ridge was generally taken by D Company 2 Para, but mine was a small pimple. The SES were meant to put an attack in, which they did, across the bay by Stanley, to take away our attack, so they would alert another position. But this little pimple, we got up the top, fixed bayonets, and you could hear the Argentinian voices again on top, and I thought, oh my God, we're not going to survive this. It's just absolutely crazy. We got up there, and to hear the last of the Argentinians run off,
Come first light, we then traversed across Wireless Ridge. D Company had basically taken it. We had full support by then. We had scimitars and scorpions covering fire. So it was a typical attack on a fixed mountainous location. And they bombarded it. They 105-pack howitzers softened up the target. And what I remember is seeing the dead bodies of the arges. There was one that had been cut by this sliver of rock, this sliver of granite, I think it was.
something similar, something hard and sharp, about 30 foot long this was. This round had completely split it and cut this poor argy in half and his torso was just cut clean like you would do, you know, a surgical knife. There was bits of bodies all over the ridge. Not many survived. First light, we saw them running down towards Moody Brook. We took the odd pot shot. Yes, we did, yeah. Can't deny that.
Because you don't know if they're going to go down and regroup. That's the point, which people don't understand. They could be running away, but they could be running away, get down into cover, and then, you know, start an attack again or regroup. I think that's a fair point. You saw, okay, the enemy's running away, but he could...
very easily turn around and counter-attack. Yes, I do think it is. It reminds me, interestingly enough, of some of the stuff that was going on in the Pacific in the Second World War. I've just written a book about the Marines, that is the US Marines fighting there. And you see again and again this situation. They take a feature, the enemy, in this case, the Japanese retreating, and they're taking pot shots at them as they go. You know, it's justified, but there's also an element, I think, where it almost becomes a bit of sport. You get enormous numbers of Marines fighting
in the case of the Pacific, actually firing at a single guy just trying to get back to his lines. And there's one infamous incident where an officer comes up and tries to put a stop to all of this, thinks it's, you know, really out of order. And he's almost fragged, that is, US parlance for taking out by his own members. They're so furious that he's literally stopping their sport. Yeah. In another theatre, thinking about the strategic bombing campaign in Europe, led by the RAF and support
by the Americans. When I was researching Dresden and trying to work out how it came to occupy this place as a sort of semi-war crime in the eyes of some after the war committed by the Allies, I encountered this argument that why did we go and attack this city when the war is almost over, the end is in sight? And to which the answer is, well, of course, that's how it looks now, but it was certainly not the case then. The Germans were fighting
with the same determination that showed when they were attacking in defense they were just as fierce just as ruthless all this pointless expenditure of life you see in the ground and so nothing could be taken for granted so for me that's not really a valid argument at all either at a practical or at a moral level yes and i think in this specific case of of two para nigel ely's comments about shooting at guys withdrawing well if they
happens, of course, he's absolutely right. There is a chance that they're going to regroup and start fighting again. And we should also remember that these are the paras, the paras and the Marines. They are toughest assault troops. They are trained to be aggressive. They had it drummed into them. You keep going, you keep momentum going. This in their minds would have just simply been the same part of that equation. You keep going until the campaign is over.
Okay, well, that's it for this week. Join us next time to find out how Julian Thompson got his wish and avoided a street battle to take poor Stanley.