14. Surrender
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Hello and welcome to the Battleground podcast. I'm Saul David and today Patrick Bishop and I will be talking about the final moments of the Falklands War as British troops closed in on Port Stanley and the Argentinian commander had to decide whether to keep fighting and turn the town into a battleground or save the lives of soldiers and civilians alike.

by surrendering. Now, we ended the last episode with the Scots Guards and two para victorious on Mount Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge, respectively, after tough resistance from the Argentine defenders during the night battles of the 13th to 14th of June. What, though, of the civilians in Port Stanley? How were they coping as the gunfire crept ever closer to their homes? We heard before from Leona Roberts, who was then a 10-year-old girl living in Port Stanley.

The sort of last semicircles of hills just outside Stanley, and it was really through the night, you know, when the fighting was going on, you could see the explosions, you could see the trace of fire, you could hear it all. I mean, that was horrific, actually, knowing what was going on up there and that it was so close.

And of course, you know, people across the Falklands saw some pretty terrible things. You know, some of my friends were at San Carlos and experienced the landings and, you know, everything that went on out there. Friends also at Fitzroy, you know, that sort of helped out after the attacks on the Galahad and the other landing craft there. You know, they experienced much more, I guess, direct battle in some ways than we did in Stanley. You know, we could see it coming. And I can remember looking out through the heavy blankets as blackouts on the windows and,

you know, sort of just sneaking a lookout to see what was happening. And, you know, you could see it very clearly. That was terrifying because then it was, it felt like it was within arm's reach. And so moving on to the surrender, I mean, what's your memory of that day or at least the previous 24 hours leading up to surrender? Yeah, those last couple of days,

I've talked about my mum a lot and she's central to everybody's lives, I guess, aren't they, your mum? But she was incredibly brave throughout and she really shielded me, I think, from an awful lot of what was going on in that, you know, she had the sense of optimism and hope, absolutely. And so she kind of maintained that, which allowed me to feel not half as frightened as I should have, for sure.

But one of the moments that, again, will always stay with me was in those last two days, I think it was. You might remember there was a thing called a tiny tears doll. And I had wanted one of these dolls for years. It was just, but my family was just an incredibly ordinary family. My mom literally put in a fault to buy me one. And, you know, then I think it was two days before the surrender. She took me up to the Westall and she bought me this doll. Now,

I was old enough to understand what that meant. She didn't say it, but it was very, very obvious that it was kind of, you know, the next day or so is going to be really bad and that she didn't know if we'd come through it and that she just wanted to make me happy while she could. That scared me absolutely off the scale. I was absolutely petrified because I realised then fully how bad things might get and that we might not come out the other side of it.

So it was a lovely thing and it's a very precious possession. But yeah, that was a sort of grim moment for a little girl, I think. And so then, you know, we were hunkered down. We knew that there was very real potential of fighting in the streets in Stanley. The Argentines were pulling back and the streets were full. I mean, you know, it's really hard to describe it. Well, that was a view from the perspective of Leona Roberts then just

ten and it's a pretty scary thought I think Patrick that her mum buys her that doll just as the fighting is approaching Stanley because even though she can't afford it because she's worried that they might not come through the battle I mean it was that concerning for parents to think that their children might not actually make a house-to-house battle if it came to that. Yeah it must have been terrifying and it's very interesting to hear from that perspective we often overlook how

how wars seem to those who are powerless, you know, those who are just sitting there waiting for events to pass. You know, the levels of anxiety and stress must be absolutely dreadful. Of course, we think of these poor people in Ukraine at the moment who are enduring that 24-7. So we're now going to hear an adult perspective or a young adult perspective from Graham Bound, who was a Falklander, but he was a journalist on the island. This is what he had to say.

Yeah, we had two fears. One was the artillery barrages were getting heavier every night and the bombing raids were getting closer to us all the time. And of course, that fear was borne out on, I think, the night of the 11th of June when a house was hit in Stanley and three women, civilian women, were killed. So that fear was very real.

But we did also worry, and we spoke about it. We were extremely worried that the Argentines would put up a last stand in Stanley and there would be street fighting and the discipline would break down at that point. And you couldn't help thinking about it and worrying about it. So that was our big fear. The reality was that once they'd been routed from that horseshoe of mountains around the west of Stanley, they knew they were beaten. And I remember...

It was a snowy morning, I think on, would have been the 14th and going out into the street and things have got relatively quiet. But this defeated army was pouring back through Stanley and it was a pathetic sight. You know, there were ambulances trying to help them. I remember one soldier being pushed in a wheelbarrow with a leg blown off and it was quite clear that they'd given up.

And very, very early that morning when we were sheltering in the hotel, in fact, I was sleeping on the floor, trying to get some sleep anyway, and the door opened and this chap who was Menendez's chief of staff, really, a fellow called Bloomer Reeve, who was an Air Force officer, who had lived and worked in the Falklands before 1982 and therefore knew us and was himself torn two ways, a very interesting fellow.

He came in and said, I've come to collect my men because he had staff officers in one end of the hotel. And he said, I'm leaving now. And we didn't have any power. It was dark. And he said, we're leaving now. We're going out to the east and to avoid street fighting in Stanley. And in three hours, you will be free. This was an Argentine officer saying that to us, very senior Argentine officer. And he was absolutely right.

Things did become very nasty again for the next 24 hours because the Argentines were within the town and they were at that stage rebelling and they were losing their discipline and they were torching buildings. And the British troops had advanced to a point where they were told to halt and wait. And there was an uncomfortable 24 hours or so in which quite a lot of damage was done. So that was Graham Bound, very...

powerful imagery there of a defeated army. I remember walking through the positions as we approached Port Stanley and seeing all this abandoned kit. But what was interesting was what they'd thrown away, personal possessions. I remember coming across bundles of letters, obviously from family and girlfriends, et cetera, and photographs of family and girlfriends scattered around. That was a very, very powerful image.

evidence, I think, that the fight had really gone out of them. Yeah. And of course, what we also got in that clip from Graham was the, you know, the consequence when war comes to built up areas, comes to civilian areas, the death of those, you know, tragic death of those three civilians. And of course, made all the worse by the fact that it was actually British gunfire that caused it. Now, it occurred when naval gunfire, which was called in by artillery observers,

with special forces on Beagle Ridge outside Stanley, fell short and hit a house. One of those forward observers was Steve Hoyland of 148 Commando Battery, who had earlier taken part in the battle for Fanning Head and various other actions with the SPS.

Looking on Stanley, I'll get the numbers for you, but we fired an awful lot of ammunition from a lot of ships and it was every single night. So the Argentines, and I dare say the civilian population, bless them, but the Argentines were suffering. They knew it was the end game, if you like, but there was no respite from them. And it didn't matter where they were by that stage because Stanley's right on the coast. The ships can reach anywhere.

So the only danger really towards the end was we couldn't engage the westernmost targets because we'd be firing directly towards our own forces coming from the west. So the targets towards the end, we had to move towards the airfield end of Stanley, so the eastern end of Stanley, and targets to the south and south-west. Yeah, our south-east peg-pond. Our own troops were advancing on Stanley from the west.

So we have to move accordingly. The 4.5 gun has a low flat trajectory. So accordingly on the ground, its beaten zone is that much longer. So with artillery mortars, you can effectively use an artillery gun as a howitzer, which will fire in a high angle and come down. And the actual error probability is small, like a circle.

Whereas the naval gun, it's a single charge, so you can't reduce the charge at all. It's always firing on charge super, so you're always going to get the maximum beaten zone on the ground. So therefore, you've got to move your targets further away from your own troops. It wasn't an issue at that stage because the 105s from 2-9 Command were there. They're supporting all the guys doing the final attack, so we can engage targets elsewhere to make sure nobody else interferes or they're not reinforced from elsewhere. So the utility still lasted until the end.

When we were on Beagle Ridge, we did see some Argentine aircraft. They were coming from the west. We radioed in as an air raid warning red. I think there were four Mirages, I beg your pardon, came up from the east. They flew to the west towards the fleet. I don't know if we were the first people to warn the fleet of it or not.

But about 15 minutes later, something like that, one of them flew back. I don't know what happened to the other three, but we were all hoping that we'd scored. So yeah, there was some value in us being there because we gave eyes over Stanley to the rest of the fleet that weren't necessarily available to the guys off to the west because they're looking at Stanley as a long, low town. It's a linear town.

along an estuary. So they're looking at it along the long axis and we're looking at it from the side, if you like, so we can see much more of it than they can as well. So inter-visibility wise, we had more eyes or we could see more of Stanley than anybody else could.

And obviously we were there covertly, so we're not having to watch out for the enemy as well and give ourselves away by exposing ourselves or anything. Steve, at this time, are you aware of the... Apparently there was an error made by one of the ships in its gunfire and it actually killed three civilians in or around Port Stanley. Do you remember that incident or anything about that? I remember the boss was really shook up about it afterwards.

I'm not sure it was an error by the ship, to be quite honest. I think it was just, as I'm telling you about, the low flat trajectory and the long beaten zone of the weapon. From memory, and I might be wrong, I can check, but from memory, we were firing somewhere down by the gun position to the west of Stanley. So the rounds were actually going over Stanley or over part of Stanley.

the nickname of the artillery of the drop shorts as you probably know so i think on this occasion it was just unlucky in that one of the rounds landed a little bit short yeah and he killed he had to kill three civilians including i think the vet's wife we knew about this when we got picked up from beagle ridge and we were back on board the boss

He went in his cabin. He was, he wasn't inconsolable, but he was obviously deeply affected by it. We couldn't really console him, but I don't think it was an error by the ship or it was a, an error by the boss.

it was just the characteristic of the weapon system. It's not something you can ascribe blame to, I don't think, because the nature of indirect fire is that it's indirect and therefore it's subject to so many variables, differences in air pressure. The ship is actually moving in 3D. I mean, a gun platform that's moving in 3D

It's synchronized, fair enough, but it's still firing at a fixed target, you know, 20 miles away or 10 miles away, rather. Yeah, just one of those things. What we found out about, we were affected by it. But by that stage, I think...

He's just very pragmatic about it. It's really unfortunate. Would we have fired on that particular target if we'd known they were... I don't even know where they were in relation to the target, to be quite honest. And the civilian population, were they out and about? I don't honestly know. But the fact that there were three casualties among civilians, yeah, it deeply affected us, especially the boss. So that was Steve Hoyland talking about the regret...

of his boss, Hugh McManus, at this tragic... Well, it wasn't a miscalculation, as he says. It was just fortunes of war, you know, desperately sad. But given the circumstances, it was amazing, really, that there weren't more civilian casualties. Port Stanley, as he says, you know, it's a collection of not terribly solidly built houses. They're weatherproof, but they're not built out of stone. As I recall, there aren't any cellars that you can retreat into, so...

In a way, it's amazing that there weren't more. In spite of the tragedy, the end was clearly near by dawn on the 14th of June as word came through to the British military radio net that the Argies are legging it. They're running everywhere. Looking down from Wireless Ridge, David Chawndler, commanding 2 Para, could see that the approach to Port Stanley was there for the taking.

When Brigadier Julian Thompson arrived by helicopter soon after, he approved an immediate advance over Moody Brook to secure the opposite hillside. The Argentinians, meanwhile, were unsure what to do. We were all very nervous after all we'd lived through, said a young private of the 3rd Infantry Regiment. Our platoon commander told us to take up positions in the houses. Don't be afraid of anyone, he said. Go into the house and if a kelper, that's what the 4th and 5th were known as, resists, shoot him.

But of course, in reality, the men did nothing of the kind. So as they straggled back through Port Stanley, the private described how young conscripts broke down and cried when they saw depots stashed with food and clothes, which had never got to us. Nigel Ely, who was then a private in Tupara, was among the first soldiers to reach the outskirts of Stanley.

We all ran off down towards Moody Brook, along with Elements of Aid Company. And we got down to Moody Brook and there was this Argentine helicopter, Huey pilot crew there. They had this helicopter and they surrendered. And it was like, oh no, we don't want that. The prize is Stanley. So we went into Stanley and there were a few dead bodies on the road there. And we were still cautious going in. Didn't see Max Hastings. I think he was having a brew somewhere.

back at San Carlos and we got there and the Arges started surrendering in their sort of droves really we got as far as the obelisk or the governor's house and we thought we better not go any further because there were thousands of Argentinians you just don't know what they're going to do and

And there was only a few of us, really just literally a few, probably about 50 of us. The rest of the battalion were coming up pretty quick. But, you know, there's not a lot you can do with thousands and thousands of angry prisoners. And I guess they were hungry. So we stopped at Governor House and then one of the guys got a two-parrow flag out and a union flag and we raised it.

and that was to, Paro, raise the flag over Governor's House. That picture you see of the Royal Marines is a stage picture, happened a day later. You know, that famous picture of them outside the, a bit like the raising of the flag, is it Iwo Jima? Iwo Jima, yeah. Iwo Jima, you know, staged. Yeah. But the Royal Marines have always had a better PR team than the Paros. Yeah.

Well, that was Nigel Ely. And despite his comments about not seeing Max Hastings, in reality, the evening standard war correspondent was the first man from the task force into Stanley proper. He wrote in his dispatch at the time, the battalion's officers had advanced perhaps 200 yards beyond their halting place, when a new signal was brought to the colonel's attention. No British soldier was to advance beyond the race course pending negotiations.

They clatted onto the little wooden grandstand and sat down, still draped in weapons and machine guns, to the cheer of one of their number as he clambered onto the roof and, after some technical difficulties, tore down the Argentine flag and raised that of two para. Now, Hastings himself continued on down the road, past some Blues and Royals Scimitar armoured cars, where he left his camouflage jacket and webbing and carried on into the town. Close to Government House...

He walked past a group of armed Argentinian soldiers and gave them a brisk good morning. They stared but did nothing. Having spoken to an Argentine colonel who told him that all his questions would be answered after four o'clock,

When the British general was due to meet General Menendez, he carried on to the well-known Stanley pub called the Upland Goose, down a road filled with file upon file of Argentine soldiers waiting to surrender. He wrote, Walking into the hotel was the fulfilment of a dream, a fantasy that had filled our thoughts for almost three months. We never doubted for a moment that the British would come, said the proprietor, Desmond King. We have just been waiting for the moment.

It was, remembered Hastings, like liberating an English suburban golf club. Now, I remember the Upland Goose did indeed crowd into our thoughts quite a lot because it was a bit like ice-colded Alex. You know, there was this talk that when we get to the Upland Goose, when we get to the Upland Goose, we could taste that first pint when it was poured.

And, of course, Max was the first one to experience it. We were very closely behind him. We turned up about half an hour later. But the deed was done. It was Max who liberated Port Stanley, in inverted commas, and it's something that will always be remembered and will always be an object of a little bit of appreciation.

I think on our parts that we weren't just a little bit quicker off the mark, but there you are. Before we move on with the story, Patrick, I have to ask you, inevitably, was there a little bit of jealousy among the other war correspondents that Max had stolen the limelight at this crucial moment? There was, but I've got to say that in military terms, you know, Julian Thompson was the man of the match. And in media terms, Max was the man of the match. Some of our number weren't really...

ready to admit that, but Marx just called it right from the beginning because we were operating very much in the parameters of the time. So I've got to say, most of us were kind of on the left of the spectrum. We didn't like Mrs. Thatcher. We were a bit sort of suspicious of the military. All that changed later, which I'll be saying something about later on. But Marx understood this is not a war where you start questioning the motivations or the behavior or the justice of the war and like that. You're in there, you're a propagandist, you're there to support our boys.

and he did it brilliantly. Of course he had a great understanding of the military because he was already an established military historian.

The senior officers were delighted to have him there. He was, you know, a much sought after guest at the various battalion commanders' tables. And they were very nice to us as well. But, you know, he was already a bit of a celebrity and he absolutely made the most of it. He seized every chance he got. He pulled every string he could. And so he did actually consistently outperform the rest of us. I'm pleased to say I like Max. He's a great historian. And he was a great companion, actually. He was terrific fun.

When spirits were low, he was always there to sort of make a joke or, you know, he's got quite a good sort of surreal sense of humour. OK, generous comments, Patrick. It's very good to hear. So taking the story on, a couple of hours after Max had walked into the Uplands Goose...

Having responded to British pleas on the medical radio circuit for the Argentines to surrender and avoid unnecessary bloodshed, General Menendez met a British delegation led by Lieutenant Colonel Mike Rose of the SAS at Government House. Now, during this, the British government were monitoring the talks by portable satellite communication link. And as they were doing that, Menendez agreed to surrender all Argentine forces on the island.

This was formalized when Major General Jeremy Moore flew in to countersign the surrender document. And so, 82 days after the invasion of the Falkland Islands had begun, the war was finally over.

The news was announced to the House of Commons by the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, at 10.15pm that day, when she told the House that, in the course of the day, our forces reached the outskirts of Port Stanley. Large numbers of Argentine soldiers threw down their weapons. They are reported to be flying white flags over Port Stanley.

This produced, of course, cheering from both sides of the political divide, which was proof, I think, that the House was united in its relief and joy. Michael Foote, the Labour leader, was unstinting in his praise. I can well understand the anxieties and pressures that must have been upon her during these weeks, he said, and I can understand that at this moment those pressures and anxieties may be relieved.

And I congratulate her. So back in the Falklands, the rest of the land force tramped the last few miles into Port Stanley. We almost ran into Stanley, Hugh Pike told his family, down the moorland to be greeted with scenes of destruction, chaos, shambles. It is such merciful relief that it now seems to be over.

I'm so terribly sad about the people we lost. The Duke of Wellington was indeed right about the melancholy nature of victory. Now, Nigel Ely of Tupara remembered his first encounter with the liberated Falkland Islanders. Sea Company were given the doctor's garden to live in.

back and front and his potting shed. So yeah, we met the doctor, of course, and his wife. They were, oh, they were so grateful. The people were so grateful. And looking back at it 40 years on, you think, look, freedom. Freedom is not free. It has to be paid for, doesn't it? It has to be paid for by blood and treasure.

This is what I don't think people get really because now, because we've had our freedom for so long, is that it doesn't take long for tyranny to come in, you know, and to stop your way of life and to just completely say, right, you can't go out the house. You can't do this. You can't do that. And if you do, you're dead.

we take our freedom so much more for granted. Well, that was Nigel Ely of 2Para giving, I think, a very powerful justification for fighting the war, having personally met the people he had liberated. After the break, we'll hear from two SBS operators who helped to take the surrender on Pebble Island and consider the response of the islanders to their liberation.

Welcome back. Before the break, we heard the voices of soldiers and civilians as the fighting on East Falkland came to an end. But what about the garrisons on the other islands? The surrender on Pebble Island, for example, was taken by men of the SBS.

including Tell and Shiner, who we've heard from before. They were visiting a family on West Falkland when news of the surrender of the main Argentine garrison at Port Stanley reached them. And this is what Tell told us. We knew they'd surrendered and everybody was happy and the owner said, well done, guys. And we said, no, well done to you. You can all breathe a sigh of relief now.

and the lady of the house knocked up a lovely little meal with some homemade bread and a roll-up fag. And the husband, he brought a crate of beer up

I said, well done, I've saved this to the end of the war. So we had a little can of beer and everyone was happy. And the next minute a helicopter landed. And our ops officer jumps out, runs in, says, get out, pick up your kit, we're going. So we were extracting all the teams then. So we were flying in formation, low level, to an RV where we would all get together as a squadron that was left on the west to then be exiled back to the ship's

And that's when we flew into Pebble Island. So we got in and we were looking out the side, all the helicopters. It was quite good. A bit like, you know, riding the Valkyries, all the helicopters going low level across the Falklands. Oh, this is great. We finally flew into this position. Lots and lots of activity, civilians, Argentinians, loads of Argentinians.

and elements of the Special Boat Squadron who got there before us. But what I remember more than anything was the Argentinian infantrymen were stacking all their FNs, the 7.62 folding stock weapons into a big pile in the middle. And I thought, hey, you know, there's only about 25, 30 of us. It looks like there's about 200 of them or maybe less down there. And I said...

China, do they actually know they've surrendered? Because if they don't, or they've just given in anyway, and they haven't heard, because their comms weren't that good, they haven't heard what's going on in Stanley, they could change their mind, and we've had it. Anyway, we landed, and subsequently from that, you know, we continued to sort the infantry out, the Argentinian soldiers.

I then had a corporal from an Argentine corporal walk up to me and he presented me with a 66mm light anti-tank weapon, which he'd cocked. And the sergeant major who was there at the time, he said, well, go get rid of it. I said, well, I'll just collapse it. He said, well, it's no use to us. He's cocked it now. So I got over to the Argentinian corporal. I said, right, off you go. Walk in front of me. Stay about 10 metres in front of me just in case there's any booby traps.

and we'll go and fire it off over there. And all the farmers are out on the little homestead there. And I thought, great. So we marched off and I checked the back blast area and I said, right, you come here, get out of the way. And I fired the anti-tank missile off, which was quite refreshing to do. And off it went, whoosh, meh.

It got over the hill and hit a sheep. So the farmer wasn't too pleased with me, but we laughed about it later. But yeah, it was just one of those things that happened. And then we got back into the position. I apologised to the farmer, so I didn't see it. It obviously camouflaged out too well, the sheep. Now, I gather there was an incident now with the BBC correspondent, Brian Hanra. And what happened there? Shaina, do you want to tell me that bit of the story? I just want to just echo what Tal said.

When he asked me that question, my quick appreciation on the ground was I looked at the pile of weapons and they must have been six, ten foot high. Oh, God, yeah. And I thought, hey, they've surrendered. So I was more relaxed then. Okay. And another highlight was of that when we were doing that is that we didn't have PNGs. No, no. And we found two boxes, passive night goggles, sorry,

Brand new. There must have been 20 sets in each box. And we thought it was Christmas because we didn't have PNGs. Because we were the poor relatives. You can say it now, obviously, with the PNG. Yeah. What do you call it when you take it? It's war... Booty. It's booty, yeah. But that was legal. So we... The spoils of war. Yeah, spoils of war. The squadron ended up with 40 sets of...

We were coming into the 20th century. Yeah, we were. We were sort of, you know, the only people that had PNGs, obviously, was the 846 on the Seaking's. So we were really sort of getting on with what it was we were there to do, and that was to take the surrender of that position, which we did. And obviously the media were there.

An officer approached myself and another team leader. He demanded to be given his sidearm. An Argentinian officer, there's a lot of activity, frenetic. Oh, it's all happening, you know, a bit like Ascension Islands when I landed there. It was chaos, but organised chaos. And we said, no, there's no way. You're a prisoner of war. We'll treat you as such under the Geneva Convention, etc., etc. However, you're not carrying a gun.

"Why on earth would you want a gun?" He said, "Because I need it for my own protection." "Right, well, I'm sorry, but what's the problem?" He said, "Well, there's a bit of animosity between our officers and our men, and I'll explain why in a moment." And then Brian, who I'd never met, although we counted them all out and counted them back again, demanded that we actually treat him as an officer, which we did, of course, but we would refuse at point blank to give him a weapon.

which was, you know, against the grain. And he had the Gowras, basically, so in no uncertain terms, he was told to disappear rapidly by the team leader,

He couldn't understand our logic. The war's over. Why would he need a gun? You know, we just don't give prisoners of war guns. So he got quite offended by that. And the officer was still there. Anyway, we had a quiet word. And Mr. Han round her ear and he understood the situation and said no more after that. And then I said to the guys, then the Argentinians, I said, what is going on? What's this animosity between you guys? He said, just come with me. So he took me to a big shed and he opened it up and he said,

If you remember my fanning head story or account of that, he said we'd be basically living off the bare minimum. He opened the shed and it was just full of tinned meat, wine, luxury goods, and they didn't let them eat that. It's a shame. And I felt sorry for them. I said, right, well, you know, we'll drag all that out and you can help yourselves now. But that's why there was no real camaraderie between the officers and the men in that particular location. I'm not saying that's the way it was throughout the

But that certainly didn't help matters because they were all under a lot of stress and they were hungry. They were starving in some cases, wet and cold and miserable. We've all been there and we know what it's like. But psychologically, they were destroyed. And when you saw that and how they were being treated, you could understand why they were so angry. And the officers, to a certain degree, were angry.

quite concerned about their own safety. Well, that was Tell and Shiner remembering the surrender on Pebble Island. And he mentioned a number of really interesting things, I thought. The fact that the Argentinians actually had much better kit. We've referred a little bit about this before. And in particular, the fact that the Argentinians had quite a lot of passive night goggles, PNG goggles.

And we hear at the end of that clip that, you know, the SBS as a squadron were then properly equipped with this kit and were finally, as I think Tell tells us, brought into the 20th century. Yeah. There's also this mention before about the rations, you know, I mean, I think they were unevenly distributed, but we very soon came across cases of wine, these sort of litre bottles of very nice red wine, Argentinian red wine.

and tins of stew, which we immediately set about eating a much, much better quality than the rations we'd been living on. Yeah, and you begin to realise that this divide between officers and men, again, we've referred to that before in earlier episodes, really is going to get to the heart of morale, isn't it, Patrick? You know, you mentioned coming down on the ship, this close relationship between the officers and the paras and the marines and their soldiers.

And yet you've got almost the opposite reaction to that in the Argentinian army, where there's no real connection. There clearly was a certain amount of disgruntlement and anger at the ordinary troops not being properly looked after and a certain amount of contempt from the officers towards their men. And I think we know through the study of history that that is always a recipe for disaster if there isn't a close bond between those two when you get to the battlefield.

Yeah, it's absolutely fundamental and it clearly was very absent there, not perhaps in all units, but...

but in those sort of conscript units. It was also mentioned there, Brian Hanrahan, the late Brian Hanrahan, a great man, very kind of quiet and understated, who we'll always remember that great phrase of his, I counted them out and I counted them back in again. His way of getting around the fact that you weren't allowed to mention any sort of details about military numbers or any specifics about operations. Anyway, now we're going to hear the memories of Falkland Island as they got their first military

view of British soldiers. And we'll start with Graham Bound. Well, a friend and I realised that this no man's land had opened up between roughly the centre of Stanley and a stretch up to the west near Government House, a stretch of about a quarter of a mile. And that was empty. There was nobody there. So we thought we would walk up there

through it I was taking photographs again I'd stopped taking photos for a while because it was just too dangerous but I started taking photographs again and I thought well I'm going to take my camera up there so my friend Peter came with me and we walked this quarter of a mile or so and got into the middle of it I suddenly realized that perhaps this wasn't such a good idea because it was pretty tense but we carried on walking and we got up to a point just beyond government house and we first of all ran into a couple of Argentine soldiers who'd been uh

hit by shrapnel, I guess, and were dead. But fortunately, they'd been covered up. And then a little way on, we ran into the Paras, who were sort of stationary alongside a couple of Scorpion tanks just waiting for the order to come in. We were all a bit agog, actually. They hadn't seen a civilian for quite a long time, not a Stanley one anyway. And we had been hearing about...

British soldiers taking these points. And they'd assumed, in my mind, a slightly sort of mythical image. And there they were before us looking, I don't want to sound jingoistic, but the contrast between them and these poor specimens who'd been pouring through Stanley's surrendering was incredible. You know, they were still motivated. They were still looking fit.

they were still fed and they were still looking professional. And so we had, you know, very, very interesting conversation. They wanted to know what it was like in Stanley. We wanted to know where they'd just come from. And of course they said they'd come from out London. And then we walked on a bit further and,

And we heard somebody shout our names. And it was an old friend called Terry Peck, who'd actually got himself out of Stanley and was fighting with 3 Para. And he was in full battle gear. We couldn't recognise him. They said, it's me, Terry. And so that was a lovely reunion. So that was Graham Bowne remembering the moment of liberation. And it's interesting the way he contrasts the sight of unmotivated Argentinian soldiers with the much more professional bearing of British soldiers when they arrived. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember seeing dead bodies lying around. You know, they obviously hadn't felt safe enough to sort of drag away and bury, so the sign that morale was absolutely rock bottom.

And when one did actually come face to face with these very young looking guys, a lot of them were from the interior. They've got a very distinctive look, sort of flat features, which also are quite hard to read. So you couldn't just look at you, stare at you. They didn't appear to be sort of frightened, but you couldn't really...

sense from their demeanour what was going on. There seemed to be just kind of ultimately, I suppose, resignation. But also nice to hear of his reunion with Terry Peck, who was, I think I'm right in saying, the island's policeman. Maybe he was necessarily the other policeman, but

I think Terry Peck represented the police force there. And he, early on in the conflict, yonked off into the hills, hoping to meet up with the Brits, which he had indeed done and had since done sterling service, assisting the Paris with all his local activities.

But we're now going to hear again from Leona Roberts. A great moment for me, though, was I was playing with said doll in the window of this house that we were staying in while my mother was making breakfast. And I remember seeing all these Argentine troops coming past me.

the house and running out to her and telling her this. And she was kind of, oh, my God, you know, that means they're going up to reinforce the mountains or reinforce the edge of the town. And I said to her, no, they're going the wrong way. You know, they're coming back. And she was out to the front window. And, you know, there was this huge sense of relief almost because it was really evident that

they were going the wrong way that it was just about done and so that for me I think was the first moment where we appreciated that we you know it it might be coming to an end it was fantastic and do you remember your first sight of the British soldiers as they came into the town

I do. Yeah. I mean, it was incredible. We couldn't go out immediately. You know, there was still sort of know what was happening. There was still a lot being sorted out. But as soon as there was an announcement on the radio that we kind of were free to move around, my mum took me and my best friend who was staying in the house with us as well. And we walked up the front road and

all mum wanted to do was shake hands with every British soldier that we came across and to thank them. And, you know, they were so lovely because obviously they were battle weary, they'd been through hell. And yeah, but they took the time to, there were hugs and handshakes and kisses. And that was extraordinary. I can't really describe it. It was the most amazing feeling.

And, you know, again, at that point, I don't certainly as a child, I knew they'd been through terrible things. But, you know, you didn't understand how much all we knew was that, you know, we were free again. And that's a very, very powerful feeling. Well, that was Leona Roberts remembering that wonderful moment she knew the occupation was over and that she and the other children and the other islanders, for that matter, had got their freedom back again.

Patrick, you've referred to a couple of things that you remember that day. Anything else that struck you? Yes. Well, I just want to take it back a wee bit to

to the moment when we heard that the surrender was a real thing. I was standing next to Nick Fawkes, the CO-42 commando, on the hill looking down on Stanley when we first saw those white flags. What I do remember very clearly was this enormous sense of relief. I think you don't, when you're, you've been living in this sort of state of tension for quite a while, when it's suddenly you realise that it's, you don't have to worry anymore, there's a sort of fantastic moment of relief.

of release the tension all evaporates the next thing really of course was going into Port Stanley this place had been so near and yet so far and there we are actually walking down the street into Port Stanley I was by this stage caught up with

Julian Thompson, so I was just behind him. We got to the Upland Goose, the famous Upland Goose. The first thing you've got to do is try and find a room. Your thoughts turn to maybe having a bath, but all the hot water had already gone. But rapidly, of course, you have to start thinking about, well, now I can really start doing my job, because up until then, we'd all been operating under subcontractors.

everything we wrote was heavily constrained by the need for security, which we all recognised and were quite happy to fall in line with. But this was the first time you could actually write an unfettered report about what you'd seen and what you'd done. So I

I sat down and began writing, writing because I'd brought a little portable typewriter along with me at the beginning, but that had long ago disappeared, either razzed or proffed, as these soldiers would say, by someone who thought it might have some value, or just left somewhere and never picked up. I don't really remember. So there's about 30 of us. We're all now camped in the Upland Goose. We all start sitting down.

writing away. And now, of course, this is a great opportunity for everyone. Everyone knows they can make their name in these circumstances. Already, it's clear that there are winners and losers in this. Max Hastings is the biggest winner, but some other people have already done extremely well. Robert Fox of the BBC has become a household name almost for his dispatch going ashore with the paras on day one of D-Day. Brian Hanrahan, we've mentioned. Kim Sabido,

We've mentioned, worth saying here actually, of course, that this was a very old-fashioned war in many ways, but also in terms of media coverage, this was just before the beginning of satellite phones. So they were able to, the Ministry of Defence was able to impose quite a lot of restrictions on us without...

us being able to evade them, not that we actually wanted to, but with the advent of satellite phones, this all became tremendously difficult. There would never be another media war like that where there was so much control was able to be exercised. But I think as we sat down and started writing, you know, you did feel that you'd been part of a great historical event, a huge sense of pride, I think, really, in what we'd pulled off. Now, I said before, a lot of us were kind of on the left of the political spectrum and

We didn't really necessarily have any knowledge or indeed affection for the British military. I think that changed for me and I think it did for the others as well of my cast of mind. And this experience gave me a massive admiration for the British military which persists to this day.

And it also gave me a taste for war. It sounds like a weird and perhaps kind of odd thing to say, but it was an enjoyable experience. And I think it was for quite a lot of the soldiers. Yes, there was PTSD. Yes, there were a lot of people whose lives were affected badly because of their experiences. But there are also quite a few people for whom it remains a very strong, powerful and positive memory. And I was one of them. I went on to do

lots of wars thereafter. I think I did every major war up until 2008 when I was in Afghanistan. I realised I was the oldest European in South Afghanistan. Even the generals were younger than me. And that's when I decided to pack it in. Okay, great stuff, Patrick. And well put. That's all we have time for this week. But we're just going to give you a little bit of an idea on what is coming up in the future on the Battleground podcast. We thought

long and hard about how to do this and also how to end the Falklands in a most effective way possible. And here's a quick heads up on what we're planning. We'll have one more episode proper on the Falklands War when we'll consider the aftermath of the conflict down to the current day and consider the absolutely vital question. Given the expenditure and treasure and blood, was it a war worth fighting?

Then we'll devote an entire episode to answering the many queries and comments that have come in to us about the show. So do please keep them coming in by emailing us on my email, saul.david at gmail.com and Patrick's at patrickbishop2001 at hotmail.com or by contacting me at Twitter on my handle at sauldavid66.

And that's going to be followed by a few bonus episodes with complete interviews we haven't used thus far. I think this has been a very popular...

aspect of the podcast. So we've got lots of great stuff there, including one with a Navy clearance diver who won the Distinguished Service Medal for helping to remove a UXB from the landing ship, Sir Lancelot. And then we're going to switch conflicts to one that has receded in the news, but is still being fought by Russia with a ruthlessness and ferocity that we both feel deserves our attention. That, of course, is the war in Ukraine.

Now, as Saul says, we've really given a lot of thought to this, and I feel that there's a lot to be said about this. I think the coverage has become, sadly but inevitably, a bit superficial, and I think it would be a great thing to have a weekly reminder of what is going on and digging down deep into what it means and what the reality of that is. Goodbye. Goodbye.