Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hello and welcome to episode 9 of Battleground, the Falklands. I'm Patrick Bishop and today with Saul David we'll be discussing the first real land clash of the campaign. That's the Battle of Goose Green which took place on the 28th and 29th of May, just a week after three commando brigade had got safely ashore at San Carlos Water. There'd been a victory before of course when British troops recaptured South Georgia.
But there, the Argentine garrison surrendered without much of a fight. But at this one was a real set-two. The men of 2 Para, who were tasked with the operation, lost 18 dead, including, of course, their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel H. Jones, and there were 64 more wounded. On the Argentinian side, the losses are a bit vague, but they were in the range of 50 killed and at least 100 wounded. It was a very hard-fought encounter,
And the victory provided a boost to morale, particularly back home. But the question remains, was this battle really necessary? Well, let's put the episode into context, shall we? The 5,000-odd Marines and paras of 3 Commando Brigade who made the initial landing are now ashore and about to push out from the beachhead.
Reinforcements also are on their way in the shape of five infantry brigade who had left Britain aboard the QE2 on the 12th of May and are expected to backfill the positions vacated by the initial force as they press ahead. Julian Thompson says that they will come in and reinforce as necessary. Now, the objective of three commando brigade is Port Stanley, 50 miles to the east of San Carlos water, around which most of the enemy troops are clustered.
The twin settlements of Darwin and Goose Green are about a dozen miles to the south and lie along a narrow isthmus.
The Argentinians had put a garrison there, but no one knew how many. An SAS patrol reckoned there were about 100. Brigade intelligence thought it was more in the region of about 450. In fact, there were well over 1,200. In any case, they were not considered a huge threat. The point is the Argentinians would have to get over a range of hills to the south of San Carlos water called Sussex Mountains.
The Isthmus itself is completely devoid of any cover. Someone said it's like a sort of billiard table, a kind of rolling billiard table, devoid of trees or bushes. And so the view of brigade headquarters was that the Argentinians had basically set up what someone called a self-administering prisoner of war camp,
There was some talk of a raid just beforehand in order to kind of keep their heads down. There were some fears, particularly back at home, that there might be some threat from the air, from the airstrip there. There was a kind of pretty crude airstrip with a couple of aeromachies and I think a pucara. Anyway, that sort of...
light ground attack aircraft rather than fast jets and that would pose a threat but the whole situation changed on the 25th of May. Indeed the raid was actually launched and it got a little way when this was going to be conducted by two para when it was called off because the weather was too bad to lift any guns up there to support the attack and I think there was quite a feeling of relief when that happened but things changed dramatically on the 25th of May when Julian Thompson was
who was then busy working on his revised plan of attack, he now had to take account of the fact that he'd be operating without the lift provided by the Chinook and Wessex helicopters that had gone down on the Atlantic conveyor, which had just been sunk. And so Thompson is very keen to press on
to try and seize control of Mount Kent, which is this big feature in the middle of the island which dominates all the surrounding ground and looks down directly on Port Stanley, the ultimate objective. However, while he's working on this, he's called to the satellite terminal at Ajax Bay and told that he's put on to northward
and told by John Fieldhouse, the overall commander, that he was now to make a plan to attack and capture, not raid, but actually capture Goose Green. The impetus for this came not from the military folk back home, but from the politicians, from Number 10, from Mrs Thatcher and those around her.
Their feeling was that after several days of unbroken bad news, i.e. the sinking not only of the Atlantic conveyor, but also the destroyer HMS Coventry, the country really needed some good news.
OK, so this is a political decision. It wouldn't be the first time, would it, Saul, that a battle had been ordered for the purposes of people in power? No, and not the last, of course, Patrick. I mean, a couple of famous examples come to mind. Stalingrad, probably the best known of all, where Hitler overrules his military command in what they're intending to do and insists that the city that bears his...
opponent's name, Stalin, of course, is taken against all good military advice and certainly watering down the plan to head further south and take the vital oil regions of the Caucasus. But also there's that better known example, I suppose, as far as the British are concerned, which was North Africa in 1940 to 1941, which
amazing success against the Italians, but thrown away really by Churchill's determination to launch an expedition into Greece in early 1941, which took away all the momentum of that initial incursion across Italian North Africa and gave the Germans, of course, time to launch their own reinforcements in the shape of Rommel. And of course, we know that the war changes dramatically as a result of that.
But you have examples too, I'm sure, Patrick. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, on a smaller scale, my latest book is about the raid on Dieppe in August 1942, Operation Jubilee, which was absolutely a political operation. Basically, it was cool because the Russians and the Americans who have just come into the war feel that the Brits aren't doing enough. The Russians are furious with us for not opening a second front there.
So, Churchill's view, sensibly, I think we all agree in hindsight, was that there was no possibility of launching a full-scale attack on the continent at that point. It would almost certainly be a disaster, but something had to be done. So, this was a sort of token raid. It was a complete debacle. But nonetheless, the feeling was that something had to be done at the time. I can sort of sympathise. I mean, it's all very well to look back and say, oh, what an idiotic idea, but it's
There are moments, sadly, in war when these kind of sacrifices have to be made in order to sustain the all-round effort. And the all-round effort, of course, is political and diplomatic as much as it is military a lot of the time. So we desperately needed to keep the Russians in the war. At that stage in the summer of 1942, there was a real possibility they might actually sign a separate peace with Hitler, which would have been...
really catastrophic for us. So I think in the case of Goose Green, it's harder to argue. What do you reckon? Do you think there's reasonable grounds for it? No, not really. And of course, as we're going to hear in a little bit more detail in a while from Julian Thompson, there wasn't really any obvious, apart from political need,
And when politics clashes with military imperative, you often get bad news, as we're going to discover. Of course, from the commanders on the ground point of view, in particular H. Jones commanding Tupara, there was no argument. And actually, he was quite keen to get into action. And I know that you met him on the journey down, Patrick. His plan was reasonably straightforward. They would use as much firepower as they could get, both from naval gunfire and also from 105mm guns.
but not many of them, only unfortunately three, and their own heavy support weapons. They could only take down, unfortunately, only two of their mortars to support a classic ground infantry attack over open ground. I mean, you've seen the terrain down there, Patrick. It's very open. There's not a lot of cover. And that's why fire support is so important.
H. Jones had asked for more fire support, but he was told by Brigadier Thompson, and we'll learn the reasons why in a moment, that actually there wasn't going to be any more forthcoming. So it was really going to be an old-fashioned infantry attack. They would move into position under cover of darkness during the night of the
26th, 27th, lie up all day at a place called Camilla Creek House, which is just very close to the entrance to the Isthmus where most of the Argentinian positions were, and then attack in the early hours of the 28th and hopefully, with what fire support they had, be able to winkle the Argentinians out of their positions. I'll say a little bit about Tupara and
particularly their commander. Now, two paras are, you know, a real fighting outfit, replete with all the virtues of the parachute regiment.
And they're very keen, like everyone is, to get stuck in. On the way down, they've been trying to get the ship that's carrying them, the master of the ship, of the Norland, to hurry up because they're really worried that it might all be over by the time they get there. When they arrive, they're stuck on top of Sussex Mountain. So they're looking down onto San Carlos Water and they can see the ships being sunk, the Argentinian Air Force swooping in.
So there's a big feeling of frustration, which is reinforced by the fact that the conditions out there are absolutely horrible. They want to move, get a move on, get stuck in. But having said that, they're still a bit concerned about
when they get the news that they're going to, first of all, raid Goose Green and then actually attack Goose Green. I met H. Jones on the way down. He was a very charming guy, obviously very committed to the role he'd not necessarily been born to because I think his father was in the Navy. He came from a prosperous west of England farming family, been to Eton, but he decided the soldiering life was him and he really did.
did look the part. His company commanders, very impressive guys, John Crossland, B Company had been in the SAS, Dare Farrow, Hockley, A Company, came from an old military family. His father, in fact, had an honorary position in the Parachute Regiment. I think he was Colonel Commandant. So you've got these very committed guys, but when you actually look at what you're being asked to do, you're funnelled down this isthmus
The Argentinians, no matter how vague the numbers are, they're certainly in a very, very good defensive position. There's no cover.
And it's quite difficult to generate the kind of massive violence, as the paras put it, that is necessary to keep the momentum going in these circumstances, unless you've got considerable support. The weapons they've got themselves is a very fast-moving unit, pretty light, so you really need the artillery support, you really need the very limited armoured support that was available from the light armoured cars they've got there, the scimitars and the scorpions. And, of course, the naval gunfire is...
is very important as well. We'll hear that this wasn't forthcoming in the way that the Jones wanted. So let's get to the battle itself.
We've been very fortunate to hear from Nigel Spud Ely, then a private in Two Paras 50 Strong Sea Company, and today the author of an excellent new book on the battle called Goose Green, The Decisive Battle of the Falklands War. Nigel told us about that battle. It started on the 27th at 2200 hours. We got the order, very brief orders, to go and lay the start line for A Company. A Company was the first company to be put into business.
into battle. A start line is an imaginary line on the ground where it's close enough to the enemy to affect an attack, but not as close to compromise while you're lining up for that attack. And that's why I say I'm point man. I was point man because I was the point of the first patrol to lead and set that start line up for A company. Their attack was onto Burnside House
B Company were to attack Bokker House about an hour later, while D Company were held in reserve. And that's the way infantry battalions work, you know, two up, one in reserve. And that's it. A Company put their attack in. The Argentinians had fled. And the next point was for A Company would be Coronation Point and Darwin Hill. Now, Colonel Jones had thought that the battle for Goose Green would be overcome first light. And in the Falklands, first light's about 10 o'clock in the morning.
Well, of course, A company got snagged up on Darwin Hill in a ferocious battle and they didn't manage to take the hill until first light, a little before 10 o'clock. While D company then came up from their reserve to move to take the airfield, B company swung right flanking to still take their objective on Bocca House. But
what wasn't known to the battalion at the time through no intelligence and no real thought of anybody's really was the fact that there were trenches, Argentine trenches in front of all of the objectives that the rifle companies had to take. And because the ground was so exposed, you couldn't really blame the SAS who'd been on the ground a month before wrecking these positions because they couldn't get close enough to, uh,
you know, to fold proper intelligence reports back on the enemy. So when a company assorted Darwin Hill, like I said, it was a vicious battle. We were in reserve. I could see the battle two, three hundred meters in front of me. We were getting all the overshots from the Argentinian mortar rounds. So we had to dash to the base of this Darwin Hill. Darwin Hill was like an elongated pimple, not particularly high.
but it had rolling rows of sort of folds of like it had been sort of cultivated ain't you know by the ancient inhabitants almost like terraces along the side yeah like terraces yeah which which gave you cover from view but not really cover from fire so it was at that point a company got held up and colonel jones came forward i wasn't there so but i have heard stories about uh phrases like come on a company get your skirts on follow me um
A company, OC, didn't seem to be in control as Jones came up and Jones affected his own assault on part of the hillside and sadly got killed doing the assault. When that happened, it came over the radio, Sunray down, Sunray being the call sign of a commanding officer. Sunray could be a corporal of a patrol. So we immediately knew it was Colonel Jones was down. We didn't know he'd been killed.
But then A Company took the hill and C Company marched up the hill and went forward south through A Company's position and held the position south of Darwin Hill overlooking Goose Green.
I remember walking through those positions, seeing the dead, the dying, all the prisoners, Argentine prisoners, seeing our boys dead, you know, my mates. In order for us to move forward, we had to clear trenches because they had come to be literally just taken. And they were in bits, really. There was the young kids up there. Some of them were in tears. And to see your dead mates there was quite a shocker.
B&C Company, the old sweats, and I say old sweats, I was 23 at the time. But in some respects, the battalion two pair had been bloodied a couple of years previous through Warren Point. I was on the second bomb. I was on the sort of QRF, the quick reaction force from Besbrook. So we knew what war was about, but nobody, not even, I don't think any British unit since, I think, Korea possibly, had fought such a vicious battle of Darwin Hill.
Anyway, so we moved forward, held the forward southern ground. And from that position, we could actually see straight in front of us all the Argentinians. So some gun placements behind the guns were there was a settlement of Goose Green to my right at about two o'clock was the airfield with the Bacaras on it.
I remember we were fighting down an isthmus which was only half a mile wide and on the left and the right was the sea. And at the bottom of this isthmus was behind the goose green settlement was more sea. So really they couldn't have gone anywhere. Okay. So we held up there.
And for about an hour, have enough smoking, getting a brew on and listen to all the Chinese parliaments and the whispers going on, who's killed and who's this and who's missing. It was kind of the combat soldiers talk, but you're still very focused on what you've got to do. And the extraordinary order we got around about 12 o'clock,
was um sea company recce advanced to contact towards goose green we just looked at amazement at each other and my patrol commander ken because i was a tom at the time the private soldier said right spud that's my nickname so right spud point man again and i went oh my god you're kidding me aren't you said no point man and basically we headed off down this forward slope in
In arrowhead formation, which means one man in front and two to the left and four goes all the way back.
and in the middle, about 20, 30 yards back, would be your HQ, which is where the OC, Officer Commanding of Sea Company, would be with his signals unit and stuff. So with that, I fixed bayonets, and we advanced a contact. In the distance, I could see all the Argentinians, and I was wondering, why aren't they firing at us? Did they think we were them? Did they actually think that they had repelled us from Darwin Hill? So...
as we're advancing about two three hundred meters in front of me there was this canvas tent affair which was flapping in the wind and there was a it was a trench it covered a trench i didn't realize it at the time and i threw a white phosphorus grenade into that and that caught fire and just shot it all up didn't inspect the trench you just i just carried on forward and that's when the heavens erupted i mean we were attacked on both sides um
you know, from the east and the west. They opened up with both the guns that they took off the ships, mortars, artillery, Olicon 20 mil, Olicon anti-aircraft guns in the ground roll. And they cut us, they cut us down. In fact, they, because I was so far forward with my mates, we actually ran into dead ground. And,
It was the HQ of C Company which got absolutely smashed. We lost one guy, four badly injured. In fact, out of nine or ten guys, there was only one guy that survived without a scratch. And the ironic thing of that, we left him with poor old Mark Homer Smith, who was killed, left him for three hours because he couldn't get back under fire, left him for three hours with poor Mark.
And while he watched us put the assault, carried on the attack. He's been affected this day with post-traumatic stress. So that's where we are at the moment. We run into dead ground and obviously to hold our position and find out what the hell was going on. By which time we'd been sort of, we'd bomb burst, we'd scattered all over the place. So this command and control element was lost very early on.
on the assault into Goose Green. And because we were C Company, we were used to working in four-man patrols, five-man patrols, unlike rifle companies who work in sections, two groups of four, three groups of four, you know, it's 12 guys, 12 soldiers. So we then worked in a sort of buddy-buddy system and we just tried to advance as quickly and as carefully as possible. To the front, there was an estuary coming in from the left, which then filtered down to a bridge, a wooden bridge.
which was part of a roadhead, but it wasn't a metal road. It was just a dirt track with tractor ruts on it. And the arges were running back across that towards Goose Green.
and we were sort of taking them out and advancing at the same time and as c company were advancing d company were coming closing in from the right part of elements of the right hand side of d company were closing in with us we eventually get down by this estuary and there's a stone building which are now known to be the dairy and a small little bank of about a meter and a half high and above that were all the algae positions and they had taken over a pig farm and they'd
that upturned all these pig-style things and used them as sort of accommodation tents. So we fought through that. And it was quite weird, really, because you could hear the Spanish voices. Really, really bizarre, because we were that close to them. And it always reminded me of the longest day, that Second World War film with John Wayne when those
paratroopers were walking along the line that stonewall fence wall stonewall yeah and the germans were on the other side and they just walked past each other you know that just my nan taught me to see that in leicester square years and years ago and that's always stayed with me and that's how it felt when i was in goose green there anyway we sort of fought through them and all the shouted down and we lost comms to anybody behind us up at dalwin hill somebody said that the patrols were going to assault
the schoolhouse and I thought where the hell's the schoolhouse because that wasn't mentioned in the briefings they were just snap briefings that we were told and I looked at sort of 7 o'clock and I saw this huge big building I've never seen it before a big wooden building apparently it was the biggest building on the islands anyway there were a load of arches firing out of there
Argentinians and patrols put an attack into there and did a bit of room clearance I think they cleared the first room because I fired a 66 which is a shoulder fired anti-tank rocket like a mini bazooka
American-designed. Very good weapon. Really good weapon. But you threw it and you chucked it away. It was only one fire. My round hit the roof and Bricka shagged off. And yet a mate of mine fired his one and went in through the top window and set the bloody place on fire. The ones that could get out ran out behind and ran off down the beach towards Goose Green. But us soldiers, we always...
We always refer to old war movies and stuff. And there was a, Steve was saying, he said, I saw the schoolhouse go up and I saw the Argentinians escape out the back running down the beach. And it was this lone guy and everyone was firing at him. And he said, it reminded me of the bridge too far when that paratrooper went running out to pick up this weapons bundle.
and he was under the fire of the Germans and he ran out and everyone was cheering him and when he got to the container he opened up and it was full of berries you know so Steve relates that story to this lone Argentinian running we don't know whether he survived or not but you look back at it 40 years and you go wow I mean it's funny how you can sort of relate all these things but there was a lot of death around the schoolhouse and around that area where we were fighting through um
We couldn't progress too far forward. There was a big water tower. That's as far as we got, because the intensity of the fire was just crazy. I mean, it was just how the battalion survived, I do not know. So a very graphic account of the battle there by Nigel Ely, who in the interview went on to talk about the ordeal of attacks by Pekara aircraft, which dropped napalm,
the cries of the wounded and the incredible heroism of the scout helicopter pilots who came in as it was getting dark to Kazovac, the many casualties. Now, at one point, Nigel mentioned H. Jones's death.
Patrick, what's your feeling about the effect that had on the battle? This decision to actually lead an attack himself, of course, becomes very controversial. It wins H. Jones the VC, but there are plenty of critics around saying, well, he shouldn't have been there in the first place. We'll hear what Julian Thompson has to say about that later on.
But subsequently, it was seen as an inspirational thing. Whether it had any effect on the battle at that point, I think it's genuinely open to dispute because no one, apart from the people immediately around him, knew this had happened. It certainly did show a high degree of moral courage and was in the great traditions of the regiment.
What happens next, of course, is that when news that Sunray, which is the code word given to the CEO, is down, I remember hearing that come over the net actually where I was. Sunray is down. I didn't know what that meant then I was told. It means that Ace Jones has been at least injured when this reaches people.
Chris Keeble, his 2IC, he is, of course, now in control. He actually does a great job in taking over the situation and it's very, very difficult to actually, as we heard, issue specific commands. But insofar as he can do that, he does do that. And from now on, the battle is his. I think sometimes he doesn't get enough credit for the outcome. Yeah, absolutely right, Patrick. You know, we can go round in circles on whether or not
H. Jones's decision made a big difference. What we do know for sure is that relatively soon after his wounding, his mortal wounding, actually the Argentinian position, or at least the fire coming from the Argentinian position on Darwin Hill was silenced. It was probably silenced by...
A machine gun fire and 66 millimeter rocket fire. And as I say, within a relatively short period of time, white flags had appeared and 76 Argentinians were taken prisoner, 39 of them wounded. So you can see that the storm of fire that had been put down in their positions was gradually beginning to tell.
And as you say, Patrick, the battle is still far from over. I mean, we're on the morning of the 28th. And actually, one of the key moments on the other side of the isthmus, and this is the bit that's not often spoken about, is where Keeble has actually instructed the support company to bring its Milan anti-tank rockets and heavier machine guns to bear on the high ground that's holding up D Company. And after a storm of fire is put down, D Company actually...
advances on foot, charges literally with the bayonet that line of positions and takes them. So it's another pretty impressive bit of infantry attacking almost First World War in its intensity and really giving an example of the parachute regiment at its best, which is showing aggression even in the face of some pretty tough positions. So on the evening of the 28th, both sides are probably thinking, where's this going to go?
Anyway, the paras pulled back behind the ridge line so they're no longer in danger from the direct fire from the Argentinian positions. Meanwhile, there's a feeling back at Brigade that maybe this is the time to make an approach, call on the Argentinians to surrender.
So a message is relayed to the garrison via CB radio. This is how all the Falkland Islanders communicate with each other. And the message gets to the farm manager at Goose Green, that's a Mr. Goss, Eric Goss. And he passes it on to Piaggi, the Argentinian commander. And it says, you know, would you be willing to accept a delegation who will go forward from the British lines in the morning offering the terms of a surrender?
The terms that the British are offering are pretty extreme, really. I mean, it's basically unconditional surrender. But the Argentinians decide they don't really, in the face of the firepower they're seeing that the British can now bring to bear and in the absence of any great support,
from their own side, they think they don't have much of a choice. So the next morning, the surrender is done. The British sensibly allow the Argentinians their dignity. And so they're allowed to parade before they lay down their weapons. And then their commander, Piaget, burns the regimental flag and the troops then become prisoners of war. I went down shortly after the
the surrender that was later that morning, I think, in a helicopter. The first thing that struck me flying over the battlefield was just how tough the fight must have been because it seemed that every inch of ground had been struck by some weapon or another. There were big splashes that had been made in the turf by the mortars and by the artillery fire. It really was a very impressive sight. Got to Goose Green itself and there were lots of disconsolate Argentinians wandering around
The paras are absolutely exhausted. And of course, we'll talk about this later, but the civilians, the inhabitants of Goose Green and Darwin had all been herded into a hall there for the duration of the fight, were now free, but they were pretty frazzled as well. They were obviously delighted to be free, but didn't really have the energy to express their joy. Yeah. And one of the striking things, of course, for the paras, when they finally took
the surrender is the number of defenders that were still there. You talked about Pioggi, and he had the main force of about 900 men who were still in one piece. And there are some very dramatic pictures of them all putting down their helmets. That's one of the most famous pictures of the war, just a sea of helmets. You can see how many people were there. But it wasn't just that 900. There were also Air Force men there as well. I mean, the total garrison, as we mentioned at the beginning, was about 1,200. And
they didn't realize, they didn't have any idea the sheer number of men that were defending that position. And if you think that the two-power, even when it began, was only 450 strong, it had taken a number of casualties. You get a sense of, you know, forget about attacking with a three-to-one attack.
They're attacking with a one to three disadvantage. So pretty remarkable, frankly, what Tupara did during that battle. It was a victory, but at a cost, as we've already discovered. And this caused Julian Thompson a certain amount of regret afterwards. This is what he told us when we spoke to him. I was summoned by Fieldhouse to a meeting by SATCOM, which had just been established. This large SATCOM facility had just been established on shore.
in Ajax Bay, right by my logistic setup. Because previously to that, if I'd wanted to speak on set, I'd have to go out to one of the ships. And it had been established there
And I then was told by Fieldhouse that everyone was getting very impatient and they wanted something done and what was going to be done was Goose Green because that was the closest to where we were. Of course it was a problem because if you think of St Colas as the centre of a clock, we actually wanted to go to 3 o'clock. We were being pulled down to 6 o'clock right off the line of march.
And with the lack of helicopters, it meant that the support we could give to Tupara had to be taken priority over everything else for their attack on Goose Green. And therefore it slowed down the move in the right direction. I didn't want to go to Goose Green.
My intelligence officer, who was a very sharp cookie, said to me, it's a self-administering POW camp. They've locked themselves in there. But the obsession I gather later, I did
I didn't know it at the time, was a worry about the airfield there, that they might be able to attack the beachhead area. Well, they could, using Aramakis and Pucaras, but nothing seriously wrong like fast jets, because you couldn't fire fast jets off the Goose Green Airstrip. It was a grass strip, a short one. I mean, I under-resourced H. Jones.
And it was my fault and there's no one else to blame but me. Because he said to me, I'd like some light armor. I said, you can't have it because I didn't want it being bogged down in the ground going down there, which he wouldn't have done. That was me seeing difficulties where they didn't exist. And, uh,
I should have gone down myself, not suggesting it would have done better had I personally been there, but I should have taken my tack plus another maneuver unit plus some armor. And that, of course, was all with the advantage of hindsight, is what I would have done. I didn't do that.
So the battalion was at one stage pretty much left, well it was entirely left to its own resources, and at one stage they were pinned down on forward slopes, which they will no doubt describe, being engaged by Argentine 35mm anti-aircraft guns, which was bloody unpleasant. And what actually broke the deadlock
was GR3s flying in and attacking the gun sites, which broke, I think, the will of the gunners to keep firing and enable the parachute battalion to continue their advance. And really they did it all on their own without very little help from anyone else, and they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. They fought a fantastic battle. Let me encapsulate my personal feelings.
by saying that whenever I'm asked about this, I always quote the example of 50 Division in Normandy in the first six weeks of the campaign, where they lost 12 infantry COs in six weeks. Now, there are only nine battalions, so they lost 130%, not all dead, but wounded as well. And there's nothing in the rulebook which says the commanding officers are not meant to be killed. They're killed in large numbers in war.
because he realized, and I would never try and second-guess him, that it bogged down. He personally had to get a bit of the momentum behind it, which is what he did.
I think a lot of people can exaggerate his part and say that, you know, the battalion was failing. It wasn't failing. He just needed that thing to click it over. And that's what he thought he would do. Whether his personal intervention or not did do what he wanted to do, one can't tell. One would have to be there at the time. But I'd never try and second guess a commanding officer who wants to go forward.
because many of my commanding officers were right up front in attacks. And had they been killed, people would say, oh, they shouldn't have been there. They were where they thought they had to be.
to be. So that was Julian Thompson speaking very frankly about his thoughts after the battle. I think his verdict on H's decision to go forward is the right one. Interesting statistic there about D-Day casualties among senior officers. So it's really the CO's call, isn't it? If he feels he needs to be there, then he needs to be there. I think that's fair enough.
Yeah, I mean, he talks about the mistake of not giving H armour. You mentioned the scimitars and the Saladin armoured vehicles. Julian Thompson thought that actually the ground wouldn't be firm enough. And yet he was big enough in retrospect to admit that actually on inspecting it later on, it would have worked. And that sort of crucial extra bit of firepower might have made all the difference in ending the battle sooner.
and saving one or two lives. But, you know, as also, as Julian Thompson said, this is with the benefit of hindsight. And of course, you do not have that when you're making these decisions. Yeah, some armchair generals later came out and said, well, maybe there should have been two battalion strength units down there. But that would have been such an enormous diversion of
on something that had been called at very short notice, we have to remember. And indeed, you know, I think we would all now agree militarily, it was really pretty pointless. As we came in on this point, it's a political battle. It's not a tactical or a strategic battle.
I wonder if, Patrick, one of the effects, which hasn't often been mentioned, but I think we should air now in favour of the battle being fought, is that the result, of course, was known to the Argentine garrison around Port Stanley. They realised they were up against some pretty formidable troops and may it possibly have weakened the resistance. We'll never know for sure, but certainly when the news got back that 1,200 men had been effectively taken out by a relatively small force,
must have made those conscripts in the defensive positions around Paul Stanley think twice. And did that lead to a collapse in morale and fighting capacity earlier than it might have done? Yeah, I think that's highly possible. You've got this very strange...
set up among the Argentinian forces. You've got highly motivated people who are highly trained. They feel themselves to be very patriotic in, you know, pretty efficient units, sort of special forces type units. And then you've got these country boys who've just been, probably don't know what they're there for, a bit like the Russians and many of the Russians in Ukraine today. So you've got this kind of big disparity in motivation between the as properly trained professionals and
and the conscripts and that cannot have created much kind of group cohesion I would have thought and this would have put a big dent in it when they heard the news about Goose Green so yeah I think you're right about that.
Well, something we haven't talked about much until this point is what was the experience like of occupation for the 1,800 people we'd gone to save. I think the folks of Darwin and Goose Green had a particularly horrible time. Could you imagine being herded into a village hall, essentially,
Just hearing all this pandemonium outside, not knowing who was winning, who was losing, what your fate was going to be, whether a shell was going to land on top of the building and kill the lot of you, it must have been absolutely harrowing.
We're going to talk in more general terms afterwards with Graham Bound, who was on the island at the time, very thoughtful guy, editor of the Penguin News, about the experience of occupation as he and others lived it during those weeks.
Welcome back. Now, the Falkland Islanders struck us as outsiders coming in with the task force as a rather unusual society. The first ones we met, I met anyway, were in Port San Carlos settlement, which was exactly where we came ashore. It was kind of a big sheep station type thing there. Everyone seemed kind of almost unsurprised to see us. They had this very imperturbable attitude.
And I think, you know, obviously, when we thought about it a bit, if you're living in these very isolated communities, all sorts of traumatic things are thrown at you all the time, from nature, from just the hardy life you're living. So I think they're used to adversity and with rather kind of admirable stoicism, they just put up with what's coming their way. We came very fond of them and I remain a great supporter of their desire to remain independent.
Now, to hear it from a Falkland Islander himself, we're talking to Graham Bound. He's the author of a terrific book on the occupation called Fortress Falklands, Life Under Siege in Britain's Last Outpost. He's going to tell us about his experience, his experience
I asked him first why the islanders were so opposed to the idea of Argentinian sovereignty. I think it was a massive cultural difference. If you ask any Falkland Islander around at that time, they would say that the Argentine way of life was not ours. It was perfectly charming and lovely. And during the 70s, we all enjoyed going to Buenos Aires. And we traveled around. I anyway traveled around Argentina a lot.
But at the same time, they didn't seem to be particularly reliable stewards of our future. And who knew what our future might hold? So we all felt that...
Britain, if not particularly benign in that relationship, as I've just described, they would or should allow the islands to develop as they wanted to. And we knew that the Argentines would not allow that. We would just simply become another province of Argentina. That's the big picture. But the smaller picture was that through the 70s, there was the most appalling military junta in power. And they killed approximately 30,000 of their own people just for, you know,
doing things that we would accept as perfectly normal in the UK, but perhaps leaning slightly to the left. You didn't have to do much to disappear or to be thrown in the back of a Ford Falcon and turn up later in a bag by the side of a road. So that didn't appeal. Tell me about the day of the invasion. Where were you when you first got wind of it? I first got wind of it about eight o'clock the night before when I was in the Upland Goose with some journalists who'd flown in a day or two before from the UK.
and also an Argentine photographer called Rafael who took iconic pictures of the invasion. And we were clustered around my little Panasonic shortwave radio listening to what was going on. And then we heard there was going to be a dramatic announcement from the governor at that point. I literally remember the blood draining out of my face. I just...
have that moment sort of etched on my memory as one in which I was profoundly shocked and afraid because we'd fooled ourselves into thinking that if there was going to be any military action, it would be around South Georgia, not in the Falklands. And that was the night of the beginning of a whole night of, as far as I was concerned,
real concern and fear and I think that applied to everybody so by the morning after not getting much sleep I went and helped at the radio station for a while didn't sleep I ended up at the upland goose with my friends and my family my aunt there and I was taking photographs as the troops came through up Ross Road from the upland goose so that's I decided at that point that I was watching history so I better do my best to record it quite right too uh
Tell me about your first encounter with an Argentinian, one of the invaders. I'd managed to, not consciously, but I'd almost blocked a road with my Jeep. And I had somebody...
come looking for me in uniform. And that worried me slightly. No, sorry. An announcement came over the radio, local radio station. And I was asked to go to some point, I can't quite remember where, but nearby with a white flag. And when I got there, I thought this doesn't sound good. But all they really wanted me to do was move my vehicle because it was stopping their huge amphibious
personnel carriers from getting along that stretch of road. So that was my first encounter with them. By that time, the really furious fighting around Government House had subsided. In fact, it had stopped and the Marines, under the instruction of Rex Hunt, had surrendered.
So I think we all felt a huge feeling of relief that the Argentines hadn't, for example, shelled the town, you know, which I thought they might do at one point. And so it was over for the time being. We felt a huge sense of relief. And what were they like in their dealings with you day to day, the ordinary people of Argentina?
For the first week or so, there was euphoria on the Argentine side. They didn't believe that Britain was going to organise any kind of relief force. Frankly, I didn't either. And they believed they were there to stay. So they were very keen on us resuming life as normal. They were giving all kinds of guarantees that, you know, schools would reopen shortly. We could continue to work.
live our lives as normal but you know of course there would be Argentine pesos instead of pounds and we would drive on the right instead of the left and things like that but that to them anyway I suppose seemed fairly benevolent and I was able to take photographs a lot and I was able to get out and about nobody particularly bothered me it was a bit of a phony war in fact and
for that period. And we were genuinely reasonably safe. The Argentines had no intention of provoking anything at that stage. Quite the contrary, they were involved in quite furious diplomacy to try and stop the British mounting a task force. So that was an easy period. But it became different as time went by. And gradually, the Argentine authorities began issuing edicts, which were quite authoritarian. At times, they could be chilling,
The sort of thing that was coming out from the local radio station, which they'd taken over, was, you know, due respect must be shown to Argentine national symbols and any transgression will be met with trial and punishment under the military code, that kind of thing, you know, which was a bit chilling, so the least.
But that took a while to develop. And was this linked to events on the military front, such as, you know, the sinking of the Belgrano, etc.? Did you notice a change of mood when things like that happened? Yes. By the end of April, I think on the 25th of April, South Georgia was attacked.
And about that point, everything sort of pivoted. And suddenly I felt anyway that the good cop, bad cop sort of balance in the Argentine occupation had changed and the bad guys were now in charge. They started arbitrary arrests on the 27th of April, I think it was. They rounded up...
about 10 individuals who were either community leaders or known for their outspoken opposition to everything Argentine or were important members of the local defence force and shipped them off to be locked up at Fox Bay. They began arbitrary arrests on the streets. I was arrested just an interrogator just for walking up the road. And so everything changed. After the war, I met
One of the individuals who was involved in that, a chap called Misa Komodoro-Blumer-Reeve, and he told me for an interview for my book that he was rapidly losing control and the hardliners were taking control. And we felt it. What about when the British troops first get assured as the atmosphere changed dramatically then? Yeah, by that time they had become set in their new ways, which was dressed up as in
In our interest, you know, for example, we had to be at home off the streets with blackouts in the windows and so on by 6 p.m. But this was said to be for our own safety. They cut any kind of business hours for any business that remained open just one or two hours a day.
they'd increased the tempo of their arbitrary searches of houses which had a menacing tone to them they were searching we now know for radios which they believed were there and indeed were so the whole feeling of a traditional typical occupation army became very real what about the presence now that you're beginning to feel of the british task force for example there are
air raids on the airport. Once the troops are ashore, you start getting naval bombardments, etc. There must have been a point when you felt, well, perhaps we've got more to fear from people who are coming to save us than we do from the people who've invaded us. Certainly it was 50-50, I think, yes. I mean, after the 1st of May, when we were almost on the receiving end of the Vulcan raid, which was swiftly followed up by the shelling of the outskirts of Stanley the same day, from then on,
the shelling attacks and the air raids built up to sort of crescendo pitch around Stanley. And it seemed to me at the time that they were getting closer and closer and closer. So almost daily, those, sorry, almost nightly, the naval shelling, which would begin usually between 10 p.m. and midnight,
and then carry on until about three or four, would get closer to the centre of Stanley. And consequently, the people who were still in Stanley were also getting closer into the centre of Stanley. They were vacating their houses and moving into what they felt were safer houses, such as the Upland Goose Hotel, which was built like the proverbial where I was.
And at one point, quite late on, there was a proposal that all the civilians should congregate in the brick-built Protestant cathedral as a relatively safe place. I think we all had mixed feelings about that, but there wasn't time to do that. But yes, I mean, the shelling, at night, the Navy would come in and shell Stanley and its environs. Then during the day, the Harriers would attack
often six or eight, ten times a day, Stanley and the environment. Well, that was Graham Bounds, who was, of course, in Port Stanley during the time of occupation. And I have to confess, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up
as he moved from the initial description of the Argentinians behaving pretty well, you know, pretty correctly, nothing too sinister, life as normal. Then, reasonably swiftly, as it became clear, one, a task force was being sent, two, ships were being sunk in the case of the Belgrano, and three,
the British had actually landed on the far side of East Falkland, then everything changes. Then people are being arrested for no good reason. There are all kinds of searches of houses to get hold of these radios, which of course they were using and giving information to the British. But slowly but surely, you began to realise this may presage what life
could have been like under the Argentinians with effectively a military dictatorship in charge. And he explains very clearly at the beginning of that, one of the reasons we didn't want to be part of Argentina, although we loved visiting Argentina, we had nothing against them per se, is their political system. And this is often forgotten when we talk about the lead up to war and whether or not the Argentinians should have had sovereignty. Frankly, we would have been handing over these people
to the care of a pretty desperate bunch. Yeah, and these aren't actual Argentinians. These are people they want to persuade to become Argentinian. We know, as Graham pointed out, how they treat their own people. So I think you see a pattern here which is common to other people
occupations that we know a lot about, like the German occupation, initial occupation of France in 1940. Once again, they're on their best behavior. They're very correct. That's the term that is used a lot. They're very polite. They don't steal things. They might take things, but they will offer to pay for them, etc.,
And initially, there's a kind of the French feel, maybe they're not quite as bad as we thought they were. Of course, that changes very rapidly. If anyone puts up any sign of resistance, doesn't cooperate 100%, then the mask slips and the mood changes very rapidly. And it's not long, of course, before people are being carted off.
shot if they're communists as hostages, etc., etc. So, yeah, I think the misgivings were absolutely justified. And it is, I think, to their great credit, the Falklanders were never really seduced into this idea of, OK, well, we'll do what the Foreign Office wants us to do and fall into line and become part of this pretty nasty group.
regime which has got a very difficult history and absolutely shot through with violence and repression. Okay, now we're going to hear a slightly different view of the occupation from the perspective of Leona Roberts, currently a member of the Falkland Islands Legislative Assembly, but
but then a 10-year-old schoolgirl living in Port Stanley with her brother, 17, and mum, who operated the radio telephone station which allowed rural islanders, known collectively as The Camp, to keep in touch with the capital. So it was really bizarre, to be honest, because there was this sense the day before that,
that there was something happening. Now, as a 10-year-old, I wasn't really aware, obviously, of what that might be, but there was a real tension in the air
And it was evident that there was something afoot. And then, of course, we heard about the impending invasion when the governor came on the radio and said, we have reliable information that an invasion fleet is on the way and will be here in the early hours of the morning. So everybody was listening to that, of course. And that was one of the most frightening times, I think, for me personally, because there was so much uncertainty about what that might mean and what might happen.
So my mum put me to bed, fully dressed, shoes by the side of my bed, and woke me up when we heard the first shots, sort of in the early hours of the morning. And then we spent invasion night. We went to my neighbour, who's a
who was a single lady, forced lady with small children. So we went around to sort of try and keep her company and to have a bit of comfort, I guess, ourselves and spent the whole night sheltering under an overturned sofa and a kitchen table, listening to the radio as everybody in the Falklands was because they were incredible. They kept broadcasting throughout the night, trying to keep us updated with what was happening.
And people were calling in and saying, you know, we can see boats coming in. We can hear explosions. You know, it was it was absolutely terrifying, to be perfectly honest. OK, what was your first actual encounter with with Argentinian troops or Argentinian officials? Well, I guess through, you know, through the early hours of the morning, we could hear the Royal Marines attack.
You know, sort of around the house, you could hear first off, you know, British voices shouting to each other and shooting. We lift up on the outskirts of town. And then, you know, that was followed fairly shortly after by Argentine voices and more shooting and noise everywhere.
So that was, yeah, that was really frightening. We got our chimneys shot off and there was all sorts of things. But we stayed in the house. And later that day, after the surrender had been agreed and there were Argentine troops kind of all over the town and coming in in these awful big personnel carriers. Yeah, so they were sort of coming through the town and there were troops everywhere who were giving out instructions and pieces of paper. And, you know, well, we were told, you know, you couldn't go out without sort of waving a white flag.
Because of my mum's job on the RT, she was called by the head of education at the time to see if she would go into work, essentially, because we still have a boarding school in Stanley for the camp children. And obviously, there'd be no time to get them back out to their homes. So there were a lot of really frantic parents out there wanting to know that their children were OK and a lot of very scared kids out there.
So my mum agreed, absolutely. She would go down and open up the RT station. I mean, it's a bit comical in a way because she couldn't find anything that would serve as a white flag immediately. And so the best she could find was a sort of doll's dress that I had for one of these, you know, big tall doll. And so she folded this thing over and sort of went off at our front gate. I remember watching her walking up the road through all of these troops, you know, waving this little doll's dress and
And, you know, really not knowing if she was ever going to come back. But she did happily. That was fine. They were allowed to open up the RT and she put the children in contact with their parents and was back a couple of hours later. So I guess that was our first sort of encounter, really, you know, with them. And how would you characterise these early days of occupation in terms of the treatment process?
of the islanders by the Argentinians? - Well, I think we were very lucky really in that there were no sort of attacks on civilians or anything like that throughout. Although an awful lot was damaged and houses were horribly vandalized. There was some really bad treatment, but there were no sort of physical attacks.
I think, you know, there seemed to have been a bit of an impression that amongst some of them, certainly, that they were almost coming as liberators and they sort of expected to be welcomed and were quite taken aback to find that that wasn't the case.
But it was very frightening because everything changed sort of overnight. You know, we were suddenly, not that my mum could drive, but we were, you know, suddenly instructed to be driving on the other side of the road. You know, there were all these rules in place. And obviously the streets completely overrun with troops. And there's a tiny, tiny, very peaceful community. I mean, that was...
That was startling in the extreme and incredibly uncomfortable. And, you know, all the routine things that as a child you used to, you know, just vanished overnight. So obviously the schools were closed. They were turned into garrisons.
Everything just changed spectacularly. It was very unpleasant. So how did you keep yourself occupied? Well, you know, the funny thing is in Falklands back then, in 1982, we didn't have TV anyway. So we were all very used to occupying ourselves. And I think we played board games and all those sorts of things.
But really, it was just trying to find a way to fill the days. Because even now, you know, we're a bigger community, but children still have an enormous amount of freedom. And so, you know, as a 10-year-old, I was quite used to just going off and wandering around in the countryside, really. And of course, that suddenly wasn't possible either. So, yeah.
there was there was a lot of sitting and waiting I remember my my 17 year old brother spent an awful lot of time kind of working on a Rubik's Cube which he had shortly before and did solve before before the liberation I have to say yeah no it was it was incredibly bizarre experience but there
But there was also this sense of waiting, you know, because once we heard that the task force was on the way, as a child, you know, it was that sort of optimism that you have as a 10-year-old. I was quite convinced everything was going to work out fine. I mean, I had no concept of what would happen in between and the costs that were being incurred there. But yeah, you know, once we knew the task force was coming, it was like, well, it's a matter of time. And then there was this uncomfortable period of waiting and waiting.
settling in. You know, as things got closer, I guess there's a bit where I find it quite difficult to remember, where there's this sort of sense of limbo. I would go in to the RT with my mum so that I could kind of just be close to her. But, you know, that became very difficult as things progressed, because as the Argentine forces kind of reinforced and built up and dug in, we suddenly started finding
There were machine gun posts in our gardens. Everything just became so bizarre and foreign and alien to us. Did the attitude of the Argentinians change once they knew a task force was on the way? I mean, did you get the impression, I know you were pretty young in those days, but did your mum get the impression that the Argentinians assumed that actually there was nothing the British could do? I mean, that this was a fait accompli? Yeah, it's quite odd, I guess, looking back on it and trying to
trying to separate what was my perception at the time and what I know now, but, you know, the attitude changed definitely as things progressed and as the task force got closer. And after we had the first raids on Stanley Airport, so the Black Buck raid was the first tangible moment for us that, you know, this is things were really going to start happening.
you know, there was somebody who was broadcasting to the British forces who was managing to get messages out on a ham radio. And so part of the sort of changing attitude of the Argentine forces was they realised that very much they weren't welcome. And so they started looking around for who was sending these messages. And my mum, because she spoke Spanish, my father was Chilean. And also the fact she worked on the radio, I think, made her a suspect. So we had our house searched, I think, three or four times.
That was happening to other people too. At that point, there was a lot more threatening behaviour going on towards locals. You know, there were arrests. Yeah, things really started getting quite, you know, much more difficult then.
And that was sort of exacerbated, I guess, by the fact that, as I'm sure you've heard, your average Argentine soldier, the sort of conscript, wasn't well looked after, you know, by their own leadership. And so we were seeing begging for food in Stanley, which is a completely alien concept for us. You know, I'd never seen anything like that.
And that was very difficult, too, actually. And I know, you know, certainly my mum found that very hard to see, you know, people almost starving in the streets. I mentioned Goose Green. Of course, the battle for Goose Green was a particularly grim affair. But what interests me is what's happening on the other side of that, which is the number of islanders from the settlement who are all penned together, aren't they? I mean, was your mum aware of what was going on there? Was she in contact with anyone over there?
Yes. So again, through, you know, obviously through her work, she was able to sort of get a bit of understanding what was happening. And, you know, people were able to get messages back into family. So I don't think anybody really fully understood until afterwards. But it was 115 people locked in a very small community hall, you know, sleeping on the floor. And they sort of went under there, put the kids under the floorboards as things got worse and worse.
But limited food, just one toilet. Then there were elderly. There was a baby who was about nine months old, I think, you know, and they had a really tough time. They were locked up for over a month. That was Leona Roberts giving a wonderfully graphic account of life under occupation from the perspective of a 10-year-old. I feel that the behaviour of the Vaulteders was admirable. There was no hint of collaboration indeed.
Some of the males of the island, Terry Peck famously, ex-police chief, went off and joined up and was of huge assistance with his local knowledge to the advancing forces. So they did actually...
reinforce that notion that we would behave better perhaps than other European nations under those circumstances. Anyway, it's something that we could talk about forever, but I think we'd better move on. We've got to think about what's coming up next. Goose green, great victory in terms of propaganda anyway and shoring up, not that it supports dwindling back home, but it certainly makes people feel that the thing is all pointing in the right direction. Progress is being made.
Julian Thompson, of course, has now already started the process of moving forward, minus those
extra helicopters he desperately needed to lift the troops into their next positions. So what they have to do now is walk to where they're meant to be. In the next episode, we're going to hear all about the epic march to Thiel Inlet by the Marines and the paras, which is when the world heard the word "vionk" for the first time. Yes, and we'll also discuss the arrival of 5th Brigade under its CO Brigadier, Tony Wilson. That event was to have dramatic consequences for the whole campaign.
Do join us for the next installment. Goodbye.