Port Stanley, 29th May
No recordings or exact transcripts exist of the radio conversation between Brigadier Menendez and Lt General Galtieri. However, descriptions later given by those who were within earshot and Menendez (though not Galtieri) mean that while there are some inconsistencies regarding the exact wording it is nonetheless well documented what was said.
Menendez though he had done a pretty good job of hiding it was seen to be nervous by those who knew him well. Just like the soldier who never thinks it’ll be him who gets shot no commander ever really thinks seriously about what will happen when he is defeated until it actually happens. No commander seriously considers the day that he will be forced to ask his superiors for permission to give up until he finds himself actually having to do so.
Menendez had asked to speak to Galtieri directly on the pretence of updating him on the events of the previous night, the current strategic situation and the way forward. Menendez knew what he wanted to say but was worried about what would happen when he eventually did say it. He feared that he may be relieved of his command on the spot or that there may be repercussions for his loved ones on the mainland. Whatever happened though he knew that his career would be for all intents and purposes over and that he was assured a place in the history books for all the wrong reasons.
The conversation began as advertised with Menendez giving a detailed account of the battles the previous night and how despite their preparations and best efforts three whole regiments had been steamrollered by the British. He made sure to emphasis the fact that two of those regiments effectively no longer existed while the third was a shadow of its former self. He went on to describe the current strength and disposition of his force and what current intelligence he had on the British and the general direness of his position.
It was at this point that his nerves failed him. Whereas he had intended to forcefully make his case for seeking some sort of ceasefire with the British he instead rather meekly said “I don’t see anyway out of this. I think that we need to face facts and cut our losses”.
Rather than exploding as Menendez had feared Galtieri simply asked him to give a total figure for the number of men that he had on the Malvinas and the stocks of munitions. After Menendez had furnished him with this information Galtieri then asked for the latest intelligence estimate on the number of British soldiers on the islands. Based on the number of British soldiers estimated to have assaulted the heights the previous night tied in with the estimated number of support personnel required to sustain such a force and the lift capacity of the ships known to have transported them from Britain it was estimated that the British had roughly a brigades worth of men on the islands.
Galtieri didn’t expressly forbid Menendez from surrendering but instead asked in a way that carried an implicit threat why given Menendez still had superior numbers and strong defensive positions with a large stock of munitions did he feel that he was no longer capable of winning this thing? Menendez couldn’t believe what he had just heard. Had those idiots in the Libertador building not been listening to what he had just said or did they think he was being melodramatic? For a few seconds he just sat there in stunned silence. It was Galtieri who broke the silence by going off on a monologue about the honour and pride of the nation and other such nebulous concepts that can only matter to someone detached from the reality of the situation on the ground.
He ended this by stating “The soldiers of Argentina will not go out quietly into the night”. At that point Menendez snapped and shouted down the microphone at his president and commander in chief “We will not go quietly into the night because the British keep coming quietly out of the night and slaughtering the soldiers of Argentina!”.
At this point one of the staff officers in the room quickly drew his finger across his throat to signal to the radio operator to cut the transmission before anymore damage could be done. For a moment there was stunned silence. Whereas in any other situation Menendez would have probably had someone who had cut off such a high level communication without his permission shot thinking back about how the conversation was going he conceded that it was the right thing to do at the time.
Sensing that everyone was waiting for him to say something he tried to break the tension by joking about how that could have gone better. No one laughed.
The problem he now faced was that permission to seek a ceasefire had quite clearly been denied and the tone of Galtieri’s voice implying repercussions if he still persisted Menendez now doubted that his senior officers would go along with any order to give up. He actually began to fear a possible mutiny amongst them if he tried now.
Why? He thought to himself. “Why must we fight. Why must we die for this cursed piece of mud?”.
But unfortunately it is not a soldiers place to ask why but to simply do. The next line of defence against the British juggernaut was Mount Tumbledown which was a large and well defended position. Maybe if the British could be stalled there and be made to suffer casualties then he could perhaps negotiate a ceasefire from a position of strength while having satisfied honour. But then again, he reminded himself that had been the plan last night and that had worked out so well.
It wasn’t that Galtieri and the Argentine high command in the mainland were uncaring or incompetent. When Menendez had mentioned cutting their losses, he had been thinking only of the Malvinas garrison while they were having to focus on cutting their losses throughout the entire country.
The whole campaign had simply been one catastrophe after another and had only brought ruin and disaster and now revolution and mutiny to the nation.
Discontent and uprising had been brewing for quite some time now. It had been seemingly countered by the wave of patriotic euphoria that had swept the country following the liberation of the Malvinas. However, when the news broke of the calamitous defeat of the navy that euphoria had quickly turned into anger. At first this anger had been naturally aimed at the British but it hadn’t taken long for this anger to become fury aimed at what the populace perceived to be an incompetent government made up of incompetent generals. The way the public relations efforts had been conducted had been extremely ham fisted and had made things so much worse. Following the reaction to the disaster at sea the government had attempted to enact a policy of strict though subtle censorship and information control. When the air attacks against the British landing forces had taken place, the Argentine media had truthfully reported the estimated number of ships sunk which was supported by the broadcasting of actual gun camera footage. While they admitted that there had been “some” losses they had made absolutely no mention of any actual number. To further conceal the virtual destruction of the air force the authorities had gone to great lengths to keep the families of the dead men quiet. These measures conducted under the auspices of maintaining national morale had ranged from virtual house arrest for those who lived on or near military facilities to outright threats and in some notorious cases that the authorities would later come to regret forged letters to give the impression that all was well.
This had backfired in the most terrible way when the Chileans had started broadcasting footage and reports from the Malvinas that could only have been supplied by the British. The reports gave details that the Argentine media had carefully omitted and included footage of Argentine aircraft being shot out of the sky and crucially dead and captured Argentine personnel. In one notorious incident the mother of one pilot had received a letter apparently written by her son saying he was fine and alive and well on an airbase only for her to see a Chilean news broadcast of him being rescued from a life raft and hauled aboard a British helicopter. His face and the name tag on his flight suit were clearly visible.
She had already been somewhat suspicious of the letter seeing as it was typed rather than hand written and used wording that her son would not normally have used. One tell-tale give away was the mistake in the spelling of the name of his sister.
The Chilean news broadcast had even given the date of his apparent capture which was before the date on the postage mark on the letter.
Attempts to contact her son had proved fruitless and attracted some unwanted attention from the authorities.
Events such as this had destroyed what remaining credibility the Argentine government had in the eyes of the populace.
Rioting and small scale uprisings had been taking place. The army and police had responded by attempting to stamp on these quickly before this had a chance to spread. So far, this strategy had seemed to be working as crowds were dispersed or disorder had been able to be contained. Furthermore, arrest squads had been sent out to pick up individuals deemed to be potential troublemakers. When the captured airman’s mother had found herself designated as such things had taken a dramatic turn and events had gone from very bad to much worse.
A joint army and police team had moved out in the dead of night and quietly driven through the provincial town to make the arrest. The policemen were very well practised in this sort of thing whereas the soldiers were military policemen who had been brought along to provide a bit of extra muscle and take possession of the prisoner. Whereas normally their targets would be found sound asleep where they could be dragged from their beds and taken away quickly and quietly and any neighbours who were awake would simply cower in their homes where they couldn’t cause the arrest teams any problems things on this particular job were different.
This wasn’t the first time that people had been taken from this particular neighbourhood and at least one of the locals knew the tell tale warning signs. They knew that the airman’s mother had been making a lot of noise about her son and criticising the government and knew that they would eventually come for her. When they had seen the convoy of military and police vehicles making their way up the street, they had decided that this time things would be different.
When the police had pulled up outside the house and smashed the front door open the police had run upstairs only to find a deserted house, and empty bed and an open window. The military police outside had then started shouting for them to get back outside immediately.
The locals rather than staying in their houses had come outside and worked themselves up into an angry brick throwing mob advancing upon the arrest team. Knowing that they had to escape immediately and fearing that they were about to be beaten to death by the mob the soldiers had panicked and cleared themselves an escape route by opening fire on the mob without giving any warning. They had then climbed back into their vehicles and sped away from the scene driving over the bodies of both the dead and those who might otherwise had had a chance of survival.
This had set off a powder keg and before long the police had found that they had lost control of the situation within the town and were besieged by angry mobs and pleading for military intervention.
When an army unit had arrived at the edge of town and begun to make their way towards their besieged police comrades and found themselves faced with a now enormous and increasingly violent mob something unthinkable had happened. With his men untrained in public order tactics and lacking riot shields, batons, tear gas or any other kind of riot gear the local military commander had felt he only had one option. When ordered to open fire however the conscripts that made up the junior ranks had refused. It was one thing for the specialist military, police and security units to abduct, torture and dispose of dissidents but asking what was essentially a citizen army to carryout what amounted to a wholesale slaughter of their own countrymen was to much.
The commander had been forced to withdraw his force from the town thus surrendering it to the mob. All he could offer the besieged policemen were encouraging words. When they had returned to barracks, he had ordered the force to assemble on the parade square for a headcount. Nearly a quarter of his men were missing, nearly all conscript junior ranks.
It is not clear how it had happened in such a restrictive and censored country but news of the uprising and army’s withdrawal and desertion had spread like wildfire.
Desertion previously unthinkable due to the nations draconian punishments for those caught had become an extremely serious problem affecting many military units.
Lt Gen Galtieri was now extremely concerned that the rank and file of the army (the organisation upon which his power and authority depended) was losing faith in its leaders and beginning to come apart at the seams.
This was why he had refused to allow Menendez to throw in the towel. If the Malvinas garrison were to just surrender what was regarded as a part of Argentina to an imperialist power it would be the ultimate humiliation for the nation and would certainly bring down the government and open the door to chaos and possibly civil war. The very thing that the military had been trying to prevent when they had ceased power.
If the army was seen to have fought valiantly to the last man and given their all then that would be different and possibly something that the nation could rally around.
Looking at it from a purely military point of view Galtieri’s opinion of the situation was rather different from that of Menendez in that he thought he could see a way for the situation to be salvaged. Despite the losses that Argentina had suffered they had one crucial advantage in that they had initially believed that they didn’t have to factor in things like public opinion.
His studying of the US experience of the Vietnam War had taught him that democratic nations were extremely averse to losses and that this could be used as a way to defeat them. His intelligence people had told him that the loss of warships and men so far hadn’t gone down well in Britain.
Attacking strong positions on high ground is always a messy business. If the British advance could be stalled and losses inflicted then perhaps the British would seek to negotiate. That alone could be portrayed as a victory for Argentina and just might salvage the situation. Unlike Menendez it never crossed Galtieri’s mind that this had been the plan the previous night.
Desperation can often lead to delusion.
Back in Port Stanley Brigadier Menendez had called a meeting with Brigadier Parada of 3rd Brigade, Brigadier Jofre of 10th Brigade and the Malvinas air component (or remains thereof) commander Brigadier Castello. The four men were of equal military rank and were the four most senior men upon the islands. For this reason, Menendez felt that they could be open with each other in a way that would be impossible with men of differing ranks.
Menendez had called the meeting to discuss what they should do next in light of the conversation that he had had with the mainland. Sombrely he addressed them by their first names and asked them whether or not they should ignore high command and end this madness now.
After nearly an hour of frank discussions and looking at maps the men came to a decision. They would fight on.
In spite of everything there were still a number of intact and combat capable infantry forces on the islands. They didn’t feel that they could give up now and face a life of shame and humiliation if they surrendered unconditionally and ceded a piece of the fatherland to the British. The conversation is often used by psychologists as an example of “Groupthink” where an individual is influenced by the opinions held by others into pursuing a course of action that they may not have done otherwise. Menendez later admitted that he had felt slightly elated at finally having some sort of strategy as opposed to simply waiting for the British to hit them again and that this influenced his decision to continue with operations.
The next logical course of action for the British had to be an assault on Mount Tumbledown. The large feature had steep slopes and was garrisoned by probably the most effective of all the Argentine infantry units on the islands. The 5th Naval Infantry Battalion led by Marine Commander Robacio was one of the premier units in Argentina’s order of battle. Hand picked and well trained conscripts led by a core of professional and highly trained officers and NCO’s the unit despite its name was close to brigade strength with its own artillery and air defence units. Crucially this was a tough unit that had already been acclimatised to the cold when they had deployed to the Malvinas. These men weren’t going to break and run like 4th Infantry Regiment had. While they had suffered from British bombing, they had lost very few men to frostbite and other environmental factors.
Defending a strong position should have been something that they were easily capable of. The plan was for 5th Naval Infantry Battalion to defend Tumbledown and inflict losses on the attacking British. When the British either paused or withdrew their attack the Battalion would be given the order to withdraw and Menendez would use this as a gesture of good faith when he asked the British for terms. Hopefully this would enable him to negotiate from a position of strength and allow him and his garrison to keep their honour intact and retire in the knowledge that they had given the invader a bloody nose.
Desperation can often lead to delusion.
To the west the British were unaware of what was going on in Port Stanley and were making preparations for the nights operations. There was much to do. Of the marines and paras that had taken the mountains the previous night some supervised the prisoners, some prepared positions in case of counter attack, some supervised the Argentine prisoners, some searched the prisoners and positions for anything of intelligence value and some tried to rest. On Mount Harriet where over 300 prisoners had been taken the marines of 40 COMMANDO picked their way through fighting positions and craters littered with thousands of expended 50 cal and 7.62 rounds and even discovered some unused hollow point 9mm rounds. In the simple shelters the marines found foam roll mats and rations that compared well with their own. Argentine soldiers received a pack which contained powdered fruit juice, beef pate and soap and razors. There were even small bottles of whisky with the doubtful name “Breeders Choice”. The mistake that the marines made was that they assumed that the Argentine soldiers like them got fed a ration pack every day!
The marines who had taken the mountain the previous night had all been professionals before the battle but now as they sat in the captured foxholes and numbed by the experience tried to take stock of what they had experienced they were truly battle hardened veterans. One young marine when later asked to write a minimum of 10 words about the battle simply wrote “It was a cold and dark night at the time we took Harriet. I am still trying to forget that night, so I will write no more about it”
Helicopters flew from the beachhead at San Carlos with loaded with shells to restock the batteries that had fired well over 5000 rounds in the previous 24 hours and weren’t stopping now. The wounded and the dead had been given top priority for being evacuated back to the rear and so now it was the turn of the argentine captives to be flown to the expanding prisoner cage at San Carlos. The problems presented by the language barrier meant that the captives first had to be pointed towards the helicopter using sign language and then encouraged to get aboard using bayonet tips. The helicopter crews who had been nervous enough at flying loaded down with a highly dangerous cargo in the form of ammunition and shells were now flying with one eye on the horizon and another looking at the overcrowded cabin behind them now full of Argentine’s squatting on the floor while their guards stood above them with clubs and bayonetted rifles at the ready. There pilots couldn’t imagine anything being more dangerous than having a mass brawl in the back of the aircraft. Luckily for them the Argentine prisoners were far to cowed and nervous to be a problem. Not speaking English many of them had been extremely apprehensive when they had been forced at bayonet point onto a clearly overloaded aircraft to be flown god knows where. In one case one of the Chinooks broke records when it carried more than 80 men in one go packed in like sardines.
In one memorable incident a Royal Marine on Mount Harriet when searching the bodies of two “dead” Argentines had attempted to remove their boots (Argentine boots had actually been found to be superior to those issued to British personnel resulting in many living and dead Argentines ending up barefoot) only for the two men to suddenly jump up trying to surrender. This helped to create a perception in the British media of the Argentinian soldiers being hapless teenage conscripts who had folded as soon as the first shots were fired. The men who had actually fought against them had a rather different impression of them.
In his command post on Firebase Kent Major General Moore RM was conferring with Brigadier Wilson of 5th Infantry Brigade and Brigadier Thompson RM of 3 COMMANDO Brigade. Last nights attacks had been conducted by units of 3 COMMANDO Brigade and so had been very much Brigadier Thompson’s show. Now it was Wilson’s turn and he was keen to capitalise on the lessons learned.
The Argentines had been shown to be well dug in and capable opponents who in many cases had had to be blasted off the face of the earth to allow any progress to be made. For this reason a lot of effort was being put into attempting to soften up the Argentine defences. The artillery batteries were carrying out bombardments of Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge meaning that a lot of air lift capability was having to be used to keep up with their demand for shells. Furthermore, Moore had persuaded Admiral Woodward to lay on naval gunfire support missions and make the ships ready to again provide that capability for tonight’s operations. Crucially airstrikes consisting of four Buccaneers from HMS EAGLE and four Sea Harriers from HMS INVINCIBLE were carried out using some of the last remaining general purpose bombs to try and break the expected Argentine defensive positions.
With regards to reconnaissance efforts the main enemy was time. The assaults on Harriet, Two Sisters and Longdon had had the benefit of days of reconnaissance efforts where as now they merely had 12 or so hours of mostly daylight which made things nearly impossible. Reconnaissance patrols made up of guardsman and Gurkhas whose units would be conducting tonight’s operations had been pushed forwards to try to ascertain the existence and extent of any minefields at the base of Tumbledown. These patrols had been unsuccessful in their objective as they had nearly all ended up getting into firefights with scattered Argentine forces who were believed to have retreated from Mount Harriet or in many cases been stopped by Argentines attempting to surrender to them. This was annoying as these men had to be disarmed searched and escorted back to British lines. It had been initially thought that these men were making their way eastwards towards Mount Tumbledown but instead they had been found seemingly wandering aimlessly. When searched it was notable that no maps or compasses were found upon the men. When interrogated about other Argentine units in the area particularly on Tumbledown the Argentine’s had amazingly seemed completely unaware of where they were on the islands let alone in relation to where anyone else was. When they had retreated they had simply run in the opposite direction from where the British were attacking from and had being unaware of where friendly forces were and worried about succumbing to exposure once night came had decided to approach the first people they had seen.
Aerial photorecon efforts had been much more successful in that the Phantoms and Sea Harriers had been able to obtain plenty of images of the Argentine defensive positions. The problem had been getting the images from the carriers to the men on the ground who actually needed them.
Notably absent from the meeting were Lt Col Scott of 2nd Scots Guards, Lt Col Rickett of 1st Welsh Guards, Lt Col Pike of 3 PARA and Lt Col Morgan of 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles. These men knew their objectives and so were instead out with their units making sure that their men were ready.
3 PARA was currently at the western base of Mount Longdon where they were preparing to move east to finish off the Argentines on Wireless Ridge and in doing so cut off the northern approach to Port Stanley. Knowing that the Argentine’s with nowhere to go would fight like rats in a sack they would be relying on hopefully superior numbers and overwhelming firepower. Lt Col Jones of 2 PARA currently occupying Mount Longdon had agreed to provide his support company to give 3 PARA some extra firepower returning the favour of the previous night and had made sure that if necessary, his unit would be ready to reinforce the assault on Wireless Ridge.
During the course of the 18 hours leading up to their assault more than 6000 shells impacted wireless ridge. The Argentine commander Lt Col Gimenez found his efforts to reorientate his defences to meet the threat now on his flanks here greatly hindered as his men instead of being able to prepare new defensive positions and restock with ammunition were instead either pinned down where they were or blown to pieces in the open. Gimenez himself several times escaped death by mere inches when shells landed close although did suffer quite a degree of hearing loss.
The Scots Guards had moved up to Two Sisters which would be their starting point for an assault on the western slope of Mount Tumbledown. The Welsh Guards would be starting from Mount Harriet to the South and would also be assaulting the western edge of Tumbledown in conjunction with the Scots. Originally it had been hoped that Tumbledown could have been assaulted the previous night taking advantage of the Argentine defences being thrown off balance by the breaching of the defensive line formed from Two Sisters and Harriet. These mountains had proven much tougher nuts to crack than expected meaning that there had not been enough hours of darkness left for such a thing to be contemplated. An assault in daylight had been considered but this idea had been abandoned at the behest of Lt Col Scott who had pointed out that the long uphill assault across the harsh terrain of west Tumbledown would be suicidal in daylight.
Joining the guards in attacking Tumbledown was one unit that would finally be getting into action and providing a very welcome boost in firepower and mobility. The Scimitar and Scorpion light tanks of B Squadron of the Blues and Royals would be coming along to provide light armour and direct fire support from their 30mm and 76 mm guns which would be ideal for dealing with hardened Argentine positions. One of the most senior regiments in the British army and famous for their public duties on horseback in London as part of the household cavalry these men were used to working alongside the footguards. Granted that was usually on the parade ground rather than the battlefield but that working relationship would be invaluable in a situation like the one they would soon find themselves in. Normally the Scimitars and Scorpions were used for formation reconnaissance for the larger main battle tanks (which weighed in at an average of 60 tons compared to the 7 tons of the Scimitar) but they had always had a secondary infantry support role. When Operation CORPORATE had begun it had been unknown whether or not the Argentine’s had deployed any armour on the islands. Bringing even a small number of heavy main battle tanks like the Chieftain or brand new state of the art Challenger had been judged as completely unfeasible for a number of reasons. The soft boggy ground of the Falklands meant that such heavy vehicles would become bogged down into the ground. Whereas the Scimitars and Scorpions had been able to be airlifted by being underslung from the very overworked chinooks there was not a hope in hell of the same thing occurring with an MBT meaning that it would have to be driven everywhere. The amount of space a squadron of Chieftains would take up on a ship had on its own killed the idea let before the space needed by the support and supply vehicles had even been given consideration.
The only tanks known to be in Argentina’s ORBAT were elderly British made Sherman Firefly’s armed with 76mm guns. It was felt that if it came to it then the Scorpion would be capable of going toe to toe with them. Failing that British infantry units which had been trained and equipped to take on Soviet tank armies in Germany were liberally equipped with modern anti-tank weapons such as the Milan anti tank guided missile and could count on air support from HMS EAGLE’s Buccaneers. Luckily so far no evidence had been yet discovered that indicated the presence of Argentine armour on the islands. All the same if they reached the flat open ground outside Port Stanley and discovered that some Firefly’s had somehow avoided detection and were waiting for them then things could go very wrong very quickly.
Supporting the assault on Tumbledown would be two companies of Gurkhas who would mount an attack on Mount William to the South as a diversion. With most of their number already allocated to other duties only one regular company and one company strength composite force were available which probably wouldn’t be enough to actually take the mountain. That however wasn’t their objective. All they had to do was make their presence felt and draw as much Argentine attention towards them as possible and away from the Guards assaults. Already at their starting point to south of the base of Mount Harriet the Nepalese warriors could barely contain their excitement as they made sure their kukri’s were extra sharp. If you wanted someone to make their presence felt on a battlefield and inflict pain upon your enemy these were the men you’d want.
As the sun set once again British soldiers formed up at their start lines and set off into the night eastwards towards their objectives. Having seen the ferocious fighting of the previous night they knew they were in for something similar. Some men were excited and some were nervous while most were a combination of both.
This time however they didn’t move off silently into the night. The operation had formally started just before sundown when the Buccaneer and Sea Harrier strikes requested by Major General Moore had taken place dropping numerous 1000IB bombs which had then been followed up by a maximum effort artillery bombardment onto predesignated coordinates which wasn’t going to let up any time soon. This meant that the men rather than marching into pitch black were heading towards a view lit up by the light of endless explosions and noise that became more and more deafening as they got closer.
The Argentinian defenders had almost certainly known that an attack would take place that night meaning that surprise would be unlikely to be achieved. Therefore, the British were announcing their arrival in loud and dramatic fashion.
More than one officer told his men that if they became separated or lost they should simply march towards the thunder of the guns.
