The Futility of War
The actions that took place that night during the assaults on the heights generated many tales of bravery, heroism and courage in the face of adversity. Yet for all these there were tales of suffering and hopelessness and of man’s simple inability to move beyond his most basic instincts and his willingness to kill.
One such tale is that of a private in the Argentine 5th Naval Infantry Battalion defending Mount Tumbledown from the British attack. The private had been on the islands for many weeks now. In that time, he had endured seemingly countless British air raids and artillery bombardments. He had over time started to believe that the British wanted to kill him personally. He would ask himself the question why? What had he done that had offended them so? During these strikes he had been forced to endure the sights of his close friends being killed or worse maimed beyond recovery. He had been forced to shelter in trenches while me he loved probably more than his own brother were caught out in the open and wounded. He had listened them screaming for help while he could do nothing. Eventually the screaming would stop and he would feel physically sick about what the rational part of his brain knew was human instinct but the other part would accuse of cowardice.
When the British soldiers had finally come many of the men in the unit had revelled in the fact that now the enemy finally showed himself and that the feeling of helplessness was gone and replaced by a desire to avenge their fallen brothers and that finally it seemed like a straight and fair fight.
The private however saw it differently. Around him his platoon were firing as many rounds as they could towards the British who were returning the favour. They dug themselves in deeper to their positions and were adamant and vocal about the fact that they would not leave them. All this time the private who had not fired a single round from his rifle kept asking the question “why?” He then did something unbelievable.
Pulling himself up out of his foxhole he heard his comrades shout things like “Where are you going?” “Get back here” “Mother of God somebody stop him!”. He walked calmly forwards into the no man’s land between the British and Argentine positions taking off and dropping his uncomfortable steel helmet and holding his rifle by the sling down by his side. Bright tracer rounds from both sides whizzed past him but he didn’t care. Whether he believed that somehow, he wouldn’t be hit or no longer cared is something that will never be known. Shouting to seemingly everyone around him of both sides with the despair noticeable in his voice he shouted “We’ve never seen one another. How can we kill one another? How can we? How can we? How can we kill one another? Why we do it? Why? WHY?!!”.
He never got an answer. Whereas the Argentines thought that he had had some sort of breakdown as a result of what he had experienced the Scots Guardsmen attacking them and not being able to speak Spanish and understand what he was saying just thought that it was an enemy soldier still with his rifle doing something very stupid and standing up in the open during a heavy firefight. They simply regarded him as an easy target and from their point of view thought that they had made him suffer the consequences of his stupidity.
The Battle of Wireless Ridge
When the Argentine 7th Infantry Regiment had originally taken up its position to defend the northern approaches to Port Stanley they had used Mount Longdon as the lynchpin for a northern facing defensive line stretching eastwards from the strongpoint on Longdon across Wireless Ridge. When 2 PARA had forced them from their positions on Mount Longdon the line had effectively been crippled along with the Regiment.
The regimental headquarters had been located on Mount Longdon along with many of the supply and ammunition bunkers. When it had become clear that they were going to lose the position the headquarters staff had tried their best to destroy anything that may be of use to the British. However, they had never really had a chance of destroying everything. After its capture the abandoned HQ had been an intelligence bonanza for the British. Amongst the documents found were maps of the Argentine defensive positions and crucially minefields.
The intelligence gleaned from the HQ had played a large part in the planning for 3 PARA’s operation to take Wireless Ridge and finish of the 7th Regiment.
Since they had been forced off of Mount Longdon the previous night the Argentines had been under near continuous artillery bombardment in an effort to keep them pinned down and prevent them from being able to reposition their defences to face the expected line of advance to the west and to try to tire them out by preventing them from resting and thus lowering their fighting effectiveness.
Lt Col Gimenez was very aware of the comparative disadvantage of his position. He was exhausted having not been able to sleep in well over 36 hours now. The battle the previous night and constant shelling had seen to that. His surviving men had effectively been pinned down all day meaning that they hadn’t been able to get themselves reorganised in light of the losses they had taken the previous night. Worse they had now lost most of the ammunitions reserves and heavy weapons particularly the .50 cal machine guns. What little ammunition had been available had been distributed out but the simple fact was there wasn’t enough to replenish all the rounds that had been fired the night before meaning nearly all of the men were somewhat short.
Gimenez had spent the day inspecting his regiment moving from position to position trying to dodge the British artillery. By his own admittance according to the law of averages he should have been killed more than once by now, a fact which did unnerve him a little.
Between those killed, wounded and missing (presumably dead or captured) both last night and as a consequence of the thousands of shells the British had dropped on them Gimenez estimated that his regiments fighting strength was probably now around the 50% mark. The British bombardment had let up just before dusk. Unfortunately, this it seemed had only been to allow British bombers to strike his position. While fortunately the majority of the bombs had been released a fraction to late and sailed over them impacting the empty ground well to the north some had hit and though he didn’t have a figure yet he knew that the casualty situation would have just become a lot worse. The British had then resumed the artillery bombardment with seemingly every gun on gods earth.
Despite the apparent direness of his position Gimenez wasn’t just about to role over and die. Though the fighting positions were built to face a threat from the north rather than the west his men were well dug in and having previously occupied the British position Gimenez reckoned he had an advantage in that he probably knew their likely approach routes better than they did. Plus, he still had a platoon’s worth of mortars and machine guns that hadn’t been on Longdon. The airstrike followed by the massive increase in the ferocity of the artillery bombardment told him that he wouldn’t have long to wait for the British to open the battle. He thought about passing around the word to his men to be alert but then realised that with all the shells dropping on them they were unlikely to be caught napping.
While on paper 3 PARA had pretty much every advantage being a fresh and full strength unit of professional and experienced paratroopers fighting against a now outnumbered unit of conscripts who had already taken a battering the night before and were now without most of their ammunition and had been denied an opportunity to get themselves reorganised Lt Col Pike was smarter than to allow himself to potentially underestimate his enemy.
His plan had been carefully worked out with his staff and company commanders and included a great amount of input from Lt Col Jones of 2 PARA who had fought these very same Argentines the night before. The most obvious line of attack was moving eastwards down the slope of Mount Longdon under the cover of heavy artillery and fire support. This would have the advantage of being the most direct route and his men would be moving and shooting downwards onto the enemy. However, the ridgeline leading down to Wireless ridge wasn’t that wide meaning that there was only really space for a company sized attack. Therefore, it was decided that D Company would open the proceedings by attacking down the ridge as would probably be expected by the enemy. D Company would be covered by both 2 and 3 PARA’s support companies and the defenders would be kept under heavy artillery fire. This would be a feint to cover for a flanking attack from A, B and C Company’s. The plan for the flanking manoeuvre initially considered called for these company’s to advance round to the north and then attack up the slope along a broad front. However, when the captured Argentine maps were examined it was noted that the Argentine defences were set up to cover a northern attack and that the Argentine minefields to the north left very little room for manoeuvre. If this went wrong (which they usually did in battle) the 3 company’s could find themselves trapped on open ground between dug in Argentine defenders and minefields.
Therefore, a different although arguably just as risky approach had been decided upon for the flanking move. D Company would make the diversionary attack while the artillery hopefully kept the defenders in place while A, B & C Company’s moved to the south of wireless ridge along the road next to Moody Brooke stream in the valley between Wireless Ridge and Mount Tumbledown. This would have the advantage of surprise and there were known to be no minefields or bunkers along the approach and the attack would be into the rear of the Argentine positions. However, it was risky in that the slope on southern side of Wireless Ridge was much steeper than that on the northern side and there was a real risk of being attacked from both Wireless Ridge and Tumbledown if the defenders got wind of what was happening. Once again, the British would be relying on the superior skills and equipment of their fighting men and their overwhelming advantage in terms of the amount of fire support they could call upon for success.
As Dusk turned to darkness D Company began their assault. Throughout the day there had been sporadic exchanges of machine gun and sniper fire between the British on Mount Longdon and the westernmost Argentine defenders. This had to a degree allowed British observers to pinpoint the locations of some of the defenders. These positions were brought under fire by the mortars of 3 PARA’s support company. D Company’s commander hadn’t been given an exact objective or finish line. He knew the overall plan and his company’s role in it but as for his specific orders they were to push downwards from Longdon and as far along the ridgeline as he could pushing the Argentines back and inflicting casualties. He had decided at the very least that he should aim to advance far enough to link up with B Company who would be on the western most end of the flanking manoeuvre.
The way he saw it his Company’s job was to make things as easy as possible for the other three Company’s. The harder he pushed forwards and the more damage he inflicted would achieve this by making the defenders focus on him and not the other Company’s.
If something went wrong with the flanking move the plan was for reinforcements from 2 PARA to move up from Longdon to back up D Company and try and push the Argentines off the ridge.
As D Company moved down from Longdon and started pushing onto the western end of Wireless ridge they started to become involved in heavy firefights with the defenders. As with previous actions the British started to try to advance by methodically clearing out individual Argentine positions using rockets, Milan anti-tank missiles and grenades. Annoyingly the sheer number of artillery shells that had landed in the area had created vast numbers of craters which the defenders gladly used for cover slowing the British advance.
With an attack materialising from the west as expected and the British advancing slowly and methodically Lt Col Gimenez decided that now was the time to unleash a little surprise of his own. Having pre sighted the area where the British were now located Argentine 60 7 81mm Mortars and heavy machine guns using indirect fire opened up on the British who began to take casualties on the relatively open high ground.
If actions could convey emotions then Gimenez was sure that he had just driven the British commander into an absolute burning rage as British artillery started to furiously hammer every position where they believed the mortar fire may be coming from with volleys of devastating and highly concentrated artillery fire.
Under the cover of heavy fire support ranging from their own GPMG’s all the way up to 105mm artillery batteries D Company gradually began to push their way into the Argentine positions evicting the previous occupants but more importantly focusing the defender’s attention firmly upon them.
To the south barely a few hundred meters away from the ridgeline 3 PARA’s A, B & C Company’s had somehow achieved what many of them thought would be impossible and spread themselves out along the base of the ridgeline without being detected by anyone.
They largely attributed this success to a combination of luck and their own careful preparations paying off. The men had covered all exposed skin entirely in camouflage cream. When there hadn’t been quite enough of this to go around some had resorted to rubbing black boot polish onto their skin as there was always more than enough of that stuff. Just because you were in the middle of fighting a high intensity war didn’t mean that standards could be allowed to slip. Furthermore, anything that wasn’t going to be immediately needed in the next few hours had been left behind. For example, mess tins could rattle and so had been left. Like on the previous night each man had been made to jump up and down repeatedly to see if anything rattled.
Now came the most dangerous part as the three company’s made their way up the often extremely steep southern slope having to almost crawl on their hands and knees in some places. The Argentines had actually considered the possibility of attack from the south but had thought that the terrain was to steep to be traversed. Indeed, to anyone else other than a unit such as the Para’s with their extremely high physical fitness standards the terrain alone probably would have protected the defenders southern flank. It was this that allowed the Para’s to achieve surprise.
Suddenly being hit in the flank along the entire length of the ridgeline naturally came as a shock for the Argentines but one which they were quick to respond to. With the defenders spread out along the ridgeline only the westernmost men had been able to engage the British attacking from Longdon. For the rest of them it was a simple case of turning around 180 degrees and shooting at targets to their south. Though in some cases it meant leaving the protection of their bunkers the argentine machine gunners quickly manhandled their weapons around and joined in the firefight. The Argentine commanders were quick to realise that they had to hit the British hard and fast while there were comparatively few of them on top of the ridgeline and they had a chance of driving them back down the slope. A radio transmission was made to the 5th Marine Infantry Battalion on Mount Tumbledown immediately to the south requesting support. This was answered by a platoon positioned on the high ground on the northern side of Tumbledown who began to use heavy machine guns and mortars to bring the southern slope of Wireless Ridge upon which the Para’s were still trying to force their way up under indirect fire. With no cover to be found and no way of returning fire on the positions high up on Tumbledown themselves the only thing the Para’s could do was keep pushing forwards to get themselves off the exposed slope and call in naval gunfire support. Multiple fire missions were called in from ships off shore as the land based gun batteries already had their hands full keeping the Argentine positions on Wireless Ridge under fire. Annoyingly for the British what seemed to be happening every time was that the shells would start to land on Tumbledown roughly in the area where the fire was coming from causing the Argentines to temporarily stop firing before starting up again not long after the fire mission was complete. While this did bring some brief moments of respite it was frustrating for the British as they didn’t really have much of an idea of the enemy’s exact location or strength and therefore didn’t know if the 4.5 inch shells were actually landing on target and doing any damage or if the defenders were simply taking cover. It became apparent that the only way this threat would be dealt with would be when the Guards assault on Tumbledown which was happening concurrently pushed the Argentines off of the northern slope.
The Argentine defenders on Wireless Ridge now found themselves in an increasingly untenable position. They were being attacked from two directions by an enemy superior in strength and were rapidly burning through their remaining ammunition while the casualties steadily continued to mount.
Yet they weren’t just going to stay in position and do nothing about it. So many military plans seemingly rely on the enemy being willing to cooperate with the plan. Major Carrizo-Salvadores 7th Regiments second in command decided to take the initiative. The way he saw it the biggest problem the defenders were dealing with was the British artillery, mortars and indirect machine gun fire. He had always been taught that the closer you were to the enemy the safer you were from such things as the enemy couldn’t call in fire support if there was a strong possibility of it actually landing on them. Furthermore, he reckoned that with a strong and rapid push he could throw the British off of the ridge and back down the southern slope. Therefore, he decided to go on the offensive, close and mix it up with the British. If they couldn’t call in fire support it would be a much more even fight and one in which the Argentines would hold the initiative. Passing orders along the line he stood up and led a 50 man bayonet charge under covering automatic fire chanting the regiments famous “Malvinas March”.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that many of the Argentines were in individual fighting positions without radios and unable to hear verbal commands over the noise of battle many of the Argentines were slow to receive the orders or were completely unaware of them and what they were supposed to do. The result of this was that what should have been a solid mass of men charging towards the British in coordination with covering fire was instead a rather disorganised advance forwards in a rather less than straight offensive line with many men too far out in front or too concentrated or spread out and with machine gunners not sure if they were supposed to give cover immediately or wait for something. Many Argentines remained in their positions or advanced slowly thinking that they were supposed to be following the leader forwards rather than mounting a strong and fast attack. The inevitable result of this disorganised attack was that while the Para’s were at first alarmed at the enemy attacking them, they had little trouble in beating it back with concentrated fire inflicting yet more casualties upon the defenders. One of the British company commanders later described the attack as “Quite a sporting effort without a sporting chance”.
With the failure and resultant losses from the infantry attack and upon hearing of the death of his second in command Lt Col Gimenez finally decided that his position was now hopeless. He didn’t have enough remaining strength to drive off or even fend off the British. He no longer had a potential line of retreat through which to extract the remnants of his command. The British were to the west and south. There was a road running along the southern slope which the British must have used to get into position. That same road met another that ran north past the eastern edge of Wireless Ridge. If he tried to go eastwards then as soon as the British realised what he was doing they could easily move along this road and cut him off. In fact, Gimenez wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t already moved a force into position in order to cut them off. He couldn’t go north because that direction would simply lead him into his own minefields. He cursed the fact that he had put s much effort into ensuring that those mines were properly laid to create an impenetrable barrier. He couldn’t even try and fight his way through the British as it was clear just how quickly his men were running out of ammunition. He could see men desperately searching empty ammunition tins for even one unused round rattling around in the bottom and a succession of desperate privates and even NCO’s coming to his HQ position requesting more ammunition only to be told that there wasn’t any left to give out.
The situation was now beyond salvage and all they could do was focus on limiting their losses. With a heavy heart Gimenez gave the order for all personnel to cease fire. Unfortunately, great difficulty was encountered in disseminating this order to the men. The heavy British small arms and artillery fire meant that it was extremely dangerous to leave HQ position meaning that orders had to be transmitted to platoon commanders by radio or communicated through officers shouting and waving their arms. More than one officer was shot dead by the British as a result of this slowing down the speed at which the order was passed and many Argentines were in isolated positions and unaware of the order and so kept firing. This caused other Argentines who had heeded the order to recommence firing thinking that they had somehow misheard or misunderstood the instruction.
Of course, the British being unaware of the order continued to fire upon the Argentines and press their attack.
All of this meant that the battle went on for longer than it needed have and men on both sides became casualties needlessly.
Even after the order to cease fire was obeyed by the defenders it took a while for the British to realise what was happening and cease fire themselves. The radio operators in 7th Regiment’s HQ had been trying to make contact with the British in an effort to halt the fighting. But being unaware of the radio frequencies the British were using they simply found themselves transmitting pleas to stop the fighting that were heard by no one.
Eventually once the fighting had stopped a tense lull fell across the ridge as both sides waited for the other to make a move. The British waited for the Argentines to leave their positions and come out into the open to surrender while the Argentines waited for the British to come and round them up. Neither side trusted the other and neither wanted to leave the relative safety of their current positions.
As the sun started to peer over the horizon it was the Argentines who eventually blinked first with officers leaving the regimental HQ carrying white flags and moving amongst the fighting positions ordering the men to leave behind their weapons and come out into the open with their hands up in full view of the British and form up on open ground. Emotions on the Argentine side ranged from despair, shame and humiliation at being forced to surrender to relief that they had survived to fear that the British would simply machine gun the lot of them rather than take prisoners.
Lt Col Gimenez came out of his HQ with his staff and was able to finally get a look at the remnants of the Regiment that he had been so proud to lead. He was appalled to see that since he had last done a full regimental parade inspection probably only a third of the men were still left standing. Looking at the now daylit battlefield around him he could see the bodies of those who were no longer standing. With his remaining 200 odd men now formed up in three ranks the order was given to open ranks by three paces and Gimenez accompanied by the senior surviving NCO proceeded to walk up and down the lines inspecting his men like he had done so many times on the parade ground. Whereas normally he would be seeing smartly turned out men stood to attention here he saw exhausted men in dirty mud and blood-stained uniforms smelling of cordite some of whom sported bandages. As he went up the line, he would occasionally stop to speak to one of his men.
All the while the Para’s looked on but unsure as to exactly what appeared to be going on did not make a move to interrupt.
His inspection complete Lt Col Gimenez noted that the fighting that he had heard reports of taking place on Mount Tumbledown seemed to have ceased. Calling forward his senior surviving officer Gimenez gave instructions that the regiment was to be smartly marched in the direction of the British with white flags on prominent display so that there could be no misunderstanding of their intentions on the part of the British. The Regiment wasn’t equipped with actual white flags and so white shirts and pillow cases were tied to poles and I many cases officers and NCO’s held sheets of white paper in the air. Anything to convey their intentions to the British.
The senior surviving NCO called the regiment to attention in anticipation of an address from their commander. Although he thought that he should make some sort of speech Gimenez just couldn’t think of anything worth while to say. He simply said “You did all you could and what more could I have asked of you? I’m proud of you”. With that he gave the order to the senior surviving officer to carry on. The regiment turned to face north and marched off with white flags on display as per instructions. Gimenez however stayed behind. Now alone on the battlefield he looked at the bodies around him which constituted the better part of his regiment. He felt ashamed of himself. He had put so much effort into preparing his men many of whom were really just boys who were to young to be away from their mothers just so he could have the “honour” of leading his Regiment into battle and consequent slaughter to protect this ridgeline and mountain which was now little more than a blood and cordite impregnated mud bowl. Looking at the state of many of the bodies he grimly predicted that the grass would be growing strong here in the coming weeks.
He turned to face the north and began to walk. Just as the 7th Regiments survivors were being surrounded and taken into captivity by the Para’s everyone heard the unmistakable sound of a landmine detonating.
The Battle of Mount Tumbledown
While 3 PARA had been assaulting Wireless Ridge at the same time a much larger operation was taking place on Mount Tumbledown. Whereas the operation currently taking place on Wireless Ridge was a battalion sized op with supporting elements commanded by 3 PARA’s commander Lt Col Pike and to a large degree independent the operation to take Tumbledown would be a much larger multi battalion affair. The British force was made up of men from the Scots Guards, Welsh Guards, Gurkhas, Blue and Royals with supporting artillery batteries and the accompanying support troops such as medics and combat engineers. Therefore, this operation would be commanded by 5 Brigade HQ commanded by Brigadier Wilson in the same way that 3 COMMANDO Brigade’s HQ and Brigadier Thompson RM had run last nights operations. In practise though a great deal of authority was delegated to the individual battalion commanders who would be running the various phases of the operation.
The plan at a basic level consisted of three parts. Lt Col Scott’s 2nd Scots Guards would launch an assault on the western slope of Tumbledown supported by the Scorpion and Scimitar CVR(T)’s of B Squadron of the Blues and Royals led by Lt Coreth. Their objective would be to fight their way up the western side of the mountain securing a strong foothold.
1st Welsh Guards led by Lt Col Rickett would be following behind the Scots Guards and would be the exploitation force who would use the foothold as a starting point from which to secure the high ground and peaks on Mount Tumbledown and force the defenders down the eastern slope. If the opportunity presented itself the Welsh Guards were to press on and take Sapper Hill which was a small hill but represented the last natural obstacle before Port Stanley.
While this was going on two company’s of 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles would launch a diversionary assault on neighbouring Mount William. The original plan had been for the Gurkhas to attack first in the hopes of distracting the enemy’s attention however Lt Col Morgan had managed to convince Brigadier Wilson that this would be difficult due to the greater distance his men would have to travel to reach their objective. Therefore, it was decided that the Gurkhas would go in after the Guards had begun their assault. The hope was that the Argentines may think that the more obvious and direct approach up the western side of Tumbledown was the distraction for an assault of Mount William and may then be tempted to divert reserves away from the Guards.
As the Scots Guards lead Company (Major Dalzel-Job’s G Company) marched across the ground between the start point on Two Sisters and their objective the environment could only have been described as surreal. Ahead of them the ongoing heavy bombardment created an almost solid curtain of fire and noise and the scene was described by more than one guardsman as marching towards the gates of hell. While they took all of the normal measures required for a stealthy night time approach the men knew that they weren’t going to catch their enemy off guard. With the preceding airstrike and the ferocity of the bombardment that they were currently under the enemy would be wide ready and waiting for an attack that they knew was coming. The Company Sergeant Major told some of the more apprehensive men that if it was this frightening from far away imagine what it would be like to be in the midst of it. He was going to say “do you honestly think anyone could survive under that?” but stopped himself as he already knew the answer. Silently he hoped that at least some of those shells were hitting something and he wasn’t simply leading the men into a repeat of the first day of the Somme. He secretly wished that they could have some sort of delay as even an extra minute meant more shells landing and potentially less enemy, they would have to face.
Accompanying G Company were the CVR(T)’s of the Blues and Royals who would be using their 76mm and 30mm guns in the direct fire support mode. While the fire power and cover that these vehicles would provide was an extremely welcome addition and would potentially save a lot of (British) lives by cracking open any hardened positions the CSM was still struggling with his instinctive worry about the noise that these vehicles 6 litre diesel engines and tracks would be making. He comforted himself by the fact that even he was struggling to hear the sound of the engines over the noise of the bombardment and he was stood only feet away from them.
The noise of so many shells exploding was good thing. It would drown out any noise that they made. The flashes from the explosions and the light generated by the fireballs was however something that could prove fatal. As the guardsmen came closer and closer the darkness was banished by the flashes of bright light and heart rates increased as the men knew that they were now fully visible to any Argentine who cared to look in their direction.
Having left it as long as he dared and closed as much as he could with where he assumed the enemy would be Major Dalzel-Job gave a hand signal to his accompanying forward artillery spotter. The spotter spoke into his radio for a brief moment before giving a thumbs up to the major. That was the signal that the major had been waiting for and he now gave the order to his men to open fire and advance. The forward artillery spotter had now assumed control of the supporting artillery batteries who now ceased with the general bombardment they had been hammering the Argentines with and waited for fire mission coordinates from the forward observer in order to provide close fire support for the Scots Guards. They weren’t waiting for long.
All hell broke loose as both sides unleashed heavy fire upon each other. As G Company pushed forwards the follow-on Company’s broke to the left and right of G Company as part of the Lt Col Scott’s plan to attempt to flank any defenders they encountered. All three companies were now encountering heavy and determined resistance. The plan of attack at the tactical level could have come out of any history book about the First World War. The enemy would be brought under artillery fire and held in place while the CVR(T)’s would move forwards brining them under direct fire and providing cover for the infantry who would be advancing close behind them and would then spread out in amount the enemy positions and overpower them in close quarter combat. No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
While the British had worked out the approximate locations of the local minefields from intelligence discovered in captured HQ positions on Mount Harriet and Two Sisters and through observing the pattern of retreat, they still sustained casualties. In the midst of a very heavy firefight it was very easy to become disoriented as to where you were in relation to the approximate location of a minefield that was not even marked. One Scimitar was destroyed after it strayed into a minefield while trying to manoeuvre. The presence of light tanks came as a surprise to the Argentine defenders and the Scorpions 76mm gun proved particularly effective at silencing Argentine machine gun nests which could be located by simply following the arcs of tracer back to their origins. The defenders however were not completely unprepared. They responded with rifle grenades and other light anti-tank weapons fired from well protected rock bunkers that had easily withstood the bombardment. While they didn’t succeed in actually in actually hitting any of the British vehicles as without night vision equipment they couldn’t pin point their exact location and so were firing into the dark based on best guesses they still did have an effect in that they made the CVR(T) crews unwilling to close the distance where they would be vulnerable to these weapons and no longer possessing the advantage of range. Therefore, it was the Scots Guardsmen who had to push forwards themselves while the CVR(T)’s effectively became mobile direct fire support. The guardsmen tried to methodically exterminate the well protected Argentine positions using mortars, grenades, 66mm rockets, Carl Gustav recoilless rifles and Milan Anti-Tank Guided Missiles. The Argentines however were in positions protected by solid rock meaning that often anything short of a direct hit simply wasn’t enough. Plus, these Argentines were determined defenders seemed unwilling to move an inch meaning that they wouldn’t be forced out of their positions and so had to be destroyed. Guardsmen were getting close enough to the enemy that in some cases they could actually hear the Argentines shouting (and often mispronouncing) abuse and insults in English and singing March of the Malvinas. The Scotsmen resisted the natural urge to shout back the kind of language that would make even a sailor blush for fear of drawing attention to their position. However, this did in a way motivate them to press the enemy harder as many of them now had a desire to teach the Argentines the lesson that there are few things in the world more terrifying than an angry Glaswegian.
Higher up in his HQ position near the summit of Tumbledown 5th Naval Infantry Battalion’s commander Marine Commander Carlos Robacio was satisfied with the way things were progressing. Over the last few hours his battalion had suffered grievously at the hands of the British before they had even begun their attack. First had come the sporadic artillery strikes which had been a nuisance but hadn’t been that damaging. Then just before dusk a heavy British airstrike had hit them dropping bombs that left enormous craters and meant that many of his men would be officially listed as missing as there was and would never be an identifiable body to prove that they had died. This had been followed up by an extremely heavy artillery bombardment which had focused primarily on the western slope and various rocky outcrops as he had expected it would. He was naturally concerned about the men that were protecting that part of the mountain but his engineers had had many weeks to prepare their positions and so they were as well protected as could be reasonably expected. He had been concerned at the rate at which his battalion had been sustaining losses and how long his command could keep withstanding this bombardment and continue to be combat effective. He had begun to think that the British plan was probably to simply blast every living thing off of the mountain before simply advancing to finish off any isolated survivors.
Thankfully the British had begun their assault while he still had more than enough men left to defend against them. Many attacking plans rely on the enemy unknowingly playing along with it. Robacio was aware of this fact and so had made sure that it was the British who would be playing along with his plan. He had a reinforced company defending the western slope up which the British were trying to fight. His was in constant contact with the company commander and soldiers who had retreated from Mount Harriet and Two Sisters and found themselves on Tumbledown were being used to keep the marines resupplied with ammunition and were occasionally being fed into the line to act as casualty replacements. The reports that Robacio’s HQ were getting from the company commander in contact were good. The British were pushing hard but were for now at least being held in place. Now it was Robacio’s turn to unleash a little surprise he had prepared for the British.
The British were now held in a known location and thus an ideal target. The Malvinas garrison artillery hadn’t had much of a part to play in this conflict so far and had been taking very heavy losses as they seemed to be a priority target for British aircraft. However, there were still enough surviving guns and crews left to form a strong battery. A total of 8 105mm guns opened fire on an area at the base of Mount Tumbledown. The reasoning for the artillery was two fold. One was the obvious chance of inflicting casualties upon the attackers and the second was that the British would be forced to redirect their own artillery to counter battery fire missions and thus relieving pressure upon the infantry trying to hold off the British advance. As he listened to radio messages from the company in contact with the British as they called out artillery corrections and that the British artillery fire had abruptly stopped Robacio felt a sense of relief that things seemed to be going his way. Now it would be the deciding question of who would blink first. Would the British decide that their losses were becoming unacceptable and progress too little and break of their attack? Would the Robacio’s marines be able to hold on for long enough?
An unexpected consequence of the Argentine shelling was that it was forcing the British who had no cover from artillery to push forwards and get closer to the enemy. Grabbing them by the belt buckles the Viet Cong used to say. Therefore, in a way the shelling was counterproductive.
In 5 Brigade HQ Brigadier Wilson was becoming increasingly concerned. The Scots Guards assault was beginning to look like it was stalling. The reports he was getting back from Lt Col Scott stated that the enemy were in well protected positions and were fighting with an unexpected determination. To a degree this had been anticipated and planned for by the use of light armour and artillery support. However the Blues and Royals commander was reporting how he was having to keep his vehicles back and engage the enemy at a distance due to the threat of enemy anti tank weapons. Worse the heavy shelling that the British had conducted had turned the ground into a mess of craters meaning that the CVR(T)’s were having a difficult time manoeuvring. Worse the enemy had suddenly opened up with artillery onto what were thought to be predesignated coordinates. Control of the supporting artillery had been removed from the Scots Guards forward observers and control assumed personally by the Land Forces RA commander Colonel Pennicot who was now with his staff desperately trying to calculate the locations of the Argentine guns and were expending a great deal of the finite supply of shells hitting every possible location they could be. While the Argentine fire did noticeably slack off it still continued. Reports were coming in from Lt Col Rickett whose Welsh Guards were following behind the Scots Guards and had been caught on the move by the artillery. Although there wasn’t an exact figure yet the radio reports made it clear that the Welsh Guards had sustained casualties.
The frustrating thing was there was no way to confirm whether or not any of the British artillery shells were hitting anything or if they were simply moving a lot of mud around. Yes, the Argentine fire had decreased but did that mean that the guns had been destroyed or were the gunners simply taking cover or were they in the process of moving their guns to a new firing position.
Something needed to change soon otherwise with progress as slow as it was the attack would still be ongoing when the sun came up and without the cover of darkness the Guardsman would be far too much danger and he would be forced to order a withdrawal. Still it wasn’t all bad news. Things on Wireless Ridge seemed to be going well by comparison.
On Mount William just to the SE of Mount Tumbledown the commander of the 5th Naval Infantry Battalion’s M Company had never imagined that this is what a battle would be like. Namely being an observer from close by but not actually taking any part in it. You would have to be blind, deaf and stupid not to be aware of the fighting taking place only 2km to the NW. His force comprised a company backed up by a reinforced platoons worth of stray soldiers who had retreated to the position during the course of the day had the job of not only defending Mount William but also acting as the Battalion’s reserve. Desperate to get into the fight M Company’s commander had sent more than one message to the Battalion HQ asking if the reserves were needed. Each time he had simply been told that they were not needed at present and that he was to hold his position and guard against any British attempt at a flanking move from the south. Despite his desire to move take his force into the fight to the north the commander was still a consummate professional and took his Company’s job here seriously. The main strength of his force was naturally concentrated at the peak of the mountain but he had positioned men in 2-4 man fighting positions at various points down the western slope of the mountain. This was a response to the British preference for night attacks. The men on the slope were there to provide advanced warning of and disrupt any British advance up the slope. Knowing that if such a thing was going to happen it was highly likely to be within the remaining hours of darkness the Company commander had had a field telephone system set up connecting him with all of the positions down the hill which he was using to check in with them regularly. This was what alerted him to the fact that something was wrong.
First the position closest to the base of the mountain had missed a check in window and efforts to contact the pair of NCO’s manning it were unanswered. When the next position above was contacted and asked if they had noticed anything amiss, they had replied negative and had said that one of them would investigate. Knowing that this may take a while the Company commander had waited and waited. It wasn’t just that one position at the base of the mountain he was having trouble reaching as other positions were now seemingly uncontactable. Starting to get worried he conferred with the company signaller who pointed out that all the positions were connected to Company HQ by a single wire meaning that if something went wrong with that then depending where the fault was a large number of the positions would find their field telephones not working. Agreeing that this was the most likely cause of the problem as if enemy action was taking place surely at least on of the positions would have fired a shot or launched one of the flares that they had been given specifically to raise the alarm in that eventuality he detailed the signaller to try and identify and fix any fault in the system and sent the senior company NCO down the slope to check on each position and report back. The Company commander waited and waited but the man never reappeared. He looked down the hill into the murky darkness and began to worry that something was very wrong. He thought about informing battalion HQ but they would be busy enough as it is and what more could he report than a gut feeling and likely faulty field telephone. In darkness the human eyesight adjusts itself to focus on movement. Looking down the company commander thought he could see movement but he wasn’t sure if wasn’t just his mind playing tricks. He asked the men on sentry duty if they had seen anything but they all replied no. He looked on for longer staying still and letting his eyes adjusted to the darkness of this particular view and became certain that there definitely was something moving down there. But was thing the NCO or someone from one of the positions moving about. As he looked on and thought for longer he became for and more certain that it wasn’t. This was to big just to be an individual it was as if the whole ground was moving. He pulled out the illumination flare that he was carrying and took a few moments to decide if he really wanted to do this. If there was nothing there then not only would he look very stupid in front of his men which would be bad enough but he would be illuminating and drawing attention to their exact positions and thus placing them in danger. In the end after a minute or so’s debate with himself he decided that the worst thing to do would be to do nothing and so fired the flare into the air which promptly burned fiercely and daylight was for a moment restored to the area.
Much to the Company Commanders shock and horror the ground was moving as the grass and mud stood up and took on human form. He could make out the outlines of what seemed to be short men and see the clearly contrasted whiteness of their eye balls and teeth and the light reflecting brightly off the blades they were carrying both bayonets and bizarrely what looked like swords. It took a few seconds while these thoughts were going through his mind for the company commander to register that these unearthly figures were charging towards him and his men with seemingly impossible speed and blood chilling war cries.
The next 45 seconds have been described by British historians and “Intense hand to hand fighting” and by Argentinian historians, survivors and nationalist politicians as a massacre and scenes out of a slaughter house. Not a single shot was fired by the British but the element of surprise and shock factor combined with the hand to hand fighting advantage given to them by the Kukri knives and the ferocity and aggressiveness of the Gurkhas holding them meant that Mount William was secured with the Argentine defenders being almost literally thrown off the mountain and sustaining severe casualties. Survivors were predominantly men on the eastern and northern side of the peak and thus a little further away from the Gurkhas than those on the western side. They later related that they had been so overcome with terror that the thought to resist had never occurred to them and their survival instinct had made them run faster than they ever had before. They universally credited this as the single factor in their survival.
It was noted that the majority of the Argentine dead had died of shock and blood loss resulting from massive trauma and organ damage consistent with wounds such as limb amputation.
In a brief few minutes the Gurkhas who had only been ordered to make enough noise to act as a distraction had added a new complicating factor to the battle taking place on Mount Tumbledown and had yet again solidified their fearsome and almost mystical reputation.
In 5th Marine Infantry Battalion’s HQ Commander Robacio was now very concerned about worrying reports from his southern flanks. What exactly had happened was unclear but there were a few worrying certainties. He was now unable to contact M Company which had been garrisoning Mount William. This was worrying as that company represented his reserves and he had been thinking about mounting some sort of counterattack to either drive the British off of Tumbledown or at the very least reinforce the defences which were being steadily ground down. He himself had seen a flare being launched from that direction which he knew was M company’s warning signal. Men closer than him to Mount William were sending reports that were adamant that they had seen two large bodies of men. One on the summit and the other chagrining up it and that they had also heard scattered gunshots. Clearly something had happened on Mount William and Robacio didn’t know what. If the British had taken the mountain then they had effectively ripped the guts out of his southern flank leaving him exposed. There was a ridgeline connecting Mount William to Mount Tumbledown meaning that if the British were now occupying it then they could simply walk across. Robacio quickly gave out instructions for an infantry platoon that had been about to move west to make up for losses that had been sustained fighting the British there to instead move south and block off the ridgeline from a potential attack. Things only became worse when the platoon moved into position and began to encounter individuals who had retreated from Mount William and appeared to be in a state of shock talking about monsters.
The Fall of Mount William was a game changer to the ongoing action on Mount Tumbledown. With their reserves now gone or otherwise committed and a great deal of their ammunition already expended the Argentine defenders were unable to reinforce or replace losses on the western slope of the Mountain as the Scots Guards steadily ground down the defending company (which sustained the highest casualty rate for an individual unit in the conflict). The Scots Guards had actually been motivated by the threat of Argentine artillery to get close to the enemy which frequently overwhelmed them. Eventually the Scots Guards leading three Company’s had pushed the enemy far enough up the hill that the enemy defensive perimeter that combined with geography and minefields had been effectively containing them was broken. Fresh company’s of the Scots Guards and the Welsh Guards eager to avenge their fallen comrades broke out to the left and right of the peak of Tumbledown and began to envelop the mountain. The issue for the defenders was one of simple numbers. A single already much weakened battalion couldn’t defend against two fresh and near full strength battalions that now had all the advantages in terms of numbers, equipment and individual skill. The Argentines had been positioned in platoon and company sized positions which were now overwhelmed and defeated as they were attacked in the flanks or rear by superior forces. Even then it wasn’t as simple as that. Close quarter fighting took place in rocky outcrops as the British flushed out the defenders with grenades, automatic fire and bayonets.
The CVR(T)’s have done sterling work but unable to proceed any further due to the terrain now began to ferry the wounded of both sides back down the mountain to where they could be medevac’d by helicopters.
Lt Robert Lawrence of 3 of the Scots Guards would receive a Military Cross for his leadership during the battle and to him also went the honour of taking the peak of Mount Tumbledown. Fuelled by adrenaline and the sheer thrill of battle and famously carrying two L1A1 rifles as the sun came up he led his platoon in a bayonet charge that overwhelmed and wiped out the last of the Argentine defenders and charged towards the peak shouting “The mountain shall be mine!” and upon reaching the top let out a great cry of elation shouting “Isn’t this fun?!” seemingly unaware that the Argentines within earshot were by now all dead and that his own men had stopped short of the mountain to nurse their wounds or through sheer exhaustion.
Lt Lawrence would later be the subject of a 1988 BBC television drama entitled “Tumbledown” where he was portrayed by a then little known actor by the name of Colin Firth. The film detailed the story not only of his experiences in the conflict but also of his struggles upon his return to Britain where despite the fact that physically he had returned home without so much as a scratch he struggled with almost crippling PTSD which eventually forced his medical discharge from the army. The film became controversial as it conveyed an impression of flat indifference shown by the government, society and public to returning wounded from the conflict. The film also generated notoriety for its unvarnished presentation of its protagonist such as his joys in the brutalities of combat and a stunning flashback sequence showing him exulting at the top of Tumbledown. The film conveys Lawrence’s love of military life and thrill of combat as well as his feelings of abandonment and bitterness as he finds that he no longer able to do the one thing he loved, soldiering and his struggles to cope with little help from the government that sent him to war.
Even long before Tumbledown Peak had fallen Commander Robacio had seen the writing on the wall and ordered his force to withdraw east and escape the noose that the British were placing around their necks. First, he had intended to move his men to form a defensive line across the eastern part of the mountain but the British were hot on their heels meaning that withdrawing units were unable to break contact and in many cases unable to move from cover for fear of being caught and cut down in the open. Robacio got the impression that the British not being content with knocking his battalion out of the fight were now eager to kick the unconscious body into a bloodied lump of flesh. There was also the risk of the British reaching the planned line before his men making the whole exercise pointless. He therefore decided to withdraw to Sapper Hill to the East where he could dig in and force another uphill attack upon the British. Plus, there was a good chance that the British had only planned far enough ahead for the capture of Tumbledown (which annoyingly they had done) and would not pursue his men off of the mountain.
He gave the necessary orders and began to get his HQ moving.
Then came an order over the radio that sounded so unbelievable that everyone at first thought that it was some sort of British trick. It was a general order from the Malvinas garrison commander Brigadier General Menendez and then reiterated by 10th Mechanised Infantry Brigades Commander Brigadier General Jofre. “General order: All units in the Port Stanley AO are to immediately break contact with the enemy and withdraw into Port Stanley. Unit commanders acknowledge”.
One such tale is that of a private in the Argentine 5th Naval Infantry Battalion defending Mount Tumbledown from the British attack. The private had been on the islands for many weeks now. In that time, he had endured seemingly countless British air raids and artillery bombardments. He had over time started to believe that the British wanted to kill him personally. He would ask himself the question why? What had he done that had offended them so? During these strikes he had been forced to endure the sights of his close friends being killed or worse maimed beyond recovery. He had been forced to shelter in trenches while me he loved probably more than his own brother were caught out in the open and wounded. He had listened them screaming for help while he could do nothing. Eventually the screaming would stop and he would feel physically sick about what the rational part of his brain knew was human instinct but the other part would accuse of cowardice.
When the British soldiers had finally come many of the men in the unit had revelled in the fact that now the enemy finally showed himself and that the feeling of helplessness was gone and replaced by a desire to avenge their fallen brothers and that finally it seemed like a straight and fair fight.
The private however saw it differently. Around him his platoon were firing as many rounds as they could towards the British who were returning the favour. They dug themselves in deeper to their positions and were adamant and vocal about the fact that they would not leave them. All this time the private who had not fired a single round from his rifle kept asking the question “why?” He then did something unbelievable.
Pulling himself up out of his foxhole he heard his comrades shout things like “Where are you going?” “Get back here” “Mother of God somebody stop him!”. He walked calmly forwards into the no man’s land between the British and Argentine positions taking off and dropping his uncomfortable steel helmet and holding his rifle by the sling down by his side. Bright tracer rounds from both sides whizzed past him but he didn’t care. Whether he believed that somehow, he wouldn’t be hit or no longer cared is something that will never be known. Shouting to seemingly everyone around him of both sides with the despair noticeable in his voice he shouted “We’ve never seen one another. How can we kill one another? How can we? How can we? How can we kill one another? Why we do it? Why? WHY?!!”.
He never got an answer. Whereas the Argentines thought that he had had some sort of breakdown as a result of what he had experienced the Scots Guardsmen attacking them and not being able to speak Spanish and understand what he was saying just thought that it was an enemy soldier still with his rifle doing something very stupid and standing up in the open during a heavy firefight. They simply regarded him as an easy target and from their point of view thought that they had made him suffer the consequences of his stupidity.
The Battle of Wireless Ridge
When the Argentine 7th Infantry Regiment had originally taken up its position to defend the northern approaches to Port Stanley they had used Mount Longdon as the lynchpin for a northern facing defensive line stretching eastwards from the strongpoint on Longdon across Wireless Ridge. When 2 PARA had forced them from their positions on Mount Longdon the line had effectively been crippled along with the Regiment.
The regimental headquarters had been located on Mount Longdon along with many of the supply and ammunition bunkers. When it had become clear that they were going to lose the position the headquarters staff had tried their best to destroy anything that may be of use to the British. However, they had never really had a chance of destroying everything. After its capture the abandoned HQ had been an intelligence bonanza for the British. Amongst the documents found were maps of the Argentine defensive positions and crucially minefields.
The intelligence gleaned from the HQ had played a large part in the planning for 3 PARA’s operation to take Wireless Ridge and finish of the 7th Regiment.
Since they had been forced off of Mount Longdon the previous night the Argentines had been under near continuous artillery bombardment in an effort to keep them pinned down and prevent them from being able to reposition their defences to face the expected line of advance to the west and to try to tire them out by preventing them from resting and thus lowering their fighting effectiveness.
Lt Col Gimenez was very aware of the comparative disadvantage of his position. He was exhausted having not been able to sleep in well over 36 hours now. The battle the previous night and constant shelling had seen to that. His surviving men had effectively been pinned down all day meaning that they hadn’t been able to get themselves reorganised in light of the losses they had taken the previous night. Worse they had now lost most of the ammunitions reserves and heavy weapons particularly the .50 cal machine guns. What little ammunition had been available had been distributed out but the simple fact was there wasn’t enough to replenish all the rounds that had been fired the night before meaning nearly all of the men were somewhat short.
Gimenez had spent the day inspecting his regiment moving from position to position trying to dodge the British artillery. By his own admittance according to the law of averages he should have been killed more than once by now, a fact which did unnerve him a little.
Between those killed, wounded and missing (presumably dead or captured) both last night and as a consequence of the thousands of shells the British had dropped on them Gimenez estimated that his regiments fighting strength was probably now around the 50% mark. The British bombardment had let up just before dusk. Unfortunately, this it seemed had only been to allow British bombers to strike his position. While fortunately the majority of the bombs had been released a fraction to late and sailed over them impacting the empty ground well to the north some had hit and though he didn’t have a figure yet he knew that the casualty situation would have just become a lot worse. The British had then resumed the artillery bombardment with seemingly every gun on gods earth.
Despite the apparent direness of his position Gimenez wasn’t just about to role over and die. Though the fighting positions were built to face a threat from the north rather than the west his men were well dug in and having previously occupied the British position Gimenez reckoned he had an advantage in that he probably knew their likely approach routes better than they did. Plus, he still had a platoon’s worth of mortars and machine guns that hadn’t been on Longdon. The airstrike followed by the massive increase in the ferocity of the artillery bombardment told him that he wouldn’t have long to wait for the British to open the battle. He thought about passing around the word to his men to be alert but then realised that with all the shells dropping on them they were unlikely to be caught napping.
While on paper 3 PARA had pretty much every advantage being a fresh and full strength unit of professional and experienced paratroopers fighting against a now outnumbered unit of conscripts who had already taken a battering the night before and were now without most of their ammunition and had been denied an opportunity to get themselves reorganised Lt Col Pike was smarter than to allow himself to potentially underestimate his enemy.
His plan had been carefully worked out with his staff and company commanders and included a great amount of input from Lt Col Jones of 2 PARA who had fought these very same Argentines the night before. The most obvious line of attack was moving eastwards down the slope of Mount Longdon under the cover of heavy artillery and fire support. This would have the advantage of being the most direct route and his men would be moving and shooting downwards onto the enemy. However, the ridgeline leading down to Wireless ridge wasn’t that wide meaning that there was only really space for a company sized attack. Therefore, it was decided that D Company would open the proceedings by attacking down the ridge as would probably be expected by the enemy. D Company would be covered by both 2 and 3 PARA’s support companies and the defenders would be kept under heavy artillery fire. This would be a feint to cover for a flanking attack from A, B and C Company’s. The plan for the flanking manoeuvre initially considered called for these company’s to advance round to the north and then attack up the slope along a broad front. However, when the captured Argentine maps were examined it was noted that the Argentine defences were set up to cover a northern attack and that the Argentine minefields to the north left very little room for manoeuvre. If this went wrong (which they usually did in battle) the 3 company’s could find themselves trapped on open ground between dug in Argentine defenders and minefields.
Therefore, a different although arguably just as risky approach had been decided upon for the flanking move. D Company would make the diversionary attack while the artillery hopefully kept the defenders in place while A, B & C Company’s moved to the south of wireless ridge along the road next to Moody Brooke stream in the valley between Wireless Ridge and Mount Tumbledown. This would have the advantage of surprise and there were known to be no minefields or bunkers along the approach and the attack would be into the rear of the Argentine positions. However, it was risky in that the slope on southern side of Wireless Ridge was much steeper than that on the northern side and there was a real risk of being attacked from both Wireless Ridge and Tumbledown if the defenders got wind of what was happening. Once again, the British would be relying on the superior skills and equipment of their fighting men and their overwhelming advantage in terms of the amount of fire support they could call upon for success.
As Dusk turned to darkness D Company began their assault. Throughout the day there had been sporadic exchanges of machine gun and sniper fire between the British on Mount Longdon and the westernmost Argentine defenders. This had to a degree allowed British observers to pinpoint the locations of some of the defenders. These positions were brought under fire by the mortars of 3 PARA’s support company. D Company’s commander hadn’t been given an exact objective or finish line. He knew the overall plan and his company’s role in it but as for his specific orders they were to push downwards from Longdon and as far along the ridgeline as he could pushing the Argentines back and inflicting casualties. He had decided at the very least that he should aim to advance far enough to link up with B Company who would be on the western most end of the flanking manoeuvre.
The way he saw it his Company’s job was to make things as easy as possible for the other three Company’s. The harder he pushed forwards and the more damage he inflicted would achieve this by making the defenders focus on him and not the other Company’s.
If something went wrong with the flanking move the plan was for reinforcements from 2 PARA to move up from Longdon to back up D Company and try and push the Argentines off the ridge.
As D Company moved down from Longdon and started pushing onto the western end of Wireless ridge they started to become involved in heavy firefights with the defenders. As with previous actions the British started to try to advance by methodically clearing out individual Argentine positions using rockets, Milan anti-tank missiles and grenades. Annoyingly the sheer number of artillery shells that had landed in the area had created vast numbers of craters which the defenders gladly used for cover slowing the British advance.
With an attack materialising from the west as expected and the British advancing slowly and methodically Lt Col Gimenez decided that now was the time to unleash a little surprise of his own. Having pre sighted the area where the British were now located Argentine 60 7 81mm Mortars and heavy machine guns using indirect fire opened up on the British who began to take casualties on the relatively open high ground.
If actions could convey emotions then Gimenez was sure that he had just driven the British commander into an absolute burning rage as British artillery started to furiously hammer every position where they believed the mortar fire may be coming from with volleys of devastating and highly concentrated artillery fire.
Under the cover of heavy fire support ranging from their own GPMG’s all the way up to 105mm artillery batteries D Company gradually began to push their way into the Argentine positions evicting the previous occupants but more importantly focusing the defender’s attention firmly upon them.
To the south barely a few hundred meters away from the ridgeline 3 PARA’s A, B & C Company’s had somehow achieved what many of them thought would be impossible and spread themselves out along the base of the ridgeline without being detected by anyone.
They largely attributed this success to a combination of luck and their own careful preparations paying off. The men had covered all exposed skin entirely in camouflage cream. When there hadn’t been quite enough of this to go around some had resorted to rubbing black boot polish onto their skin as there was always more than enough of that stuff. Just because you were in the middle of fighting a high intensity war didn’t mean that standards could be allowed to slip. Furthermore, anything that wasn’t going to be immediately needed in the next few hours had been left behind. For example, mess tins could rattle and so had been left. Like on the previous night each man had been made to jump up and down repeatedly to see if anything rattled.
Now came the most dangerous part as the three company’s made their way up the often extremely steep southern slope having to almost crawl on their hands and knees in some places. The Argentines had actually considered the possibility of attack from the south but had thought that the terrain was to steep to be traversed. Indeed, to anyone else other than a unit such as the Para’s with their extremely high physical fitness standards the terrain alone probably would have protected the defenders southern flank. It was this that allowed the Para’s to achieve surprise.
Suddenly being hit in the flank along the entire length of the ridgeline naturally came as a shock for the Argentines but one which they were quick to respond to. With the defenders spread out along the ridgeline only the westernmost men had been able to engage the British attacking from Longdon. For the rest of them it was a simple case of turning around 180 degrees and shooting at targets to their south. Though in some cases it meant leaving the protection of their bunkers the argentine machine gunners quickly manhandled their weapons around and joined in the firefight. The Argentine commanders were quick to realise that they had to hit the British hard and fast while there were comparatively few of them on top of the ridgeline and they had a chance of driving them back down the slope. A radio transmission was made to the 5th Marine Infantry Battalion on Mount Tumbledown immediately to the south requesting support. This was answered by a platoon positioned on the high ground on the northern side of Tumbledown who began to use heavy machine guns and mortars to bring the southern slope of Wireless Ridge upon which the Para’s were still trying to force their way up under indirect fire. With no cover to be found and no way of returning fire on the positions high up on Tumbledown themselves the only thing the Para’s could do was keep pushing forwards to get themselves off the exposed slope and call in naval gunfire support. Multiple fire missions were called in from ships off shore as the land based gun batteries already had their hands full keeping the Argentine positions on Wireless Ridge under fire. Annoyingly for the British what seemed to be happening every time was that the shells would start to land on Tumbledown roughly in the area where the fire was coming from causing the Argentines to temporarily stop firing before starting up again not long after the fire mission was complete. While this did bring some brief moments of respite it was frustrating for the British as they didn’t really have much of an idea of the enemy’s exact location or strength and therefore didn’t know if the 4.5 inch shells were actually landing on target and doing any damage or if the defenders were simply taking cover. It became apparent that the only way this threat would be dealt with would be when the Guards assault on Tumbledown which was happening concurrently pushed the Argentines off of the northern slope.
The Argentine defenders on Wireless Ridge now found themselves in an increasingly untenable position. They were being attacked from two directions by an enemy superior in strength and were rapidly burning through their remaining ammunition while the casualties steadily continued to mount.
Yet they weren’t just going to stay in position and do nothing about it. So many military plans seemingly rely on the enemy being willing to cooperate with the plan. Major Carrizo-Salvadores 7th Regiments second in command decided to take the initiative. The way he saw it the biggest problem the defenders were dealing with was the British artillery, mortars and indirect machine gun fire. He had always been taught that the closer you were to the enemy the safer you were from such things as the enemy couldn’t call in fire support if there was a strong possibility of it actually landing on them. Furthermore, he reckoned that with a strong and rapid push he could throw the British off of the ridge and back down the southern slope. Therefore, he decided to go on the offensive, close and mix it up with the British. If they couldn’t call in fire support it would be a much more even fight and one in which the Argentines would hold the initiative. Passing orders along the line he stood up and led a 50 man bayonet charge under covering automatic fire chanting the regiments famous “Malvinas March”.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that many of the Argentines were in individual fighting positions without radios and unable to hear verbal commands over the noise of battle many of the Argentines were slow to receive the orders or were completely unaware of them and what they were supposed to do. The result of this was that what should have been a solid mass of men charging towards the British in coordination with covering fire was instead a rather disorganised advance forwards in a rather less than straight offensive line with many men too far out in front or too concentrated or spread out and with machine gunners not sure if they were supposed to give cover immediately or wait for something. Many Argentines remained in their positions or advanced slowly thinking that they were supposed to be following the leader forwards rather than mounting a strong and fast attack. The inevitable result of this disorganised attack was that while the Para’s were at first alarmed at the enemy attacking them, they had little trouble in beating it back with concentrated fire inflicting yet more casualties upon the defenders. One of the British company commanders later described the attack as “Quite a sporting effort without a sporting chance”.
With the failure and resultant losses from the infantry attack and upon hearing of the death of his second in command Lt Col Gimenez finally decided that his position was now hopeless. He didn’t have enough remaining strength to drive off or even fend off the British. He no longer had a potential line of retreat through which to extract the remnants of his command. The British were to the west and south. There was a road running along the southern slope which the British must have used to get into position. That same road met another that ran north past the eastern edge of Wireless Ridge. If he tried to go eastwards then as soon as the British realised what he was doing they could easily move along this road and cut him off. In fact, Gimenez wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t already moved a force into position in order to cut them off. He couldn’t go north because that direction would simply lead him into his own minefields. He cursed the fact that he had put s much effort into ensuring that those mines were properly laid to create an impenetrable barrier. He couldn’t even try and fight his way through the British as it was clear just how quickly his men were running out of ammunition. He could see men desperately searching empty ammunition tins for even one unused round rattling around in the bottom and a succession of desperate privates and even NCO’s coming to his HQ position requesting more ammunition only to be told that there wasn’t any left to give out.
The situation was now beyond salvage and all they could do was focus on limiting their losses. With a heavy heart Gimenez gave the order for all personnel to cease fire. Unfortunately, great difficulty was encountered in disseminating this order to the men. The heavy British small arms and artillery fire meant that it was extremely dangerous to leave HQ position meaning that orders had to be transmitted to platoon commanders by radio or communicated through officers shouting and waving their arms. More than one officer was shot dead by the British as a result of this slowing down the speed at which the order was passed and many Argentines were in isolated positions and unaware of the order and so kept firing. This caused other Argentines who had heeded the order to recommence firing thinking that they had somehow misheard or misunderstood the instruction.
Of course, the British being unaware of the order continued to fire upon the Argentines and press their attack.
All of this meant that the battle went on for longer than it needed have and men on both sides became casualties needlessly.
Even after the order to cease fire was obeyed by the defenders it took a while for the British to realise what was happening and cease fire themselves. The radio operators in 7th Regiment’s HQ had been trying to make contact with the British in an effort to halt the fighting. But being unaware of the radio frequencies the British were using they simply found themselves transmitting pleas to stop the fighting that were heard by no one.
Eventually once the fighting had stopped a tense lull fell across the ridge as both sides waited for the other to make a move. The British waited for the Argentines to leave their positions and come out into the open to surrender while the Argentines waited for the British to come and round them up. Neither side trusted the other and neither wanted to leave the relative safety of their current positions.
As the sun started to peer over the horizon it was the Argentines who eventually blinked first with officers leaving the regimental HQ carrying white flags and moving amongst the fighting positions ordering the men to leave behind their weapons and come out into the open with their hands up in full view of the British and form up on open ground. Emotions on the Argentine side ranged from despair, shame and humiliation at being forced to surrender to relief that they had survived to fear that the British would simply machine gun the lot of them rather than take prisoners.
Lt Col Gimenez came out of his HQ with his staff and was able to finally get a look at the remnants of the Regiment that he had been so proud to lead. He was appalled to see that since he had last done a full regimental parade inspection probably only a third of the men were still left standing. Looking at the now daylit battlefield around him he could see the bodies of those who were no longer standing. With his remaining 200 odd men now formed up in three ranks the order was given to open ranks by three paces and Gimenez accompanied by the senior surviving NCO proceeded to walk up and down the lines inspecting his men like he had done so many times on the parade ground. Whereas normally he would be seeing smartly turned out men stood to attention here he saw exhausted men in dirty mud and blood-stained uniforms smelling of cordite some of whom sported bandages. As he went up the line, he would occasionally stop to speak to one of his men.
All the while the Para’s looked on but unsure as to exactly what appeared to be going on did not make a move to interrupt.
His inspection complete Lt Col Gimenez noted that the fighting that he had heard reports of taking place on Mount Tumbledown seemed to have ceased. Calling forward his senior surviving officer Gimenez gave instructions that the regiment was to be smartly marched in the direction of the British with white flags on prominent display so that there could be no misunderstanding of their intentions on the part of the British. The Regiment wasn’t equipped with actual white flags and so white shirts and pillow cases were tied to poles and I many cases officers and NCO’s held sheets of white paper in the air. Anything to convey their intentions to the British.
The senior surviving NCO called the regiment to attention in anticipation of an address from their commander. Although he thought that he should make some sort of speech Gimenez just couldn’t think of anything worth while to say. He simply said “You did all you could and what more could I have asked of you? I’m proud of you”. With that he gave the order to the senior surviving officer to carry on. The regiment turned to face north and marched off with white flags on display as per instructions. Gimenez however stayed behind. Now alone on the battlefield he looked at the bodies around him which constituted the better part of his regiment. He felt ashamed of himself. He had put so much effort into preparing his men many of whom were really just boys who were to young to be away from their mothers just so he could have the “honour” of leading his Regiment into battle and consequent slaughter to protect this ridgeline and mountain which was now little more than a blood and cordite impregnated mud bowl. Looking at the state of many of the bodies he grimly predicted that the grass would be growing strong here in the coming weeks.
He turned to face the north and began to walk. Just as the 7th Regiments survivors were being surrounded and taken into captivity by the Para’s everyone heard the unmistakable sound of a landmine detonating.
The Battle of Mount Tumbledown
While 3 PARA had been assaulting Wireless Ridge at the same time a much larger operation was taking place on Mount Tumbledown. Whereas the operation currently taking place on Wireless Ridge was a battalion sized op with supporting elements commanded by 3 PARA’s commander Lt Col Pike and to a large degree independent the operation to take Tumbledown would be a much larger multi battalion affair. The British force was made up of men from the Scots Guards, Welsh Guards, Gurkhas, Blue and Royals with supporting artillery batteries and the accompanying support troops such as medics and combat engineers. Therefore, this operation would be commanded by 5 Brigade HQ commanded by Brigadier Wilson in the same way that 3 COMMANDO Brigade’s HQ and Brigadier Thompson RM had run last nights operations. In practise though a great deal of authority was delegated to the individual battalion commanders who would be running the various phases of the operation.
The plan at a basic level consisted of three parts. Lt Col Scott’s 2nd Scots Guards would launch an assault on the western slope of Tumbledown supported by the Scorpion and Scimitar CVR(T)’s of B Squadron of the Blues and Royals led by Lt Coreth. Their objective would be to fight their way up the western side of the mountain securing a strong foothold.
1st Welsh Guards led by Lt Col Rickett would be following behind the Scots Guards and would be the exploitation force who would use the foothold as a starting point from which to secure the high ground and peaks on Mount Tumbledown and force the defenders down the eastern slope. If the opportunity presented itself the Welsh Guards were to press on and take Sapper Hill which was a small hill but represented the last natural obstacle before Port Stanley.
While this was going on two company’s of 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles would launch a diversionary assault on neighbouring Mount William. The original plan had been for the Gurkhas to attack first in the hopes of distracting the enemy’s attention however Lt Col Morgan had managed to convince Brigadier Wilson that this would be difficult due to the greater distance his men would have to travel to reach their objective. Therefore, it was decided that the Gurkhas would go in after the Guards had begun their assault. The hope was that the Argentines may think that the more obvious and direct approach up the western side of Tumbledown was the distraction for an assault of Mount William and may then be tempted to divert reserves away from the Guards.
As the Scots Guards lead Company (Major Dalzel-Job’s G Company) marched across the ground between the start point on Two Sisters and their objective the environment could only have been described as surreal. Ahead of them the ongoing heavy bombardment created an almost solid curtain of fire and noise and the scene was described by more than one guardsman as marching towards the gates of hell. While they took all of the normal measures required for a stealthy night time approach the men knew that they weren’t going to catch their enemy off guard. With the preceding airstrike and the ferocity of the bombardment that they were currently under the enemy would be wide ready and waiting for an attack that they knew was coming. The Company Sergeant Major told some of the more apprehensive men that if it was this frightening from far away imagine what it would be like to be in the midst of it. He was going to say “do you honestly think anyone could survive under that?” but stopped himself as he already knew the answer. Silently he hoped that at least some of those shells were hitting something and he wasn’t simply leading the men into a repeat of the first day of the Somme. He secretly wished that they could have some sort of delay as even an extra minute meant more shells landing and potentially less enemy, they would have to face.
Accompanying G Company were the CVR(T)’s of the Blues and Royals who would be using their 76mm and 30mm guns in the direct fire support mode. While the fire power and cover that these vehicles would provide was an extremely welcome addition and would potentially save a lot of (British) lives by cracking open any hardened positions the CSM was still struggling with his instinctive worry about the noise that these vehicles 6 litre diesel engines and tracks would be making. He comforted himself by the fact that even he was struggling to hear the sound of the engines over the noise of the bombardment and he was stood only feet away from them.
The noise of so many shells exploding was good thing. It would drown out any noise that they made. The flashes from the explosions and the light generated by the fireballs was however something that could prove fatal. As the guardsmen came closer and closer the darkness was banished by the flashes of bright light and heart rates increased as the men knew that they were now fully visible to any Argentine who cared to look in their direction.
Having left it as long as he dared and closed as much as he could with where he assumed the enemy would be Major Dalzel-Job gave a hand signal to his accompanying forward artillery spotter. The spotter spoke into his radio for a brief moment before giving a thumbs up to the major. That was the signal that the major had been waiting for and he now gave the order to his men to open fire and advance. The forward artillery spotter had now assumed control of the supporting artillery batteries who now ceased with the general bombardment they had been hammering the Argentines with and waited for fire mission coordinates from the forward observer in order to provide close fire support for the Scots Guards. They weren’t waiting for long.
All hell broke loose as both sides unleashed heavy fire upon each other. As G Company pushed forwards the follow-on Company’s broke to the left and right of G Company as part of the Lt Col Scott’s plan to attempt to flank any defenders they encountered. All three companies were now encountering heavy and determined resistance. The plan of attack at the tactical level could have come out of any history book about the First World War. The enemy would be brought under artillery fire and held in place while the CVR(T)’s would move forwards brining them under direct fire and providing cover for the infantry who would be advancing close behind them and would then spread out in amount the enemy positions and overpower them in close quarter combat. No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
While the British had worked out the approximate locations of the local minefields from intelligence discovered in captured HQ positions on Mount Harriet and Two Sisters and through observing the pattern of retreat, they still sustained casualties. In the midst of a very heavy firefight it was very easy to become disoriented as to where you were in relation to the approximate location of a minefield that was not even marked. One Scimitar was destroyed after it strayed into a minefield while trying to manoeuvre. The presence of light tanks came as a surprise to the Argentine defenders and the Scorpions 76mm gun proved particularly effective at silencing Argentine machine gun nests which could be located by simply following the arcs of tracer back to their origins. The defenders however were not completely unprepared. They responded with rifle grenades and other light anti-tank weapons fired from well protected rock bunkers that had easily withstood the bombardment. While they didn’t succeed in actually in actually hitting any of the British vehicles as without night vision equipment they couldn’t pin point their exact location and so were firing into the dark based on best guesses they still did have an effect in that they made the CVR(T) crews unwilling to close the distance where they would be vulnerable to these weapons and no longer possessing the advantage of range. Therefore, it was the Scots Guardsmen who had to push forwards themselves while the CVR(T)’s effectively became mobile direct fire support. The guardsmen tried to methodically exterminate the well protected Argentine positions using mortars, grenades, 66mm rockets, Carl Gustav recoilless rifles and Milan Anti-Tank Guided Missiles. The Argentines however were in positions protected by solid rock meaning that often anything short of a direct hit simply wasn’t enough. Plus, these Argentines were determined defenders seemed unwilling to move an inch meaning that they wouldn’t be forced out of their positions and so had to be destroyed. Guardsmen were getting close enough to the enemy that in some cases they could actually hear the Argentines shouting (and often mispronouncing) abuse and insults in English and singing March of the Malvinas. The Scotsmen resisted the natural urge to shout back the kind of language that would make even a sailor blush for fear of drawing attention to their position. However, this did in a way motivate them to press the enemy harder as many of them now had a desire to teach the Argentines the lesson that there are few things in the world more terrifying than an angry Glaswegian.
Higher up in his HQ position near the summit of Tumbledown 5th Naval Infantry Battalion’s commander Marine Commander Carlos Robacio was satisfied with the way things were progressing. Over the last few hours his battalion had suffered grievously at the hands of the British before they had even begun their attack. First had come the sporadic artillery strikes which had been a nuisance but hadn’t been that damaging. Then just before dusk a heavy British airstrike had hit them dropping bombs that left enormous craters and meant that many of his men would be officially listed as missing as there was and would never be an identifiable body to prove that they had died. This had been followed up by an extremely heavy artillery bombardment which had focused primarily on the western slope and various rocky outcrops as he had expected it would. He was naturally concerned about the men that were protecting that part of the mountain but his engineers had had many weeks to prepare their positions and so they were as well protected as could be reasonably expected. He had been concerned at the rate at which his battalion had been sustaining losses and how long his command could keep withstanding this bombardment and continue to be combat effective. He had begun to think that the British plan was probably to simply blast every living thing off of the mountain before simply advancing to finish off any isolated survivors.
Thankfully the British had begun their assault while he still had more than enough men left to defend against them. Many attacking plans rely on the enemy unknowingly playing along with it. Robacio was aware of this fact and so had made sure that it was the British who would be playing along with his plan. He had a reinforced company defending the western slope up which the British were trying to fight. His was in constant contact with the company commander and soldiers who had retreated from Mount Harriet and Two Sisters and found themselves on Tumbledown were being used to keep the marines resupplied with ammunition and were occasionally being fed into the line to act as casualty replacements. The reports that Robacio’s HQ were getting from the company commander in contact were good. The British were pushing hard but were for now at least being held in place. Now it was Robacio’s turn to unleash a little surprise he had prepared for the British.
The British were now held in a known location and thus an ideal target. The Malvinas garrison artillery hadn’t had much of a part to play in this conflict so far and had been taking very heavy losses as they seemed to be a priority target for British aircraft. However, there were still enough surviving guns and crews left to form a strong battery. A total of 8 105mm guns opened fire on an area at the base of Mount Tumbledown. The reasoning for the artillery was two fold. One was the obvious chance of inflicting casualties upon the attackers and the second was that the British would be forced to redirect their own artillery to counter battery fire missions and thus relieving pressure upon the infantry trying to hold off the British advance. As he listened to radio messages from the company in contact with the British as they called out artillery corrections and that the British artillery fire had abruptly stopped Robacio felt a sense of relief that things seemed to be going his way. Now it would be the deciding question of who would blink first. Would the British decide that their losses were becoming unacceptable and progress too little and break of their attack? Would the Robacio’s marines be able to hold on for long enough?
An unexpected consequence of the Argentine shelling was that it was forcing the British who had no cover from artillery to push forwards and get closer to the enemy. Grabbing them by the belt buckles the Viet Cong used to say. Therefore, in a way the shelling was counterproductive.
In 5 Brigade HQ Brigadier Wilson was becoming increasingly concerned. The Scots Guards assault was beginning to look like it was stalling. The reports he was getting back from Lt Col Scott stated that the enemy were in well protected positions and were fighting with an unexpected determination. To a degree this had been anticipated and planned for by the use of light armour and artillery support. However the Blues and Royals commander was reporting how he was having to keep his vehicles back and engage the enemy at a distance due to the threat of enemy anti tank weapons. Worse the heavy shelling that the British had conducted had turned the ground into a mess of craters meaning that the CVR(T)’s were having a difficult time manoeuvring. Worse the enemy had suddenly opened up with artillery onto what were thought to be predesignated coordinates. Control of the supporting artillery had been removed from the Scots Guards forward observers and control assumed personally by the Land Forces RA commander Colonel Pennicot who was now with his staff desperately trying to calculate the locations of the Argentine guns and were expending a great deal of the finite supply of shells hitting every possible location they could be. While the Argentine fire did noticeably slack off it still continued. Reports were coming in from Lt Col Rickett whose Welsh Guards were following behind the Scots Guards and had been caught on the move by the artillery. Although there wasn’t an exact figure yet the radio reports made it clear that the Welsh Guards had sustained casualties.
The frustrating thing was there was no way to confirm whether or not any of the British artillery shells were hitting anything or if they were simply moving a lot of mud around. Yes, the Argentine fire had decreased but did that mean that the guns had been destroyed or were the gunners simply taking cover or were they in the process of moving their guns to a new firing position.
Something needed to change soon otherwise with progress as slow as it was the attack would still be ongoing when the sun came up and without the cover of darkness the Guardsman would be far too much danger and he would be forced to order a withdrawal. Still it wasn’t all bad news. Things on Wireless Ridge seemed to be going well by comparison.
On Mount William just to the SE of Mount Tumbledown the commander of the 5th Naval Infantry Battalion’s M Company had never imagined that this is what a battle would be like. Namely being an observer from close by but not actually taking any part in it. You would have to be blind, deaf and stupid not to be aware of the fighting taking place only 2km to the NW. His force comprised a company backed up by a reinforced platoons worth of stray soldiers who had retreated to the position during the course of the day had the job of not only defending Mount William but also acting as the Battalion’s reserve. Desperate to get into the fight M Company’s commander had sent more than one message to the Battalion HQ asking if the reserves were needed. Each time he had simply been told that they were not needed at present and that he was to hold his position and guard against any British attempt at a flanking move from the south. Despite his desire to move take his force into the fight to the north the commander was still a consummate professional and took his Company’s job here seriously. The main strength of his force was naturally concentrated at the peak of the mountain but he had positioned men in 2-4 man fighting positions at various points down the western slope of the mountain. This was a response to the British preference for night attacks. The men on the slope were there to provide advanced warning of and disrupt any British advance up the slope. Knowing that if such a thing was going to happen it was highly likely to be within the remaining hours of darkness the Company commander had had a field telephone system set up connecting him with all of the positions down the hill which he was using to check in with them regularly. This was what alerted him to the fact that something was wrong.
First the position closest to the base of the mountain had missed a check in window and efforts to contact the pair of NCO’s manning it were unanswered. When the next position above was contacted and asked if they had noticed anything amiss, they had replied negative and had said that one of them would investigate. Knowing that this may take a while the Company commander had waited and waited. It wasn’t just that one position at the base of the mountain he was having trouble reaching as other positions were now seemingly uncontactable. Starting to get worried he conferred with the company signaller who pointed out that all the positions were connected to Company HQ by a single wire meaning that if something went wrong with that then depending where the fault was a large number of the positions would find their field telephones not working. Agreeing that this was the most likely cause of the problem as if enemy action was taking place surely at least on of the positions would have fired a shot or launched one of the flares that they had been given specifically to raise the alarm in that eventuality he detailed the signaller to try and identify and fix any fault in the system and sent the senior company NCO down the slope to check on each position and report back. The Company commander waited and waited but the man never reappeared. He looked down the hill into the murky darkness and began to worry that something was very wrong. He thought about informing battalion HQ but they would be busy enough as it is and what more could he report than a gut feeling and likely faulty field telephone. In darkness the human eyesight adjusts itself to focus on movement. Looking down the company commander thought he could see movement but he wasn’t sure if wasn’t just his mind playing tricks. He asked the men on sentry duty if they had seen anything but they all replied no. He looked on for longer staying still and letting his eyes adjusted to the darkness of this particular view and became certain that there definitely was something moving down there. But was thing the NCO or someone from one of the positions moving about. As he looked on and thought for longer he became for and more certain that it wasn’t. This was to big just to be an individual it was as if the whole ground was moving. He pulled out the illumination flare that he was carrying and took a few moments to decide if he really wanted to do this. If there was nothing there then not only would he look very stupid in front of his men which would be bad enough but he would be illuminating and drawing attention to their exact positions and thus placing them in danger. In the end after a minute or so’s debate with himself he decided that the worst thing to do would be to do nothing and so fired the flare into the air which promptly burned fiercely and daylight was for a moment restored to the area.
Much to the Company Commanders shock and horror the ground was moving as the grass and mud stood up and took on human form. He could make out the outlines of what seemed to be short men and see the clearly contrasted whiteness of their eye balls and teeth and the light reflecting brightly off the blades they were carrying both bayonets and bizarrely what looked like swords. It took a few seconds while these thoughts were going through his mind for the company commander to register that these unearthly figures were charging towards him and his men with seemingly impossible speed and blood chilling war cries.
The next 45 seconds have been described by British historians and “Intense hand to hand fighting” and by Argentinian historians, survivors and nationalist politicians as a massacre and scenes out of a slaughter house. Not a single shot was fired by the British but the element of surprise and shock factor combined with the hand to hand fighting advantage given to them by the Kukri knives and the ferocity and aggressiveness of the Gurkhas holding them meant that Mount William was secured with the Argentine defenders being almost literally thrown off the mountain and sustaining severe casualties. Survivors were predominantly men on the eastern and northern side of the peak and thus a little further away from the Gurkhas than those on the western side. They later related that they had been so overcome with terror that the thought to resist had never occurred to them and their survival instinct had made them run faster than they ever had before. They universally credited this as the single factor in their survival.
It was noted that the majority of the Argentine dead had died of shock and blood loss resulting from massive trauma and organ damage consistent with wounds such as limb amputation.
In a brief few minutes the Gurkhas who had only been ordered to make enough noise to act as a distraction had added a new complicating factor to the battle taking place on Mount Tumbledown and had yet again solidified their fearsome and almost mystical reputation.
In 5th Marine Infantry Battalion’s HQ Commander Robacio was now very concerned about worrying reports from his southern flanks. What exactly had happened was unclear but there were a few worrying certainties. He was now unable to contact M Company which had been garrisoning Mount William. This was worrying as that company represented his reserves and he had been thinking about mounting some sort of counterattack to either drive the British off of Tumbledown or at the very least reinforce the defences which were being steadily ground down. He himself had seen a flare being launched from that direction which he knew was M company’s warning signal. Men closer than him to Mount William were sending reports that were adamant that they had seen two large bodies of men. One on the summit and the other chagrining up it and that they had also heard scattered gunshots. Clearly something had happened on Mount William and Robacio didn’t know what. If the British had taken the mountain then they had effectively ripped the guts out of his southern flank leaving him exposed. There was a ridgeline connecting Mount William to Mount Tumbledown meaning that if the British were now occupying it then they could simply walk across. Robacio quickly gave out instructions for an infantry platoon that had been about to move west to make up for losses that had been sustained fighting the British there to instead move south and block off the ridgeline from a potential attack. Things only became worse when the platoon moved into position and began to encounter individuals who had retreated from Mount William and appeared to be in a state of shock talking about monsters.
The Fall of Mount William was a game changer to the ongoing action on Mount Tumbledown. With their reserves now gone or otherwise committed and a great deal of their ammunition already expended the Argentine defenders were unable to reinforce or replace losses on the western slope of the Mountain as the Scots Guards steadily ground down the defending company (which sustained the highest casualty rate for an individual unit in the conflict). The Scots Guards had actually been motivated by the threat of Argentine artillery to get close to the enemy which frequently overwhelmed them. Eventually the Scots Guards leading three Company’s had pushed the enemy far enough up the hill that the enemy defensive perimeter that combined with geography and minefields had been effectively containing them was broken. Fresh company’s of the Scots Guards and the Welsh Guards eager to avenge their fallen comrades broke out to the left and right of the peak of Tumbledown and began to envelop the mountain. The issue for the defenders was one of simple numbers. A single already much weakened battalion couldn’t defend against two fresh and near full strength battalions that now had all the advantages in terms of numbers, equipment and individual skill. The Argentines had been positioned in platoon and company sized positions which were now overwhelmed and defeated as they were attacked in the flanks or rear by superior forces. Even then it wasn’t as simple as that. Close quarter fighting took place in rocky outcrops as the British flushed out the defenders with grenades, automatic fire and bayonets.
The CVR(T)’s have done sterling work but unable to proceed any further due to the terrain now began to ferry the wounded of both sides back down the mountain to where they could be medevac’d by helicopters.
Lt Robert Lawrence of 3 of the Scots Guards would receive a Military Cross for his leadership during the battle and to him also went the honour of taking the peak of Mount Tumbledown. Fuelled by adrenaline and the sheer thrill of battle and famously carrying two L1A1 rifles as the sun came up he led his platoon in a bayonet charge that overwhelmed and wiped out the last of the Argentine defenders and charged towards the peak shouting “The mountain shall be mine!” and upon reaching the top let out a great cry of elation shouting “Isn’t this fun?!” seemingly unaware that the Argentines within earshot were by now all dead and that his own men had stopped short of the mountain to nurse their wounds or through sheer exhaustion.
Lt Lawrence would later be the subject of a 1988 BBC television drama entitled “Tumbledown” where he was portrayed by a then little known actor by the name of Colin Firth. The film detailed the story not only of his experiences in the conflict but also of his struggles upon his return to Britain where despite the fact that physically he had returned home without so much as a scratch he struggled with almost crippling PTSD which eventually forced his medical discharge from the army. The film became controversial as it conveyed an impression of flat indifference shown by the government, society and public to returning wounded from the conflict. The film also generated notoriety for its unvarnished presentation of its protagonist such as his joys in the brutalities of combat and a stunning flashback sequence showing him exulting at the top of Tumbledown. The film conveys Lawrence’s love of military life and thrill of combat as well as his feelings of abandonment and bitterness as he finds that he no longer able to do the one thing he loved, soldiering and his struggles to cope with little help from the government that sent him to war.
Even long before Tumbledown Peak had fallen Commander Robacio had seen the writing on the wall and ordered his force to withdraw east and escape the noose that the British were placing around their necks. First, he had intended to move his men to form a defensive line across the eastern part of the mountain but the British were hot on their heels meaning that withdrawing units were unable to break contact and in many cases unable to move from cover for fear of being caught and cut down in the open. Robacio got the impression that the British not being content with knocking his battalion out of the fight were now eager to kick the unconscious body into a bloodied lump of flesh. There was also the risk of the British reaching the planned line before his men making the whole exercise pointless. He therefore decided to withdraw to Sapper Hill to the East where he could dig in and force another uphill attack upon the British. Plus, there was a good chance that the British had only planned far enough ahead for the capture of Tumbledown (which annoyingly they had done) and would not pursue his men off of the mountain.
He gave the necessary orders and began to get his HQ moving.
Then came an order over the radio that sounded so unbelievable that everyone at first thought that it was some sort of British trick. It was a general order from the Malvinas garrison commander Brigadier General Menendez and then reiterated by 10th Mechanised Infantry Brigades Commander Brigadier General Jofre. “General order: All units in the Port Stanley AO are to immediately break contact with the enemy and withdraw into Port Stanley. Unit commanders acknowledge”.
