Falklands War - The Untold Story (1987)

[Music] [Music] hey this is Stanley the Fort Collins forecasting station being instructed by the government of the Falcon Islands to call you and ask you to repeat the message [Music] confidence 4 AM April the 2nd 1982. Argentine Navy cameraman film their invasion of the Falkland Islands [Applause] Frogman landed first from a submarine followed later by the main assault Force [Applause] it was an historic day for Argentina I was thrilled as an Argentine and as a professional Soldier I was thrilled to be taking part in the recovery of these islands that have been in British hands for so long it made me very proud to say folklions broadcasting studio now we've just had a call from Alistair grieve um Aleister I understand that you've cited some of the vehicles have you unfortunately [Music] and where are you giving this report from Ali Are you standing up sitting down or what you're doing now all right now the the situation as you might hear is that the radio station has now been um taken over um we have three hours in time we have everything uh recorded into tapes yes okay for the population well just a minute if you take the gun out of my bag I'm gonna transmit if you take the gun away but I'm not speaking with a gun in my back everybody was very very low in Spurs obviously we didn't know whether we were going to be shot or what was going to happen taken back to Argentina everybody knew of the the regime over there the military government what they've done to their own people they know they wanted the Falklands and uh our future well we didn't we didn't know our future [Music] by 7am after Fierce fighting government house was completely surrounded I captured two Royal Marines in a government house they were waiting there lying on the ground with all their weapons I saw another marine trying to reach government house so I covered him with my machine gun I made him come towards me yeah suddenly you're in their hands I mean there's three casualties of theirs lying in the garden the government house I mean what sort of mood they're going to be in you know when their opposed sort of shut up and so when you actually lying down I'll yeah I'll start a bit humiliated but I was also felt apprehensive about what was going to happen next but um one of the Argentine officers he um came along and yes he struck one of the guards and taught us to stand up and he stood up and uh yeah well he shook my hand and shook a few of the guys hands and um said that you know we shouldn't lie down and we should be proud of what we'd done I was quite pleased actually that we were stopping you know I made no bonus about it you know I didn't want to sort of I didn't fancy sort of you know getting shot to bits the Royal Marines lacked Armored Division um I I think the reason for our motivation was the cause we were defending yes okay you have to understand we were defending something that was ours they were simply following orders as professional soldiers is a national cause in Argentina pupils in Primary School learn about their lost Heritage of how the British stole the islands from them in 1833 youngsters are shown that the islands are part of Argentina's continental shelf from a South American perspective Britain's claim to the islands is absurd even an unpopular dictatorship would be acclaimed if it could recover the maldinas when news of the invasion reached Buenos Aires the crowds went wild the military regime's record of violent repression the economic crisis all were forgotten overnight the national dream of reoccupying the Mal Venus had been realized I can't deny that I was immensely thrilled it was thrilling to see the huge crowd outside government house supporting our action regardless of their political beliefs the workers had demonstrated against the government in that same square only a few days before but now even the trade unions were there supporting Argentina stand so I can't deny that it was one of the most moving moments of my life is important have you heard from the government at all this afternoon sir in London there was outrage that the government had allowed British sovereign territory to be invaded there were Rowdy scenes in Parliament swiftly followed by resignations it is a national humiliation and I have been responsible for foreign affairs and I do not think it is right that when that happens the minister responsible should just go on as if nothing had happened and I think that the honorable thing to do is resign Britain's Prestige was severely damaged [Music] the government turned to the Armed Forces everybody thought it would all be over before we got there you know there'd be a few little troops on a little island and when they seen the Royal Navy common the scary home you know it would be all over [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] why the hell did he want to invade somewhere at the top of Scotland line because nobody understood where the Falklands were and I didn't I hadn't got a clue [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I've always said years ago golden War breaks out I'm showing back to Belfast where I was born you know they're not getting me to why no I didn't join for War I didn't want to go but I thought well I've got to go you know the taxpayers have been paying my wages for all these years and okay they've called my number for once I've called all our numbers for once as the task force steam South through the tropics few of those on board thought they were actually going to war foreign [Applause] [Music] darts and there's loads of people and cars and cribbage games there's lots of deck games going on and he said he wanted his letters um whatever's waiting for us down there nothing will look so bad if we've still got this Happy um atmosphere on board ship [Applause] [Music] it was a curious air of unreality on the way to Ascension none of us really thought it would come to a war at that stage every day we listened to the BBC World Service about the Diplomatic Maneuvers that were going on and we generally believe there would be a diplomatic settlement and we were merely an extension of that diplomacy we had to learn Spanish um virtually the only stuff that we did learn was things like mana sarivas and rindazi which means hands up and surrender we didn't think it was much a point in learnings sort of I Surrender or anything like that many of them adopted a rather belligerent gung-ho attitude one of the helicopter Pilots told me that he'd never dropped a real depth charge on a live Target and he was quite looking forward to it now and one of the Harrier Pilots said that what Britain needed was a small wall like this it would do morale no end of good foreign s became an armed camp [Music] in their thousands young conscripts arrived from Argentina the first time I went into Port Stanley I noticed that everything was English there was practically nothing there to remind me of Argentina I remember picking up a little nail and it had made in england written on it in England so I started wondering what it all meant I thought where am I what is this I have been told that we were going to the maldenas to defend our people but it turned out that they weren't our people at all so you had to ask yourself who were the Invaders them or us Ina's operation theater command communique number four guarantees the continuity of the way of life of the people of the islands respect for private property freedom to enter leave or remain on the islands furthermore the population is exalted to continue normally with their activities one of the first things they said when they arrived nothing would change and the next things they said was how things had to change we had to drive on the other side of the road we had to have passes to go around Stanley we would let Ed of Stanley and people of course thought back to the uh the second world war and how it must have felt the French and the Dutch and the countries you know in Europe occupied by the Germans our military prisons grew till about 10 000 men surrounded The Village so Puerto Argentina became almost like a tiny Island in a sea of troops yet I'm proud to say that throughout our occupation of the maldenas there wasn't a single case of rape or attempted rape there wasn't a single case of assault there were a few burglaries any offenders were court-martialed and sentenced whether they were conscripts in CEOs or officers and has next door it's unoccupied the neighbors were in UK we had the key of the house we realized we're a lot of argentinians banging on the door knocking my husband said well rather than let them break the door down I'll go out and give them the key he was immediately taken by the argentinians and made to kneel at our front gate it was a bitterly cold day Sunday afternoon for about 20 minutes over 20 minutes he was kneeling there in the shirt sleeves with a submachine gun at his back I never realized just what it was like when you can't sit down I tried to sit down and I couldn't I was so tensed up I was so worried all I did really was walked to the kitchen and made a cup of coffee and came back I didn't know that in 20 minutes half an hour one can drink so many cups of coffee and I put on Land of Hope and glory and opened the windows and I felt that no my husband's sense of humor that if he were to die that's if the last thing he heard was that at least you would would die with sir perhaps a little smile on his face the most straightforward possible fashion that the United States was anxious to avoid a war between two of its closest allies the whole conflict seemed to be strange it seemed to be much less important than it obviously seemed to both sides because the Falkland Islands by themselves did not seem to be objectively that important if I may say so to anyone and yet suddenly they had become the focus of this enormous intense conflict Alexander Hague desperately sought a negotiated settlement on board his pea shuttle was David gompert of course the most memorable recollection one has about London was Mrs Thatcher herself and the way she presided over the war cabinet and spoke for Britain in the negotiations she would allow others to speak to address particular aspects of it based on their expertise but in all cases she would have the final word and in some cases she would explicitly overrule a senior member of her cabinet she was never in any doubt that may have been those of us who would one moment or another thought should we just give a little bit more would it finally end the problems which we hadn't yet faced are actually invading from ships in the South County but she was totally resolute uh in London we did not find a very positive disposition toward negotiation now the view there quite simply was um foreign troops have occupied land over which Her Majesty's government is responsible and the issue at hand is the removal of the troops not the negotiation of the conditions after those troops are gone and that's about all we received by way of encouragement in London foreign [Music] the stormy waters of the South Atlantic brought with them a change in the atmosphere on board the ships of the task force the closer they got to the islands the greater the need for military preparedness the Royal Marines who defended the islands in the original Argentine Invasion had been deported to Britain by their captors now they were returning as part of the task force we were a little bit of a celebrity status you know with the other Marines you know it's sort of and was it like you know being on the fire you know and what's it like sort of doing this that and the other end you're sort of swept along with the the old thing about you know we're going to go down there and sort of dick these lot and as we got nearer the old for Queen and Country and all that was going out the window you know and it was more of uh let's get down there do it let's get back you know and if we don't have to go down and do it great far too much imagination to be brave or gung-ho or anything like that my company Commander John kisley was in many ways of the same opinion as me and I remember once talking to him and we just had a photograph taken of the whole of the company which was Left Flank and we looked at afterwards and he said to me well it's rather sad but some of those faces won't be there if we take a photograph on the way back I thought about it for some time and I decided to write my wife a letter and explain to her how much I loved her my feelings for her things that she could remember me by a piece of music a place to go I gave her some advice as to how to behave as a widow as I remember and it was difficult for me to write the more difficult one was to run to write to my son and I don't think like even now I haven't I haven't reread it but it was certainly blossomed with tears having written them and it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life I then post them to my father I'd asked them asked him to pass them on in the event of my death arriving in Buenos Aires the peace shuttle met a series of setbacks it is clear tonight that the task will not be easy but the stakes are so great that they demand the ultimate effort on the part of all participants in these discussions thank you the mood on the streets was jubilant [Music] the hunter promised the malvinus would never be surrendered Argentina would never give up its Birthright there was about their attitude a kind of frivolousness first of all as though they were not really serious as though they did not have a sense of what war would be like they had no sense that the of the of the of the tragedy of war and and of the the loss of life they had no sense that they were going to be defeated as I pointed out to them surely they were going to be defeated they had no experience of War they would be fighting one of the world's great powers which Britain is and um they couldn't even treat them at a fully seriously they couldn't decide among themselves and it was clear by then that they had decided in fact to go ahead if for no other reason than that they were incapable of uniting in a decision not to go ahead to war it was our failure to grasp that agreement our failure to to make it stick in Buenos Aires that in fact had removed at the last hurdle and permitted the forces to engage and the and the killing to begin foreign May the 1st [Music] Britain launches an airstrike against Argentine positions around Port Stanton you're welcome by a friend saying they're here they're here they hear the British are here and I was so elated that I was stun our front window and jumped up and down and as I turned around I realized that the argentinians are then Shin Gun Nest just a few yards away from our house were pointing the gun at me and uh indicating that unless I got down they were going to shoot me so needless to say I very quickly got out of the window foreign [Music] than we should have been and I think the general feeling was that uh well we've given the argentinians a bloody nose and very soon they'll turn around and say that's it we don't want any more and everything will be over [Music] [Music] Argentina was not defenseless against the task force it too had a powerful navy which set out to find the British Fleet and sink it there were new warships equipped with modern missiles but proudest of all was the World War II Cruiser USS Phoenix now renamed after one of Argentina's greatest heroes General belgrano serving on the belgrano was the goal of every professional sailor because of her tradition and because of what she represented the Argentine Navy the nuclear submarine HMS conqueror had been patrolling the South Atlantic for a fortnight it shadowed the belgrano for two days at 4 pm on the 2nd of May under direct orders from London it fired three Torpedoes at the cruiser two struck home foreign about 275 Sailors died as a result of that explosion and the massive flooding that followed four seconds later came the second torpedo 15 feet from the bow those 15 feet practically disappeared on the water all the crew members assembled by their life rafts waiting for the order to abandon ships around I finally decided to give that order and surely it must be the most painful and tragic order in the naval officer's career important we knew there were more people below decks and there was nothing we could do to rescue them we could have tried but it was just impossible all we could do was try and collect the wounded from the main deck and take them to the life for us most of them have been burned by the explosions and the fires we knew that we were leaving behind lots of our friends they were below decks hoping that we could somehow rescue them we just couldn't get to them I couldn't bear it leaving them behind and there was nothing you could do no driven by strong winds towards the Antarctic ocean the lifecrafts from the belgrano drifted in Sub-Zero temperatures after two days some were recovered by the hospital ship by air pariso many of the belgrano sailors had died of exposure they had literally frozen to death I remember we cited one life raft and it had somebody on top of it who seemed to be asleep he was so well wrapped up that all you could see was his face he had his Bible suit and his life jacket he was well prepared at a distance he seemed to be sleeping peacefully with his hands folded under his face he had obviously climbed on top of the life raft looking for rescue ships when we brought him aboard we found out that he was dead that young officer was Lieutenant Gerardo Sevilla tomorrow that night my other son called and they asked me whether I'd been listening to the radio I said no I've been watching the television you said you've been listening to some ridiculous stories on a foreign radio station but say anything else so I went to bed and early the next morning I switched on the radio the first thing I hear is that the belgrano has been attacked I rushed to the phone to call my son and my sister and it turned out that they had been out all night listening to the news that was the start of my long night s here the next day no news on Tuesday nothing that afternoon the parish priest at the church just across the road from my home said the special mass or my neighbors and relatives came to pray for my son safe return but it was not to be a good joke it was just a boy he was six foot five so healthy that Sunny oh well they wouldn't like to see me crying like this okay come on speaking today we've had a large measure of success the belgrado the Argentinian Cruiser has been torpedoed to the south of the fourth line by one of our ssms any Euphoria following the sinking of an enemy vessel was short-lived Argentine Navy Pilots were determined to hit back they took off from airfields in southern Argentina equipped with exorcet missiles and went in search of Revenge foreign Sheffield was on the lookout for enemy aircraft well forward of the main British Fleet blind hey well one purple Target zero one zero one zero director the sea was very calm we were looking out to sea and I thought that it looked like a torpedo was on its way because the sewage shimmering and shaking if you like um so I I said I thought there was a torpedo the pilot also trained his glasses around to the same spot and he said no it's an extra set the officer watch and other members of the bridge crew started to take cover but I remember myself in the second office The Watch becoming transfixed to them the missile in its way in which really does amaze me now and I come to think of it but we watched it almost to the point of impact when we quickly huddled together and drop to the floor foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] San Carlos the place chosen for the British Landings foreign Squadron had been watching in the area in secret for weeks they were amazed to find it only likely defended we couldn't possibly defend every single spot where the British forces might have chosen to land we didn't have enough resources we had to defend the main target Porto Argentino of course the argentinians are trained by the Americans or influenced by the Americans and believed that we were also they've therefore thought if they were doing it they would land in Stanley and they assumed that because we had American influence we would land as tested Sunday we didn't do it that way and quite about anything else it would have caused terrible and totally unforgivable casualties to civilians and it's just not the British way of doing things we prefer run more subtle approach to to these matters I went up to the observation post and the Mist was lifting I could clearly see several frigates and transport ships and there were dozens of helicopters flying about and landing craft coming towards us now let me tell you it was quite a sight I had never seen such a fleet deployed in front of me there were 5 000 troops about to land and there I was with my 40 men when we hit the beach in my particular boat the ramp went down and a naval order which is part of their drills I suppose went out as troops out and not a cell moved in the boat because of course when you move a paratrooper collectively you don't shout out you shout go and this Royal Marine shouted again troops out nothing happened and then a quick-witted SAR major shouted go and everybody flooded off the boat the actual Landing was a a bit faster in the sense that we all thought we're going to war but there was no opposition so you had five six hundred screaming paratroopers coming off a landing craft onto a beach never having done that sort of thing before was so used to going to war or exercise by Parachute that chaos reigned for some little time where companies had to regroup and go off to their own individual tasks so if the planning had been opposed I think we'd have been in a little bit of trouble in the early stages as his troops came ashore Brigadier Julian Thompson feared an air attack on the ships at anchor in San Carlos he tried to alert London to the danger without success I was very conscious of the fact that I was responsible for the lives of a large number of men I sent her a letter in which I said we will of course Carry Out The Landing because that's what we've been told to do and but you should know that if we are attacked by the air and the enemy are successful in their attacks we will take very very heavy casualties indeed politicians must never show military advisors that they are fearful of too many characters because if you do that you will put caution on the commanders right down the way when caution probably may not be the right answer foreign [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] foreign pilot you've got to be good or you're dead I mean it doesn't matter which country you come from because they've got to have Bloody good reactions they've got to be good and the argentinians if you imagine what the holidays were racing drivers Polo players I mean what better sort of chat to have sitting in a fighter I set my altimeter at 30 feet but I must have gone lower than that because the alarm went off several times we were flying at 450 knots and at that sort of height well it's quite a peculiar experience yeah I saw the masts of the figured up ahead and we lined up for the attacking they knew what they were doing they knew how to attack the ship um say all lined up one after the other and came up the stern at that time the captain ordered four speed um we tried to maneuver to get our 20 millimeters to bear but it seemed whichever way Captain turned the ship it was an aircraft lined upon the stern where did you come in yeah the ship was reacting well I could see that it was moving at top speed making for the open Waters in the middle of the channel trying to maneuver away from us by this time the ship was directly below me so I banked over here dropped the bombs and escaped I certainly felt that the skipper below me knew what he was doing as I flew away I heard my wingman say Well done sir yeah which meant that at least one of my bombs had hit Target in hmm the pilot my Crabtree just went very silent as we came down over the hill and flew through the smoke and in the back we couldn't see what was happening and we could smell the fire smoke and then we came to the hover off the port quarter and looked out and it's a sight I shall never forget the fires of Hell burning in that ship she was at anchor the gun pointing straight up at the sky all the hydraulic power gone the flight deck just smashed in and opened up with a can opener I remember waking up again the dining hall was pitch black I could see that my hand was injured but uh although we had my anti-flash club on I could just see a mess a mess of blood around the hand and uh though no pain no feeling at all I've well they can so so fingers back on these days with no problem um have a quick feel or over the rest of my body um I had a large piece of fullmet mica sticking out the top of my head here I pulled out two away I hadn't tried to get up and I was only unable to I could get up on all fours but I wasn't able to crawl out from whatever it was that was stopping me moving gentle feeling Dreadful um getting out then getting out um I thought a little cheated the fact that I survived this far pray and I could hear somebody moving around in the debris and he came up to me and said oh you want me right and uh I said okay get this thing off my back I couldn't even see the man it's so dark is something you know what I was thinking about those days my at that time my wife was five months pregnant at the time with our first child and I wanted to get home but um like like a miracle the um the ship must have slowed round but we got a breath of sweet tasting air um the hole in the side must have just caught a some air and it wafted and uh we took a large long Fallen at least I started moving to the back end of the ship I sent them all off um and then I sort of stood there on the bridge on my own people getting nearly all momentum off by then and I Yarmouth had put her Stern onto our bow because we were Sinking by this turn and I finally walked forward and and stepped off on her and it was very sad and as we moved away from her I knew a lot of my chaps were in tears for you yes I was yes when I bought my ship I'm not trying to kill anybody I certainly wasn't trying to kill the Arden crew what I'm trying to do is to put the ship out of action hopefully without causing any casualties that's how I felt throughout the war and that's how all my colleagues felt Captain West well I tell him that I regret sinking his ship and I'm sorry that some of his men had to die but I was doing my job just as he was doing his oh [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign thank you [Applause] we were called by HMS Minerva contact Northwest 40 miles well what we saw was one bakara that was flown by a jackal major tombow and my first run-in I shot at him and shot half his left aileron off and set his right engine on fire so I was hitting all right pulled away and thought he would go into the ground not a bit of it and there's a moment I looked at my wing and saw a gaping hole it looked a bit like a rose with open petals when I saw the two harriers flying over me my plane was shaking but it was still flyable so I flew on trying to get away this time I came in slower so I put my flaps down to bring my nose down so I could aim more easily noticing the height in my head up display quite carefully but tracking nice and smoothly and fired a long burst into him set the port engine on fire uh not bits off the rear fuselage and the canopy shattered I felt another burst hitting myself the plane was still shaking and then an engine caught fire I could see I was beginning to lose control the firestore is spreading and then suddenly I completely lost it I feel very near the plane about 40 or 50 meters away foreign and I thought well what a character I mean he should have got out after the first pass he stayed with it until it just wouldn't fly got out just before it hit the ground and apparently walked back to Goose green it was captured later and I have nothing but the highest respect for him I mean that was real bravery I called the optimum after having shot him down and said more trade that means anything else for us to do and the fellow said wait I said what do you mean wait he said well actually we just had our opstrom's draft and with gunfire 30 millimeter can the man across the destiny has lost the top of his head and they've been hit in the arm and I'm just collecting myself and I felt awful and I said okay sorry about that within seven seconds he was back online saying right we think we've got trade for you up to the north foreign [Music] Pilots sustained heavy losses only a few survived being shot down I really thought they were going to throw me overboard well I suppose that when you've just been captured you tend to be a bit paranoid oh boy they were taking off my survival suit and pointing at me with this rifle [Music] but I also felt this great sense of relief after all I was alive [Music] then I looked down and I noticed that my left leg was at a strange angle it was dislocated I was in terrible pain so they injected me with morphine and painted an m on my forehead he ate more [Music] so he has got a complete uh four and R dislocation of his left knee uh probably uh rupturing some of his side muscle he had a dislocated left kneecap patellar bone which I've reduced the dislocation we've now wrapped him up he's got a nasty a lot of bleeding around the joint foreign they took me to hospital and the starter told me here you are just another patient and the truth is that's exactly how I felt from then on of course I was in British hands but I was never really treated like a prisoner I was just another patient although many Argentine planes were shot down the task force remained vulnerable to Air Attack on May the 25th Atlantic conveyor was hit by Nexus at missile when we drove up there was a chaplain from Merchant Siemens mission in Manchester and Sassy's car on the door you know waiting for us on the road and I saw his little blue badge on his lapel and you automatically I thought something's wrong so he said can I speak to in the house please I said yes tomorrow so it says the children go in the kitchen please and sent them away in the kitchen they took me in the lounge he said I'm afraid I have some bad news for you I said just how bad he said I'm afraid it's the very worst and then I couldn't get rid of the man I just wanted him to go and he said she'll make your mother a strong cup of tea I can remember that and they came and kept saying what's so much I said she'd be quiet I'll see you later and then he went and then of course I told the children I just said that the ship had been hit that the dad had been killed they sent me a a duplicate map saying Frank Folks who's buried at Sea on Wednesday the 26th of May I got a plastic bag and there was this pipe his wrist watch he sent Christopher his wedding ring I was very upset about him taking his wedding ring off because it worried me it was very very tight he'd never taken it off and I worried how they'd got it off his fingers um and he always used to wear a cap down below because he didn't just like to get oil in his hair and his cap was in this plastic bag but they're all wet still as he'd come out of the sea [Music] British forces digging in at San Carlos were held up by the loss of vital equipment on the Atlantic conveyor but Julian Thompson was under pressure from London to get on with the war at the time it was clear to me that back in England there was a political need for a victory so that we could be seen to be doing something seem to be winning I think there were many of us who were worried initially that having got a beachhead San Carlos we were going to get stuck there and not be able to break out of it because everybody has memories there were memories of the time he took to break out of the beach head in Normandy and in in terms of uh the whole of the fortunes it wasn't a big area but just to be stuck in a very small area and confined there would have had all sorts of troubles in every way not least on the Diplomatic front because if we didn't get a move on all the proposals for ceasefires would become stronger and ceasefires which would have conditions which would not have been beneficial from our point of view all those risks so a breakout was very important though you are quite happy although you don't mind if you like dying for your your queen and Country uh you certainly don't contemplate dying for politicians I was summoned often to the radio telephone to speak with the superior headquarters in Northwood and on one particular occasion I can remember after a particularly irritating telephone conversation walking out of the tent and saying to myself in somewhat of a temper I shall win the war for these buggers and then I shall go on direct orders from London the second parachute Battalion launched an attack on the Argentine stronghold at Goose green it's dark there's enormous amount of noise there's incoming fire to you there's white phosphorus going off to provide smoke and illumination there's Tracer coming towards you and going to going away from you there's fear running through you you close up towards the trenches you throw grenades you fire weapon you ban it it's Savage gutter fighting everything you've ever experienced before is nothing like it it is basic killing in command of two para was Lieutenant Colonel H Jones H Jones is a warrior he wasn't a peacetime Soldier he was single-minded he was aggressive he was determined charismatic leader everybody knew that he was in charge the CEO got on the radio to a company and told him to get a grip and speed up and continue the movement which they couldn't so he said I'm not having any of this and decided to go up and join acon to say he got a little bit pear-shaped would be a slight understatement when he made up his mind that a thing was going to be done then it was going to be done you don't actually get time to think if the CEO says you do something then you do it you might think bloody fool afterwards or during it but you get out and do it and the CEO said we're joining a company and we're going over the top so we joined a company and we went over the top once you've actually got down there then we're in a slightly better position but when I got there beyond the CEO he didn't stop he kept running so I thought here we go and all of a sudden somebody behind me shouted out watch out there's a trench on the left and I shouted to him to watch his back because I could see what was going to happen and he ignored me or didn't hear me I would think he actually ignored me and charged up the hill to neutralize the trench that I was firing up as he got to within six or seven feet of that trench he actually got shot from The Trenches behind you know that you could actually see and I saw the rounds striking the ground behind him coming up gradually getting towards him and actually shot him in the back and the impact of the rounds hit him actually pushed him right on top of the trench that he was going for the sigmas in his headquarters had prepared a phrase sun rays down so that we would have I would know that something was wrong with him which would be the key for me to step in to the breach and in this confusion over the radio came this cry Sun Ray is done and I couldn't believe it and I actually asked for verification and uh colossal Blackburn his signal shouted again Sun Ray is down for Christ's sake and then the surge of apprehension and fear and would I perform well enough what do I do now what's the situation up there ran through me yeah I was slightly numb in the fact that you know CEOs aren't supposed to die and the actual implication of the commanding officer taking on an enemy position frontal was sort of comic book stuff that you read about and you don't really think that it should happen I turn him over because he was lying on his back got his webbing off and actually found the wounds and at this stage he was still conscious although slipping into unconsciousness so I stayed there trying to keep him warm with extra windproofs and his unquilted jacket and unfortunately um some time later he died Colonel Jones Captain wolf Captain Den Barry [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] next to the prisoner of war cage which was the Sheep pens was actually a pile of ammunition that had to be moved and we had a rough idea that it was booby trapped and the RC argentinians officers if they would move the ammunition for their own safety so they detailed off some men to actually help move the ammunition which was artillery shells and mortar ammunition and they're moving it and all of a sudden there was a bang and there was a booby trap there and the soldier involved right next to the booby trap was actually in a vacuum flames and explosives and the only thing that could be actually done for the soldier because we didn't couldn't get to him was actually he was shot to take him out of his misery because there was nothing humanly else to be done for him and then I actually thought I'm lucky it was an eerie sort of Silence pitched dark freezing and then the mind just ran Riot and I felt tears trickling down the side of my face where when I thought about good blokes that actually died that day and the fact that more were likely to die tomorrow you know and um the lump came in the throat and I lay there for a good couple of hours actually going through the events of the day in Readiness for the Advance on Stanley reinforcements were brought into San Carlos to avoid a Long March the Welsh guards were moved aboard the ship sagala had it set sail for a place called bluffco due to bad weather the sagalahad was diverted away from bluffcove into a small Inlet called Fitzroy major EU and South B Taylor was horrified by the ship's arrival crammed full of troops in broad daylight it was in grave danger of Argentine Air Attack he wanted the men moved urgently off the ship to the safety of the shore just 200 yards away and I put it to the senior officer that I could find on this turn of of the gun ahead that my considered and professional opinion as a learning cart officer and somebody involved in amphibious Warfare for almost all my career was that they should get off first and then wait he was adamant that bluff curve was his destination and not Fitzroy I was equally adamant that I was not going to take him to Bluff curve in anything in daylight and I was of course tragically approved correct and a few hours later when one of my craft was sunk I pointed out it was only 200 yards away it would take maybe only 20 minutes to get all his men off he said he wouldn't put his men in in a mixed load of ammunition which we heard from citrustrum but we had the baits alongside to take the men off I explained to him that this is war we didn't operate peacetime restrictions during war and that the men were in grave danger and I think that was probably the most serious and most often made point that I put across and eventually in a fit of extreme anger I told him that he was behaving extremely responsibly and that I would not be held responsible for what happened to his men and of course tragically three or four hours data has proved absolutely correct [Music] it was parties screaming shouting and the ship was one big Fireball foreign to escape they rebounded and come back and caught the most of my back my legs and that's where I actually caught fire and as I was coming trying to get out I fell over that's how it demands it was red hot the deck as if the metal had been in a forge in a blacksmiths to me it was like a as if I was seeing double it was a hand and the ripples the skin of the hands would actually come off to the top here and it was like a glove on top and it was flapping about on both hands when I came round I don't know how long I couldn't have been out that long anyway so all I could feel was a burning sensation on the lower part of my left leg so I didn't think nothing of it so I automatically tried to stand up not thinking nothing of it and I remember looking at my left hand because that's what I was more worried about because it melted and when I stood up my leg had gone it was just little bits left of it [Music] as I was looking out you could see other people that were injured probably your mates whatever but you couldn't recognize him because of the Blackness of the face hair Burns gone all black and he started bubbling and sort of scabbing scabbing up and it smelt awful [Music] I was bleeding from the head but there was nothing desperately wrong with me and I I knew where the door was and I started thinking about getting myself out and uh I tried to get up onto my knees and the thickness of the smoke which was layered uh stopped me breathing straight away so I had to go back down onto the floor uh unfortunately I was in somebody else's remains and at that time but I I felt it I couldn't see it so I just I started making my way towards the exit which I where I knew it was and a chat from the back of the room very very muffled because of the smoke and the Darkness he started screaming that he lost his leg and uh that was the the biggest deciding point in my life uh whether or not I was going to go and help him or get out nobody would have ever known because it was just him and me Left Alive in the room and I decided I wanted to be a hero so uh I went back for him and we were calling to to each other through the darkness and I was still desperately trying to talk my talk myself into turning around and making my way to the exit anyway I found Kevin Woodford by accident I must have trodden on the stump of his leg because the next thing I know a fish came out of the darkness and clobbered me one and Kevin was very very uh obviously hysterical I couldn't find my morphine or his morphine everything was confused for me and we carried the morphine around our necks it's called omnipon and uh he was a big man and the only thing I could do was to put my arms underneath his arms and start dragging him along the floor in the direction of where I knew the exit was well all the armed chairs and cities had turned into barricades and as he was so heavy and I couldn't lift him and I couldn't breathe as well because of the smoke I was having to bulldoze my way through the barricades and I very quickly lost all my strengths I I was just losing control completely I got him about three quarters away down the room when I whispered to him that I had to leave him I was going to go and get help foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] well now the couple landed I was in this stretcher and I was supporting my left leg in the air and obviously there was a lot of bits hanging off it so I was supposed to look very horrific when they actually got me off the helicopter I looked around there was a film crew there and they seemed to jump at me so I was a bit annoyed at that because I don't know whether I swore at the model to you know just go away or whatever and they were filming me probably because they'd seen the state of my leg casualties were airlifted to the British hospital ship Uganda Chris White suffering from shock and convinced he'd left a man below deck to die tried to take his own life uh I noticed that they hadn't taken my um omnipon my morphine ampulla off of me which was affixed to my dog tags around my neck um so I administered to morph into myself into my chest aiming for the heart and I just moved my shirt over to one side and punched it in but um obviously the needle wasn't deep enough and um I was spaced out for a while a little while after that the Padre came down uh he'd heard about uh this particular person who kept on trying to do these silly things and um he'd also been talking to a young man up in intensive care who had had his leg taken off uh by the action on the gal ahead and he put two and two together and he came down and took me to Kevin Woodford and I could I couldn't recognize Kevin because you know like I said when I first met him it was in the dark we took one look at each other burst into twos and that was it it's um most incredible feeling all the burns victims were treated together in a converted officer's mess on board Uganda but this awful sort of stent of burning not and quite close by to the to the math there was a very tiny Galley it's quite like somebody burnt toast and when you just sort of open the doors and there was about 40 pairs of black faces it it was a feeling of of horror I suppose and you just want to sort of close the doors and turn away in one and then you thought God you've got to hide this how are you have on your face and he just walked in and tried to smile and and get on with your job they had very little hair no eyelashes no eyebrows their hands um at the time they've been put into what they call flaming bags which are a bag that go over the hand the special cream that they use for very bad Burns I just wanted to go back to your room and cry your eyes out actually felt so desperately sorry for this paper [Music] I could have got those men off in 20 minutes no question of that whatsoever and anybody with any professional sense would have taken the advice of the on the sport expert regardless of rank but unfortunately I was not wearing the rank of a lieutenant colonel who as far as I can make up was the only man who was prepared to listen to him and I think probably in my career that was the most angry I have ever been although I was not directly involved it was certainly the only time in my career that I felt almost shame at being involved in something that has gone wrong and all there I blame myself partly for not insisting with even more vigor that the men were brought ashore I feel that I am not actually to blame for the deaths of this man and it gets with me even now after six years five years the distance from San Carlos to Stanley is 60 miles British troops had to walk the whole way this yomp was carried out an extremely harsh conditions freezing temperatures snow and driving rain fresh water you couldn't get so obviously you know you take what you can you know at the ground and um we would sort of stamp onto the peat or dig holes until we got a puddle because it was all sod on the ground um scoot the water in a mug and put some sterilizing tablets in now this water was absolutely black but I mean you drank it no matter how many stary tabs you use sterilizing tablets it's going to end up taking it out on you now myself Percy I know I never had any underpants on by the time we got to Stanley and there's quite a few guys like that because um you know having the shits one of those and I true uh just undone his zip and uh just cut through his underpants and just tossed them away and just carried on walking I mean there's nothing else he could do I mean the doc he just said you know anything you can do because you're losing body fluid is to just drink lots of water of course we're drinking that crap again as the British troops closed in the Argentine conscripts could only wait dug in on the mountains around Stanley they prepared for the final battles in those last days what we talked about was how many would die 5 10 20. we felt this impotence we're waiting for death and there was nothing we could do about it so you look back at what you've done in your life but we were 19 so there's not much we could have done really for the British too there was an anxious wait cheers troops had to sit it out until the order to attack was given nothing happened and the tension was was pretty sort of electric and we were all moving an extended line and still nothing happened and we were just waiting and after a while you know people you could almost feel almost a sense of relief people would think well they've bugged out they're not here anymore and just as we were beginning to feel that um there was suddenly literally The Horizon just lit up in a complete sort of sea of white flashes all right [Music] that initial far fight was quite incredible foreign it was like being at the wrong end of the machine gun range and this the noise was incredible and I think we were fairly stunned for it for a minute or two and you you really had the feeling that if you raised your hand you know slightly in the air it would be shot off a grenade exploded near us I lifted this Soldier up in the air that was shouting and screaming and explosions and bullets flying complete chaos anyway he stood up and shouted I'm hit I'm hit me he was swearing and screaming at the top of his voice but he could still walk he turned to me and said here take my rifle he handed over examination to another Soldier and then he started shouting I'm leaving I'm leaving I suppose he meant it was over for him but that it had enough this was all happening with the British troops right in front of us very close by it was also crazy it's hard to explain now anyway he started walking away and they threw a phosphorus grenade at him and he actually caught fire and started screaming he was like a human torch but what really bothered us was that he was lighting up our positions so that the enemy could see us so he started waving him away at that point we didn't care whether he lived or died well you can always tell if you're close to someone when they've been hit because you hear the crack of the bullet but you also hear a sort of horrible sort of sort of swag as the bullet hits sort of solid flesh and Bone and it's pretty unpleasant um it's extraordinary noise I suppose um very grim and you just even if you've never heard that sort of thing before you just instinctively know exactly what's happened and one of my soldiers who had a night sight suddenly saw one of them and we heard the crack and we heard the Thumpers it hit the Argentinian there was a moment of silent and it was most terrible screaming from this Argentinian and he was screaming for his mother and um there was complete silence from both sides at this point and both of us listened to it and I'm sure we in a way were just as horrified as the argentinians it really was an awful noise and it went on and on and on I finished loading and when I stood up there was a British soldier right in front of me by this time they're all over us and then he shot me he shot me in the head I felt as though I was falling backwards in in slow motion they must have thought I was dead they just led me there but in fact the bullet hadn't hit the skull ran down my helmet and hit me in the back of the neck and I thought my God I'm alive I turned around I don't know how and started crawling back on no Force I tried to stand up but I couldn't I reached the edge of the mountain and I remember seeing the whole valley beneath me it was like a vision of Hell terrifying sight I've ever seen explosions fires machine guns rattling soldiers yelling and screaming and Inferno foreign I felt everything spinning around me and when I tried to stand up I fell down the slope they all thought I was dead I was conscious but I just couldn't move a single muscle so they rolled me up in this blanket and put me on top of this pile of bodies jotting down the names of the dead soldiers he was crying he looked desperate well it was such complete chaos and he started talking to me and I must have blinked because suddenly he realized that I was still alive as we started getting up the mountain and the enemy were just melting before us we just went faster and faster until we got to the top and in a way we almost couldn't believe that we'd got to the top um and they're just four kilometers away or something and clearly in view was Stanley and we could see the lights and I think for a for a second or two we just sort of stood there looking at this with um euphoria that you know we'd done it and of course that was fatal because um at that moment from 200 meters away an Argentinian automatic weapon of some sort and several other weapons opened up on us and in that initial sort of burst which was almost a sort of Ambush really three of us were hit I saw the person in front of me just spin around sort of pillow it around he'd been hit in the hand and the force just sort of literally knocked him spinning like a top and um there was a crack behind me and someone had been hit behind me and it all seemed to be in slow motion well in fact it was just my brain thinking rather faster but um as I turned to run into the nearest cover myself I suddenly felt something like enormous sort of hammer blows on my legs and the Tracer from the round was like sort of you know sort of scarlet rods all around me and I noticed that my my right leg especially both my legs especially my right leg was very sort of um stiff already and there was a sort of brief burning sensation through through the muscle on my right arm I put my right hand down to touch my leg and two of my fingers went in up to the knuckles and it's that point that I realized I had actually been hit the stretcher bearers found it very difficult to get into US eventually they did and they started carrying us down and then the next thing I knew was that I was lying a short distance from my stretcher and there was complete silence I never heard the blast or anything whether I've been knocked unconscious for a short time I don't know I turned round and the stretcher bearers um basically were in pieces at least one of them was completely blown to pieces it was really was wretched I just couldn't believe it as the British moved on towards Stanley Argentine dead were left scattered across the battlefield burying them was a gruesome task the first guy came across he he had um all of this part of his face here was totally missing and he had upper chest up a chest Wind and I took his dog tags out and while I was doing it I was talking all the time I was going okay um right I'm just gonna undo his dog tags on um right yeah oh here they come yeah um not because I was trying to tell that's what I was doing obviously I was just trying to stop myself from thinking about this guy because you know you'd find a wallet on them and there'd be a picture in there of them with their wife and kids and um I was looking out and I thought well you know [ __ ] hell you know that could have been me lying there everybody we came across was all twisted um you can see the agony you know that these guys have been in when they died I mean that their legs are all twisted their arms and then we found um an Argentine uh officer he'd been into the other a belly wound I can't remember who found him and they called me over so they'll come on over here Lou and have a look at this go ahead and went over and he was sort of uh he started speaking to me in English and he was telling me you know that he didn't know why he was you know why we were fighting either I feel bad um about the bodies um you know the state of them and everything and you know the way we sort was just trying to toss them into a hole um yeah they were just kids on the guide that was injured um you know I wish you know that he'd never spoke in English like you know and uh but I he died can we stop a minute it took me four years to cry about a few a few dead people because uh obviously you can't cry then um you know you've got a job to do and you do it um bye I still feel even now I feel um you know while I'm crying or what I've heard I I'm afraid I just I just don't see him as um enemy yeah foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign was down to about 10 or 12 guns we have no air support Los Angeles the British were just of our Shores showing us our men were exhausted they had fought hard and had lost much of their equipment if we'd carried on we would have just have been wasting lives that is the conclusion I reached so then I discussed it with the high command before accepting the British offer of a ceasefire and the start of negotiations foreign [Music] flying after the surrender that was quite a blow I was so angry and frustrated that I broke down in tears I remember thinking about all I had been through the hunger and the cold loneliness on the death of so many of my friends and after all that there was the British flag flying over us it was unbearable [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] as I walked around the corner and actually Stanley came into view I thought bloody hell was it all worth it it was smelly dirty um it just wasn't my idea of what Stanley was going to be the whole place was chaotic with guns and ammunition lying about the odd dead body every other building seemed to have a red cross on it and there was the smell which is unmistakable of death and we eventually went to the top floor of a a little house which we requisitioned which we shared with one of the companies of two para and during the night we turned on one of our radios to the BBC World Service and we heard about the surrender from the BBC 8 000 miles away which was being conducted in a building 800 yards from where I was sitting and we all felt the most enormous sense of relief and my main feeling was that no more young men were going to have to die it was not like winning a football match or anything like that it was just a normal sense of relief that it was over we could all go home foreign we sailed in early that morning everywhere that you looked with small boats packed with people to cheer Us in and it was a brilliant feeling really because you know it did make it then seem worthwhile [Applause] just upset you you felt very bitter towards the people that were coming back not as individuals just because they'd all come back and Frank haven't surface there seemed to be a lot of Razzmatazz the homecoming in many aspects was fairly subdued as a personal experience for many of us there was a feeling that we didn't want to leave the environment in which we had spent so long among our own comrades amongst our friends people we knew and going into a world which was full of people who didn't know what we'd gone through who were perhaps putting the wrong connotation on what had happened who uh perhaps reveling in the fact of victory for the wrong reasons and I actually in some ways felt somewhat reluctant to walk down the brow of that ship in amongst it all [Applause] ah foreign scripts found that life seemed to go on much the same as before the war today I remember we went out to this bar and I walked in and I thought well this can't be a very happy place after all that's been going on I went up to the bar and I ordered the beer and I looked around me and the place was full of happy faces everyone was having a good time celebrating as though we just won the World Cup you'd think that nothing had happened in Argentina and I asked myself how many fathers did I kill what was the point did I do all this for my country what's my country are you my country all those of you laughing and dancing and having a good time while we suffer it's not resentment I'm not asking for any reward all I'm saying is look we risked our lives at 19. many didn't come back but we did what are we supposed to do now I asked to go down to sassy and drive along the seafront before we finally return to our home as I drove along the front there people were having their several holidays they're reaching their ice creams they were sitting in their deck chairs and they were generally passing the time of life the time of day enjoying themselves and I felt as if I wanted to pick them up and shake them and say look there is a war going on people are getting killed and somehow I felt for them that the war was something that happened at eight o'clock in the morning when they picked up their newspapers or switched on the radio or at nine o'clock at night when the TV news came on I didn't go home for the first uh sort of few days I couldn't I didn't like all the flag waving [Applause] [Music] [Applause] strangers would come up and say something stupid like a did you kill anybody you know or they'd be sloppy on the back and buying your points and you'd go along with it a bit Yeah I was down there and all that luck but you never really tell them what it was like you just tell them well basically what this is the British public do know [Music] [Applause] I don't think there are any best moments the the whole Affair is one of tragedy it's a war is a messy dirty miserable business and uh we should never ever allow ourselves to go to war we the British British crowd of these heroic pages in our Island Story proud to be here today to salute the task force proud to be British [Applause] we went to fight because they had invaded British territory and it's really all a question of pride Pride I think Britain had to have that pride in itself or as a nation we would have just been what now they had to do it oh the price had my family paid no one will ever know um exactly what prize we made perhaps it was worth it for Britain's sake [Music] [Laughter] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: onhms

Views: 128,229

Keywords: British Army

Id: daftx3BMvMM

Length: 102min 59sec (6179 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 12 2023