Bang!: A History of Britain in the 1980s (33 page)

From there, the Paras had no option but to press on, advancing towards the Goose Green airfield with bayonets fixed. On Jones’s death, Major Chris Keeble took command, after first briefly
finding a spot to kneel in prayer. The battle had now been going on for fourteen hours and the fighting remained as intense as on the ridges around Darwin. Closing in on Goose Green, a Para officer
thought he saw a white flag being fluttered. Advancing to accept the surrender, he was shot dead. The whole incident may have been a genuine misunderstanding, a product of the confusion of battle
rather than a deliberate attempt to abuse the laws of war. Nevertheless, the intense gun battle that followed generated a false rumour that the enraged Paras had stopped taking prisoners and killed
fifty Argentines holed up in the schoolhouse. This massacre story was later disproved and the reality of the ‘white flag’ incident was six deaths – three British, three
Argentine.
⁵⁸
But the battle was not yet over. The lifting of the cloud cover invited air strikes. First, Argentine Pucaras swooped over and dropped
napalm, only to miss their target. Sea Harriers followed, attacking the Argentine gun emplacements. The Paras were by now low on ammunition and exhausted through lack of sleep, but they had to push
the Argentines back to the last remaining objective, the settlement of Goose Green itself. Enemy artillery was placed next to houses and Major Keeble presumed that a direct bombardment risked
killing the islanders. While preparing to attack, he first gave the Argentine commander, Lieutenant Colonel Piaggi, the option of surrender. Sensibly, Piaggi took it and by mid-afternoon on 29 May
the battle of Goose Green had ended with the freeing of the local inhabitants from the community hall, where for the past twenty-nine days they had been imprisoned in grim conditions. 2 Para had
lost sixteen men – additionally, a Royal Engineers commando and a helicopter pilot were killed during the operation – and suffered a further thirty-six wounded. Colonel H. Jones was
awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross and became the most famous British hero of the campaign. Argentine casualties were around fifty dead and over ninety wounded, with 961 taken prisoner. The gamble
had resulted in an overwhelming victory, albeit one that had demonstrated that the Argentines would stand and fight, and fight tenaciously. Brash assertions back home about cowardly Latin American
conscripts were misplaced. Here was a formidable foe that was even prepared to unleash napalm if necessary.

It was as well that there was good news to report from Goose Green because there was exceptionally bad news emanating from other fronts. During the mid-afternoon of 25 May –
Argentina’s national day – Argentine Skyhawks had spotted the Type-42 destroyer HMS
Coventry
on picket duty off Pebble Island. With devastating precision, three 1,000-lb bombs
hit her
and exploded in her hull. She went down in fifteen minutes, with the loss of nineteen lives. An hour later, two Super Étendards spotted the 15,000-ton
freighter
Atlantic Conveyor
to the north of East Falkland. She was attacked and sunk with all but two of her complement of helicopters, as well as tents for 4,500 men. Her captain, Ian
North, went down with his ship and was among twelve of her crew who perished in the bitterly cold water. The loss of the
Atlantic Conveyor
created a huge logistical problem for the land
campaign. Brigadier Thompson could no longer rely on a sizeable fleet of helicopters to ferry his men over boggy terrain – men who, with the loss of their tents, could expect to endure some
teeth-chatteringly cold nights out in the open.

With helicopter support so greatly depleted, only the bare necessities of heavy gear could be airlifted. For the soldiers, there was now no option but to ‘yomp’ on foot across East
Falkland, carrying everything they could on their backs. Their advance on Stanley took the form of a pincer movement: assisted by the Special Boat Service, which secured Teal Inlet, 3 Para took the
northern pincer, while 2 Para and the 5th Infantry Brigade took the southern pincer. Yomping from Goose Green, 2 Para took unopposed the settlements of Fitzroy and Bluff Cove on the eastern coast,
south of Stanley. There, the Welsh Guards, together with much heavy ammunition, could be landed by sea. On 8 June, they lay off Bluff Cove awaiting disembarkation from the ships
Sir Tristram
and
Sir Galahad
. The order to begin coming ashore was delayed by technical and logistical problems, as well as by disputes over exactly what should be unloaded where. It was to prove a fatal
hesitation during a brief moment of acute vulnerability: the Rapier missile defences on the coast were not yet up and running properly and the nearest Sea Harriers were off chasing a formation of
Argentine aircraft that had just hit HMS
Plymouth
with four bombs (all of which failed to explode). Thus the two troop-laden ships were sitting ducks when Argentine Skyhawks came screaming
over the horizon. Moments after three bombs struck
Sir Galahad
, fire and smoke tore through the ship as on-board ammunition exploded in a fireball. Two bombs hit
Sir Tristam
, which
also caught fire, albeit less fiercely. A third attack hit and sank a landing craft, killing five. In all, the attacks killed forty-nine men (thirty-nine of them Welsh Guards), with a further 115
injured, some with appalling burns.

The toll would have been far worse but for the bravery of Royal Navy helicopter pilots who all but flew into the flames to rescue men and intelligently used the down-wind from their rotors to
blow imperilled life-rafts away from the burning wrecks. News of the disaster was broadcast in London, but not the number of casualties, fuelling rumours that the loss of life and limb was
catastrophic. Media talking-heads conjectured that as many as nine hundred troops might have been killed or wounded, which, had it
been true, would have dealt a potentially
fatal blow to the task force. Even four days after the attack, figures of two hundred and twenty dead and four hundred wounded were still being widely, if unofficially, reported. The anguish this
caused at home was balanced by the intentional false hope it gave to the Argentines that the assault on the Stanley perimeter had either been called off or at least seriously delayed, restoring to
the British the element of surprise.

The final assault was planned by Major General Jeremy Moore, who was at last on the island and in full control of land forces. Having taken the northern pincer from San Carlos via Teal Inlet, 42
Commando was in position on Mount Kent, an important strategic height which an advance SAS detachment had already been staking out for some days. It enabled them to direct accurate shelling from
out at sea by HMS
Alacrity
. The assistance of Royal Navy marksmanship was especially helpful given that the land artillery pieces the British were dragging into position were – thanks
to the helicopter shortage – supplied with only five hundred rounds each, half of what had been requested as necessary for the job. Nonetheless, the pounding of the Argentine army day and
night over 10 and 11 June was merciless. Not that the firing was all one way. Having fired 261 shells on to enemy positions on the hills of Two Sisters, HMS
Glamorgan
got a little too close
and came within shore-based Exocet range. She was hit on her port side but managed to extinguish the fires and make it back out to rejoin the carrier group, having suffered thirteen deaths in the
explosion and gaining the admiration of Sandy Woodward, who signalled: ‘While I am very sad at the casualty list, I am glad to note that you are the first warship in the world to survive an
Exocet attack.’
⁵⁹

For the men on the ground, the attack was perilous. The advantage of attacking at night-time was to some extent mitigated by the fact the Argentine defenders had better night-vision equipment
than the British. The approaches were littered with minefields which needed to be navigated, while the hills themselves were natural fortresses, with rocks and boulders providing strong positions
for the dug-in defenders, who had well-sited machine-gun posts. Late at night on 11 June, 3 Para attacked Mount Longdon, 45 Commando went in on Two Sisters, and 42 Commando assaulted Mount Harriet.
On Mount Harriet, the ruse of a feint attack successfully misdirected the defenders’ attention and they were duly outflanked and hit from the rear. For the loss of two dead and another twenty
wounded, 42 Commando took over three hundred men prisoner. On Longdon, the battle was especially intense and lasted ten hours. With his platoon commander wounded and his men pinned down by an
Argentine machine-gun nest, Sergeant Ian McKay led a break-out. His compatriots falling around him, McKay charged on alone, taking out the nest with grenades before collapsing dead from his wounds.
He was to be the second posthumous VC of the campaign, and one of eighteen Britons killed in the capture of Mount Longdon. A further four fell taking Two Sisters.

As dawn broke, 3 Para remained in a vulnerable position with firing on Longdon coming from Argentine artillery on Mount Tumbledown. Briefly, the British paused while fresh ammunition was brought
up, before the next big push was launched in the darkness of the early hours of 14 June. With bayonets fixed, the Scots Guards moved in to dislodge seven hundred Argentine marines (far tougher nuts
to crack than nervous conscripts) from the rocks and crags of Tumbledown. The conditions were atrocious, with the Scots advancing into a blizzard and some of their opponents audibly singing
patriotic songs as they fired their machine guns. Yet the attack succeeded, for the loss of eight Scots Guards. Elsewhere the picture was mixed. When the Gurkhas advanced on Mount William it was to
find – to their apparent disappointment – that the defenders had already fled. On Sapper Hill, however, marines from 40 Commando, supporting the Welsh Guards, were dropped too close to
Argentine positions, ensuring a tough firefight before the defenders gave up. Unlike the rest of the surrounding terrain, the approach to Wireless Ridge was suitable for light tanks, and these,
along with further naval gunnery, assisted 2 Para’s attack. The defenders’ resolve faltered after their counter-attack at Moody Brook was beaten back. Finally, with the capture of
Sapper Hill, the Argentines were driven from all the high ground surrounding Stanley. An orderly retreat was turning into the disarray of a rout to such an extent that the British stopped firing.
For the Argentines, the position was now desperate. Despite the last hurrah over Bluff Cove, their air force was shot to pieces and could no longer deliver the air superiority of old, and with
almost everywhere now within range of British guns, the last chance of resupply from Stanley airport had gone. General Menéndez had two options, fight house to house in Stanley, risking
hundreds of civilian lives in what could now only be a futile show of defiance, or seek terms to bring the nightmare to an end.

Moore sent Menéndez the message: ‘I call on you . . . as one military man to another, to lay down your arms now, with honour to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.’
⁶⁰
Meanwhile, 2 Para was ordered to halt by the racecourse on the outskirts of Stanley. Not considering himself bound by the order, the
Evening Standard
journalist travelling with them, Max Hastings, proceeded on his own into the capital and thereby took the battle honour of the Upland Goose Hotel. There he found the proprietor, who assured him:
‘We never doubted for a moment that the British would come, we have just been waiting for the moment.’ Hastings reflected that ‘it was like liberating an English suburban golf
club’.
⁶¹

With order among his troops in Stanley finally breaking down, Menéndez
was in no doubt that he could not fight his way out. Getting a call through to Buenos Aires,
he had a difficult conversation with Galtieri who, having taken to drink, was, in the manner of the Führerbunker, sending imaginary divisions back into the struggle. Eventually, with the
president at last convinced that resistance was not a serious option, Menéndez agreed to the British terms for unconditional surrender (though those precise words were excised in order to
appease Argentine sensitivities) on both East and West Falkland – the latter an important point since West Falkland was still in Argentine hands. Although dated 14 June, it was actually
shortly after midnight that Menéndez signed the instrument of surrender in Moore’s presence. After their seventy-four days as the ‘liberators’ of
Las Malvinas
, over
eleven thousand Argentine troops were ordered on to the Stanley airport isthmus, where they laid down their weapons. Moore signalled London: ‘The Falkland Islands are once more under the
government desired by their inhabitants. God Save the Queen.’
⁶²
Back home, first reports of a ‘ceasefire’ started intruding on
television broadcasts of the Football World Cup final between Italy and West Germany (both Argentina and England had been knocked out in the second round, without meeting). In the dark remained
many of the islanders who, under curfew, were trapped in their homes and unsure what was going on. A group was huddled together in a large store room when a British officer walked through the door
and said: ‘Hullo, I’m Jeremy Moore. Sorry it’s taken rather a long time to get here.’ He was met by a spontaneous volley of cheering, while some simply burst into
tears.
⁶³

He had arrived not a moment too soon. The British artillery was running out of shells. The ships were low on ammunition for their 4.5-inch guns. Of the complement of Sea Harriers, only half were
still airworthy. The weather was getting worse by the moment: off the coast, a force-ten storm was making coordinated activity extremely difficult for the ships of the task force. The exercise had
ended in total victory – a result much international expert opinion had dismissed only weeks earlier. But the margin was, until the last moment, perilously close. The Argentine air force had
fought its finest hour and if only it had managed to sink one of the aircraft carriers or a major troopship, or even if a few more of the bombs it had dropped had gone off, then the greatest
strategic gamble in late twentieth-century British history would have ended up being cited as proof that the country really was a shadow of its former self. Thatcher rode her luck – of that
there was no doubt – and on this occasion fortune favoured her bravery. When the campaign ended on 20 June with the eleven-strong Argentine base on South Thule peacefully surrendering to HMS
Endurance
, the audit recorded that the war had killed 255 British servicemen and injured a further 777, sunk six ships and damaged ten more. Seven hundred and forty-six Argentines had lost
their lives in a blow to national prestige so great that it produced the
unintended consequence of overthrowing military rule in Buenos Aires and bringing democracy to the
country. As distinct from the war at sea, the ground war had killed 177 British and 279 Argentines. Three Falkland islanders had been killed in Stanley when a British shell fell short of its
target, a sad mishap that did little to dent the normally undemonstrative islanders’ outpouring of joy at their liberation. The financial costs of fighting the war and paying for the
subsequent reconstruction, and the need to station a large garrison on the islands to deter any future attempt at invasion or sabotage, were vast – by 1988, the total bill was already heading
towards £4 billion.
⁶⁴
Less easy to quantify would have been the cost to Britain’s reputation and her role as the senior European partner
in NATO at a time of Cold War tension if she had conceded she was not up to reversing Argentina’s aggression.