Adding to the other-worldliness of the scene was a surprise blizzard that sent snow swirling around the silhouetted fighting figures. Halfway across the open ground 2 Platoon went to ground to give covering fire support, enabling us to gain a foothold on the enemy position. [12] By 9:00a.m., the Scots Guards had gained the high ground east of Tumbledown Mountain and the Gurkhas commenced deploying across the heavily shelled saddle from Tumbledown south to Mount William, which they took with the loss of eight wounded. The Battle of Mount Tumbledown was an engagement during the Falklands War. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. As they climbed, they came upon unoccupied Argentine tents that contained boxes of highly sophisticated IWS (individual weapon sight) night scopesthe absolute top grade, recalled Lawrence, more advanced than the ones we had ourselves. In a sense the casualty figures are misleading. [22] The Westinghouse radar was also damaged, and would remain out of service for several days. One guardsman sought to scale a rock shielding an enemy sniper and was shot off it. During the advance, they became bogged down in a minefield, which took them a very long and frustrating time to extract themselves from, after coming under fire from heavy mortars on Sapper Hill. In 2012, Argentine journalist Nicolas Kasanzew wrote a tango called "Carlos Daniel Vazquez's Thermopylae", which is sung by Carlos Longoni. Once through, we dug in at the base of a hill, only to find that it was still occupied by Argentine troops. From there 2 PARA was ordered to attack the Argentines at the Goose Green settlement. 40 years ago on the night of 13-14 June 1982, the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards launched an assault and captured Mount Tumbledown, during the Falklands War, in a . The attack was supported by naval gunfire from HMS Active's 4.5 inch gun. He said, "Look, Goli Ayo!" [50], After the battle, Pipe Major James Riddell of 2 SG stood near the top of the mountain and played his bagpipes. We felt a big explosion. On Mount William's southern slopes, one of the tanks was taken out of action by a booby trap. So those of you who live to talk, As the guardsmen attempted a flank attack on the Argentine machine-gun position, the enemy gun crew immediately shifted its attention from Left Flank to them. The bodies of 30 Argentine Army and Marine soldiers were found over the 5th Marine Battalion perimeter. Thus on April 2trumpeting the rationale that British control of the Falklands (or Malvinas, as they are known in Argentina) represented a throwback to the days of empirecommander in chief and de facto President Leopoldo Galtieri landed occupying forces in the Falklands capital, Port Stanley, and the next day on South Georgia in the South Sandwich Islands. Based on the experiences of Lieutenant Robert Lawrence, M.C.. I remember our Operations Officer requested the artillery to assist at 23.00 with star shells. In the second phase, Left Flank (company) would pass through the area taken by G company to capture the centre of the summit. Fuel indications suggested a considerable fuel leak at the same time. Captain Eduardo Villarraza's N Company from the 5th Marine Battalion, would defend Mounts Tumbledown and William. On 7 June, the Westinghouse radar reportedly detected the British landings at Fitzroy;[27] the next day, Skyhawk fighter-bombers attacked the British troopships Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram with bombs. In the face of such punishing fire, explosions and booby traps, the guardsmen struggled on toward the summit, one man advancing while another covered him. When he returned to civilization after seven weeks, he was accused of desertion by the media and fellow soldiers. On decelerating to the hover during the recovery, this caused a fire to start in the rear equipment bay and smoke as seen coming from the aircraft. MacLeod executed a very quick and professional landing in worrying circumstances. The British plan called for a diversionary attack south of Mount Tumbledown by a small number of the Scots Guards assisted by the four light tanks of the Blues and Royals, whilst the main attack came as a three-phase silent advance from the west of Mount Tumbledown. Adding to their miseries, on this particular day they had come under intense artillery shelling. In his moment of victory on the eastern slopes, Lawrence was almost killed when a bullet fired by an Argentine sniper tore off the side of his head. [35] Argentine artillery and Second Lieutenant La Madrid 6th Regiment platoon was still in action, firing on Neame's company and losing another two killed (Privates Horacio Echave and Horacio Balvidares[36]) on Sapper Hill. "I was 33 and I had been serving for around 15 years. After two hours of hard fighting, the company withdrew to its main defences on William and the British secured the position. At 8:30p.m. on 13 June the diversionary attack began. The 1,000- man Argentine defending force, though comprising largely untested conscripts, outnumbered the British paratroopers nearly 2-to-1. The project "opened my eyes to a whole bigger picture of what happened in all areas of Tumbledown during battle," he added. A half-hour into the engagement, shortly after 10 p.m., G Company commenced the assault on Tumbledown. The Argentinians, in the form of their 6th Infantry Regiment's B Company, now counter-attacked and a burst of machine gun fire from the 3rd Platoon of Second Lieutenant Augusto La Madrid injured three British men, including Lieutenant Alasdair Mitchell, commander of 15 Platoon. Finally, they beached their craft within 2 miles of the Argentine positions on Mount Tumbledown. After colonial conflicts with France and Spain over the islands, Britain claimed sovereignty in 1774, landed troops to reassert its dominion in 1833 and formally established the Falklands as a Crown colony in 1840. Once they had secured the western side of the island, the British would fight their way east to seize Port Stanley and effectively end the conflict. Tumbledown: Directed by Richard Eyre. His charge reached the top of the mountain, although it absorbed a massive amount of his men, and in the end he and a group of six others were on top of Mount Tumbledown, three of whom were, however, injured. Nick Van Der Bijl, Victory in the Falklands, p. 224, Pen and Sword, 2007. British troops swarmed over the mountaintop and drove the Argentinians out, at times fighting with fixed bayonets. The Scots Guards were tasked with taking the mountain from a well-entrenched Argentine force. The third phase began at 06:00, when RF Company began attacking their designated targets. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. At the foot of the hill there was an enormous minefield. Right Flank Company was then to advance through Left Flanks zone and secure Tumbledowns eastern flank. On the morning of 13 June, the Scots Guards were moved by helicopter from their position at Bluff Cove to an assembly area nearly Goat Ridge, west of Mount Tumbledown. Alongside the Scots Guards, mortar troops from 42 Commando, Scorpion light tanks, 1/7, This battle saw 43 British soldiers injured and 9 men killed, while Argentinas 5. The operation was initially planned as a daytime assault, but the climb was long and steep, over and around treacherous escarpments, and the soldiers would have made easy targets. (In all, 18 German Shepherds under Sub-Lieutenant Paz were deployed in and around Stanley.). When these efforts failed, and it became obvious war was unavoidable, Washington announced an embargo on arms sales to Argentina, while providing Britain with war materiel. The fighting was hard going for Left Flank. How the Falklands conflict shaped my identity, Falklands 'an open wound' says Argentina ambassador, Human error to blame for train crash - Greek PM, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. Their orders were to move towards Sapper Hill only after these objectives were taken. Originally published in the May 2015 issue of Military History. Fortunately for the British, the shells nearly all landed in soft peat, which absorbed the blasts; otherwise, the result would have been catastrophic. The Guardsmen traded 66mm rockets and 84mm anti-tank rounds with the Argentinians, who were armed with anti-tank rifle grenades and protected in their rock bunkers. Nick van der Bijl. The bodies of 30 Argentine Army and Marine soldiers were found in and around the 5th Marine Battalion perimeter. In addition to getting archaeological results, the whole project has been designed to help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to come to terms with their experiences. Kiszely and six other Guardsmen suddenly found themselves standing on top of the mountain, looking down on Stanley which was under street lighting and vehicles could be seen moving along the roads. [49], Due to his actions on both Two Sisters and Tumbledown, Private Oscar Ismael Poltronieri of La Madrid's platoon was awarded the Argentine Nation to the Heroic Valour in Combat Cross, Argentina's highest military decoration. We thought we had suffered before, but what luxury and comfort compared to this. The action continued through the night, and by the time the sky began to lighten, some of the guardsmen had run out of ammunition. While 45 Commando were marching towards Sapper Hill, Alpha and Charlie Companies from 40 Commando had escaped from the attention of the Argentine defenders on Sapper Hill and they were picked up by helicopters. The unique project is documenting a number of Argentine defensive positions in the 1982. In argenteenish, "diversin" means "fun." But there was no fun in any of it. As La Madrid withdrew after suffering five killed,[7] the platoons under Second Lieutenant Aldo Franco and Guillermo Robredo moved in from the eastern edge of the mountain to try to help La Madrid and the Marine 2nd platoon (under Second Lieutenant Marcelo Oruezabala) holding the saddle between Mounts Tumbledown and William. DeSantis won't say he's running. "It has been the trip of a lifetime to be part of the project and facing a few demons; it has been a life-changer," he explained. As the Guardsmen and Royal Marines consolidated their positions, the British lost a Volvo Bv 202 tracked vehicle to an anti-tank mine planted in the Sapper Hill sector. After seven weeks he found his way back to civilization, to find himself accused of desertion by the media and fellow soldiers. Though repeatedly targeted, he miraculously suffered only a bullet strike to his compass. He said the project had helped him "get through the journey without too many hiccups". A 155 mm howitzer was lightly damaged and six soldiers injured. Reaching its objective undetected, the company found the western end of the mountain undefended and occupied it easily, but later came under heavy shellfire that wounded Major Dalzel-Job in the head. According to Dhanbahadur Rai, a Gurkha: The Scots Guards were to attack Tumbledown, with the Gurkhas following behind. Only the personal intervention of Colonel Flix Aguiar, the 10th Brigade Chief of Staff, brought the fighting to an end. I went through another gap in the rocks and was surprised by three men speaking in English behind and above me and firing over the top of me. At the head of his platoon Lawrence tried to make myself disappear into the ground, face down in the dirt. Ultimately, he threw a phosphorous grenade directly into the enemy machine-gun position, halting the fire and netting the British several prisoners. Moving up, the men of Left Flank, however, soon found themselves engaged in hand-to-hand fighting with fixed bayonets. Llegados al lugar, se pudo comprobar la exactitud del aviso: sobre la playa haba un bote neumtico en posicin invertida." On the morning of June 13 helicopters flew the men of the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards, from Bluff Cove to a staging area near Goat Ridge, where they soon began to take heavy artillery and mortar fire. He was awarded the Military Cross for bravery, but he spent a year in a wheelchair and was almost totally paralyzed. By this time we had ten or twelve dead including one officer [Second Lieutenant Oscar Silva, Argentine Army]. Major Simon Price sent 2 and 3 Platoons forward, preceded by a barrage of 66mm rockets to clear the Argentine reinforcements. The Argentines opened fire, killing two British soldiers and wounding four. Patrick Bishop and John Witherow. Someone fired!" Kiszely was later awarded the Military Cross for his actions that night. 656 Squadron would win the Distinguished Flying Cross for rescuing a wounded Gurkha and Guardsman from the middle of a minefield. It was snowing and we were tired. Right Flank had achieved this at the cost of five wounded, including Lieutenant Lawrence. The number and variety of features had been a surprise, he added, and the survey had made it clear that events on other battlefields towards the end of the war, such as on Mount Longdon, had an effect on the Argentine defence of Tumbledown. 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