Battle of Mount Harriet

Battle of Mount Harriet
Part of Falklands War

Selected mountains in East Falkland
DateJune 11–12, 1982
LocationMount Harriet, Falkland Islands
Result British victory
Belligerents
Argentina Argentina United Kingdom United Kingdom
Commanders and leaders
Diego Soria Nick Vaux
Strength
approximately 400 troops 600 Royal Marines
Casualties and losses
18 killed
50 wounded
300 captured		 2 killed
30 wounded[1]
Location within Falkland Islands

The Battle of Mount Harriet was an engagement of the Falklands War, which took place on the night of 11/12 June 1982 between British and Argentine forces. It was one of three battles in a brigade-size operation on the same night.

Background

The British force consisted of 42 Commando (42 CDO), Royal Marines under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Nick Vaux's Royal Marines (he later became a general) with artillery support from a battery of 29 Commando Regiment, Royal Artillery. The 1st Battalion, Welsh Guards (1WG) and two companies from 40 Commando (40 CDO) were in reserve. HMS Yarmouth provided naval-gunfire support for the British forces. The Argentine defenders consisted of ex-Army Green Beret Captain Carlos Alberto Arroyo's B Company from Lieutenant Colonel Diego Alejandro Soria's 4th Monte Caseros Infantry Regiment (RI 4).

On the night of 30 May, K Company of 42 CDO boarded three Sea King helicopters and moved forward of San Carlos to secure the commanding heights of Mount Kent—at 1,504 feet, the tallest of the peaks surrounding Stanley—where the D Squadron SAS Troops had already established a strong presence. However, when they arrived at their landing zone, some 3 kilometres (2 miles) behind the ridge of the mountain, the Marines were surprised to see the flashes and lines of tracer ammunition lighting up the night.

After a second clash with the 15 SAS men from 17 Boat Troop, the Argentine patrol (under Captain Tomas Fernandez' 2nd Assault Section, 602 Commando Company) abandoned their hideouts among the boulders and caves on Mount Kent. By the end of May, D Squadron under Major Cedric Delves had gained Mount Kent at the cost of two wounded in Air Troop, and Boat Troop with Tactical HQ commenced patrolling Bluff Cove Peak, Mount Challenger and Estancia House, which they took with the loss of another two SAS wounded[2], including one Spanish-speaking warrant officer attached from 23rd Special Air Service Regiment (Reserve) that had joined Delves to properly interrogate the captured Argentine Army Special Forces. At the same time Captain Matthew Selfridge's D Company scouting ahead of 3 PARA took Teal Inlet Settlement, at the cost of one wounded through an accidental discharge.

The rest of 42 Commando made a desperate march across the hills north of Mount Simon to reinforce Mounts Kent and Challenger overlooking Port Stanley. The weather conditions were atrocious, with the Marines marching through steep slippery hillocks and stone-runs to their objectives. Lou Armour was a corporal in J Company under Major Mike Norman:

Because of the weather and lack of equipment, we just had to carry all our heavy equipment back to Mount Kent, instead of being flown there. That was psychologically the toughest thing I'd ever done. You're walking and falling, walking and falling—some of the lads carrying up to a hundred pounds—and if you fell over, it took two guys to lift you back up. Then there was the lack of sleep, the wet, the cold, the diarrhea.[3]

The final attack was preceded by many days of observation and nights of patrolling. Some night-fighting patrols were part of a deception plan to convince the Argentinians that the attack would come from a westerly direction. Other, more covert, patrols were to find a route through a minefield around the south of Mount Harriet. Sniping and naval artillery were used to harass the defenders and deny them sleep.

On 3 June, Lieutenant Chris Marwood's Reconnaissance Troop of 42 CDO on Mount Wall, accompanying the 3 Commando Brigade Forward Air Control team commanded by Flight Lieutenant Dennis Marshall-Hasdell, encountered two rifle sections from the 4th Monte Caseros Regiment (Second Lieutenant Lautaro Jiménez Corbalán's 3rd Platoon of B Company from Mount Harriet).[4]The night before, the section under Corporal Elvio Alberto Balcaza had detected the presence of British troops on Wall, and the section under Corporal Nicolas Víctor Odorcic moved forward to assist under the cover of the early morning mist.[5]However, at around 11.00 hours (local time) the Recce Troop opened fire and two conscripts (Privates Celso Paez and Roberto Ledesma) were instantly killed, and their NCO (Odorcic) went down, concussed when shot in the helmet by one of the Marine snipers.[6]

This action drew attention to their exposed forward position, and Argentine reinforcements in the form of a rifle section under Corporal Walter Ariel Pintos from Second Lieutenant Marcelo Llambías Pravaz's 3rd Platoon on Two Sisters joined the action with a counterattack firing rifle-grenades.[7][8] The Primary Forward Air Controller, commando-trained Flight Lieutenant Dennis Marshal-Hasdell, remembers:

We were separated from our heavy bergens with the radios and all our gear. The patrol was spread over quite a large area, with lots of shouting, noise and firing going on. The Marines abandoned all their equipment, and although no one told us, it became clear that we were to withdraw. With no information, and the likelihood of having to fight our way out, Dave Greedus and I decided to abandon our equipment, destroying as much as we could. The two radio sets (HF and UHF) were tough enough, but the HAZE unit of the laser target marker was designed to withstand the weight of a tank![9]

The laser target designator retrieved in the contact showed that the Royal Marines were seeking to destroy the Argentine bunkers on Mount Harriet with 1,000-pound GBU-16 Paveway II dropped by RAF Harriers. The next day, Lieutenant Tony Hornby's 10 (Defence) Troop re-occupied the Mount Wall observation post against no opposition.[10]However, on the night of 5-6 June, Captain Andrés Ferrero's 3rd Assault Section attacked Lieutenant Hornby's men on Mount Wall. After a softening-up bombardment the Royal Marines were forced to withdraw.[11][12]

Initial actions

On 8 June crack reinforcements in the form of machine-gunners and mortarmen from the 1st 'Patricios' Infantry Regiment, Regiment of Mounted Grenadiers[13]and 17th Airborne Infantry Regiment[14]arrived from Comodoro Rivadavia to support the 4th Infantry Regiment. On the night of 8–9 June, action on the outer defence zone flared when Lieutenant Mark Townsend's 1 Troop (K Company, 42 CDO) probed Mount Harriet, killing two Argentines (Corporal Hipolito Gonzalez and Private Martiniano Gomez) from Second Lieutenant Jiménez Corbalán's 3rd Platoon.[15] At the same time, two platoon-size fighting patrols from 45 Commando attempted the same on Two Sisters Mountain, but the Argentine RASIT ground surveillance radar on Mount Longdon was able to detect the 45 Commando platoons, and artillery fire dispersed the British force. In all, Second Lieutenant Lautaro Jiménez Corbalán would report the loss of 6 killed and 14 wounded fighting off Lieutenant Marwood's Recce Troop on Mount Wall and the raid of Lieutenant Towsend's 1 Troop, including losses suffered during the final British assault on Mount Harriet on the night of 11-12 June.

Around dusk on 9 June, Lieutenant-Colonel Soria's men detected the presence of British troops that had taken up positions in a house on the southern approaches to Mount Harriet. The 4th Regiment's Reconnaissance Platoon under Sub-Lieutenant Jorge Pasolli received instructions to move forward and clear the British from Port Harriet House and the Scots Guards Reconnaissance Platoon that had moved into the area was forced to vacate the building when the Argentines radioed in mortar fire support from the 120-mm Mortar Platoon on Mount Harriet and Pasolli's men attacked. The Scots Guards fired back at the Reconnaissance Platoon with two Bren machine guns but were forced to abandon their rucksacks[16]and radios[17]and retreated to North Basin under heavy small arms and mortar fire that wounded three men including Sergeant Ian Allum.

Over a period of a week, the 4th Regiment defended the Harriet-Two Sisters sector from five Royal Marine platoon-sized attacks. Every time the Royal Marine Commandos got into the forward platoon positions, the officers, NCOs and conscripts, in general, counterattacked with rifles and cleared them out.

On 8 June, the British troopships Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram were attacked by Argentine Skyhawk fighter-bombers at Bluff Cove. Lieutenant-Colonel Diego Alejandro Soria sought permission to attack the British beachhead with the 4th Regiment, but his request was denied.[18]

On the morning of 11 June, the orders for the attack were given to 42 CDO by Vaux; K Company was ordered to attack the eastern end of the mountain, while L Company would attack the southern side an hour later, where it—if the mountain was secured—would then move north of Mount Harriet to Goat Ridge. J Company would launch a diversionary attack (code named Vesuvius) on the western end of Mount Harriet.

In the closing hours of 11 June, K and L Companies moved from their assembly area on Mount Challenger (which lay to the west of Mount Harriet) and made their way south, around their objective, across the minefield, to their respective start lines. As they moved around the feature in the dark, J Company and supporting Welsh Guards launched their very loud diversionary "attack" from the west.

Battle

A map of the Battle of Mount Harriet.

The battle for Mount Harriet began on the evening of 11 June with a blistering naval bombardment that killed two Argentinians and wounded twenty-five.[19] John Witheroe, one of the British war correspondents, later recalled the softening up fire:

We were involved with one night attack on Mount Harriet, when the Welsh Guards were coming up as a back-up. This involved marching for several hours on a very dark night, through a minefield. Sporadic shellfire slowed our progress tremendously. Eventually we made the base of Mount Harriet, which was coming under incredible fire from a frigate off shore. The whole mountain seemed to erupt in flame. It seemed impossible that anybody could survive an attack like that. This went on for well over an hour, shell after shell whistling over our heads and hitting the mountain. Eventually this was lifted and the Marines went in. To our amazement, there seemed to be an incredible amount of fighting going on. There was a lot of tracer fire. The whole night was being lit up by flares, which cast a dead, unrealistic, pall over the whole scene.

[20]

The Argentines retaliated and the Artillery Observation Officer on Mount Kent, Captain Tomás Fox, directed 155mm artillery rounds that fell among the men of 'B' Company, 7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles in the area of Bluff Cove, seriously wounding three Gurkhas, including Lance Corporal Gyanendra Rai who nearly bled to death. Describing the moment he was injured, Rai, who was awarded the South Atlantic Medal, said: "I was absolutely convinced I would die. I was in severe pain. It was like someone had driven a four-pound sledge hammer through the side of my back."[21]

Captain Peter Babbington's K Company crossed their start line first and proceeded up the mountain undetected, knifing two sentries on the way. They remained undetected until they approached Sub-Lieutenant Mario Juarez' 120-mm Mortar Platoon positions and decided to engage them. They were assisted in the advance by HMS Yarmouth, artillery, and mortars. During the engagement, Second Lieutenant Juarez was badly wounded firing his handgun in the dark and Corporal Laurence G Watts from K Company was killed clearing the occupants of a tent. The supporting British artillery batteries and mortar crews fired over 1,000 rounds to keep the Argentines pinned down, and helped stop the defenders getting a proper aim at the Royal Marines from K and L Companies that night.[22]

About 150 metres from Soria's HQ, Corporal Steve Newland circled behind a group of Argentines (under First Lieutenant Jorge Alejandro Echeverria, the 4th Regiment's intelligence officer) who were setting up an ambush. Newland pulled back into cover and warned the lead elements in K Company. Each time a Royal Marine moved, Corporal Roberto Baruzzo would open fire with the help of his night vision rifle scope, to make it appear there was only one enemy sniper holding up K Company. Lieutenant Echeverria's men were holding their fire in order to encourage the British to break cover and rush their position only to run into the concentrated fire of the machine-gun and protecting riflemen under Echeverria.[23]With half a platoon of disciplined RI 4 and RI 12 riflemen and a MAG team threatening to blunt the British advance, Newland darted out from under cover to charge the enemy machine gun. He grenaded two of the crew, but reaching the rear of the machine gun position, Baruzzo shot Newland in both legs.

With the enemy machine gun out of action, Corporals Steve Newland, Mick Eccles and Chrystie 'Sharky' Ward were able to clear the position with some help from Marine Barnett, capturing 17 Argentines, including Echeverria who was shot five times and Baruzzo. The three British corporals were awarded the Military Medal and Barnett the MID. Increasing numbers of Argentine soldiers, mainly shocked and dazed conscripts from RI 4's Recce Platoon, Reserve Platoon and 120-mm Mortar Platoon began to surrender, but several experienced officers (First Lieutenants Francisco Pablo D'Aloia, Esteban Guillermo Carlucci and Luis Oscar García) and several senior NCOs still fought on, according to their orders. The RI 4 Commanding Officer and First Lieutenant Rubén Cichiara, despite heavy British fire, linked up with B Company and ordered Arroyo's men to counterattack. The heavy machine gun teams, in general, stood in their positions continuing the fight.[24]

Captain David Wheen's L Company crossed their start line shortly after K Company and were almost immediately engaged by effective machine gun fire from Sub-Lieutenant Pablo Oliva's platoon of conscripts defending the lower southern slopes. Kim Sabido, the IRN reporter with L Company, reported stiff Argentine resistance:

For a couple of hours it seemed as if it might all go wrong. Pinned down on the slopes by heavy machine gun and sniper fire, progress was painfully slow. I saw several men fall with bullet wounds, others were hit by flying fragments from the constant barrage of long-distance high-explosive shelling. The men in front of us were not giving up without a bitter fight.

[25]

The weapons in Oliva's platoon would not be silenced until being hit by several MILAN anti-tank missiles and six 105mm artillery guns from Mount Challenger[26][27], killing 3-4 of Oliva's men. The L Company Marines took 5 hours to advance 600 metres in the face of reinforcements in the form of Sub-Lieutenant Eugenio César Bruny's RI 4 Platoon[28][29] [30]and contend they took fire from at least seven machine guns that wounded five men, including the company's second-in-command and a signaller. British military historian Hugh Bicheno reports that the 4th Regiment's passive night goggles were all with Arroyo's B Company.[31] Another 11 Marines in Wheen's Company were wounded by Argentine shellfire that Lieutenant-Colonel Soria personally brought down attempting to halt the British advance.[32]

Before first light, Lieutenant Jerry Burnell's 5 Troop of L Company proceeded to an outcrop of rocks towards Goat Ridge. As they advanced, the Royal Marine platoon came under heavy fire from Second Lieutenant Jiménez Corbalán 3rd Platoon, covering the Argentine retreat and were forced to withdraw under cover of machine guns pre-positioned behind them and further up the hill.[33] The Troop took one casualty in this action. L Company requested mortar fire onto the Argentines; a mixture of HE and WP; then 5 Troop moved forward again, this time supported by 15 machine-guns.[34] They took 3 prisoners although most of Jiménez-Corbalán men had withdrawn after losing two killed in the night fighting (Privates Juan José Acuña and Carlos Epifanio Casco). The platoon of Oscar Augusto Silva continued to resist from Goat Ridge throughout the morning of 12 June, and a determined conscript (Orlando Aylan), in a position just below the summit of Mount Harriet held up L Company with accurate shooting until killed by an 84mm anti-tank rocket fired at short range.[35][36] At some time in the early morning darkness, as Second Lieutenant Jiménez Corbalán's 3rd platoon was making its way to new positions on Mount William, the officer was concussed and temporarily blinded when he set off a booby-trap while leading his men through a minefield. At great risk to themselves, Privates Teodoro Flores and Carlos Salvatierra rescued their platoon commander and were later decorated for their bravery.

Aftermath

The battle was a textbook example of good planning and use of deception and surprise, and a further step towards the main objective of Stanley. Two Royal Marines: Corporal Laurence G Watts and Acting Corporal Jeremy Smith were killed, and thirty were wounded, including fourteen wounded in L Company.[37] Another six Scots Guards and Gurkhas were wounded by Argentine artillery and mortar fire controllers on Mount Harriet. Eighteen Argentines were killed defending Mount Harriet, including those killed in the earlier patrol battles and softening up bombardments. Lance Corporal Tony Koleszar had the surprising experience of finding that two 'dead' Argentine soldiers, whose boots he was trying to remove, were very much alive and jumped up to surrender. Some British reporters were thus misled into depicting the Argentineans as hapless teenage conscripts who caved in after the first shots were fired, but Royal Marine Warrant Officer 2 John Cartledge, who served with L Company during the battle, corrected them, saying the Argentines were good soldiers who had fought properly:

They used the tactics which they had been taught along the way very well, they were quite prepared for an attack. They put up a strong fight from start to finish. They were also better equipped than we were. We had first generation night sights, which were large cumbersome pieces of equipment, while the Argentines had second-generation American night sights that were compact and so much better than what we had. The one deficiency which we exposed was that they had planned for a western end of the mountain attack and therefore had not bothered to extend their defensive positions to the eastern end, where we ultimately attacked.[38]

One British general put their success down to his Marines' skill and professionalism:

What was needed was speed but not being bloody stupid. The Israelis would have done it much faster, but with many more casualties.[39]

42 Commando captured 300 prisoners on Mount Harriet, and for the bravery shown in the attack, the unit was awarded one DSO, one Military Cross, four Military Medals, and eight men were mentioned in dispatches.[40]

In 2017, David Wheen traveled to Argentina to meet Lautaro Jiménez-Corbalán. In an act of reconciliation, Wheen presented Jiménez-Corbalán with a British military essay and painting of the battle while receiving a copy of his book Malvinas en Primera Línea, that recounted the experiences of the 4th Regiment in the Falklands.[41]

References

  1. ↑ "2 COYS OF 42 CDO HAD TAKEN A REGIMENTAL POSITION FOR 2 KILLED AND 30 WOUNDED ... WE HAD BEEN ORDERED TO BE PREPARED TO PRESS FORWARD THE ATTACK ONTO MOUNT TUMBLEDOWN AND MOUNT WILLIAM IF THE ENEMY FLED OUR INITIAL ATTACK, AND TIME ALLOWED. BY DAWN IT WAS OBVIOUS THAT WE WERE IN NO POSITION TO ATTACK. WE WERE EXHAUSTED, OUT OF AMMO AND SUFFERING SIGNIFICANT CASUALTIES. MY 21C, A RADIO OPERATOR, MY TAC HQ MACHINE GUNNER AND ONE OF MY TROOP COMMANDERS HAD ALL BEEN SHOT, AND A FURTHER 10 ALSO WOUNDED. ANOTHER TROOP COMMANDER I DISCOVERED WAS SUFFERING FROM SHELLSHOCK". A Rifle Company Commander's Perspective, Major David G. Wheen, Royal Marines
  2. ↑ Nine battles to Stanley, Nicholas Van der Bijl, p. 148, Leo Cooper, 30/09/1999
  3. ↑ Soldiers Who Fought Each Other in the Falklands War Are Now Sharing a Stage
  4. ↑ 5th Infantry Brigade in the Falklands 1982. Nicholas Van der Bijl, David Aldea. p. 166. Leo Cooper, 2003
  5. ↑ Volveremos!, Jorge R. Farinella, p. 110, Editorial Rosario, 1984
  6. ↑ Volveremos!, Jorge R. Farinella, p. 110, Editorial Rosario, 1984
  7. ↑ 5th Infantry Brigade in the Falklands 1982. Nicholas Van der Bijl, David Aldea. p. 166. Leo Cooper, 2003
  8. ↑ "Cuando los tuvimos a unos seiscientos metros, ordené cargar granadas de fusil y tirar con un angulo de 45º, buscando obtener el máximo alcance posible. Varias explosiones cayeron en proximidades de los británicos en el repliegue, pero no pudimos evaluar con detalle los efectos de nuestro fuego lejano. De lo que sí estábamos seguros, es que lo motivamos aún más para que abandonaran el lugar." Malvinas en Primera Línea, Lautaro Jiménez Corbalán ( Pages 268/269), Editorial Edivérn, 2012
  9. ↑ The Scars of War, Hugh McManners, p. 238, HarperCollins, 21/01/1993
  10. ↑ 5th Infantry Brigade in the Falklands 1982. Nicholas Van der Bijl, David Aldea. p. 167. Leo Cooper, 2003
  11. ↑ That time two countries' Special Forces squared off in combat
  12. ↑ Compañías de Comandos del Ejército Argentino en acción
  13. ↑ "In the second week of June we received a platoon of the 12th Infantry Regiment, which had been unable to link up with the bulk of its unit and we recovered two rifle platoons from A Company, which were added to the supporting Two Sisters defences. We also got reinforcements in the form of MAG machineguns from the Horsed Grenadiers Regiment along with their crews." (EL RI 4 EN MALVINAS, Diego Alejandro Soria, www.aveguema.org.ar/
  14. ↑ https://www.elliberal.com.ar/noticia/36354/nota "Muchachos, pónganse contentos, ustedes van a Malvinas"]
  15. ↑ 5th Infantry Brigade in the Falklands 1982. Nicholas Van der Bijl, David Aldea. p. 174. Leo Cooper, 2003
  16. ↑ "We dashed out and began running chased by mortar rounds. Luckily the soft ground reduced their effect but all the same we felt very vulnerable. Our bergens were slowing us down and so we ditched them. Then we saw thirty to forty Argentinians coming down off Mount Harriet. They were obviously doing a follow-up, although they were out of effective range, we harassed them with our two light machine guns." Among Friends: The Scots Guards 1956-1993, Murray Naylor, p. 146, Pen and Sword, 1995
  17. ↑ "He decided to fly back the OC of the Recce Platoon from Port Harriet House. Shortly after the OC left the house the Argentinians attacked it. Several of the Recce Platoon were wounded. They had to make a run for it and left their radios and codes." The Vital Link: The Story of Royal Signals 1945-1985, Philip Warner, p. 195, Pen and Sword, 1989
  18. ↑ Only Lieutenant Colonel Diego Soria, who commanded 4th Infantry Regiment on Mount Harriet, sought permission to attack but it had been rejected. Nine Battles To Stanley, Nick Van Der Bijl, Pen & Sword Books, 2004
  19. ↑ Nine battles to Stanley, Nicholas Van der Bijl, p.183, Leo Cooper, 30/09/1999
  20. ↑ Speaking Out: Untold Stories from the Falklands War, p. 271, Andre Deutsch, 1989
  21. ↑ Gurkha who needs war wound treated is barred from UK, By DANIEL BATES, MailOnline, 18 June 2007
  22. ↑ "Over 1,000 shells or bombs would fall on 'Zoya' alone that night, all of them instantly, precisely laid to cover movement, suppress defensive fire, break up resistance. They gave us an overwhelming advantage." Nick Vaux, March to the South Atlantic: 42 Commando, Royal Marines in the Falklands War, p. 177, Buchan & Enright, 1986
  23. ↑ Homenaje a héroes de Malvinas
  24. ↑ Operation Corporate: The Falklands War, 1982, Martin Middlebrook, p.349, Viking, 1985
  25. ↑ War in the Falklands: The Full Story, p. 268, Harper & Row, 1982
  26. ↑ Nine battles to Stanley, Nicholas Van der Bijl, p.186, Leo Cooper, 30/09/1999
  27. ↑ "L COMPANY'S TASK WAS TO CLEAR AND SECURE THE WESTERN END OF THE MOUNT HARRIET FEATURE. STARTING AFTER K COMPANY ACROSS THE SAME START LINE, SURPRISE HAD BEEN LOST AND SO L COMPANY CAME UNDER EFFECTIVE FIRE FROM HEAVY MACHINE GUNS WITHIN 200 METRES OF THE START LINE TAKING THREE CASUALTIES ALMOST AT ONCE. CAPTAIN WHEEN, COMMANDING L COMPANY, CALLED FOR MILAN TO FIRE AT THE MACHINE-GUN POSITIONS". A Rifle Company Commander's Perspective, Major David G. Wheen, Royal Marines
  28. ↑ Nine battles to Stanley, Nicholas Van der Bijl, p. 186, Leo Cooper, 30/09/1999
  29. ↑ "Era un fuego disperso totalmente, la intensidad del combate había disminuido excepto al frente, donde estaba el teniente primero Carlos Alberto Arroyo con su compañía, desde donde se escuchaba un volumen de fuego mucho mayor. Se ve que pudieron cambiar de posición, porque estaban combatiendo muy fuerte." CARLOS TUROLO, Así Lucharon, p. 214, Editorial Sudamericana
  30. ↑ "THIS INVOLVED A FIGHTING ADVANCE OF ABOUT 600 METRES AND, AS EACH POSITION TOOK A SEPARATE TROOP OR SECTION ATTACK TO DEAL WITH IT, IT TOOK ABOUT FIVE HOURS TO COVER THE DISTANCE FROM THE START LINE. THE COMPANY FOUND THAT IT WAS BEST TO KEEP SKIRMISHING FORWARD THROUGHOUT THIS ADVANCE, BECAUSE GOING TO GROUND FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME MEANT SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ENEMY ARTILLERY FIRE TASKS; HERE ARTILLERY AND SMALL ARMS CAUSED A FURTHER 4 GUNSHOT AND 7 SHRAPNEL CASUALTIES.". A Rifle Company Commander's Perspective, Major David G. Wheen, Royal Marines
  31. ↑ Razor's Edge (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006)
  32. ↑ "The Company found that it was best to keep skirmishing forward throughout this advance, because going to ground for any length of time meant sitting in the middle of the enemy artillery defensive fire tasks that inflicted eleven casualties." No Picnic, Julian Thompson, Pen & Sword, 2008
  33. ↑ "WHEN REORGANIZED HIS COMPANY, SENT THE PRISONERS TO THE REAR AND THEN ORDERED 5 TROOP TO MOVE FORWARD TO THE COMPANY'S NEXT OBJECTIVE, AN ENEMY POSITION IN THE ROCKY OUTCROP ABOUT 500 METRES DUE NORTH OF THE WESTERN END OF HARRIET. BEFORE THEY MOVED, HOWEVER, WHEEN CONCENTRATED ALL HIS MACHINE GUNS, LESS THOSE OF 5 TROOP, FIFTEEN GUNS IN ALL, ON THE RIDGE. AS 5 TROOP MOVED FORWARD DOWN THE SLOPE TO THE ROCKY OUTCROP, THEY CAME UNDER HEAVY FIRE FROM THEIR OBJECTIVE. WHEEN PULLED THEM BACK AND THEN HIT THE ENEMY WITH MORTAR, ARTILLERY AND MACHINE-GUN FIRE BEFORE ORDERING 5 TROOP FORWARD AGAIN. THEY DASHED FORWARD WITH GREAT DETERMINATION AND WINKLED OR KILLED OUT THE ENEMY." A Rifle Company Commander's Perspective, Major David G. Wheen, Royal Marines
  34. ↑ Mount Harriet &Two Sisters The Argentinian Story
  35. ↑ "One determined Argentinian sniper just below the highest part of the mountain held out long after other resistance in that area had ended. He hit 6 Troop's commander, Lieutenant Pusey, and the troop sergeant took over ... The sniper was eventually silenced by an 84-mm Carl Gustav rocket round fired at fifteen yards range." Operation Corporate: The Falklands War, 1982, Martin Middlebrook, p.349, Viking, 1985
  36. ↑ Francotiradores en la Guerra de Malvinas
  37. ↑ "2 COYS OF 42 CDO HAD TAKEN A REGIMENTAL POSITION FOR 2 KILLED AND 30 WOUNDED ... WE HAD BEEN ORDERED TO BE PREPARED TO PRESS FORWARD THE ATTACK ONTO MOUNT TUMBLEDOWN AND MOUNT WILLIAM IF THE ENEMY FLED OUR INITIAL ATTACK, AND TIME ALLOWED. BY DAWN IT WAS OBVIOUS THAT WE WERE IN NO POSITION TO ATTACK. WE WERE EXHAUSTED, OUT OF AMMO AND SUFFERING SIGNIFICANT CASUALTIES. MY 21C, A RADIO OPERATOR, MY TAC HQ MACHINE GUNNER AND ONE OF MY TROOP COMMANDERS HAD ALL BEEN SHOT, AND A FURTHER 10 ALSO WOUNDED. ANOTHER TROOP COMMANDER I DISCOVERED WAS SUFFERING FROM SHELLSHOCK". A Rifle Company Commander's Perspective, Major David G. Wheen, Royal Marines
  38. ↑ British Royal Marine returns to Battlefield, Merco Press, South Atlantic News Agency, Monday, April 15th 2002
  39. ↑ Robert Fox, Eyewitness Falklands, p. 296
  40. ↑ Naval History.net
  41. ↑ La amistad en los tiempos de la guerra

Coordinates: 51°42′31.8″S 58°0′56.2″W / 51.708833°S 58.015611°W / -51.708833; -58.015611

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.