The British had taken most of the hills overlooking Port Stanley by the morning of 14th June 1982 – and 2 Para had been ordered to halt on their position on Wireless Ridge. 

They were waiting for the SAS and the Royal Marines who were raiding from the north of Cortley Hill Ridge, a long narrow piece of land running from Moody Brook to the northern arm of Stanley harbour. 

That opeation was more of a hindrance than a help to 2 Para because the SAS run into trouble and had to be supported by the artillery that had been clearing the ground for the paras. 

Cortley Hill ridge was manned by the Argentinian B Battery of the 101st anti-aircraft regiment. They had eight Hispano-Suiza 30mm guns and a few 12.7mm machine guns which had been used against aircraft, but now Brigadier Jofre ordered them to swivel horizontally to provide ground defence. He’d also moved a few mortars into the position along with a Marine infantry platoon to back them up. 

The SAS raiding party was heading their way but were forced to paddle past the Argentinian hospital ship Almirante Irizar. A member of the ship’s crew was as commando-trained soldier and without thinking about the Geneva convention and rules of war, grabbed a radio and called the anti-aircraft battery on the hill – warning of the SAS raid. 

Subsequently the SAS raiding party was driven off with three wounded and boats damaged. 

Argentina still claims the Malvinas. The British at some point will have to reassess their ownership based on the kelpers self-determination. This series was scripted in 2022, and as I sit here, the United Nations is revisiting the whole idea of who owns the wind-swept islands. This is a complex matter because the UN General Assembly is muttering about colonialism which is what London is accused of perpetuating. 

The conscripts and professional soldiers on both sides remember this war like it was yesterday – some of the Argentinians want their ashes scattered on places like Mount Kent when they die. Hundreds of British servicemen still suffer the physical and mental scars. 

The people of the islands want to run their own show, like a woman who told one Argentinian that she was 40 but looked 60 because of how tough it was to live on these islands. 

“We feel that the country belongs to us, not to England, not to Argentina.. life is very hard.. nobody has ever cared about us…”

Which you can say if you’ve followed this story – is true. They only began caring when geopolitical issues came to the fore and in the future, both sets of countries may find these people much harder to deal with than they were in 1982. 

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We heard how the assault of Two Sisters and Mount Harriet went last episode, both  were taken within 2 and a half hours – but 3 Paras attack on Mount Longdon was a different proposition. 

It’s a steep sided hill about a mile long running almost west to east, it’s main ridge above 600 feet in places and overall, about 300 feet on average above the surrounding ground. This hill formed only a small part of the Argentinian 7th Regiment and its commander Lieutenant Colonel Ortiz Gimenez overlooked the sector named Plata – or silver. It stretched from Mount Longdon eastwards as the northern Arm of Stanley Harbour nearly seven miles away. 

The Argentinians did not build deep defences here, and 7th Regiment was stretched along its ridge. The Summit of Mount Longdon was held by only one company – Bravo – with three platoons – but behind them was another platoon of the 10th Engineer Company which was fighting as infantry. There were also eight heavy 12.7mm machine guns manned by marines. The British later claimed there were commandos amongst the Regiment, but this is wrong. So 3 Para moved quickly to the rising ground, when a corporal of 3 Company stepped on a mine. It shattered his leg but he survived, while the Argentinians realised they were being attacked and opened fire. 3 Para had expected to find a single company protecting Longdon, but as we heard there were four.The first troops in action on the 13th were 30 men of the headquarters company of the Scots Guards, commanded by Major Richard Bethell. He was a 32 year-old former SAS officer, and looking forward to the action. His role was to create a diversionary attack along with the Blues and the Royals, south east of Mount Harriet. Bethell had already survived a mine blast after his land rover triggered one on a road during the previous days patrols. 

They advanced in the dark towards Tumbledown. It is a rocky ridge about a mile and a half long but very narrow, and 750 feet high at its most prominent point. It dominated the area of open ground and was the key to unlocking Stanley – and probably the end of the war. 

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We pick up after the sinking of the Galahad and the debacle at Fitzroy and Bluff Cove. The British war cabinet was plunged into an argument over information. 

New Brigade commander Moore had panicked and sent a message that he’d lost 900 men – we know it was 51. The Argentinians naturally believed the 900 figure and also thought that the British attack had been stunted.

It hadn’t, but London ironically gained as it lost. 

The Ministry of Defence faced the media and responded that the casualties had been heavy and that this may delay an attack on Stanley. The war cabinet was under extreme pressure to make the casualty list public, but they were refusing. It would only be released after the end of the war, further confusing the Argentinian military who wanted to believe that the English would not finally retake the Falklands. 

As Margaret Thatcher’s ministers sweated under the glare of public opinion, it was fortunate for this government that the Falkland’s War was so brief. The graphic pictures reaching the British public had shocked the nation, one in particular of a sailor on a stretcher with a bloody stump where his leg had been blown off.

The Navy had always been against reporters embedded amongst them, now they conducted a mini told you so campaign. And yet, the pictures helped the British public understand the difficulties of the campaign, and their support increased instead of waning.  

However, the attempt at opening up another front for 5 Brigade instead of focusing on the main job at hand – to take Stanley – was a mistake. 

Apologists for the British army point out that it could have been worse, which is rather monty pythonesque – and no solace to the families of the 51 men whose lives were thrown away, nor the shoddy communication that bedevilled the British Falklands campaign.  

Brigadier Thompson’s 3 Brigade was lining up to deal with Stanley, and in the end, 5 Brigade’s involvement slowed things down. The political future of a vast area of the South Atlantic was going to be decided on the outcome of a series of battles on hills with innocuous sounding names like Mount Longdon, Two Sisters, Tumbledown, Wireless Ridge, Mount William, Sapper Hill. 

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