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On the 40th anniversary of the conflict, senior commanders and ground troops reveal how a series of mistakes nearly cost Britain its hard-won victory over Argentina in the South Atlantic.
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00:00:00The government has now decided that a large task force will sail as soon as all preparations are complete.
00:00:08In April 1982, Britain sent nearly 30,000 young soldiers, sailors and aircrew 8,000 miles to the South Atlantic
00:00:17to reclaim the Falkland Islands after they were invaded by Argentina.
00:00:28The hard-won victory would transform the nation.
00:00:32I think the Falklands War was an extraordinary military achievement.
00:00:35We came back after that war to a different sort of Britain.
00:00:40But success wasn't guaranteed.
00:00:45Speaking publicly for the first time, the then commanding officer of the SAS
00:00:49reveals how close the task force came to defeat.
00:00:53They say it was down to ten minutes that we might well have lost the war.
00:00:59Commanders and ground troops talk candidly, shedding new light on floors in the operation.
00:01:06The whole command chain was utterly dysfunctional.
00:01:10Some claim that Goose Green, the most famous battle in the war, need never have been fought and was a
00:01:16waste of lives and resources.
00:01:20The orders to attack and capture Goose Green.
00:01:23I mean, I thought it was a stupid thing to do.
00:01:25Lieutenant Colonel Jones, Captain Jones.
00:01:31And how a sudden change in the plan for the land campaign nearly lost Britain the war.
00:01:37They were sitting ducks.
00:01:38It was completely unnecessary and sadly cost 200 casualties.
00:01:44The truth certainly needs to be told about some of the things that went wrong.
00:01:48I mean, how did it happen?
00:01:50With recordings of the negotiations to end the conflict uncovered for the first time.
00:01:55He is prepared to consider. Surrender.
00:01:59And secret satellite communications from a British undercover mission in Chile.
00:02:04Without this information, we would have lost the war.
00:02:09Forty years on, the Falklands War is still giving up its secrets.
00:02:21Everyone happy?
00:02:28Jan Kristoffer Koops is my name, and I was the second in command for the Prince of Wales's Company, 1st
00:02:35Battalion, the Welsh Guards.
00:02:38I was the captain of the rugby team we had an outstanding team the one or two
00:02:42really standout players was a chap called Di Graham alongside him Clifford
00:02:51Ellie and Andy Walker and I could probably name you the whole squad as we
00:02:55are sitting in now and we had just won the Army Cup it's a pinnacle of my of my
00:03:05youthful life shortly after that sweet moment of success we heard the news that
00:03:12the Argentinians had invaded the Falklands
00:03:20it would appear the Sun has set on yet another corner of the British Empire this
00:03:25one far down in the South Atlantic Argentina today invaded and seized the
00:03:29Falkland Islands which have been under British rule for nearly 150 years they're
00:03:34two o'clock in the morning I was telephoned by Jeremy Moore my boss and he just said
00:03:39bring your brigade short notice and sail on Tuesday this was Friday morning I was at
00:03:46home and the duty driver knocked at the door and he says you got get back in the
00:03:51camp I says why he says the Argentinians have invaded the Falklands and I'm
00:03:56thinking Falklands that's got to be a Scotland why would they attack Scotland in
00:04:011982 Britain was unprepared to launch a military campaign to reclaim islands 8000 miles away that
00:04:08few could find on a map previous year we just really been hit by the not defense review it was
00:04:18going to take away our carriers our amphibious ships possibly even the Royal Marines and the
00:04:23discussion went along the lines of we really really need a war against somebody just to show the
00:04:30country and the politicians how good we are if the frantic diplomacy failed thousands of British
00:04:37troops would need to launch a land campaign on the Falkland Islands to retake them
00:04:45the task was given to three commando brigade 3000 Royal Marines backed up by two battalions of
00:04:52paratroopers but first the Navy had to transport them to the South Atlantic and land them on the islands
00:05:01it was the biggest amphibious logistical challenge since D-Day it was scary
00:05:10and time was short it would take at least seven weeks to get a naval task force to the remote
00:05:16islands and the South Atlantic winter was less than 75 days away we knew that this was all going to
00:05:27happen 8,000 miles from home which is an awful long way we knew that the weather was liable to
00:05:34be
00:05:34dreadful in wars things have a ghastly habit of going horribly wrong in 1982 Michael Rose commanded
00:05:47Britain's elite Special Forces Regiment 22 SAS he's speaking publicly for the first time about the
00:05:54Falklands war after 40 years it's time a full story was told in 1980 just two years earlier the SAS
00:06:07had
00:06:08become national heroes when they ended the Iranian embassy siege but some at the top seemed reluctant
00:06:14to use them in the new crisis after a couple of days of not hearing from anyone it became apparent
00:06:20that
00:06:20the Royal Navy had never heard of the Special Air Service and that we were not on the order of
00:06:24battle we had to do what we normally do is make our own way I telephoned Julian Thompson Mike Rose
00:06:30who I
00:06:31knew from Northern Ireland days rang me up and said do you want us in right well come on join
00:06:37the party
00:06:40100 SAS would now join the task force on the journey south
00:06:48with their naval counterparts in the Special Boat Service they would be inserted behind enemy lines to
00:06:54prepare for the main landings
00:07:03it wouldn't all be plain sailing
00:07:08we were badly equipped we hadn't got enough of many things that we could expect to have going to war
00:07:15and it was all what's the expression a lash-up that's a naval expression
00:07:24a very British lash-up was about to be complicated further overall command of the task force was assigned
00:07:31to the Royal Navy working from its headquarters in a bunker deep under Northwood in Middlesex
00:07:39now the trouble with Northwood was they were accustomed to harassing Russian submarines now you
00:07:45can do that very happily by radio sitting in a bunker in Middlesex but trying to
00:07:51run an amphibious operation 8,000 miles away is a totally different ballgame it was a good
00:07:56decision that the Royal Navy should be in the lead but what Northwood didn't do I was turn
00:08:01itself into an integrated joint headquarters they had no military or Air Force input it was inevitable
00:08:07that it was going to be a command and control model from the start Admiral John Fieldhouse would
00:08:15oversee operations from the Middlesex bunker but instead of appointing a single commander in the field
00:08:21the Navy appointed three Royal Marine Brigadier Julian Thompson was in charge of the land force
00:08:29comprising three commando brigade Admiral Sandy Woodward commanded the naval task force and Commodore Michael
00:08:37Clapp directed the amphibious landings the whole command chain was utterly dysfunctional throughout there was
00:08:45this feeling of who's in charge of this bit you were never sure at any one point who was driving
00:08:51bits
00:08:51of the campaign we very nearly lost the war because of some extraordinarily bad decisions that were taken by
00:08:57Northwood with regards to the land battle there was one other choice that would have a profound effect on
00:09:03the campaign in three commander brigades wake would come a second force five infantry brigade to provide
00:09:15reinforcements after the landings it was made up of a battalion each from the Welsh and Scots guards and the
00:09:22Gurkhas in April it was put through its paces by its commander Brigadier Tony Wilson on a training exercise in
00:09:30Wales
00:09:33so I thought I'd better go and have a look at this lot and my first impression was God what
00:09:39a bloody
00:09:39shambles this lot is surely they're not thinking he was sending them aboard to fight a real war we were
00:09:47sitting in Brecon beacons and the brigade commander appeared and said we're gonna do a brigade attack
00:09:53tonight and I want you to make the plan and we thought hang on he should be giving us the
00:10:00plan
00:10:02Brigadier Tony Wilson had come out as so indecisive and so incompetent in Wales that they decided that he
00:10:09should be removed from his command General Bramall who was the chief of defense overruled that decision
00:10:15because he thought it would be bad for the morale of the brigade to have his Brigadier removed Bramall told
00:10:20me that it was the worst decision he'd taken in 45 years of soldiering and it was I would have
00:10:27sacked
00:10:27um Brigade commander then and there just on the evidence I saw on this test exercise let alone what
00:10:34he got up to when he got to the Falklands when we sailed from Southampton suddenly everybody's
00:10:53waving the Union Jack again and suddenly all the jingoism it's all back it's back to Kipling and
00:10:59standing there on the quayside waving the flags up to go off and and fight Johnny Foreigner somewhere
00:11:05on the other side of the world on board were the men who would launch the initial landing the marines
00:11:12and paratroopers of three commando brigade my name's Suli Alaji during Falklands war I was private soldier in
00:11:27three power I thought when they're here that we're gonna come they're just gonna say let's go home but
00:11:35when this ship blew its horn and we start to sail I thought hang on I'm probably not gonna come
00:11:41back
00:11:41in fact I was convinced I was gonna die for years the army had been mired in the northern island
00:11:52troubles
00:11:53the crisis gave them a chance to fight a more conventional war against an enemy in uniform
00:12:04all the way down we kept getting little news snippets of what those politicians were trying
00:12:10to do and head off this this war we were hoping that politicians weren't successful we were all sort
00:12:16of anxious to come on let's get down there and get on with it you know and I look back
00:12:20now I think it
00:12:20was great as the task force headed south the SAS made a secret deal with US Special Forces friends to
00:12:37ensure they were equipped with the latest high-tech kit before leaving England I got a call from a
00:12:45lieutenant colonel Lewis Burroughs named to everybody as Bucky Burroughs who was the chief executive officer
00:12:51of Delta Force said Michael you're gonna need some things I've got here I said what are those Bucky he
00:12:56said you're gonna need portable tactical satellites I said yeah I've seen you demonstrate they would be
00:13:00incredibly useful for us he said I'm gonna send you eight or nine of those the new satellite phones
00:13:05allowed Michael Rose to talk to his commanders in the field and the headquarters in Northwood back
00:13:10in the UK using an American satellite channel what the Americans did was allow us to use that segment
00:13:17of the satellite the day the war ended the satellite was switched off with the British Army still tapping
00:13:25out some of their battlefield communications in Morse code portable satellite telephones gave the SAS an
00:13:32invaluable advantage tactical satellites who had been lent by Bucky Burroughs was a personal loan to me
00:13:38it was a great pressure for me to hand to them over to the MAD and I actually refused to
00:13:43allow that they had
00:13:44their naval communications and I was not going to let them interrupt my own communications the British
00:13:53were already facing an enormous challenge the Argentinians had complete control of the islands
00:13:59cuando aterrizamos en las islas me sentí muy emocionado y bendecido de poder defender a mi patria
00:14:08toda la población argentina apoyó la recuperación es un sentimiento muy fuerte de soberanía y las islas son parte
00:14:18de nuestras casas sentí un lugar familiar un lugar al que al que quiero y un lugar donde estuve dispuesto
00:14:25a
00:14:25dejar mi vida y lo volvería a ser for Argentina the war was a diversion from a vicious internal conflict
00:14:34John Shakespeare my name I was but the British Embassy in Buenos Aires my name is Nicholas Shakespeare I
00:14:45was in Argentina as an adolescent the Argentine military dictatorship were getting more and more
00:14:54brutal the military persecution of the young and of anybody left-wing was going on I mean we now know
00:15:04that 30,000 people up upwards were killed I think the armed forces felt very contaminated by what they had
00:15:11done to their population and I think they sought an external adventure that would kind of purify them
00:15:19Britain was also shaken by its own upheavals it's very hard to recapture the sense of failure that hung
00:15:27over Britain in the late 70s and early 1980s we couldn't make cars that anybody wanted to buy we
00:15:34couldn't wait a washing machine that was likely to work to the end of its guarantee it was politically
00:15:40a very divided time there were riots in many British cities in the summer of 1981 polls showed that
00:15:52Margaret Thatcher was the least popular prime minister since 1945 going to war was a high-risk gamble for
00:16:00Mrs. Thatcher so an early success was essential the first objective was the recapture of South Georgia 800 miles east
00:16:12of
00:16:12the Falklands and part of its territory South Georgia was absolutely vital to be taken quickly because it
00:16:25signaled that we meant business a force including 150 Marines and 70 SAS troops who would join the taskforce on
00:16:35the
00:16:35way down was assigned to retake South Georgia the SAS seized the initiative by planning a recce behind enemy lines
00:16:45they wanted to land on a glacier which was called Fortuna it's about 4200 feet up and it was a
00:16:53fairly hostile
00:16:53environment it took three attempts by three Wessex helicopters to get the SAS troopers onto the
00:17:01glacier the weather was really quite atrocious very high winds up to 80 knots and there's driving snow
00:17:09and rain we put the troops on the ground went back to the ship and thought thank God for that
00:17:17we're not
00:17:17going to have to do that again that night we had a hurricane come through it was a disaster within
00:17:2724
00:17:28hours the 16 men had to be evacuated in appalling weather it's really like flying down the streets of
00:17:38Manhattan insect fog with mountains either side of you of the three helicopters that took off on the rescue
00:17:44mission two crashed fully laden with SAS all survived after Chris and his crew in the remaining chopper
00:17:57dropped off their load of SAS survivors they had to return to pick up the rest we put the survivors
00:18:05all 12 of
00:18:06them in the back the aircraft only takes four people and we were a ton overweight and we had to
00:18:12wait for an
00:18:1380 knot winds to take off to give us the lift and I have to say a little bit of
00:18:18me was saying I wonder how
00:18:20they can explain this we've just lost two aircraft and our first sort of attempt to get on the island
00:18:26has gone
00:18:26badly when dear old SAS screwed up on on Fortuna Glacier had they lost a lot of people which they
00:18:35nearly did I believe it
00:18:38might have propelled the government into giving up then luck and quick thinking intervened and we then
00:18:50picked up a high-powered transmission from something now there aren't many ships in the South Atlantic especially not that
00:18:58far south so we
00:19:00started thinking who is operating this type of transmission we went to have a look at it
00:19:08in my first pilot said it's a submarine he was just breaking the surface with his fin we ran in
00:19:23we dropped
00:19:25the depth charges and the whole back end of the submarine blew out the water it totally transformed the
00:19:32situation at South Georgia because with the submarine out of the way it meant that we could go ahead and
00:19:38do almost what we wanted to Royal Marines and the SAS went ashore but before they could engage the enemy
00:19:45HMS antrim shelled Argentine positions and they surrendered without a fight Margaret Thatcher must have been
00:19:56tremendously relieved it must have been the first moment when she really felt her judgment vindicated
00:20:02the white ensign flies alongside the Union Jack in South Georgia God save the Queen what happens
00:20:09that news and congratulate our forces and the Marines as mrs. Thatcher celebrated the SAS were planning to
00:20:22insert patrols onto the islands by helicopter to prepare for the main landings
00:20:30but official reluctance to help meant they had to use their own initiative Admiral Woodward the
00:20:37planning conference asked me who I was and what my contribution could be which I told him and he then
00:20:42said to me well Michael that sounds absolutely wonderful please do the best you can which in
00:20:46fact with the only orders I got through the rest of the war unfortunately staff didn't pick up on that
00:20:51and give me the logistic support I needed so I had to sort of wing it using contacts and common
00:20:57sense to get
00:20:59behind enemy lines the SAS needed the helicopters of 846 squadron the squadron commander by chance had been
00:21:08at the same school with him so we had certain things in common and we found it very easy to
00:21:12talk to each other
00:21:13well there was a daily tasking conference I tended to take the brief and then go and talk to Mike
00:21:19and he
00:21:20would tell me what he actually needed throw the rule book to the wind get on with what you know
00:21:24is best work
00:21:25together and let's win this war and that's exactly what we did three weeks before the invasion 846 squadron
00:21:35inserted special forces using a new generation of night vision goggles SAS patrols were flown on to
00:21:43West Falkland others were landed at strategic spots on East Falkland overlooking port Stanley a Darwin
00:21:53goose green to monitor the Argentine garrison there a bluff cove seen as a potential landing zone and Mount
00:22:01Kent 10 miles from the capital right ahead on that bearing also not to identify each target if we
00:22:10can one month after the crisis erupted the conflict escalated dramatically the British submarine conqueror
00:22:24sank the battlecruiser Belgrano 323 Argentine sailors were killed retaliation was inevitable
00:22:4320 British sailors died after HMS Sheffield was hit by an exocet missile
00:22:50it was a sobering moment of this is it you know it started the loss of the Sheffield highlighted the
00:22:59vulnerability of the task force as it closed in on the islands the manuals say that you should not
00:23:07have an amphibious landing unless you've got air superiority and here we are without air superiority to help
00:23:13protect the fleet a secret weapon was needed it came in the form of a wing commander from the sales
00:23:21department of the Ministry of Defense now speaking for the first time about his exploits
00:23:26my job was to be totally covert without this information we would have lost the war
00:23:43by sinking the Sheffield the Argentinean Air Force had proved it could stop the task force in its tracks
00:23:50something had to be done
00:24:00my name is Sid Edwards I was a wing commander at the time of the Falklands war
00:24:09I was mowing the lawn in my little house in the Thames Valley when my wife threw the kitchen window
00:24:15open and said darling there's a air marshal wants to talk to you from London I answered the phone and
00:24:21he said how long will it take you to get to Northwood and I said about an hour sir and
00:24:26he said
00:24:27well make it 45 minutes I'll be there at the main gate when Sidney Edwards met his boss Ken Hare
00:24:35at
00:24:35Northwood he was offered an unusual mission there were more senior officers than I've ever seen in
00:24:42my life and then Ken Hare had said wing commander Sid Edwards is going to be going out to Chile
00:24:48that was
00:24:49the first time I'd heard that I was going to Chile and so I was a bit surprised to say
00:24:54the least
00:24:57for the first time Sid Edwards talks about his cloak and dagger mission to help protect the
00:25:01task force from Argentinian bombers
00:25:06the cooperation I got in Chile was absolutely first class I was dealing with the commander-in-chief
00:25:11of the Chilean Air Force working directly with President Pinochet
00:25:17Britain now in bed with a dictatorship almost as brutal as the Argentine junta negotiated access to
00:25:24vital radar warnings of impending Argentine air attacks
00:25:30I discovered that the radar cover from Punta Arenas which is in the south of Chile gave very good
00:25:38cover of the Argentinian airfields in the south of their country and I thought that would be very good
00:25:45if we could get that information as as live as we could directly to the fleet to pass this intelligence
00:25:54on in time an SAS team armed with one of Bucky Burris's new portable satellite telephones slipped into
00:26:01Chile our soldiers using their satellites were able to give a warning of Argentine aircraft heading for the
00:26:10Fulton Islands to hit the fleet and that allowed the Harrier to be in position when the Argentine air force
00:26:16arrived
00:26:16so in a way it was a war-winning capability that Bucky actually lent us
00:26:22Chile's secret contribution didn't stop there
00:26:25well I was asked if we could base a Nimrod intelligence gathering aircraft in in Chile
00:26:31I passed this request on to the Chilean air force and they said yes you you may but you can't
00:26:39put it on mainland
00:26:41Chile so Sid helped put the RAF spy plane onto a Chilean island in the Pacific to eavesdrop on Argentine
00:26:48air movements
00:26:51many of the skilled Argentine pilots still got through but at least now there were warnings of some of the
00:26:58raids
00:26:59I personally believe and it's been confirmed by people with much more knowledge than me
00:27:05that without this information we would have lost the war
00:27:11Argentine aircraft already on the Falklands also threatened the task force
00:27:16with invasion looming the SAS and 846 squadron improvised a daring raid to take out a force of
00:27:22Pucara aircraft how the raid actually came about is revealed for the first time
00:27:32the Argentine Pucara is an extremely capable ground attack aircraft and could do a lot of damage to
00:27:38Julian Thompson's troops moving in very open terrain so it was essential that we uh diminished their
00:27:44numbers of Pucara the still remain eight of them in Pebble Island and so Julian asked me if we could
00:27:51destroy
00:27:51those the raid on the airfield on Pebble Island was initially vetoed by Admiral Sandy Woodward
00:27:58to launch the special forces helicopters vulnerable warships would have to come within reach of the
00:28:04Argentinean super-etendard aircraft
00:28:10we persuaded Admiral Woodward by talking about a radar which we suspected was on um um Pebble Island
00:28:17and so he became obsessed with this radar and said how can we destroy it an SAS raiding party was
00:28:23inserted near
00:28:24the Argentine base in a surprise attack with the support of naval gunfire 11 aircraft were destroyed
00:28:38afterwards Admiral Woodward had a burning question so when Admiral Woodward said and what about the radar
00:28:45what radar said the squadron commander there there was never a radar there we made it up
00:28:50i don't think he quite trusted us after that after considering several plans task force commanders
00:28:57decided on a landing in san carlos water from there they would attack the capital port stanley 50 miles away
00:29:06speed was essential the south atlantic winter was looming
00:29:15back in the uk the welsh and scots guards and gurkhas who made up five brigade were ready to sail
00:29:22a month after the first flotilla
00:29:25i think most people were surprised at the two battalions that were sent because both guards battalions
00:29:34had not really had an opportunity to deal with the survival conditions you know they were going to face in
00:29:42uh in the falklands the guards tell a different story we were fed we were trained psychologically we
00:29:52were prepared for it uh the the the battalion was in good shape sailing with five brigade and its boss
00:30:00tony wilson was royal marine general jeremy moore on his arrival in the falklands moore would assume
00:30:07overall command of the land forces allowing julian thompson to focus on the battles to come
00:30:14before departing england moore was questioned about his strategy
00:30:21very senior british army general said to him so what are the plans for after the landings have
00:30:26taken place jeremy moore said to him there are no plans he said but have to be some plans he
00:30:31said
00:30:31now i shall decide what the plan for onward movement from san carlis water will be after i've got to
00:30:36the falcon islands but he didn't get to the falcon islands till the 30th of may when it was almost
00:30:40the
00:30:40war was almost over in the meantime julian thompson and his men pressed on with their own strategy for
00:30:58winning the war
00:30:5950 days after argentina invaded the falklands british forces were finally poised to attempt the islands
00:31:05recapture 64 000 question is day or night we decided we'd do a night landing because landing at night meant
00:31:15we'd be pretty well free of the orange drain air force with the qe2 still steaming to the south
00:31:21atlantic the royal navy began landing three commando brigade at san carlos overnight
00:31:29but as dawn broke men and supplies were still going ashore
00:31:34and the cruise liner canberra lay exposed in san carlos water
00:31:39it was the most beautifully blue clear day you've seen it was absolutely
00:31:44the worst type of weather for being attacked by jet aircraft
00:31:54suddenly enemy air attacks came in from all directions
00:32:00and i personally was really frightened because canberra was stuffed with ammunition and fuel
00:32:08and if we'd actually been hit it probably would have been a serious disaster
00:32:14there's no laughing or joking now the noise was deafening explosions
00:32:22it was terrifying i can just remember gritting my teeth every muscle in my body was locked tight
00:32:33the gun crews mostly 17 years old soon had more battle experience than anyone else in the navy
00:32:40they start shouting up on the radio two hostile aircraft 50 miles five minutes heart rate's getting
00:32:46faster mouth's getting drier the adrenaline's picking up now and these two mirages come screaming through the
00:32:55sound
00:32:56they're literally at our eye level
00:32:59i'm just trying to put a wall of lead down ahead of the mirage at the right elevation so it
00:33:04flies
00:33:04through it so i'm chugging away
00:33:10and i can hear behind me this size and he's jumping up and down like the you know his team's
00:33:15won the
00:33:15won the cup and i'm going yeah brilliant you hit it you hit it
00:33:22i'm only 17 and here i am on the bridge of the camera shooting at fighter jets
00:33:34in four days the argentine air force sank three british vessels and damaged six others
00:33:42there was definitely a psychological wobble i think people were going to worry about how long
00:33:47the navy could sustain losing ships in the way they did
00:34:02the british ships suffered heavy losses the ground troops landed unopposed
00:34:09took six weeks to sail down there and every day twice a day i'd wax my german power trooper boots
00:34:16and i'd
00:34:16wrapped um tape around the top so the water wouldn't get from the top
00:34:20and then i ended up in the water as i was walking i thought the boots are good the boots
00:34:25are good
00:34:25no they're not the water started coming in so i had wet feet from day one and i was not
00:34:30a happy soldier
00:34:33british troops were now 50 miles from port stanley
00:34:37but the small sas patrol on mount kent was just 10 miles from the capital
00:34:43such an advanced position free of the enemy focused the minds of the land commanders now ashore
00:34:51mount kent is rolling the top of the stairway leading down to sandy it's the highest mountain
00:34:56in the area once you're up there it's downhill all the way so mount kent to my mind was the
00:35:01key to this
00:35:02whole thing julian thompson and michael rose wanted to act fast and move troops up to secure the mountain
00:35:11and we should have moved on the 25th of may four days after the landing from there the british artillery
00:35:17could shell all their positions but the advance to capture mount kent
00:35:23was about to stall due to the biggest logistical disaster of the war
00:35:35i remember thinking and saying to all my fellow officers the 25th of may is argentina's national day
00:35:41it is inconceivable that they won't conduct a big strike and we were all thinking to ourselves we've
00:35:47just got to get through till sunset and things will be fine the biggest british supply ship atlantic
00:35:57conveyor moved in with a naval escort to unload its cargo i have to say that i wasn't aware that
00:36:05atlantic
00:36:05conveyor was coming in in daylight unlike the royal naval vessels the civilian container ship had no
00:36:12anti-missile protection when the convoy was attacked by exoset missiles the warships fired aluminium strips
00:36:20known as chaff to attract the projectiles away from their targets
00:36:26but behind the curtain of chaff lay the atlantic conveyor
00:36:34and then we heard that atlantic conveyor had been struck by one maybe two exosets at the time we
00:36:40we thought it was criminal the atlantic conveyor was brought in before sunset on that day and
00:36:46even today i don't know who made that decision the ship's supplies were essential to the land forces
00:36:53four chanoots a lot of wessex helicopters all our combat supplies rations tents had all gone down in
00:37:00the atlantic conveyor the whole game was changed hugely i remember thinking oh this is all getting a bit
00:37:07serious after the loss of five ships and with five brigades still a thousand miles away
00:37:14the politicians back home were becoming impatient
00:37:19their attention was drawn to the settlements of darwin and goose green
00:37:23the sites of an argentine garrison and an airfield
00:37:28margaret thatcher was increasingly saying look we have to give something to the people of this country
00:37:34to show what we're doing war is politics by another means isn't it so i sent for h and i
00:37:39said you're
00:37:40not going to have to capture it h was herbert jones the commander of two para we all called him
00:37:48h he
00:37:48was fiercely loyal he was fun to be with very proud of the battalion he was an absolute military fanatic
00:37:56and he was a very good soldier the attack on darwin goose green to the south of the beachhead meant
00:38:02delaying the move to mount kent championed by michael rose good news for the two para commander
00:38:10h jones came running back saying ha ha you've lost your move and i've got my battle back well it
00:38:15was an
00:38:15absolute shock to me we were suddenly held up on our main advance and ordered to go and attack darwin
00:38:21goose green which was in quite the wrong direction to go and attack off the line of march an unnecessary
00:38:26target use up time use up resources was completely nonsensical the plan was that they would have taken
00:38:35goose green by first light but the light had started to come up and i think things had ground to
00:38:39a halt and
00:38:40this particular trench was holding them up and he was not somebody who would ask people to do something
00:38:47he wasn't prepared to do himself he was leading a platoon attack and as he approached the machine
00:38:53gun position he was scythed down that was taken where they landed initially it was in his camera
00:39:02when it was returned it's quite a precious photograph really
00:39:05it was a great psychological blow to the argentines but the psychological blow was not nearly as great
00:39:34as it would have been had an artillery batteries from mount kent been closing down every single
00:39:40argentine defense position with observed artillery fire with the advance on port stanley delayed by the
00:39:47assault on goose green and as five brigade prepared to disembark in san carlos water
00:39:53the small sas force on mount kent was discovered by the argentinians
00:39:59because we hadn't moved to mount kent when we should have done on the 25th of may
00:40:03the argentines had already flown in some special forces units to knock us off the top of mount kent
00:40:14julian thompson ordered marines from 42 commando forward
00:40:17by helicopter to take mount kent we were hugging the ground the helicopter was getting thrown from
00:40:24side to side everything's in pitch black we're going to 60 kilometers into no man's land here we're
00:40:29going to be fighting for our lives as soon as we jump off we pile out the chopper and there's
00:40:35a fire
00:40:36fight in progress and traces streaking all over the place i was absolutely terrified i just huddled behind
00:40:40a rock i'm wondering at what moment i beat my makeup by the time we got there the argentine special
00:40:55force were almost up onto the ridge from which they could have brought direct fire down onto the
00:41:00landing helicopters then as judan thompson said it would have been game over si la operación hubiera
00:41:04salido 10 15 minutes antes posiblemente nosotros hubiéramos estado en fuerza
00:41:11superior en el lugar y la fuerza británica se hubieran estado llegando en su forma más
00:41:17vulnerable dentro los helicópteros sujetos al fuego de nuestra gente desde tierra say it was down to
00:41:2410 minutes that we might well have lost the war after a fierce fight the british drove off the argentinians
00:41:32from the peak we yoked right up to the absolute summit of the mountain
00:41:40and through binoculars we could see the argentines moving around
00:41:45for the first time you thought maybe we're going to win this thing we were within reach of port standing
00:41:51we'd come all this way suddenly there was this little hamlet with red roof houses in the distance
00:41:59it made you wonder have we come all this way just for that
00:42:04the capture of mount kent cleared the way for more marines and powers to move up for the final assault
00:42:11but with a shortage of helicopters from the loss of the atlantic conveyor
00:42:16most of them had to walk
00:42:19nobody forgets how large the faulklands are taken together the land mass is the size of wales
00:42:27the three power and four five commander were the only ones that walked across the island
00:42:35it was about 90 k's we all had about 150 pound on our back
00:42:42the ground was terrible
00:42:46and if you stand on the tufts of grass wrong you slide off and you can snap your ankles
00:42:57and that was a march from hell it really was it was so hard
00:43:05with marines and powers now advancing across the north part of east falkland
00:43:10julian thompson and his team still favored a swift strike on the capital
00:43:17but the arrival of jeremy moore and tony wilson's five brigade at san carlos put a stop to that
00:43:24i was about to give orders for for our attack when i was told
00:43:29about the move around to the south and i stopped it
00:43:35moore proposed a new plan moving five brigade along a separate southern route
00:43:41a so-called great leap forward allowing them to catch up with the marines and paris
00:43:50now scant resources would have to be shared between two brigades
00:43:56i didn't for the life of me think that i would have to look after the logistics of five brigade
00:44:01as
00:44:01well i had to divide my very slim resources twice as much as before
00:44:09and i did get over and see uh the commander of five brigade to try and bend his ear a
00:44:15bit
00:44:15and i came away empty-handed i think that's probably as far as i dare go
00:44:22we'll tell you everything that we know at this time i'll also tell you what i intend to find out
00:44:27as soon as i may find it out and how i intend to find it out and at the end
00:44:31of the day well then
00:44:32you'll be right up to speed totally in my mind and you'll know exactly what's going on tony wilson
00:44:37said the intelligence is going to be so good that you'll know the name of the man in the trench
00:44:42opposite and we all thought yeah the only real intelligence we got was off the bbc world service
00:44:50and that buddy idiot wilson took it upon himself to mobilize his brigade and start moving along the
00:44:58south crazy thing to do i've long had my eye on moving as far forward as i could get
00:45:04so that i could get myself poised for whatever comes in what you might call the final phase
00:45:10and certainly fitzroy and bluff cove were two places that we particularly wanted i perceived
00:45:17that tony was engaged in some sort of race with three commander brigade to get his chaps there first
00:45:23the thing about military setups is everyone thinks about their own side you know even people on your
00:45:29own side who aren't part of you are the enemy brigadier wilson wanted fire brigade to move quickly
00:45:35but there was little transport available his first proposal met resistance
00:45:41well john crossland is one of my favorite officers i love john crossland dearly because
00:45:45he's a sort of complete rebel tony wilson wandered in and said i want you to walk to fitzroy
00:45:50and john looked up and said brigadier are you pissed
00:45:56well one of the principles of war is concentrate your force and we were spreading ours out and it's
00:46:04like not having enough marmite to put in your bread and butter in the morning if you start
00:46:09creating marmite on the wrong things you'll end up with nothing worth eating
00:46:15the idea that we should attack from coast to coast with inadequate combat and logistic resources and
00:46:21most of all an inability to communicate from the headquarters round to the southern flank i was
00:46:28shocked when i heard and i even tried to argue with um general jeremy moore who wasn't in the listening
00:46:35mode and um it was the first time i felt adjoining the entire war that we might actually lose this
00:46:41war it was a very silly thing to do in my opinion because to start with the only way down
00:46:47there to
00:46:48take supplies and people was by sea and it's a 17-hour trip round so you can't do it in
00:46:55darkness
00:46:59as three commando brigade consolidated its positions around mount kent five brigade began their great
00:47:05leap forward most of the troops would need to be moved by ship but without the knowledge of other
00:47:14commanders in the field brigadier wilson decided to fly to power to secure fitzroy by commandeering the
00:47:20last remaining chinook helicopter we shoved as many soldiers as we could into that chinook and we kept
00:47:30cramming them in and when they didn't fit any longer we literally booted them into the into the
00:47:35helicopter and got them in my brigade recce troop on some high ground overlooking fitzroy about 10 miles
00:47:44away and they saw they shouldn't have landed a fitzroy we assumed because the argentines had chinooks that
00:47:52it must be some kind of raid and so we started to call down of an uh artillery strike on
00:48:00the helicopter
00:48:02and the guns were being heaved round from pointing that way to pointing that way the senior uh gunner
00:48:11realized that it actually might be uh our own so that at the last minute the strike was called off
00:48:19so
00:48:19we nearly lowered a fire mission regiment onto our own side because we weren't kept in the picture as
00:48:24to what the hell was going on the five brigade's troubles were only just beginning
00:48:41by the evening of the 7th of june the final shipment of welsh guards was being moved to catch up
00:48:46with
00:48:47the rest of five brigade
00:48:51the only way to ferry them round to the southern forward bases was by ship from san carlos
00:48:58this meant a 17-hour journey on the unprotected vessel the sir galahad
00:49:07we were given a clear set of plans we would be taken around under cover of darkness and offloaded into
00:49:14bluff cove things slightly altered the medical corps was put on board galahad to go around
00:49:20to come off at fitzroy this delayed our sailing as a result of which there was not the possibility
00:49:28of offloading us in or around bluff cove under cover of darkness
00:49:36by daybreak sir galahad and another supply ship sir tristram were off fitzroy still short of bluff cove
00:49:47250 welsh guards on board the galahad waited whilst ammunition a medical team and an anti-aircraft unit
00:49:54were unloaded i remember saying i thought well it was meant to be escorted with some frigate or some
00:50:00ship or something which weren't there that was a bit worrying we were quite shocked that the ships were
00:50:06out there in the open somewhere where none of us expected the campaign to have gone to tell the truth
00:50:11in plain sight of an argentinian observation position and also during daylight my concern is why was it
00:50:19taking so long unloading i spoke to the commanding officer i tried to urge him to get off they were
00:50:25sitting ducks and totally open to argentinian air attack he advised us to get off as as soon as we
00:50:32could
00:50:52and we're out again with our gunfire chasing them too late
00:51:16there's a massive explosion the whole ship rocked and everything went sort of instantly black
00:51:25there were a load of lads burst through the door and they just shouted the ship's been hit
00:51:31we knew nothing until we saw the black smoke billowing out of the landing ship sir galahad
00:51:37i was physically lifted up and blown probably about eight feet backwards
00:51:44and you breathe in and you're breathing in this toxic mess and you shout out to everybody else get
00:51:51down get down on the floor in that moment you were so vulnerable you just felt like a child that's
00:52:01been
00:52:03completely immersed in some appalling experience we're now on our hands and knees we couldn't go back
00:52:12because you had guys coming in behind us we couldn't go any further it was just absolute
00:52:18pandemonium i remember cheering around and we're done for this this is us
00:52:25there was a couple of lads with their heads on fire
00:52:29anyone that was in there wasn't surviving it was just rounds coming at us bombs
00:52:46we've got to see if there's any more casualties but i think anyone in there was was was gone
00:52:54just horrific really i've never seen anything like that before and
00:52:59probably never seen anything like that afterwards sorry
00:53:10every boat and landing craft went out to help the unanswered question
00:53:14was why hadn't they been used five hours earlier to get the men off as soon as they'd arrived
00:53:24there have been some incredibly heroic acts carried out by a number of guardsmen in the way in which they
00:53:30went back into this blazing inferno to try and help pull people out the way in which they came together
00:53:41to get themselves off that boat
00:53:45was outstanding
00:53:50i think it needs to be recognized
00:54:03i mean what were we doing tracking a thin red liner coast to coast i mean how did it happen
00:54:12had we rolled the attack on the 30th of may when julian thompson felt he was able to do it
00:54:18then of course uh we'd have probably won the war in the next two or three days
00:54:22and we would have never had to suffer the awful losses that we did
00:54:25incur by aiming up a southern flank this great leap forward was completely unnecessary and sadly cost
00:54:32uh 200 casualties from the attack on the galahad
00:54:41i was fortunate enough to be the captain of the welsh guards rugby team unfortunately on the galahad
00:54:48we lost two really prominent members of that side two outstanding members of that side in cliff ellie
00:54:55and andy walker and andy walker there hasn't been a day since the 8th of june 1982 that i have
00:55:06not
00:55:06remembered them in some way
00:55:1332 welsh guardsmen lost their lives along with 11 other servicemen and five crew members
00:55:21150 were wounded
00:55:26despite the setback of fitzroy the war still had to be won the advance on port stanley was blocked by
00:55:34a
00:55:34ring of mountaintop defenses and time was running out admiral woodward said that he was unable to
00:55:41sustain the carrier force at sea beyond mid-june so in in wellington's words it was really a very close
00:55:48-run thing
00:56:03i've never been so cold in my life
00:56:07it was the wind chill
00:56:11but on top of that every couple of hours you got a torrential rainstorm
00:56:33it was a very significant effect on us i can remember being starving hungry we were making 24-hour
00:56:42ration packs stretched to two or three days we were using water out of muddy puddles very
00:56:48grim existence
00:56:51boots simply were hopeless and trench foot became an increasing issue
00:57:00in the morning when i looked at my feet i couldn't believe it they were like size 15 they were
00:57:05massive
00:57:06the pain i was going through was like someone had grabbed your foot got a needle stuck it in
00:57:12and start scratching the bone there was no danger of being defeated by the argentines
00:57:16there was a serious danger of being defeated by exposure if we'd had to go on for another two weeks
00:57:25probably things would have been different
00:57:30the next day british forces began the battle for port stanley attacking the mountaintop defenses around the capital
00:57:39royal marines prepared to attack mounts harriet and two sisters in night assaults
00:57:46three powers objective was mount longdon the sergeant major johnny weeks
00:57:52what a man amazing man he gave his speech you know and he said if you've got a god perhaps
00:57:58you might want
00:57:58us pray to them and somebody who's might not come back he gave us the truth which is what we
00:58:02needed
00:58:03we knew we were going to go into hell's gates we then set off and it was silent and i
00:58:10could see
00:58:11mount longdon it was a silhouette and it reminded me of scooby-doo when you see the haunted castle
00:58:17in the silhouette my skin was alive it was prickly it was really weird
00:58:23and as we got closer i heard that noise the explosion
00:58:31friend of mine brian milnes stood on the mine and he was in agony and then the whole the whole
00:58:38world
00:58:38lit up it was pitch black the sky changed color with the illuminating rounds it was just hell
00:58:51the guy who was just one foot away from me got shot in the eye and went down
00:58:59the guy was dead before hit the ground
00:59:03nosotros
00:59:06en ese momento era matar morir no nos importaba nada
00:59:09o sea fue muy duro nos tiraron con todo o sea y bueno lamentablemente tuvimos que retroceder
00:59:19habíamos perdido mucha sangre muchos heridos muchos muchos caídos
00:59:29we were fighting for a day and a half and then getting bombarded for a day and a half we
00:59:34couldn't sleep
00:59:39all of a sudden this flash just went past my eyes and i dropped down and i looked up and
00:59:44i could see
00:59:45a sniper taking a head shot at me
00:59:52a lot of the leaders have been taken out and we just pick our own battles basically we do what
00:59:57we
00:59:57were trained to do we actually defeated the enemy by using our initiatives and fighting together
01:00:04i'll tell you who wins was the troops generals can make plans the responsibility for making it work
01:00:11devolves very quickly down to the lowest level in the battle for longdon more than 200 british and
01:00:18argentine troops were wounded and 50 killed after we defeat the enemy we had then look after our dead
01:00:27uh it's only right and proper to to pick them up and move them was the worst thing i've ever
01:00:34done
01:00:35it actually is one of the triggers for my ptsd today
01:00:40because i keep seeing a certain incident where i had to remove one of our soldiers helmets
01:00:49and it wouldn't come off so i got told to kick it off
01:00:55and when i did i wasn't expecting to see what i saw
01:01:00but that haunts me to this day
01:01:08after more desperate hand-to-hand fighting the scots guards took mount tumbledown and two para
01:01:15captured wireless ridge the british army had fought some of its hardest battles since world war ii
01:01:21was in the city but another struggle for port stanley loomed
01:01:26se pretendia que se moviera la gente de las posiciones se saliera a combatir
01:01:34in forma ofensiva to avoid a bloodbath and heavy civilian losses the argentine commander general menendez
01:01:42had to be persuaded their situation was hopeless michael rose opened negotiations
01:01:51and relayed them back to london using the portable satellite phone
01:01:57now the general is in consultation with his colleagues on this point and has just returned
01:02:01and so i will come back to you in a moment to acknowledge that listening to them now after 40
01:02:06years is
01:02:07really makes the hair go up in the back of your head hearing a sort of voice from 40 years
01:02:12ago
01:02:12who did not know what the outcome of the negotiations would be no one's ever listened to them before
01:02:30this is me talking now sitting in the room um opposite menendez who had a sort of team of
01:02:36people whereas menendez having to leave the room and go and talk to obviously president
01:02:40gulti area about what the next step should be all i had to do if i needed reassurance or
01:02:44clarification at some point was to pick up with the telephone and talk straight back to london
01:02:48and so i had the moral and psychological advantage of joining the negotiations from the outset
01:03:05end of the war
01:03:20to me
01:03:23to the fire of the stove, and I'm like a boy.
01:03:34I don't believe in just and unjust wars.
01:03:37I don't believe.
01:03:39A bottle of blood, both Argentine and English,
01:03:42has a suffering behind it.
01:03:45And it's not good for the world.
01:03:48It's not good.
01:03:53The white flag is flying over Stanley!
01:03:56It has taken 40 years for some to reveal what they really think
01:04:00about key aspects of the war.
01:04:05I mean, the truth certainly needs to be told
01:04:07about some of the things that went wrong.
01:04:10The Board of Inquiry into the loss of the Tristram
01:04:14and the Galahad turned out to have been a complete whitewash
01:04:17by saying it was necessary to open up a southern flank.
01:04:21Actually, the opposite is true by 180 degrees.
01:04:25But that remains in the public record today,
01:04:28that the southern flank was essential to the retaking of Port Stanley.
01:04:31Wrong. It was not.
01:04:33And it nearly cost us the war.
01:04:36Lieutenant-Termal Jones!
01:04:38The order to attack and capture Goose Green,
01:04:41well, it slowed the whole thing down.
01:04:43I mean, I thought it was a stupid thing to do.
01:04:45And we wouldn't have lost so many people.
01:04:47Maybe each would be alive today.
01:04:49Corporal Hartman!
01:04:51Corporal Sullivan!
01:04:52These lessons do need to be learnt
01:04:54so that it doesn't happen again.
01:04:56It's not about catching people out
01:04:59and slagging people off or anything like that.
01:05:01It's about making a difference in the future, isn't it?
01:05:05The task force returned to a rapturous welcome.
01:05:09And there were all these boats and people and bands
01:05:14and it was fantastic.
01:05:18There was one unexpected cost of the victory.
01:05:24It is estimated that up to 28% of those involved
01:05:28in close-quarters action suffered some form of trauma.
01:05:32I was violent.
01:05:34I was having fights with people.
01:05:36I was getting into trouble.
01:05:37I was doing things that were just nonsensical,
01:05:40things that I'd never even dreamed of doing now or before.
01:05:43It totally changes your personality.
01:05:4740 years on, it's a long time.
01:05:51But in many ways, it's no time.
01:05:56I've got those families with me now.
01:05:58I've got those guys with whom I'm sitting here now,
01:06:00talking to you.
01:06:01They've been with me every day of my life.
01:06:04And will be so.
01:06:08And then, wherever we go at the end of life,
01:06:10I'll go and join them.
01:06:13Here we are.
01:06:17It's the end of the British stick off a lip.
01:06:19It would have been unthinkable to a previous generation of veterans
01:06:24to talk about their combat experiences.
01:06:28And, in a way, it also indicates a breaking down of rigid class divisions.
01:06:39I think the Halklands War was an extraordinary military achievement.
01:06:42I don't think it's just sentimentality to say that we came back after that war
01:06:47to a different sort of Britain from the Britain that we left.
01:06:51And we discovered that even if we weren't very good at making motorcars,
01:06:55we could still win a jolly good little colonial war.
01:06:58It was crazy, but it was wonderful.
01:07:04So I went back to the Falklands in 2002.
01:07:09And we looked out, the water was still.
01:07:12And we just started crying.
01:07:14It was uncontrollable.
01:07:16Crying with our shoulders rocking up and down.
01:07:18I've never felt like that before in my life.
01:07:23The last day I got up Mount Longdon where the sniper took a head shot at me.
01:07:31I just felt sorrow.
01:07:33I'm so proud of what we did.
01:07:36But the price of having PTSD is quite a high price.
01:07:40But I wouldn't change it.
01:07:41It is what it is, you know?
01:07:43And the thing is, I'm alive.
01:07:45There's 23 of my colleagues who are not alive.
01:07:47So I have to live my life for them, and I do that every day.
01:08:04And support information can be found online at channel4.com slash support.
01:08:10So tomorrow night, veteran homicide detectives try to unravel the truth behind a disturbing case.
01:08:16All new Police Custody USA starts at 10.
01:08:26How many people'm to lose his family and expose it.
01:08:27He's a business for us at the end.
01:08:27That's what the moment is that we were waiting for him.
01:08:27So I saw everybody.
01:08:27Amen.
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