Nine Battles to Stanley

Nicholas van der Bijl

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781473816770
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Nicholas van der Bijl's Nine Battles to Stanley is a soldier's account of the 1982 Falkland Islands campaign. Foreword by Major General Julian Thompson CB, OBE Covering the ground fighting on South Georgia and the Falklands, the author's fascinating and objective approach to the conflict describes the experiences, view points and comparative qualities of both British and Argentine combatants. Featuring interviews with participants and details of all the major actions of the campaign, Nine Battles to Stanley offers fresh information and insight into the conflict's best-known battles, including at Goose Green—where Col. H. Jones won his VC) and the night attack on Mount Tumbledown.

REAR ADMIRAL BUSSER’S ADDRESS

The address given to the Argentine Landing Force by Rear-Admiral Carlos Busser on the Cabo San Antonio on 1 April, 1982.

‘I am the Commander of the Landing Forces, made up of the Argentinian Marines and Army on this ship, of units aboard the destroyer Santisima Trinidad and the icebreaker Almirante Irizar and the divers on board the submarine Santa Fe. Our mission is to disembark on the Malvinas and to dislodge the British military forces and authorities installed there. That is what we are going to do. Destiny has wished us to be the instigators of making good the 150 or so years of illegal occupation. In those islands we are going to come across a population with whom we must develop a special relationship. They live on Argentine territory and consequently they must be treated as though they are living on the mainland. You must be punctilious in respecting the property and integrity of each of the inhabitants. You will not enter into any private residence unless it is necessary for reasons of combat. You will respect women, children, old people and men. You will be hard on the enemy, but courteous, respectful and pleasant in your dealings with the population of our territory and with those we have to protect. If anyone commits rape, robbery or pillage, I shall impose the maximum penalty. And now, with the authorisation of the Commander of the Transport Division, I am sure the Landing Force will be the culmination of the brilliant planning other members of the group have already achieved. Thank you for bringing us this far and thank you for landing us tomorrow on the beach. I have no doubts that your courage, honour and capability of you will bring us victory. For a long time we have been training our muscles and our hearts for the supreme moment when we shall come face to face with the enemy. That moment has now arrived. Tomorrow you will be conquerors. Tomorrow we shall show the world an Argentine force valorous in war and generous in peace. May God protect you! Now say with me Long live the Fatherland!

In comparison, shortly before the British Landing Group entered the exclusion zone around the Falklands on 19 May, 1982, Commander John Kelly RN, Executive Officer on board HMS Fearless, read the austere Articles of War on FTV and over the tannoy, reminding everyone that war is fought to a set of rules. One person on board described it as vaguely Nelsonian.

RECOVERY

When captured, many Argentine prisoners were found to have a poem dedicated to Marine Infantry Lieutenant Commander Pedro Eduardo Giachino, who was killed during the Amphibious Commando Grouping assault on Government House. He was also the first Argentine to be killed during the campaign.

The poem was written by Nidia AG Otbea de Fontanini of Santa Fe

The Malvinas Are Argentine

RECOVERY

Many hued skies, majestic above the sea,

A rapid flight of white seagulls

Fleeing from the infernal thunder of guns,

Eternal witness, the Southern Cross,

Imposing white and blue standard,

May you bless it, may all-powerful God,

There is the silence of death round about us,

The blood of brothers lives in grief.

Struggle of the people, fervour, lamentations,

Voices of the Anthem, Flag on the balcony!’

A song of the brotherhood, glory and unction.

Impassioned verses of Pedroni,

Have anchored at your port, SOLEDAD …

“Come home to the Fatherland, to eternity!

In analysing some aspects of the poem, the white and blue standard refers to the Argentine flag, which commemorates the white and blue uniforms of 1st ‘Los Patricios’ Regiment which defeated the British in 1807. The remainder were a rag-bag of ununiformed militia and included a battalion of Africans. Soledad in the final verse has a double meaning of literally translated as Loneliness and the name given by the Argentines to Puerto Soledad, the Argentine name for Port Louis, the first place they colonised in 1820.

Acknowledgements

It is a fact that wars are fought by thousands but recorded by very few and they are usually commanders. It also a fact that those who fight wars probably know less about what happened than those who followed them. During the research for this book, I learnt more about the Falklands campaign than I gathered during it, in particular about the Argentines, confined as I was to a ship, a hole in the ground and, finally, a building. Since I was involved in intelligence, there was also one burning question to answer ‘Did we get it right?’ As I dived back into my memory, my notes and recollections written during 1982 and 1983, while in Northern Ireland, the answer was ‘Just about’ which wasn’t bad, considering how poorly we were prepared for a war 8000 miles from home in a region few knew anything about against a country whose claim to fame was coup d’états and football. To the veterans, I hope I can answer some of their questions because, as someone commented about an article in an Army periodical on the short engagement at Port San Carlos, it is always good to know who the enemy were.

It is said we all have a book in us but very few have the privilege of having one published. I am indebted to Leo Cooper. I regard it a privilege that as a participant, he gave me this opportunity to contribute to the history. Without his positive encouragement and support in the early stages, it would have gathered dust. I am also most grateful to Tom Hartman, my editor, who gave me firm but fair encouragement and patience to a new author keen to see his work published, and to Brigadier Henry Wilson, Pen and Sword managing editor, for his guidance. I would also like to mention Reg Davis-Poynter, who guided me through my early incursions into the world of publishing.

I am indebted to David Aldea, an Australian who was in Chile at the time of the Falklands campaign. David sacrificed his draft of the Argentine side of the war and allowed me to include substantial parts in this book. On more than one occasion, his telephone call was our alarm clock. Most of the material he sent was enlightening but, as is often the case, there was too much to include it all.

Others who I must thank for their help include Major-General Julian Thompson CB OBE, for writing the Foreword and putting me right where I was wrong; Richard Bethell MBE, for explaining what happened during the Scots Guards important diversionary attack below Tumbledown Mount; Chris Davies MBE for giving me an insight into HQ 5th Infantry Brigade; Colonel Harry Massey, Naval/Military Attaché Buenos Aires, for liaising with the Argentine Army; former colleague in 7th Field Force, Major Gary Bullivant, HQ British Forces Falkland Islands and Lieutenant Jim Finch, Falkland Islands Logistic Unit, for helping with information on the war that is still available ‘down south’; Will Fowler for providing me with information he gathered as a newshound in 1982 and also for proof-reading; Neil Hislop and Jayne Murray of Murraygraphics for their patience as we made the maps; John Glauert for helping with translations; the Household Cavalry, Royal Artillery, Royal Engineer and Airborne Museums and Steve Walton at the Imperial War Museum for providing me with information.

Finally, I must mention three people. First, my wife, Penny, who during the war, like all our wives, parents, brothers, sisters and girlfriends watched and listened to the news and knew it was only part of what was happening on those distant islands. I am grateful to the Intelligence Corps for their support to her during the campaign. Secondly, Imogen, who was six months old when I left and just over nine months when I returned, but that smile from her cot will remain with me for the rest of my life, much to her embarrassment! Their support and patience each evening and most weekends were more than invaluable. Thirdly, my Mother, who sent me ‘Red Cross’ parcels, which were a welcome break from rations, and also collected for the South Atlantic Fund.

Nick van der Bijl
Somerset

1

The Road to War

“It looks as though the silly buggers mean it”. Governor Hunt on being advised an Argentine invasion was imminent.

8000 miles from Great Britain and 350 miles from South America lies an archipelago of two large islands and over 200 smaller ones, mostly treeless, with a total area of about 4700 square miles. The distance east to west equates roughly from London to Cardiff and north to south from Oxford to the Isle of Wight. There are many good anchorages but no significant lakes and the terrain is generally hilly moorland, not dissimilar to Dartmoor and with an abundance of wildlife – the Falkland Islands.

At the height of their maritime power Spain and Portugal, through the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, divided the unknown world, Spain claiming everything to the west of an imaginary line running from pole to pole, including this desolate archipelago. Portugal took the rest. But the two countries had not appreciated the audacity of English naval influence and soon Spain’s claim looked decidedly vulnerable. Great Britain’s association began in August, 1592, when the Elizabethan Arctic explorer John Davis sighted the islands after his ship the Desire was driven off course in a storm. The Italian Amerigo Vespucci may have seen them in 1509 when storms also blew his tiny ship into the distant reaches of the South Atlantic, but neither landed. The Dutchman Sebald de Weert, returning home after passage through Cape Horn, plotted Jason Islands in 1600, but it was not until 1690 that the English privateer John Strong named the islands after Anthony Carey, 5th Viscount Falkland, then First Lord of the Admiralty. In Strong’s wake, visitors were frequent, in particular Frenchmen from St Malo, from whom the islands acquired the name of Iles Malouines. In 1764 colonists led by Louis Antoine de Bougainville, largely inspired by the loss of Canada to the British, settled at Port Louis in Berkeley Sound and, as French influence in the region was taken over by Britain, these isolated colonists became a focus of resistance.

After Captain George Anson returned from his epic circumnavigation in 1745, he suggested a station be found in the South Atlantic to counter Spanish domination. Great Britain was then engaged in a trade war with her continental competitors and the Admiralty despatched Commodore John Byron, grandfather of the poet, who raised the Union flag at Port Egmont on Saunders Island on West Falkland on 12 January, 1765, and claimed the islands for George III. He was unaware that Port Loius was occupied. The Admiralty was keen to cement its influence and in January the following year Captain John McBride with 100 men established a garrison at Settlement Cove. He charted the coast and either ejected anyone found on the islands or persuaded them to swear allegiance to Great Britain. The French were given six months to leave. McBride was not enamoured with the Falklands, nor were his men, nor indeed the French, one of whom wrote, ‘I tarry in this desert.’ Strange words for a land full of water and edible wildlife. The French then sold their settlement to the Spanish, who christened East Falkland as “Isla Soledad”, the West Falkland as “Isla Gran Malvina” and the islands as a whole “Las Malvinas”.

For the next three years the British and Spanish were undisturbed by each other’s presence until Captain Anthony Hunt met a Spanish ship. Both sides demanded each other’s surrender and the incident was only resolved in June, 1770, when five ships from the Spanish-governed province of Buenos Aires arrived off Settlement Cove. The British could muster only a sloop, four 12-pounders in shore positions and twenty-three Royal Marines. Both sides negotiated each other’s departure, but Admiral Madariaga landed with 1600 men and forced the tiny garrison to surrender. Hunt’s force returned to Great Britain to find their defeat had first been broadcast by Spain. In London there was outrage that national honour had been disgraced, particularly as the threat had not been predicted. Foreign Secretary Lord Weymouth resigned and, although Prime Minister Lord North did not want hostilities with Spain, he was urged by the Earl of Chatham to consider war. By the end of the year this seemed inevitable, until Louis XV of France told his Spanish ally Charles III that he would not support Spain in a conflict with Great Britain. Britain agreed to Spain’s sovereignty of Las Malvinas but omitted this clause from their copy of the declaration. Nevertheless the government was unable to convince sceptics it had secretly agreed to abandon Port Egmont to the Spanish. How history would repeat itself!

In 1771 Spain returned Settlement Cove to the British, but three years later the colonists pulled out completely, largely at the instigation of the venerable Dr Johnson, who questioned the need to colonize such an inhospitable place. Lieutenant S.W. Clayton RN, the garrison commander, hammered a lead plaque, carved by a shipwright on HMS Endurance, on the fort door declaring:

Be it known to all nations, that Falkland Island, with this Fort, Stonehouse, Wharf, Harbour, Bays and Creeks thereunto belonging, are the Sole Right of His Most Sacred Majesty George III, King of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith etc. In witness whereof this plate is set up, and his Britannic Majesty’s colours left flying as a mark of possession.

The interesting aspect of this statement is the use of Falkland Island in the singular, referring only to West Falkland, so does Britain have a valid claim? Great Britain recognized Spain’s claim to East Falkland and their settlement in Berkeley Sound remained unmolested until it was abandoned in 1811. By this time British traders were also influential in the region.

In 1816 a network of South American provinces around the River Plate won independence from Spain, formed themselves into the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata and claimed the Spanish colonies in the region, which included the Falklands. Four years later they sent a small force to re-occupy Port Louis, renamed Soleded. In 1826 colonists from the newly-created republic of Argentina arrived under Louis Vernet to develop the settlement and, despite British protests, he was appointed governor. Keen for the islands to be self-sufficient, in 1831 he arrested three American schooner skippers for poaching seals, one of whom was taken to Buenos Aires to stand trial. However, the USS Lexington, which happened to be in the River Plate, sailed to the Falklands, flattened Soledad, captured the colonists and declared the islands free of all government. The Americans had arrived on the global scene. Argentina objected to the American act and sent Governor Mestivier to set up a penal settlement, but he was promptly murdered by the convicts. An Argentine naval force rounded them up.

On 2 January 1833, a small British flotilla commanded by Captain John Onslow in HMS Clio appeared offshore and, having forced the garrison to surrender, deported Governor Pinedo to Montevideo and replaced the Argentine tricolour with the Union flag, much to the fury of the Argentines. This humiliation was to underscore much of Argentina’s foreign policy relationship with Great Britain. Argentina claimed she owned the islands because they had been inherited from Spain after France had sold them. Also Britain had first abandoned its claim in 1771 and then in 1774 had abandoned Egmont. But the young Argentina found it could do little to counter the growing imperialism.

By this time cattle was the main industry and Soledad was a rough place. Onslow left two administrators but they were later murdered. In January, 1834, a naval party from HMS Tyne rebuilt the fort at Port Egmont and captured the k...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Maps
• Foreword
• Glossary
• Rear Admiral Busser’s Address to the Argentine Landing Forces on 1 April, 1982
• Recovery
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter
• Appendix
• Bibliography