Battle of Mount Longdon
From Free net encyclopedia
Current revision
The Battle of Mount Longdon was an engagement of the Falklands War between British and Argentinian forces, which took place on the 11th/12 June 1982.
Image:Map Falkland longdon small.png
The British force consisted of 3 Para under Lieutenant-Colonel Hew Pike (later a general) with artillery support from six 105 mm light guns of 29 Commando Regiment, Royal Artillery. 2 Para were in reserve. Naval gunfire support was provided by HMS Avenger's 4.5-in gun. The Argentinian force consisted of B Company of the 7th Infantry Regiment (RI 7), as-well as other detachments from other units. The local Argentine commander was Major Carlos Carrizo-Salvadores, the second-in-command of RI 7. The 7th Infantry Regiment, reinforced by two of the Marine Infantry platoons, held Mount Longdon, Wireless Ridge and Cortley Ridge to the east.
Mostly conscripts with a year of training, the young RI 7 soldiers were not cowards and most were prepared to hold their positions. They possessed fully automatic FAL rifles which delivered more firepower than the British SLR, MAG general purpose machineguns identical to those of the Paras; some fifty of the 7th Regiment were to fight more resolutely than the rest, having been trained on a commando course organized by First Lieutenant Mario Dotto with much experience of Special Forces operations. Private Jorge Altieri, in an interview after the war told how he trained hard with B Company:
I was issued with a FAL 7.62 millimetre rifle. Other guys were given FAPs - light machineguns - and others got PAMS [submachineguns]. The main emphasis in shooting was making every bullet count. I was also shown how to use a bazooka, how to make and lay booby-traps, and how to navigate at night, and we went on helicopter drills, night and day attacks and ambushes. (Vincent Bramley, Two Sides of Hell, p. 9, Bloomsbury Publishing Limited, 1994; published in Argentina as Los Dos Lados Del Infierno)
Private Fabian Passaro of B Company, served on Longdon with Lieutenant Juan Baldini's 1st Platoon and remembers life at the time:
"Most of us had adjusted to what we'd been landed in, we'd adjusted to the war. But some boys [identified in the book Two Sides Of Hell/Los Dos Lados Del Infierno] were still very depressed and, in many cases, were getting worse all the time. Of course, we were very fed up with wearing the same clothes for so many days, going without a shower, being so cold, eating badly. It was too many things together, quite apart from our natural fear of the war, the shelling and all that. But I think some of us were adapting better than others. There were kids who were very worried; and I tried to buoy them up a bit. 'Don't worry,' I told them. 'Nothing will happen, we're safe here. 'Don't you see they could never get right up here? There's one thousand of us; if they try to climb, we'll see them, we'll shoot the shit out of them.'" (Source: Daniel Kon, Los Chicos De La Guerra/The Boys Of The War, New English Library, 1983)
3 Para had set up a patrol base near Murrell Bridge, two kilometres west of Mount Longdon on 3 June. From there they sent out their specialist patrols from D Company to scout out the Argentine positions on Mount Longdon. Two examples of the patrol actions in this static period will be cited in order to give an idea of the intensity of operations. An example of a snatch patrol that failed to obtain a prisoner was provided by 3 Para on the night of 4-5 June 1982. A three-man sniper patrol from D Company was sent out to the reverse slopes of Mount Longdon. The small party under a corporal was detailed to enter the Argentine 120 mm Mortar Platoon position to secure a prisoner, supported to their rear by a battery of six 105 mm field guns. The patrol went wrong when the party was detected by the Rasit radar set on the mountain and all surprise was lost. The Argentine commanders reacted vigorously, and the sniper team found themeselves under prompt and accurate artillery and mortar fire. One participant nevertheless claimed to have shot and killed two Argentines and demolished one mortar team with a 66 mm anti-tank rocket at close range during the predawn darkness of 5 June. The actual number of Argentine killed on Mount Longdon during this period was two - a Marine Conscript (Jorge Inchauspe) and one Engineer Conscript (Jose Curima) being killed by Harrier attacks on 10 and 11 June.
On the Argentinian side, it was soon realised that the 7th Infantry Regiment Reconnaissance Platoon soldiers on the surrounding Wireless Ridge position were ill equipped to carry out their own patrolling. Thus, the Argentine Commando units, normally used for deep-recce had to take on this role. They were able to do so with some success and in the early hours of 7 June a combined patrol of the 601st Commando Company and 601st National Gendarmerie Special Forces Squadron was seen approaching Murrell Bridge. After several nights in the area Corporals Haddon and Brown and their patrols had just arrived at the bluff on the western bank of the Murrell River which Sergeant Addle's patrol had been using as a base. Within a short space of time a sentry reported moving figures down near the bridge. The Paras opened up and a confused firefight developed in the darkness, with small arms, machinegun, LAW and Energa rifle grenades being exchanged. The Commando patrol under Captain Figueroa was very aggressive screaming their battle cry, 'God & Fatherland or Death!' and before dawn had forced the Paras to withdraw, having to leave behind much of their equipment. Only one Commando was slightly wounded during the daring charge. The next night the Paras returned in greater force but their Clansman radio had gone. From then on patrols had to be mounted closer to their own line. (Source: Christian Jennings & Adrian Weale, Green-Eyed Boys: 3 PARA & The Battle For Mount Longdon, pp. 111-115, HarperCollins, 1996)
Colonel Pike and his company commanders held the Argentines in low regard and did not expect them to put up much resistance. For this reason the colonel hoped to surprise them by advancing as close to their positions as possible under cover of darkness, before storming into their trenches with fixed bayonets. The three major objectives Fly Half, Full Back and Wing Forward were named after positions in Rugby. B Company would attack through Fly Half and proceed to Full Back, while A Company, followed by C Company if necessary, would do the same on Wireless Ridge. (Christian Jennings & Adrian Weale, op.cit., p. 187)
When the 3 PARA's B Company (under Major Mike Argue) fixed bayonets to storm the Argentinian positions on Mount Longdon, they found themeselves running into a vast minefield. The British sappers later counted some 1,500 anti-personnel mines sown along the western lower slopes of Mount Longdon, 'but only two exploded' recalled Corporal Peter Cuxson in the book Twilight Warriors: Inside the World's Special Forces (St Martin Press, 1995), 'because the rest were frozen by ice'. 'Otherwise the final battle for Port Stanley would have been an altogether different story,' concludes the NCO who took an Argentine machine-gun position that night.
As dusk set-in, 3 Para moved to their start-lines and, after a brief stop, began to make their four-hour long advance to their objectives. As B Company approached Mount Longdon Corporal Brian Milne stepped on a mine, which after a very silent approach, alerted Second Lieutenant Juan Baldini's platoon of conscripts. More than 20 Argentine soldiers emerged from their tents to lay down fire. Lieutenant Jonathan Shaw's 6 Platoon, on the right flank of B Company, captured the southern-half of Fly Half with no fighting taking place. However, they had missed half a dozen of Argentinian conscripts of the forward platoon, having grenaded several abandoned bunkers, and they launched a fierce attack on the unsuspecting platoon, resulting in a number of casualties before the area was cleared. All around the 1st Platoon position, small groups of soldiers were fighting for their lives. Privates Ben Gough and Dominic Gray managed to crawl undetected up to an Argentine bunker and crouched beside it as the Marine conscripts inside blasted away into the night. In unison the two Paras each pulled the pin out of a grenade and posted it through the firing slit of the bunker. The instant the grenade exploded the two jumped in the bunker and started to bayonet the three surviving Marines. Private Gray killed a Marine conscript by sticking his bayonet through his eye socket. Baldini himself appears to have been killed as he fired a machinegun. Corporal Dario Rios was found lying dead with his platoon commander. Baldini's weapon and boots were removed for the use of the British soldiers. A photo of the dead lieutenant appeared in the original hardback edition of the book Operation Corporate. The Story of the Falklands War, 1982 (Viking Press, 1985)
Throughout most of the night the 3rd Platoon positions on the southern slopes of Mount Longdon held, engineers using head-mounted nightsights from Lieutenant Hugo Quiroga's 1st Platoon of Engineers proving particularly deadly to the Paras in 5 Platoon.
Major Carrizo-Salvadores on Full Back had remained in touch with the Argentine commanders in Port Stanley: 'Around midnight I asked GHQ for infantry reinforcements, and I was given a rifle platoon from Captain Hugo Garcia's C Company. First Lieutenant Raul Fernando Castaneda gathered the sections of his platoon, hooked around First Sergeant Raul Gonzalez's 2nd Platoon that was already fighting and delivered a counterattack. The Platoon fought with great courage in fierce hand to hand combat and the battle raged for two more hours but gradually the enemy company broke contact and withdrew while being engaged by artillery strikes'.
Major Mike Argue's 4 and 5 Platoons, forward of the objective of Fly Half in the meantime, were coming under heavy-fire. 4 Platoon's platoon commander, Lieutenant Andrew Bickerdike and a signaller and Sergeant Ian McKay and a number of other men were attempting to perform reconnaissance on First Sergeant Raul Gonzalez's 2nd Platoon, in doing so, the platoon commander and signaller were wounded. Sergeant Ian Mckay realising something needed to be done, and with a number of other men, decided to attack the Marine machine-gun position that was causing much trouble and much misery. In the ensuing action, two privates were killed and a corporal wounded, yet he carried on alone, attacking the Marines with grenades. McKay managed to throw a grenade towards the heavy machine-gun position before falling mortally wounded but contrary to popular mythology failed to silence the machine-gun. (Source: [1]). But for his valour he was awarded the posthumous Victoria Cross.
Corporal Stewart McLaughlin himself managed to crawl to within grenade-throwing range of the Marine heavy-machinegun team, but despite several efforts with fragmentation grenades and 66 mm LAW rockets, he was unable to silence it.
Major Carrizo-Salvadores manoeuvred Castaneda's platoon to close with 4 and 5 Platoons and meanwhile under the direction of an NCO, part of Castaneda's platoon converged on the British aid post. Things were so bad that Major Mike Argue's company ceased firing and devoted their full efforts to withdrawing from the Argentine 1st Platoon, 2nd Platoon, and 3rd Platoon positions.
Colour Sergeant Brian Faulkner seeing that more than 20 wounded Paras were about to fall into the hands of one of the sections of Castaneda's platoon, deployed anyone fit enough to defend the British Regimental Aid Post. "I picked four blokes and got up on this high feature, and as I did so this troop of twenty, or thirty Argentinians were coming towards us. We just opened fire on them. We don't know how many we killed, but they got what they deserved, because none of them were left standing when we'd finished with them." said Faulkner remembering in the book Above All, Courage (Cassells Military Paperbacks, 2002)
The British 3rd Commando Brigade commander, Brigadier Julian Thompson was reported as having said:
"I was on the point of withdrawing my Paras from Mount Longdon. We couldn't believe that these teenagers disguised as soldiers were causing us to suffer many casualties." (Source: recollections of Anglo-Argentine veteran Michael Savage)
By the time the 21 survivors of Castaneda's 46-man platoon had worked their way off the mountain, they were utterly exhausted. One of them, Private Leonardo Rondi, was sporting a maroon beret - taken from a dead soldier. Private Rondi having dodged groups of Paras to deliver messages to Castaneda's section leaders, had found a Para behind a rock and took his red beret and SLR which he later gave to the Argentine commanders as trophies. Rondi was awarded the Gallantry In Combat Medal.
Following fierce fighting on Fly Half, Major Argue pulled back 4, 5 and 6 Platoons, and began pounding the mountain from the sea with barrages fired from HMS Avenger, after which a left flanking attack is put in. Under heavy fire, the remnants of 4 and 5 Platoons advanced upon their objective of Full Back, taking some casualties from Casteneda's platoon as they did so. The Paras could not move any further without taking unacceptable losses and so were pulled back to the western end of Mount Longdon, with the orders for Major David Collett's A Company to move through B Company and assault, from the west, the eastern objective of Full Back, a heavily defended position, with covering fire being given from Support Company. They soon attacked the position in bitter close-combat, clearing the position of the Argentinian defenders with rifle, grenade and bayonet. The Argentines rigorously defended Full Back. The wounded Corporal Manuel Medina of Castaneda's platoon took over a recoilles rifle detachment and personally fired along the ridge at Support Company killing three paras, including Private Peter Heddicker, who took the full force of the 105 mm round, and wounding three others. Major Carrizo-Salvadores abandoned his command bunker on Full Back only when a Milan missile smashed into some rocks just behind him. In the command bunker Major Collett found 2000 cigarettes which he gave to the smokers in his company.
The battle had lasted twelve-hours and had been costly to both sides. 3 Para lost seventeen killed during the battle, one Royal Engineer attached to 3 Para was also killed. A total of forty British paratroopers were wounded during the battle. A further four Paras and one REME were killed and seven Paratroopers were wounded in the two-day shelling directed from the Argentinian 5th Marines positions on Tumbledown Mountain that followed. The Argentinians suffered 31 dead and over 100 wounded, with fifty also being taken prisoner.
Lance-Corporal Vincent Bramley was patrolling the western half of Mount Longdon when he was confronted with the full horror of the night combat. The 3 Para NCO and keen writer stumbled upon the bodies of five Paratroopers killed by the forward Argentine platoon:
A few bullets whizzed overhead and smashed into the rocks. A corporal shouted that Tumbledown was firing at us. We ran into a tight gap in the path of all came to an abrupt halt, as it was a dead end. Four or five bodies lay sprawled there, close together. This time they were our own men: the camouflaged Para smocks hit my eyes immediately. CSM [Company-Sergeant-Major]Wicks was standing over them like a guardian, screaming at some of his men to cover the further end of the path and a small crest. The CSM and Sergeant P [Pettinger] exchanged quick words. I wasn't listening; my mind was totally occupied with looking into the crags for the enemy. I turned and looked at our own lads, dead on the ground, mowed down when they tried to rush through this gap. I felt both anger and sadness. The CSM's face showed the strain of having seen most of his company either wounded or shot dead. That night's fighting was written in every line of his face. (Vincent Bramley, Excursion to Hell, p. 121, Bloomsbury 1991, ISBN 0747509530)
The battle was particularly brutal with little quarter being shown by either side.