Falklands, reflections by members of 3 Para.

[Kiwigrunt]

Some great talks by veterans of 3 Para on Mt Longdon. The first link starts off with the CO (Pike) and he finishes the last link. If nothing else, watch the second half of the last link for his ‘lessons learnt’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-j40X9ouA8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaDR0eTrnfs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1n84u4ZQ0s

[davidbfpo]

Kiwigrunt,

An interesting tactical reminder of the 1982 Falklands War. The three videos are internal presentations in 1986, so the creator has done well to place them in the public domain.

3 Para in this action lost twenty-six dead; on another video displayed one NCO commented that would be unacceptable today.

[Granite_State]

Great stuff, thanks. I highly recommend CIMSEC's long (10 parter?) series of podcasts on the Falklands, interviews with many Royal Marine officers, "Sharky" Ward, and others. Available free on iTunes, and on their website: http://cimsec.org/sea-control-83a-re-run-45-commando-in-the-falklands/17196

[Firn]

I listened to it quite a while ago. Well worth and with good insights. Hardly anything new under the sun, some very specific lessons due to the situation there and then but quite a lot of timeless conclusions.

Firn

[davidbfpo]

An event in London next month @ National Army Museum, with two speakers:
Join Lieutenant General Sir Cedric Delves and Helen Parr in conversation with Major General Arthur Denaro as they look at the Falklands War through the experiences of those who fought there.

Tickets have to be booked for £5. I am going so drop a PM if you do too.
Link:https://www.nam.ac.uk/whats-on/falklands-1982-realities-shared-war

[Kiwigrunt]

That could be interesting David, but a little bit out of my neighbourhood, unfortunately.

Cedric Delves may well be trying to sell his new book:

https://www.bookdepository.com/Across-an-Angry-Sea-The-SAS-in-the-Falklands-War-CEDRIC-DELVES/9781787381124

[davidbfpo]

Captured via another website five thirty minute interviews by the Imperial War Museum with Major Philip Neame:
British officer commanded D Coy, 2nd Bn Parachute Regt during Falklands War, 1982
Link:https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80014201

Each interview has a summary, for example No.1:
Recollections of operations as officer commanding D Coy, 2nd Bn Parachute Regt during Falklands War, 1982: hearing news of crisis; equipping of unit; active service prior to Falklands War; degree of preparation and training in unit; degree to which he expected to fight; character of his company; treatment aboard Norland; story of Norland crewman 'Wendy'; memories of Don Ellerby; recreation aboard Norland; character of landings at San Carlos Water; plans for raids southwards from Sussex Mountain; state of troop's feet.

[davidbfpo]

This was an interesting event with two speakers, Cedric Delves (ex-SAS) tended to dominate the dialogue and the Q&A. With one exception I did not note Helen’s contribution.

His emphasis on writing his book was to ‘Get the record straight’ and was a riposte to the novels and other books written on the SAS since 1980 (the Iranian Embassy siege and the SAS assault).

Asked what his most vivid memory was he replied the weather. The Falkland Islands climate is incredibly windy, it is very dark and in the campaign it was only light 0800-1630hrs. At night it could be bright, with stars and you might have hail, rain and snow. The islands are like Dartmoor, but always cold and wet.

Helen Parr explained her book was due to the death of her uncle and the atmosphere at the time was that ‘Joining up made you a man’. At the time there was far more personal experience of the military and war. Veterans of WW2, Korea, Aden and Northern Ireland were still alive in large numbers.

Delves referred to the Paras expected the campaign would be hard; their energy and initiative would give them a real energy to win. This was in the expectation – built into their training and ethos - not all of them would reach the battle for the target. Curiously he likened this to landing in a marsh and advancing on a bridge (part of the US Airborne’s D-Day experience and not the British?).

The SAS were different. They had a ‘breadth of experience, the cream of the best’ and the second factor was that they were more mature being older – the Paras were in their early twenties, the SAS their early thirties and many of them had been NCOs. The SAS were in ‘the same place, fighting a different war’. Slightly oddly he added ‘The Paras were doing the business, I envied them’.

Delves went onto say the SAS had an awareness of the consequences of war and were conscious of the burden that would follow without recriminations.

The impact of combat featured and Delves commented: You must accept you could die on the battlefield. On returning home it was a shock, something fundamental has changed in your mind. Life could not carry on as before. You live to an intensity never seen before and you come home it is very hard. Society cannot talk about loss; you must think about the future life after the loss.

Both spoke about the changes made to returning from operations / combat since the Falklands. Nowadays there is a decompression time before returning home, for example during the Afghan campaign troops had time in Cyprus before going onto the UK / Germany.

Delves spoke about the morality of killing the enemy and the importance of no gratuitous killing. We had to be decent once we were on top of the enemy. We broadly understood the Rules of War. We were and are decent people at the end.

Interestingly he remarked there was real surprise at going to war with Argentina; almost being so like us. Not once was Argentina being a military dictatorship mentioned, although in the Q&A session did include a known torturer being detained and eventually released (Captain Astiz, who much later was convicted and jailed in Argentina for torture. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Astiz ).

There were a number of anecdotes, notably preparing to fire an ATGM at a beached Argentinian submarine on South Georgia, as the missile was aimed he ignored a NCO shouting until at the last minute he learnt the Argentine garrison, plus sailors, had surrendered.

He was very complimentary about the Royal Navy, particularly those commanding officers who had been submariners; although he cautioned about their commitment to the objective could be a weakness.

The biggest surprise was that the SAS CO, Michael Rose, had been in contact with the Argentine garrison via the telephone system, which still was connected locally and to the UK.

In 2012 General Rose gives a slightly different account, for example he used a US-provided satellite phone not the normal telephone system. See:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/falklandislands/9329262/Gen-Sir-Michael-Rose-remembers-the-Argentine-surrender-on-the-Falklands-I-said-to-them-No-funny-business.html