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Hello and welcome to Battleground. I'm Saul David and today Patrick Bishop and I will be talking about the most crucial nail biting and gut wrenching 24 hours of the whole Falkland's campaign. That was of course the night of 20 to 21 May when the task force closed on the islands dropped anchor offshore and at long last the Marines and parrots climbed into their landing craft and prepared to set foot on dry land. Now this of course is the moment we've been waiting for since the beginning of the podcast and Patrick Euron Canberra. What was the mood like as you approached the Falkland Islands? Well the first thing I'd say is that the weather really kind of matches the mood as we go south. You leave a sense somewhere it's very sunny and warm tropical and head into the dark and stormy waters of the South Atlantic. They're very dramatic. You get these huge mountainous seas, grey, scudding clouds, driving rain scores and then the bird life there are these huge albatrosses skimming the tops of the waves and even the big ships like the Edinburgh were wallowing around in these mountainous seas. Now on board Canberra as we get closer to the exclusion zone all the windows have been blacked out so these are the big kind of public rooms which have huge windows and they're all painted over. So there's literally a kind of darkening all over the place. I remember people beginning to think about their own mortality and every Sunday there be services for the various denominations on board and attendance is picked up quite dramatically. I remember going to the to the mass in the ship cinema with my fellow Catholics and the Padre there gave us all a blanket absolution for our sins which we kind of even the kind of least kind of ardent Catholic was quite grateful for that. But there was also kind of strange care freeness in the air and I find that you may have found this yourself so that there is this kind of what you call it high spirits I suppose that sort of breaks out in times of danger and stress. So two days before the landing there was a party a big party in the crow's nest bar which served as the officers mess on the Canberra. You're telling me they actually had a party while people are so slightly concerned about what's going to happen next they're deciding to drink. I mean it does remind me a little bit I suppose of the pilots in the Second World War before they go out flying in the back of Britain they're drinking away in the mess aren't they? And some of them are not going to come back and the same thing with this party but great stuff and it does remind us of course how close the whole thing was to the Second World War. Yeah I mean this party really was a kind of World War II style event with someone on the P&A banging out tunes that their fathers would have known going off to war roll out the barrel, temporary etc. It was an absolute rarer but as you say it probably wouldn't happen these days but I think it is a reflection of what you're saying it's about the kind of proximity of the Second World War. It's still part of the tradition everyone there had a father or a uncle who fought the Second World War and you kind of it did intensify this feeling that it's the end of an era an end of a kind of great long phase of British history of British imperial history and of course what we did know was whether this is the start of a new one or really a kind of definitive exit from all our notions of grandeur and world power. You mentioned those songs Patrick I've heard of them of course but anyone under the age of 40 is never going to heard of those kind of classic first and second world war songs and it just shows you doesn't it how what an absolute classic dividing line the Falklands war was between the Second World War and now and in many ways as you say it was looking back much more than it was looking forward. So let's move the story on camera which you were on was of course carrying most of the commandos and paratroopers of three commando brigade. It was decided and it had been decided that it would be very unwise to carry them all to the landing point in one ship for a very good reason. So instead they'd be shifted off the camera and spread out over several ships and they included of course the amphibious assault ships fearless we've already heard from the skipper of the fearless the intrepid which had come down to and the norland and this operation would require them to be crossed decked in very tricky seas. Now it took place on the 19th which is just two days before the landing the great cross decking operation as it was known and unbelievably fortunately the south Atlantic suddenly subsided to almost a gentle swell for that operation which meant that the landing craft could carry the units to their new temporary homes and they wouldn't have to be literally winched across which of course was a very hazardous operation. And of course now we know we're approaching the moment of greatest danger all the ships everyone on those ships are at their most vulnerable because at the bottom of this plan is really surprised for it to work they had to be able to get in the whole task force to flee to carrying the men had to get in undercover of darkness and land at a place where the Argentinians were not expecting them so as we were sort of creeping along the coast and then into a forked and sound we were all looking out with trepidation see whether there's any sign any indication that that we had been detected the ship was we're not dark totally there's this kind of dim twilight which intensified this sort of mood of anxiety and in the saloons around the place the soldiers were stretched out trying to grab a few hours of sleep before the before the door before them they actually had to come to to and stand to for their action stations but no one really was able to do that nervous we're wound up too tight we just lay there alone with our thoughts steeling ourselves to what lay ahead with the archies be waiting for us no one knew and I think that bloody images of Omaha beach and the d day learnings were running through many heads yeah I'm sure Patrick and if anyone had had any knowledge of the Pacific war they might have been thinking about a few amphibious landings there which didn't go so well initially and of course I'm thinking of places like Pella Lu and even more famously Iwo Gima where there's you know a real contest for the beaches and as both of us know from our studies of the Second World War where amphibious landing really you know gets developed properly for the first time in warfare it's getting off the beaches or it's getting to the beaches and getting off the beaches that is the most hazardous time for landing force so you know you were understandably and the soldiers were understandably nervous now the force was heading for San Carlos water it's a large shelter inlet on the far west of East Forklund and just to orientate the listeners the capital Stanley is on the far side so that's on the east of East Forklund now naturally a lot of effort had gone into deciding where to go to shore the decision had been made before the force actually leaves ascension after many hours of wrangling involving Jeremy Larkin the captain of the Assault Ship Phyllis and the two other key commanders on board Mike Clap who commanded the amphibious force and Julian Thompson who commanded the three commander Brigade which was going ashore they were fortunate really fortunate to have the expertise of a Royal Marine Major rather curiously named you and Sudby Talia who during a deployment four years before had carried out a detailed survey of the coastline intended for the use of fellow yachtsmen and also as you told me in an interview for military purposes frankly just in case a landing was ever required with this information they reckon that the Argentinians would expect them to land close to Port Stanley so the obvious features around the capital were ruled out they eventually narrowed the choice down to three before plumping for San Carlos water we spoke to you and Sudby Talia who told us why that decision was taken. He couldn't have been the most suitable place along me from Stanley for the land troops but of course closer to Argentina as far as the aircraft is concerned but it wasn't a reasonably sheltered place that's a set couldn't reach you the airplanes had to fly over the crest hills either sides so they wouldn't have time to choose a target I mean they did they could have they've been out of the open they'd have had more time to choose a target and of course the weather couldn't get in there it was sheltered as far as anywhere in the four countries concerned because the winds the average winds been in the island to see the 16 knots then pivot its four knots over here so it's four times windier and that of course means you need sheltered water it was the ideal place and we could land all around it therefore we could defend it. So we've just heard from you and Sudby Talia there telling us the reason the decision was taken to actually go for San Carlos I mean it's interesting isn't it because the obvious thing would have been to land much closer to Port Stanley and therefore save the distance required to march across the island in all the terrible conditions and would come on to all of that so the decision taken had its disadvantages it was a long way. The thinking at the time was that this carried a kind of political benefit that if they got ashore safely that might be enough for the Argentinians to say okay game over let's we'll go home or at least start talking seriously about some sort of negotiated settlement I think that was a pretty for long hope and later junior Thompson has said that he wasn't even though it was the sort of safest place to land it wasn't his favourite for the reason you say you've got then got to get all the way across the island 50 miles to Port Stanley without any easy way of getting there that's why helicopters become terribly important if you're going to go that distance you really really need those helicopters there are a couple of tracks vehicles but apart from that it's Sharks is Podi that's the only way you're going to get there and that's all by ship which is extremely hazardous as we'll learn so that's indeed how things panned out with the added complication this could be learning later that Fibregate turn up and decide they want to join the party they want to go all the way to Port Stanley rather than just stay behind in the rear area so advantages and disadvantages but I think with hindsight everyone would agree it was the right place to learn. Yeah one other thing we should mention talking of World War II resonances Patrick is subterfuge and of course you know an element of this decision was let's land at a place where the odditigners are not going to expect us just as the decision was taken at D.D. so let's not go for the obvious one let's not go for Paddha Calais which is you know shorter lines of communication closer to the UK a lot of advantages but they're going to expect us to land there and exactly the same decision taken here so in many ways getting the men are sure I think you know my own personal feeling is much more important get the men sure safely and establish that's much more important than even the long distances they're going to have to cover because yes we can do them by helicopter and worst case we're going to walk. Yeah I hadn't thought about that D.D. Parallel but it's a very apt one the other similarity is that if you get into San Carlos water you are relatively sheltered you can unload and basically keep logistics flowing with a limited degree of danger which would not be the case if you've got any any closer in. So back to that morning of the 21st of May we're now in Falkland Sound which is the water that divides the kind of sleeve of water that divides east and west Falkland so we slipped in there early in the morning and I went up on deck and it was a clear night but there was no sign of life on the land and it seemed that neither enemy radar or enemy eyeballs had actually spotted this huge fleet creeping closer and closer but how long was it going to stay that way? The conditions were really wonderful if you were on a south Atlantic cruise with a stars glittering and the sea were pretty calm in fact very calm, flat as a slate but it wasn't so great if you were on what was the biggest amphibious landing since D.D.I. I wrote a book shortly afterwards and described what I was seeing and it read like this the southern cross glitters overhead and every few minutes a shooting star skidded across the sky. The stars lit up the round shoulders of the hills on either side of the sound. All this beauty and calm could not have been more unwelcome. We've been praying for rough seas, driving rain and mist, anything that would mask our arrival and delay the moment when the Argentinian garrison at Port Stanley realised what was going on. However, as we approach the mouth to so in colour's water all was still then suddenly the hill to the north of the Amchridge called Fanninghead lit up with explosions. I mean this is an amazing bit of the story isn't it? And one that we really don't know that much about in terms of the detail of what actually happened at Fanninghead so let's talk a bit about it. The SBS, the special boat squadron, now the special boat service, had been carrying out wreckies for some time now in the area. We know from Julian Thompson that they were doing extraordinarily important work including getting all the information about the beaches back to Commander Brigade so they could make their dispositions. The SBS reported that there were no Argentinians at all around San Carlos water. However, they did discover an enemy position on top of Fanninghead and the reason this matters is because Fanninghead as Patrick's explained can enfilade any craft coming into San Carlos water and they did have an artillery piece there so it was absolutely vital that this location was knocked out so that they weren't in a position to bombard the troops coming in. No one knew quite how many there were there but clearly it posed a threat to the landings they had to be taken out. So I spoke to tell who was one of a 25 man, mainly SBS team who had given the task with naval gunfire on tap if needed from the destroyer HMS Antrim to deal with the problem. Tell as you will notice in the clip refers to the Antrim as the friends from the West Country. Tell was an SBS operator. We've been up and done some reconnaissance with thermal imagery in the Seekings. We identified a heavy weapons position on Fanninghead. So heavy weapons, 120 below, how it says they could have on a reverse slope. We'd fire them at the fleet and take them potshots at them. So we were tasked then as a squadron so people like Shana, they would have been there but dark and dirty, getting right in amongst their positions, doing their OPs. What was left of the SBS then were brought together. We were brief, we positively ideed human signatures, heat signatures on that area quite a lot. So that was it. We on the helicopters all the sticks were brought together, the sticks being the groups of people per helicopter. And then we went in the very early hours of the morning. Our mission was to take that position before first light. So off we went from the various shifts. Are we landed? Okay. Tell me how you deployed for that hold. So we all inserted by helicopter. Approximately I would suggest about four to five K from the position, so low level contour flying at the helicopters. Navy pilots again, absolutely stunning guys. I mean they were so good at what they did in any situation. I love those guys to bits. I really do. But yeah, in we went, dropped off, the SBS and our typically people who carry great big mortars and things like that. So we had a bit of assistance from our good friends down in the West country. Two of those guys helped us out with our two broad direct fire. So thank you very much for that. A bit of support in the back there. Off we went and then we got onto a plateau that was the ridge line looking over, fanning head with a lot of dead ground in between. Incidentally we had six general purpose machine guns with us. Normally a company which is 100 men in a Royal Marine Commando unit, Cali 3. There was 25 of us and we had six. So yeah, that's my math and math to write one and four. I carried one all the time. I insisted that I have a 7.62 weapon with me because it's got a lot more stopping power and that's what I carried throughout the war. So we carried very little equipment for our own personal use. It was more ammunition and food and a sleeping bag. Typically I'd have about 2000 rounds of link with Tracer ready to go. So yeah, we lined out. We had Rod Bell who spoke flu in Spanish. Of course we didn't speak fluent Spanish. Of course we were taught on the way down on the RFA was no SSLAPO Labdate Clavi, which was I don't know the password in case we were challenged and too much or salamos put down your weapons. That's as much as my Spanish education went. Anyway, so Rod, bless him and again nothing was official. So all this was going on at sea and as we've already alluded to there was all sorts of stuff going down to see some marine ships being taken out. But no one actually said we were at war. No one actually said what are we going to do when we get the, we were just told to neutralise this position so the fleet could get in safely to St. Carlos water. So we went fully intending to get the Argentinians to surrender because they were in a very vulnerable position and there was only one way out for them and we thought right. So Rod was there for a couple of hours and time was getting on and we were getting a little bit twitchy and we're going look, you know, we really got to start looking at taking this position here guys because these ships are going to need to come in. So we were about, I would suggest 800 metres away, it decked around and he was trying to get them to surrender to come out. But they kept shooting at us. And we were watching them through the thermal images and with the guns left and right in the light mode, not in the SF mode, or sustained fire mode on the tripod. So we had the light roll, GPMGs, I was actually watching the 6 o clock as well with my gun, but listening to everything that was going on and as they were trying to escape we'd fire left and right. We didn't want to shoot them, we really didn't. We were just herding them back in to say look guys, don't escape because we can see you, you couldn't understand because you could see, they were like this oh my, how can they see us? Of course we're just herding them back into the middle. There were reports that they were injured on purpose by their own people to stop them running away, but that's just an understory whether that's true or not, I don't know. So we cracked on with that and we looked at Rod, you're really going to take a backseat here mate because it's hard to get it on. They wouldn't give in, they wouldn't surrender. I think they wanted to because when I took the prisoners later talking to them as men, they went out there to fight. But yeah, so we did that and we engaged and we took the position. Wow, well that really brought it back home. Tell of course, known only as tell because the SPS do stick to this real code of anonymity and secrecy. The bit that really stood out for me was the way that the reference to Rod Bell, their commander, so they allow Rod Bell the opportunity to do his bit and try and talk the Argentinians into surrendering, but the NCOs at the end of the day as they do in special forces units have the last word, they say, okay, you've done your bit, now we'll take over. So that was very redolent of the spirit of special forces units. Patrick, there's also that lovely description of herding Argentinian soldiers back into their position, IE preventing them from escaping by using machine gunfire, long range machine gunfire or almost like a sheep dog. I mean, I've never heard that before, absolutely extraordinary. And the idea that the Argentinians didn't know where I know I think was coming from and yet, gradually they were being pushed back and of course eventually they're taken prisoner. Some of the descriptions of them once they've been taken prisoner are, these are not top troops and it's, I think in many ways this colors the view of the servicemen as to what they're likely to face further on in battle. Yeah, and I think it does make the point that these are not trained, well they are trained killers, but they have a heartless soul and that they don't want to inflict unnecessary casualties, they have some sympathy for the guys they're fighting. So well with the fanning head position now neutralized the perils of getting ashore are considerably reduced so far, so good we'll hear what happened next in part two. Welcome back. So as you heard in part one, the troops are about to land. Fanning head has been neutralized, but there's still danger ahead and as dawn is coming up on the morning of 21 May, the luck of the British is holding so far, but what's going to happen next? From well before daylight the landing craft were going back and forth, ferrying soldiers and supplies are sure to their allotted positions all around San Carlos water. Now Patrick, you were there, can you describe exactly what the scene was like and what you remember? Well first of all you've got to visualize the landscape and the landscape is very much like the Scottish hebrides. It's all lowish, bare hills, lots of scre, rocky outcrops, precious few trees, not even many shrubs and the hills slope down fairly gently to rock strewn beaches. There's not much sign of humans having made an impression on this landscape. There's a few settled scattered around the anchorage. Yeah, well if you look at San Carlos water you can see on the map it's V shaped with two forks, one short one leading into a river that heads to the east and another one forking down to the south and on the eastern end of the north shore of the water is Port San Carlos and that is about five or six miles from the sea entrance and this is where three para under Hugh Pike will go ashore. Halfway down the eastern shore of the Sudley fork is the settlement known as San Carlos. This is where two para and 40 Commando were to land. So what exactly were these settlements Patrick? I mean we've got these visions in our head probably erroneously of that kind of reasonably modern looking constructions you think of the UK in 1982. What did they look like then? Well a settlement is really, it's a sort of extended kind of cluster of farm buildings. So this is a sheep farming territory. There are many more sheep than there are human beings on the forklands. So it's basically a main house which is where the manager of the sheep farm lives and next order a couple of bunk houses for the shepherds who live this very lonely existence there and of course there are also sheep sheds, shearing sheds so when the itinerant sheep shirs arrive from New Zealand and Australia as they do every year at the season the sheep can be taken in there and shit. Now these prove very useful for not all the troops could be accommodated in there but some could from time to time to get them out of the appalling weather. So the look is very kind of, it's not ramshackle exactly but it's got a very temporary feel of these wooden corrugated iron roofed buildings plunked down on the landscape. Oh the other side of San Carlos water there was a disused refrigeration plant at Ajax Bay. This became home of the famous red and green life machine, the field hospital where British casualties and Argentinian casualties were first taken and that was also where four five commando went. Talking of four five commando I spoke to Sergeant Dave Watkins of the Royal Marines, ex four five commando who was actually the coxen of Foxtrot 3 landing craft from HMS Fearless which ferried men from Fearless from the mouth of San Carlos water through the darkness that morning. The embarked I believe it was a company four five commando from the field. It's on my particular boat and I can just think and remember going down to the tank deck to see these guys because I served in four five commando prior and there are a few people there that I knew from my time up there and I made a point of trying to find them people and just have a chat with them, make sure everything was okay and they knew what we were going to do and so on and so forth. By which time of course all these guys were hyped up and they were blacked out completely with camouflage paint and all this and weighed down to the end of the degree with the amount of kit they were going to have to carry with them and I remember it being very very quiet, very still guys who maybe with a look of disbelief on the faces but they knew it was going to happen. It was no longer a game now. This was it, people were beginning to even know it sounds like a very very last minute thing. These people now realise it was about to hit the fan and it was no longer a game, it was no longer an exercise, it was real and from that point on it was just the utmost professionalism. From my point of view we were briefed by Colossalian Michael Francis, Connie Francis who was a senior boxer on the field. So before we left the boat we knew where we were going to go to Ronde Vue, we knew who was going to be on board what boat and we knew the order of the boats that we were going to go into the beach head with and basically for the fearless it was a simple process of one, two, three, four. Connie Francis was on boat number one, Fox Rock one because he was a senior boxer. I believe he had with him on the boat, you and Southern Bitalia who had an intimate knowledge of the Forklands because of his prior deployment down there and he was a very keen sailor so he knew most of these places on there. So when we come off the boat and we started to circle around the stern to make sure we all got ourselves into the creates order and we set off. As Coxons and that for the boats we had night vision glasses and also the boat in front was showing a day glow stick so that was on the stern of each boat so we make sure we had a visual reference and also with the night vision goggles which sounds pretty good but they weren't because the night vision doesn't give you a sense of depth or it wasn't a particularly clear picture because you're bouncing up and down all the time and everything else and then the spray coming over and so on and so forth. I wrote a book about the Second World War and the early days of beach reconnaissance when the Second World War SPS would go in and get the sort of information that you need when you're going to bring in landing ships which is gradients, beach gradients, the firmness of the sound and all of that sort of thing. I mean was that information you already had? You had a pretty clear idea of what the beaches would be like. We had a very good idea of it because again you and Southern Bitalia knew that area quite comprehensively and also before we got to do the landings the special forces had been down to the beach area and reconnaissance of beach to make sure it was clear and so on and so forth. So we were going in on signal lights anyway. We were quite happy at that particular time that if there was going to be any opposition to our landing it was going to be coming from quite a distance away and not on the beach head. So in effect it was quite a peaceful landing, went in, dropped the ramp, got rid of the troops, got the ramp up and disappeared ready for the next run. So that was Dave Watkins, Royal Marine Coxon and what he described there was pretty much the experience for all the other units, the landings went off without fuss, everyone gets put ashore where they're meant to be and that strikes me as pretty impressive. You and I know saw from our World War II research is how difficult it is to bring off an amphibious landing, I'm thinking my last book on de App operation Jubilee, this is a disastrous 1942 raid on de App and there they're only having to cross 80 miles of water, they're carrying pretty much the same number of men, about 6,000 men and they, you know, all the ships go all over the place and this is something they've actually rehearsed for, they've carried out two rehearsals before, no rehearsals before these landings in San Carlos water, very tricky operation and all and all, off to a great start, very big achievements, the whole thing has been lashed up, thrown together, it's a come as you are part here, someone put it, yeah, all these units are kind of working together, of course the Marines know each other but the commandos and the Marines don't work together that often and the whole shipping aspect, I mean I think everyone was agreed afterwards that part of the operation under Mike Clap was absolute textbook, you know, Rolls Royce Job. Yeah, Clap it should be mentioned is a name I suspect a lot of listeners, even those of a certain vintage Patrick Wohn to have heard of, he's one of the unsung heroes of this story and pretty much everyone we've spoken to, Larkin Thompson and even down to the ordinary guys say he did an extraordinary job so you know, it needs to be stressed that this crucial early bit of the campaign can only work with planning, forethought and a lot of really excellent organisations, so we often talk about military cockups, you and I have written about many of them, you mentioned Deep, I'm thinking you know, going back to Omaha Beach in the Second World War, they knew they were tough defenses there, not least because the SPS had been on shore and had a look and warned them what was going to happen and the SPS had said look, you know, you need to mark these beaches, you know, let's actually see where we're going and one of the problems with landing on certain beaches, you don't actually know where you're going to end up, particularly if there's tide and there's bad weather. The advantage of San Coloss water of course is this and inlet it's inside the main bed of the sea, so that took away at least some of the risks but suddenly, Taylor as you've pointed out and the Coxons also deserve great credit. We don't want to get too carried away but yeah, it was all great but there were no Argentinians there and that is a huge advantage and we'll go into this in greater detail later but I think we've got to flag up here the absence of real thought about the way the Argentinians conducted their defense, basically they're on the defensive from the word go which is not a good mental military posture to have if you like. There are some really kind of obvious things they could have done like for example have a force on Mount Kent which is going to be here and later really dominates the feature that dominates the whole island and yet they restricted themselves to the hills around immediately around Port Stanley so they kind of on the back foot already and when they do actually learn that the British are coming ashore on the far side of the island which they do very early on in fact they get intelligence even on the eve of the landing at a Canberra and Argentine Air Force Canberra flying over spot something mysterious and that should have put them on the alert that would be the signal to helicopter troops forward to cover that side of the island or at least have kind of wrecky scouting out for itself they're looking for the real landing point but they don't do any of that so it's only on the morning that they react. Yeah and it also reminds me this Argentinian inaction of that great line from Clasovitz better to make a decision than no decision at all if you sit back and let the enemy decide you're in trouble as we're going to discover the Argentinians are going to get into trouble. However that morning 21 May is not over there is danger and one of the biggest elements of danger is that yes the initial landings of those troops have gone well a lot of it under darkness but time is getting on and actually the landing craft are now one hour behind time which means that some of the troops are going to have to land in daylight and that is going to be extremely hazardous. There were delays and as light is coming up some of the troops as I say were still on the ships three parrots had been shifted over to the assault ship in trepid 36 hours before and as Hugh Pike their commander told me as dorm broke he was starting to get anxious. The plan was a night landing and of course by the time it came around to us we were two parrots and four five commande. It might be wrong anyway two battalions went on in the first wave and then the second to one of whom was us. I must have been anyway I think it was four five commande in the second and of course it was broad daylight by the time the inevitable delays to which such operations are victim and so it was broad daylight a beautiful early morning very fine morning for flying from Argentina so we were very very anxious indeed to get on with it and get a shore and it does seem to be terribly slow the whole thing but eventually we got into our landing craft and made our way to San Bay just off Pox and Carlos. Once the shore what was your role that day? Our role was to secure our part of the bridgehead as was that was the role of four two commande stayed on the Canberra as the brigade reserved and although they got a short later that day for obvious reasons very quickly indeed. So now our job was to secure the settlement liberated if you like and to secure the high ground around Ports and Carlos as our part of the bridgehead. Do you remember talking to any of the Fulcan Islanders that day here? Yes very much so yes it's very much the manager at Ports and Carlos in a chap called Alan Miller who sadly died quite soon off the wall of cancer and he was terrific and I am incredibly excited of course and all the local people were there was a famous photograph of my regiment at San Major, Mori Ashbridge having a mug of tea with a woman in a little garden very sort of historic picture. But we also had a nasty incident on our way in because as we advanced on foot opposite to what the settlement itself which was I suppose I didn't know half a kilometer or something from where we landed two seeking helicopters came over with underslung loads escorted by two gazelle helicopters and both of these gazelles were shot down by an Argentine cartoon that had stayed behind and we had no information that they were there all our information that there had been a force there but that had been withdrawn and so with small arms fire they not to helicopter die to the sky with killing three of the four crew. I've read somewhere here that the Argentine is actually fired on some of the crew in the water is that the case? Yes, yes, yes and then we had a pucara then came across with their very nasty tea, very slow flying ground attack aircraft with machine guns so that gave us a bit of a blast as well. So it was a rather nasty initiation in a sense but I'm very sad obviously that there's two helicopters for loss but it was an early lesson you know the theory that you could escort big helicopters with small ones equipped with sned rockets or what was flawed because these helicopters remained extremely vulnerable. So that was Hugh Pike, CO3 parrho and I remember this very clearly this sort of great sense of urgency, the great sense of hurry, the helicopters buzzing back and forth constantly and with under slung loads but the real priority in Julian Thompson's mind was to get these repier anti aircraft batteries onto dry land as soon as possible to make the anchorage as secure as they could from what was coming next. Everyone was expecting this Eddie moment, the anticipated onslaught of the Argentinian Air Force. These were new absolutely spanking brand new anti aircraft defenses that replaced the old Boathas guns and they were operated by a 12th regiment Royal Artillery which has been attached to 3 Commandos Brigade. So it was new and of course being new it meant it was more sophisticated and being more sophisticated it meant it was more delicate. It operated on a radio signal guiding the missile in flight onto its target and it was meant to, to fend not just the anchorage but also the the the behary as based on land on this sort of harrier pad that was going to be built very rapidly as well just near Port Saint Carlos. It was such huge amount of faith was put in the rapier as regarded as a sort of miracle weapon. In fact it did have some teething problems and some deficiencies so it turned out that its performance was not that great but it probably the Argentinians knew we had it and it probably had a bit of a deterrent effect. Now you mentioned the sighting of that Pukara, these anti insurgency aircraft and that was particularly on ominous thing. I was on the bridge wing of the camera when this plane, this Pukara suddenly appeared at the foreign of Saint Carlos water and we kind of set it somehow that it was as surprised to see us as we were to see it. Now remember saying, though these lights twinkling under the wings of the aircraft what's that and suddenly realizing this is what being shot at means this is what it looks like. Now the Pukara kind of skid out of the way pretty quickly but we all knew what was coming next. Next time we'll hear about the incredible drama of what happened next when the Skyhawk daggers and Mirages of the Argentinian Air Force enter the fray. We'll also be talking to the British Harry pilots desperately trying to intercept them and to those trying to defend the ships in the Anchorage its riveting stuff. Do join us.