-Caveat Lector-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,656465,00.html
The price of victory
The Falklands war rehabilitated Britain's reputation as a military nation and handed
Margaret Thatcher another eight years in power. But, two decades on, are we any
closer to understanding why hundreds of lives were lost for an island group the
Foreign Office had been trying so hard to give away? And do we realise the full
horror experienced by those who fought in it? Opening a special issue devoted to the
war, Gareth Parry, the Guardian's reporter with the taskforce in 1982, returns to the
south Atlantic for the first time
Monday February 25, 2002
The Guardian
Twenty years have passed since I last stood on this hill above the tiny Falklands
settlement of Darwin, yet the horror persists. Here in the peaty black earth was a
hole the size of a bus, a common grave for 250 Argentinian soldiers killed in the epic
battle for Goose Green, two miles away. As the days went by and hidden springs
welled up, the dead began to float. Only the sight of muddy black boots sticking out
of the drab green battle shrouds gave any clue that these pathetic bundles were
once young people.
The Falklands war was our last vainglorious colonial adventure, audaciously won on
a battlefield 8,000 miles away from home. A generation after the recapture of the
bleak islands where a thousand men died, I have returned to inhabit my own
nightmares. On some days I have desperately wished that I had not. The waste is
now so palpable and terribly sad; I had somehow put to the back of my mind just how
awful that war really was.
That Darwin hillside is now a neat, formal cemetery; in the chilling pragmatism of
battle planning, the site had been designated many days before the battle of Goose
Green even began. For 40 hours that May, 450 men of the second battalion of the
Parachute Regiment had fought 1,650 "Argies", or "bean-eaters", as the tabloids
slandered the brave but pathetic army.
The Paras, professional, hard and dedicated soldiers, defeated General Leopoldo
Galtieri's conscripts. Seventeen of the Paras died, including their commanding
officer, Colonel "H" Jones, who, alone, charged an enemy machine-gun nest. He was
posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross and was buried on the islands.
This plantation of plain white crosses at Darwin is a scene so common in the
Falklands of today. But here at Darwin there is a remarkable difference from the
other war graves and memorials. Most of these crosses simply say "An Argentine
Soldier Known Unto God". The carnage of battle left many of the dead beyond
recognition.
Even so, mourning relatives, desperately seeking some form of closure, and knowing
that the places of their own dead will never now be known, have chosen a grave -
any grave - as the focus of their sorrow. "This one," they said, "can be him." Each of
the 250 crosses is draped in several strings of rosary beads. There are red, yellow
and pink plastic flowers tied up against the winds. Children have left cardboard
cutouts of white doves for "Papa". There are faded photographs of smiling,
handsome young Latins in white tuxedos or camouflaged battledress.
In all, some 750 Argentinian troops died in the war. Britain lost 255. But these were
not the only casualties. At eight o'clock on a grey Sunday morning in Stanley, with the
chilling wind whining and moaning as it always had, I see a thin man with a shaven
head sitting in the restaurant of the Upland Goose Hotel on Ross Road, the tin-
roofed capital's only main road. He is talking fast and furiously to himself and
suddenly bursts into loud laughter, startling the other guests. He is a war veteran on
what is known as a "revisit", and there is deep pain in his eyes.
The South Atlantic Medal Association support group, which pays for counselling and
for veterans to return to the Falklands, says that more British ex-servicemen have
committed suicide since the 1982 conflict than died in action.
Goose Green, before that first battle of the war, was easily the busiest sheep-farming
"camp" - as anywhere outside Stanley is called - in the Falklands. Today it is a place
of ghosts. The doors of rusting tin buildings bang open and shut in the wind.
Children's swings creak to and fro outside the school, and the community hall where
112 Falklanders were imprisoned is empty except for rat-gnawed books - "loaned in
1930 by Kensington Library, London". There is that eerie inertia sometimes sensed in
a playground during the school holidays.
There are only two families left here now. The only child, a little girl with learning
difficulties, is taught by a visiting teacher. The huge black shearing shed, reputedly
the biggest of its kind in the world, still bears the lettering "POW - GG" to mark its
use as a camp for Argentinian prisoners of war. Another shed is marked "Deposito
Fuerza Aerea" (air force stores). In the house next door, one of the two lone sheep
farmers struggles with a computer spreadsheet, trying to make profitable sense of
his week's shearing.
The price of wool has collapsed together with the "sheepocracy" that once ran the
Falklands almost as one big, patronising but comfortable company estate. Since
1982 the islands have suffered the same depression seen in most other rural
economies where the locals have finally walked out on the hard life. While the prewar
population was equally divided between Stanley and camp, today only about 400
people remain in camp, and 2,400 live in Stanley.
Just outside Goose Green all those years ago, I saw parties of Argentinian prisoners
going around the piles of their fallen comrades, yanking out the bodies by the legs,
and throwing them in a pile on a tractor-trailer. There were bits of human remains
everywhere, and the pigs rooted around the battlefield. I saw one big sow lazily
scratching herself on the side of an unexploded 1,000lb bomb, and ran.
Now I walk over to the new Goose Green golf course. There are no players today;
nor were there any yesterday, or for a month before, I'm told. Here I remember row
upon row of corpses, covered with a thin icing of frost. Most were badly charred by
phosphorous grenades, which burn deep into flesh. In several places there were
rifles stuck barrel-down in the deep mud with helmets on them, marking where men
lay. It was as if the hell of the Somme had been deliberately copied. Today only deep
indentations in the grass remain, and some of these have become golf bunkers.
At Goose Green, the Argentinians had stored hundreds of canisters of napalm. I had
seen its work in Vietnam and shuddered at the probability that they planned to use it
on us Brits. Even without napalm, flash burns from explosions were the most
common wounds, especially among navy personnel. Sailing down to war on the
leading aircraft carrier, Invincible, I had seen survivors from other British ships.
They
moved about, shaking their hands in their efforts to cool the agony. The ballooned
faces of badly burned men whose clothes had been welded to their bodies by the
searing flash of explosions; the screams in the night in the dormitories on the ships
acting as refuges for the survivors; these can never be forgotten - nor should they
be, for this was so often the price of victory in a bloody campaign.
I was a "navy" journalist. I had written dispatches as, in the approved manner, we lay
on our backs, our heads in our hands, in a sealed, watertight compartment, five
decks below the waterline, listening to a commentary on the Exocet missile attacks
against us - what seemed to be a commentary on our own impending death. "We
have two Super Etendards approaching from the west, and closing... 50 miles... 40
miles... 30 miles." Then: "Two missiles have been launched against us. Brace...
Brace..."
The Exocet missile, travelling at just below the speed of sound and homing on
emissions from the target ship's radar, was the most dramatic and feared weapon
deployed against us. It appeared to approach quite slowly, then accelerate as it
approached its target. It looked like a car's single headlamp skimming the waves.
There may have been gung-ho enthusiasm for war on the steps of No 10 when the
taskforce sailed on April 5 1982. But for us - 28,000 men, average age 19, travelling
in varying degrees of discomfort aboard more than 200 civilian vessels, escorted by
almost 100 Royal Navy warships - it became a desolate, trying time.
When the British army landed at its beachhead in San Carlos Water, 65 miles away
from Stanley, its own assigned reporters accompanied it. I too managed to get a lift
ashore on a helicopter.
After 51 days at sea without a glimpse of land, I savoured the wonderful smell of
grass, the sight of ordinary people in ordinary clothes, the farmers, their wives and
their sheepdogs. But above all there was an almost deafening quiet on land after the
constant noise and motion of a warship, and I walked with a drunk-like swagger.
The army, understandably, now wanted its own reporters in action. I was ordered
back to sea by the hapless Ministry of Defence "media minders" who were damned
by both us and the military. My new home was the heavily laden ammunition ship
Resource, anchored in San Carlos Water. We almost immediately came under
Argentinian air attack.
Their technique was stunningly casual. Mirages and Skyhawks would fly low,
weaving among the ships' masts, and flicking the bombs from below their wings.
They scythed through the air, not above but alongside us, so close that we glimpsed
the pilot's face and even the rivets on the duck-egg-blue undercarriage. Bombs
miraculously dropped in the water between ships laden with ammunition and
explosives. One man said to me: "If they hit us, they'll take out every fucking ship in
the Atlantic. We've got about the explosive force of Hiroshima on board."
During another attack on RFA Resource, just after we had watched a 500lb bomb
bounce off our deck and into the water, I was told that it would be appreciated if I
did
not wear the Royal Navy-issue anti-flash hood and gloves, the much-photographed
protective clothing that was compulsory aboard a fighting ship. "It's bad for morale,"
I
was told. "We don't bother."
The Argentinians initially got the time-fuses wrong on all their British-made bombs. At
500 miles - about 50 minutes' flying time - from mainland south America, their planes
were at the limit of their fuel tank range, and so had only moments to release their
bombs before heading home again. In attack after attack, they continued to set the
bomb fuses wrongly, and we prayed our thanks for our deliverance. Then some TV
pundit in London told the world - and the Argentinians - about the fuses. The
following day their air force was back, and every bomb they dropped went off.
The only ship whose death I saw at close quarters was HMS Antelope, whose back
was broken when she was overwhelmed by wave after wave of Mirages. Mortally hit
in the morning, she didn't sink until the afternoon. There was a mighty explosion
when one of the bombs, which had failed to detonate on landing, finally went off as a
man tried to withdraw the fuse. The blast rocked every ship in the anchorage.
The other day I drove to San Carlos Water. I was astonished by the peace and pure
beauty around me. The surrounding hills, behind which the attacking aircraft would
hide from our radar until the very last moment, were clothed in deep shades of
green. All that was left of the war was a single red buoy bobbing on the water,
marking the depths in which the Antelope remains as an official war grave.
During my 1982 visit here I met a member of the Royal Marines' Special Boat
Squadron whom I knew from the long days at sea on Invincible. He was horrified to
hear that reporters who came down to the Falklands with the navy had not benefited
from the full military kit that had been given to other correspondents. "You'll never
survive dressed like that," he said. I was wearing jeans, an unlined nylon waterproof
jacket and a British Home Stores raincoat. My shoes were completely hidden in clods
of sticky brown mud, which made walking pretty heavy going. My canvas holdall,
which looked so rugged on an intercity express, was falling to pieces from the
continual soakings. It was, I guess, part of some unsubtle official strategy to keep us
navy press at sea.
My friend from this elite special force took me on the back of an all-terrain motorbike
to his unit base, a whitewashed cottage with a corrugated iron roof that the Green
Death (special forces) had made into a little home from home. As we approached the
dwelling - Whalebone Cottage, named after two huge mandibles that formed an
archway into the garden - the delicious smell of roast goose came floating through
the air, just like in the old Bisto advert, and I realised that I hadn't eaten anything
beyond an emergency Mars bar for some days.
I spent that night on the luxuriously dry slab floor, sandwiched for warmth and
survival between SAS and SBS members who talked, long into the darkness, about
the philosophy of war and its poetry, and the latest books. One commando, an
explosives expert who had caught the plump upland goose by deftly blowing its feet
off, keeping the body intact, seemed to be an authority on George Bernard Shaw,
and quoted him at length.
The Green Death, who specialised in covert activities, told me they had time on their
hands before "the next job" and would devise a plan by which they would each go out
and "prof" (acquire) an item of clothing for me. I did not ask, and wasn't told, from
where, but was intrigued to find that my new wardrobe solely comprised several
packs of Marks & Spencer ladies' tights, much favoured by arctic soldiery.
I was still underdressed for the southern winter, though, and made many trips to try
to cadge warm, dry clothing. One night I crossed San Carlos Water three times in a
Gemini rubber dinghy, which became airborne as we hit the wakes of other vessels
that were dashing around in the total blackness of the night.
I was looking for a place called Blue Beach Two, where the SBS had reported seeing
"a mountain of kit just asking to be proffed". We finally found a landing jetty, a
barnacled wooden structure. I climbed the rusty old ladder, but as I reached the top,
a voice asked from out of the darkness: "Password?" I replied, rather feebly: "I'm
very sorry, I don't know what the password is tonight. No one has told me." I heard
the sentry cock his rifle and froze on the ladder.
"Well, who are you?" he asked. I told him.
"Oh, the Manchester Guardian. My Dad reads that. Well, look, the password tonight
is 'open house'. I say 'open' and you reply 'house' - no, the other way around. And
then I say: 'Advance friend and be recognised.' OK?" I thanked him, and we
proceeded with the dialogue as directed.
I recognised Whalebone Cottage again immediately as I walked to the edge of the
settlement a few days ago. It is now owned by a retired couple, Hazel and Ben
Minnell, who knew very little of their home's part in my own adventures, but in true
Falklands camp style Hazel stopped her knitting - which she sells to tourists - and put
the kettle on "for a brew". Sitting in the Minnells' bright-yellow-painted kitchen, I
told
them of the last time I had been in that same room and how in the early hours I
began displaying the frightening symptom of convulsively shaking (not shivering) with
cold, when the peat fire which had cooked the goose had finally gone out.
I had gingerly picked my way across the sleeping bodies arranged across the living
room floor and walked into the "radio room", the back kitchen. I was just in time to
hear the SBS radio operator intercepting an Argentinian message which said the
enemy had fixed our position in their night sights, and were about to start an
artillery
bombardment centred on our cottage.
The sleeping marines were given a gentle shake. But their reaction to the threat of
imminent death was simply to start brewing a massive grenade container full of tea.
Thus refreshed, they all went back to sleep again. "Sleep, you know," said a Scottish
sergeant-philosopher, "is one of God's greatest gifts, and you must accept it
whenever you can." I don't think the Minnells were terribly impressed by my tale. "We
used to have really exciting times riding out in camp before that war," said silver-
haired Hazel.
The loss of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram at Bluff Cove
will remain one of the most puzzling tragedies of the Falklands war. The two vessels,
logistic landing ships, were ordered into the cove in the knowledge that there would
be neither Harrier cover nor naval escort, and that they would be spotted from the
Argentinian observation post on the heights overlooking the bay.
According to survivors, there had been a furious exchange of signals between the
landforce flagship Fearless and Hermes, which was the naval command ship.
Hermes had warned that it could not provide any form of sea or air protection.
Fearless then reported this to the commander in chief at Northwood, outside London.
But the order to sail "at your own salvation" was never rescinded.
On the first day Sir Tristram sailed into Bluff Cove, and managed to land about 150
paratroopers and engineers, as well as a huge amount of ammunition. Much to
everyone's dismay, Sir Galahad, carrying Welsh Guards, joined her the following day
in bright, sunny weather.
Sir Galahad was anchored there, in full view of an Argentinian observation post, for
six hours before she even started to discharge troops and the badly needed Rapier
anti-aircraft batteries. In the air attack that followed, more than 150 guardsmen were
burned. Fifty died. The Welsh Guards, to whom I was to be officially attached for the
duration of the land war, were effectively broken as a serious fighting force, without
firing a shot.
I visited Bluff Cove the other day and saw the names of so many other Gareths on
the Welsh Guards' memorials. I survived because I was alone and in charge of my
own destiny.
I left the Resource as fast as I could. But before long I was found ashore by the
Ministry of Defence minders again and was sent out to sea for a second time. This
time, my new ship was another RFA, Sir Geraint, which immediately sailed from San
Carlos out towards the two carriers, Invincible and Hermes, in the total exclusion
zone that the British had declared for 200 miles around the Falklands. I was sailing
away from the war I was meant to be reporting.
Sir Geraint's cargo was needed on land, but we were taking it all out to sea again.
But then it became clear. For five days, the Sir Geraint acted as an Exocet decoy.
After the sinking of the Atlantic Conveyor, when she seduced a missile away from the
Invincible, it had become very clear that the best way of protecting our vulnerable
carriers against Exocets was to place "sacrificial" ships all around them. And we
were now one of those. But we survived another three Exocet attacks that week.
It was weird waiting for an attack. The wardroom on Sir Geraint was a comfortable
place, like a Cotswold pub with its chintzy curtains, deep armchairs and dartboard.
There was a park bench on the deck, and here we would sit, under bright blue skies,
waiting for the Exocet. There was little else we could do. There was, thankfully, no
commentary this time. We just got a message which said "red alert". We would
spread-eagle face down on the wet deck.
After about a week on the Sir Geraint, I hitched a helicopter lift ashore yet again and
made my way towards Stanley, alone, unattached to any army unit and quite pleased
to be free. For the next week I lived rough, relying on handouts of food. To this day I
can never refuse a beggar's request for a donation. Each day I walked and walked; I
met the occasional army unit who told me what little they knew of the British advance
on Stanley, and one sheep-shearer who had heard that there had been "a bit of a
scrap at San Carlos". I followed the coastline because I had no other way of
navigating. I was a couple of days' walk from Stanley when I heard on my radio that
the war was over for them and for me.
This timing, I now know, probably saved my life. Had I made it to Stanley, I would
almost certainly have walked into one of the scores of Argentinian minefields around
the town and on the shoreline. There are, to this day, between 25,000 and 30,000
mines still hidden in 117 locations in the countryside.
Twenty years ago, I brought back with me from the Falklands one small, poignant,
tangible reminder of the human loss and of the grief that follows a war for a lifetime.
At Goose Green, I had found a plain silver wedding ring inscribed, in Spanish, "To
my darling". I sent the ring to a padre in Buenos Aires whose address I had been
given, but he returned it to me. Whether its owner returned home I will never know.
I have now left that ring on the white wooden cross of a grave on that cold hillside in
Darwin. It is where it belongs, and I do not.
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
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In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without charge or profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information
for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
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"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
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It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
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"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
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