Episode 21 – The war "between two bald men fighting over a comb" ends

The British had taken most of the hills overlooking Port Stanley by the morning of 14th June 1982 – and 2 Para had been ordered to halt on their position on Wireless Ridge. They were waiting for the SAS and the Royal Marines who were raiding from the north of Cortley Hill Ridge, a long narrow piece of land running from Moody Brook to the northern arm of Stanley harbour. That opeation was more of a hindrance than a help to 2 Para because the SAS run into trouble and had to be supported by the artillery that had been clearing the ground for the paras. Cortley Hill ridge was manned by the Argentinian B Battery of the 101st anti-aircraft regiment. They had eight Hispano-Suiza 30mm guns and a few 12.7mm machine guns which had been used against aircraft, but now Brigadier Jofre ordered them to swivel horizontally to provide ground defence. He’d also moved a few mortars into the position along with a Marine infantry platoon to back them up. The SAS raiding party was heading their way but were forced to paddle past the Argentinian hospital ship Almirante Irizar. A member of the ship’s crew was as commando-trained soldier and without thinking about the Geneva convention and rules of war, grabbed a radio and called the anti-aircraft battery on the hill – warning of the SAS raid. Subsequently the SAS raiding party was driven off with three wounded and boats damaged. Argentina still claims the Malvinas. The British at some point will have to reassess their ownership based on the kelpers self-determination. This series was scripted in 2022, and as I sit here, the United Nations is revisiting the whole idea of who owns the wind-swept islands. This is a complex matter because the UN General Assembly is muttering about colonialism which is what London is accused of perpetuating. The conscripts and professional soldiers on both sides remember this war like it was yesterday – some of the Argentinians want their ashes scattered on places like Mount Kent when they die. Hundreds of British servicemen still suffer the physical and mental scars. The people of the islands want to run their own show, like a woman who told one Argentinian that she was 40 but looked 60 because of how tough it was to live on these islands. “We feel that the country belongs to us, not to England, not to Argentina.. life is very hard.. nobody has ever cared about us…”Which you can say if you’ve followed this story – is true. They only began caring when geopolitical issues came to the fore and in the future, both sets of countries may find these people much harder to deal with than they were in 1982.     Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Om Podcasten

This podcast series will endeavour to cover the story from both the British and Argentinian points of view.It was an odd war, fought with the same weapons, NATO weapons. But bullets don’t recognize nationalities, neither do torpedoes and missiles and both sides were going to brutalise each other with western arms. That was only one of many unusual facts about this short sharp war that has left the veterans on both side wondering what it was all for. As we watch Russia invade Ukraine claiming ownership, this is surely a moment to reflect on the Falklands where 255 British military personnel died, along with 649 Argentinians and 3 Falkland Island civilians.  In comparison and after 5 days of fighting in the Ukraine, Russia has admitted to at least 500 deaths and thousands of casualties. As I put together this show the numbers in Europe were startling – a million refugees have fled the Ukraine and the war is going to lead to millions more.  GK Chesterton wrote once that “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”  For the Argentinian’s there was a lot of military historical water under the bridge and that bridge was built on the Malvinas. We must investigate these because they all add up to a crescendo that became a war. For the British it was the same motivation. The 200 islands in the Falkland Group lie 480 miles north east of Cape Horn straddling the line of 52 degrees latitude and comprising around 4 700 square miles of land. The theme music "Devastation and Revenge" is composed by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.For more details head off to www.abwardpocast.com and select Falklands War from the main menu. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.