Eye of the Storm (22 page)

Unsurprisingly, any plans for further landings on the Fortuna Glacier were immediately abandoned. New schemes had to be hatched, and it was now decided to send in the whole of D Squadron, although Boat Troop and the SBS would make the initial recces. Next morning, under cover of the pre-dawn darkness, Boat Troop lowered five Gemini inflatables over the side of HMS
Antrim
into the waters of Stromness Bay. There was little wind and the sea was fairly calm. Each inflatable carried a three-man team, whose orders were to land on Grass Island in Stromness Bay, from where they were covertly to watch Leith and other areas around the bay and report enemy strengths and movements back by radio.

The specially silenced outboard motors had been warmed up in a tank on board
Antrim
only half an hour before the boats were launched. Nevertheless, once in the water, two of the engines wouldn’t start. At the time it didn’t seem any great setback, since the other boats could easily tow the unpowered craft to Grass Island – or so we thought. Once
Antrim
had departed, however, there was a swift and astonishing change in the weather. The wind that had, until then, been little more than a breeze rose to gale force in seconds. White-capped waves smashed over the Geminis and the troop was scattered in the Antarctic darkness all over Stromness Bay.

The two towed Geminis broke loose and were swept away. The crew of one paddled with their mess tins, but even so were in danger of being swept far out to sea when, next morning, Ian Stanley picked up the signal from their emergency beacon and winched them aboard his Wessex. The three troopers on the other drifting Gemini managed to paddle ashore on a headland, where they dug themselves in and remained concealed for several days to avoid being spotted by the enemy and compromising the operation. The others made it to Grass Island, where they set up camouflaged OPs from which to watch the settlements.

Launched at the same time, the Royal Marines SBS teams had also been hit by the severe weather. One section got ashore, but had then to be picked up by helicopter and reinserted at a different location. Another, using Geminis to infiltrate Cumberland Bay, at the head of which lies Grytviken, reported back that jagged ice had cut holes in their inflatables and that they were beginning to sink. They too were eventually picked up and taken to their observation points by helicopter, once more flown by the indefatigable Lieutenant-Commander Stanley.

By now, however, the odds against a successful amphibious invasion of South Georgia had lengthened considerably. On the evening of 24 April, Captain Young received intelligence from CINCFLEET HQ at Northwood, back in Britain, that an enemy submarine was approaching the area where the South Georgia Task Force was operating. Young immediately ordered
Tidespring
and
Endurance
to withdraw out of the danger area; with them went many of the Royal Marines whom Sheridan needed for his assault.

Then the British luck turned again. On the morning of the 25th, while he was on his way back from dropping off the SBS section, Ian Stanley spotted the Argentinian submarine
Santa Fe
on the surface off Cumberland Bay. He immediately attacked and succeeded in damaging her. Landing on the deck of HMS
Endurance
, he refuelled and returned to the fray. Three times he attacked the submarine, now supported by other helicopters from
Endurance, Plymouth
and the frigate
HMS Brilliant
, which had joined the task force the night before. This aerial assault by depth charges, missiles and guns proved devastating. Her hull plates buckled, critically damaged and unable to submerge,
Santa Fe
limped into Grytviken, where the Argentinians must have wondered where this powerful British force had come from.

With the submarine danger over, the ships carrying the bulk of the assault party could safely return to South Georgia. But the element of surprise had now gone out of the window, and it would be some time before
Tidespring
could come up with the warships – time in which the Argentinians would be able to strengthen their defences and make their dispositions against a British attack. In the light of this, there was nothing for it but to attack at once, while the enemy was still surprised at the British presence and demoralized by the attacks on the
Santa Fe
– before most of the Royal Marines could arrive to take a hand.

Thus, because the main assault force from 42 Commando’s M Company was still miles out at sea aboard
Tidespring
, it fell to D Squadron, 22 SAS, to assault Grytviken in company with a composite force of SBS and those marines who had been aboard the warships, rather than the tanker. They would be supported by naval gunfire from the two destroyers. At 1445 that afternoon, therefore, the assault force of around seventy-five men under the overall command of Major Sheridan was ferried ashore by helicopters, landing about half a mile south of Grytviken. They immediately began to advance on the settlement.

At Sandhurst, officers are taught that, ideally, for an assault against defended positions to succeed, the attacking force should always outnumber the defenders by at least three to one. Not in my book, however, for success often depends on who’s doing the attacking, as well as factors like surprise and the enemy’s morale – as was proved in the retaking of South Georgia.

As the first of the assault force began to land near Grytviken,
Antrim
and
Plymouth
commenced the naval bombardment, directed by a fire controller in a Wasp helicopter. The noise was ear-splitting as they carefully directed their shells to land near the defenders without hitting them. Gradually they shifted their aim to drop their shells closer to the settlement, giving the Argentinians a fair idea of what they were up against. A naval gunner told me later that this was the first time that Royal Navy ships had fired in anger since the Korean War.

Meanwhile the warships’ Lynx and Wessex helicopters were ferrying the assault party ashore, landing each group of men behind a ridge that screened them from the enemy’s view. They took the men from HMS
Antrim
first, and we aboard
Plymouth
were to go in last. If there was going to be a big battle we wanted a lump of the action, but even while we were waiting to be picked up from
Plymouth
and ferried ashore the Argentinian garrison surrendered.

When Major Sheridan and his composite force reached Grytviken, the Argentinians were lined up in three ranks. Their national flag was flying over them and they were singing their national anthem, but white bedsheets of surrender hung from the windows of the houses. They gave in without putting up a fight and before the SAS and Royal Marines had even come within small-arms range, and without a single one of their side having been injured. Even as Sheridan was accepting the enemy’s surrender, D Squadron’s SSM, Lawrence Gallagher, ripped down the blue-and-white flag of Argentina and quickly ran up the Union flag in its place.

At the time, I was leaning on the rail of HMS
Plymouth
with our troop commander, Captain Paul. As we looked out towards Grytviken, wishing that we’d had a part in the action, he suddenly suggested that we get a Wasp helicopter to take us ashore, so that we could at least claim to have been in South Georgia. The choppers were flying to and fro between the island and the warships continually, and we had no difficulty in cadging a lift on a Wasp, which set us down at Stromness Bay. About half a mile along the coast we met members of Boat Troop who had gone in aboard their Gemini inflatables. The troop sergeant told us that the Captain Alfredo Astiz, the commander of the Argentinian garrison still at Leith, which we had not yet approached, had refused to surrender.

Back home in Buenos Aires, Captain Astiz was known as the ‘Butcher of Argentina’ for his part in atrocities against supposed dissidents during the military dictatorship; he was also wanted for questioning by several European countries over the disappearance of numbers of their citizens in Argentina some years earlier. In the light of his defiance and that of his troops still at large, Astiz was issued with an ultimatum by Captain Young: if he and the garrison at Leith had not surrendered by nine o’clock the next morning, then we would be ordered in to enforce their surrender, using maximum force, if necessary.

By South Georgia standards, the night was quite mild, so the troop commander and I put up a two-man tent on a little beach. Suddenly we heard what sounded like people singing, albeit out of tune. We could scarcely believe our eyes for, coming towards us over the hill was a gaggle of men all singing and carrying blazing torches of rags soaked in pitch tied to lengths of wood. They were making a tremendous row, and we watched them suspiciously as they approached, weapons at the ready. When they got a bit closer we realized that these were the Argentinian scrap-metal men who had been put ashore to salvage the old whaling ironmongery, thus helping to precipitate the whole crisis.

With the imminent threat of bombardment by naval gunfire and an all-out infantry assault, Captain Astiz had ordered the civilians to get themselves out of harm’s way, telling them to carry torches and make a lot of noise so that the British would know they were not combatants sneaking up on them.

Moving forward, I counted thirty-nine men in all. They were a scruffy-looking bunch, and clearly both confused and frightened. Since there was nowhere for them to shelter on ‘our’ beach, I told them to walk round the bay to Stromness and wait there in the cookhouse of the abandoned whaling station, adding that they would be picked up next morning and taken to a British ship. My final words to them were, ‘Don’t worry. There is no one there and you’ll be quite safe.’ They were very relieved, and shouted ‘Muchas gracias’ as they walked off into the darkness.

We waited in our tent on the beach. About an hour after the scrap-metal merchants left us, there came the sound of gunfire and tracer bullets lit up the sky over Stromness. There were rounds flying all over the place. What the hell was going on?

Shortly afterwards, HMS
Plymouth
entered the bay and lowered a boat, which brought in the rest of our troop. As we greeted them, Bob, the troop sergeant, asked me, ‘Where’s Terry?’

‘Terry who?’ I replied, adding that I didn’t know who he was talking about. He told me the man’s surname and said that he’d come ashore with a patrol hours ago in a helicopter from
Plymouth
. I hadn’t seen this Terry, who was a corporal, but I suddenly realized what all the firing had been about. Terry and his patrol had shot up the scrap-metal workers – the civilians whom I’d promised would be safe. The poor workmen, already frightened and bewildered enough, must have wondered what kind of soldiers we were to fire on innocent non-combatants.

Being nominally a Spanish speaker, next morning I went forward with the Boat Troop commander to meet Captain Astiz. He had considered the British ultimatum and obviously had not fancied being hammered by a naval bombardment and attacked by British soldiers and marines. As a result he and the remaining Argentinians at Leith agreed to the surrender terms.

Dressed in full naval uniform, Astiz came across as an arrogant piece of work. Haughty and dismissive, he looked at us from beneath the peak of his cap as though we were pieces of dirt. He refused to acknowledge the troop commander, an SAS captain, simply saying that he had come to surrender himself and his men. There were ten minutes left before the ultimatum ran out and our naval bombardment would start up again.

I had prepared a little speech for him in Spanish, which I had put together from my phrase book. I had been going to say ‘Para usted, mi amigo, la guerra se un sobre.’ As it turned out, however, Astiz spoke perfect English, so I didn’t get the chance to air my skill as a linguist. Still behaving as though it were he accepting our capitulation, he was taken aboard
Antrim
to sign the official surrender document. He was later repatriated to Argentina, without being questioned about his activities either by the British or by any of the countries whose nationals had disappeared after allegedly having fallen into his hands. As for me, it was just as well that I didn’t have to try out my linguistic abilities, for it turned out that the sentence I had prepared in my limited Spanish meant, ‘For you, my friend, the war is in an envelope.’ I was unmercifully ragged by my friends in Mobility Troop when I foolishly told them of my mistranslation.

Back on board HMS
Plymouth
, I pieced together what had happened to the scrap-metal workers. After I had sent them on their way to the safety, as I believed, of the old whaling station, Corporal Terry, an ex-Royal Marine with a tendency to think he was God’s gift to soldiering, saw them walking towards him, carrying their burning torches and still singing away. I have no idea why, but when they were about a hundred yards away in the darkness Terry shouted, ‘Halt! Billy Ratcliffe?’ He repeated my name a couple more times, to the bemusement of the scrap-metal men, who didn’t know what he was talking about. They had never heard of me, and I had not given them my name when I had told them to make for the abandoned whaling station. Failing to get what he took to be a satisfactory answer, Terry and the rest of his patrol opened fire; nor did they aim over the heads of the workmen, but directly at them. Mercifully, not a single one of the Argentinians was wounded, despite having been fired on by an SAS corporal and the rest of this patrol.

Afterwards, on
Plymouth
, the three troop ‘headsheds’ – headshed is an SAS term for people in charge – held a debriefing with Terry about the incident. I asked Terry what he had been doing challenging civilians with my name, to which he replied that he thought the people were being led by me. ‘And if they were not, then what were they supposed to say?’ I continued. Not unnaturally, he had no answer to that, so I asked him how many times he’d been in action.

‘You challenged in my name, you opened fire, and you missed every one of those Argies. Thank God you can’t shoot straight,’ I said, as quietly as I could, although I was seething with anger. ‘You go around boasting about how good you are,’ I went on, ‘and there you were shooting at innocent civilians. What you did could have resulted in a major incident. Anyone would think we’re a gang of psychopaths.’