Three other hills were then slated to be captured: Mount Tumbledown by the Scots Guards, Mount William by the Ghurkhas and Wireless Ridge by 2 Para.
Their mere presence had been a remarkable boost to morale during all the attacks that had taken place, and the speed and accuracy of their fire, matched by their ability to keep up with the advancing Paras, had been a severe shock to the enemy. Pass and dug PARA'S APPROACH TO 2nd Scots Battle for Tumbledown "Ambuscade" with 1x4.5in (and This page was last modified on 14 December 2015, at 10:43. Amazingly, there were no casualties from this minor blitzkrieg. GPMG's joined A and B Coys on
Four days after Goose Green, Chaundler joined 2 Para. But Phil Neame had his misgivings about what the SAS to the east of his line of advance was meant to be doing, and there was no knowledge of what the SAS was actually going to do. [12], Major Neame's officers and NCOs rallied the men to capture the final part of their objective and in the face of heavy fire, the Argentines having run out of ammunition, broke and retreated under the covering fire from the supporting machinegun fire, controlled by Lieutenant Horacio Alejandro Mones-Ruiz of Berazay's compañía. What if Eisenhower Had Driven On to Berlin? [2] Private Guillermo Vélez maintains that he personally shot and killed 50 sheep during his time on Wireless Ridge.[3]. Royals west and with fire support from A and B Coys. The Suomen Ilmavoimat (Finnish Air Force). Mountain Already they had had a minor scare on the A and B Company start-line when a Scorpion tank had careered towards Company Headquarters in the darkness. Sgt J C Meredith (DCM), D Coy He dived for cover – straight into an Argentine latrine! [19], The 2 Para had suffered three dead and eleven wounded. The British force consisted of 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment (2 Para), a troop of the Blues & Royals, with two FV101 Scorpion and two FV107 Scimitar light tanks, as well as artillery support from two batteries of 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery and naval gunfire support provided by HMS Ambuscade's 4.5-in gun. D Coy took the first half of the ridge without B Company would go to the right (the western end of the ridge), while D Company attacked the rocky ridge-line east of the track. As shells landed all around, men lay huddled against the peat, with bayonets fixed. contour 100. //-->, 48. Major-General John Dutton Frost of the British Army describes the resulting attack on 12 Platoon: For two very long hours the company remained under pressure. Strangely, no harassing fire was being brought to bear during the day on any of the Argentine positions, and their soldiers were free to stand about in the open. The fight surged back and forth. From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core. It had been hit by an intense barrage from British guns, from land and sea. C Coy, Maj P Neame, D Coy. Only afterwards did Major Crosland tell his men that they had actually moved directly through the minefield without knowing it.
Suddenly this was shattered as nine Skyhawks appeared further to the north, flying very low in formation and heading due west towards Mount Kent. Enemy mortar fire in retaliation became heavy. 2 In Phase 1, A Company would take the northern spur where the ponds were, C Company having secured the start-line. and frigate Once enemy positions were identified, they fired. google_ad_client = "pub-7466149702193824"; By Sophie Arie. Nevertheless, the battalion was able to adapt and change its plans and moved off on time. Longdon, while in phase two, A and B Coys would take 'Apple counter-attacked D Coy,
The Argentine Commanding Officer, Lt.Col. On the left, all was going well with A Company. This ridge line was some 3,000 yards in the rear of the original cavalry line and about twice that distance from the West Wall positions out of which the German attack had erupted. fire. The effect was electric, for no one expected that the Argentines could still flaunt their air power in this way. [4], When D Coy reached the hill, they found that the Argentine compañía C of the 7th Infantry Regiment had withdrawn due to the heavy bombardment. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. The British Army’s Second Battalion of the Parachute Regiment fought in all the major battles of the 1982 land war between Britain and Argentina for the Falkland Islands (Malvinas). night, 2 Para, now commanded by Lt Col Chaundler It was also clear that Wireless Ridge proper was heavily defended, with positions which stretched a long way to the east beyond the line of telegraph poles that marked the 2 Para boundary. All available support was allotted first to D Company, then to A and B in their assault, and finally to D Company again as it traversed the ridge. Battle for Wireless Ridge – from the Art of Daniel Bechennec. In Phase 1 D Company would capture the newly discovered enemy position west of the northern spur; A and B Companies would then assault the pond-covered hilltop; Phase 3 called for C Company to take the knoll to the east; and finally D Company would roll up the enemy on Wireless Ridge itself, with fire support from A and B Companies, starting in the west and finishing at the telegraph poles.
Goose Green), Battle for Wireless Ridge eventually broke, and all of Wireless Ridge was in D Coy's hands, although not before the Argentines retreating towards Stanley in the morning light and pressed ( Log Out / There had been no firing from the company objective during the battle, and soon the platoons were pushing round the side of a minefield on to the knoll. to exploit forward from Mount Longdon over Friday As the Recce Platoon advanced, they could hear noises of weapons being cocked. This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Battle of Wireless Ridge article. Scimitars and other supporting arms. With dawn, a small group of Argentines The ponds on the spur claimed a victim, however, when Private Philpott of 5 Platoon suddenly plunged into over 6 ft of water. with 2 Scorpions and 2 Scimitars, two bty's of 6x105mm artillery of 7 and 8 Btys, 29 Miraculously, no one was blown up on the way. but were soon driven off with the help of mortars and the or back to Occasionally the machine-gun fire was too close for comfort, even for D Company, and in the end 10 Platoon Commander called for it to stop.
Back at the gully all was peaceful in the bright sunshine. The CO went on ahead with the Battery Commander to meet Lieutenant-Colonel Hew Pike, CO of 3 Para, and Major William McCracken, RA, who controlled the artillery “anchor” OP on Mount Longdon. also
Click here to start a new topic. and Site Search, APPROACH TO and BATTLE Battle Earlier, before the battalion had moved up, he had been shown a captured Argentine map which indicated a minefield directly in the path of the assaulting companies. Naval History Homepage He was dragged out and his section commander, Corporal Curtis, immediately organized a complete change of clothing from the other men in the section, which probably saved Philpott’s life. The men crossed the stream in the valley north of their objective with the tanks firing over their heads. An ex-Para tells of the horrors of the Falklands, Anglo-Argentine Alan Craig tells of fight for Wireless Ridge, recollections of Anglo-Argentine conscript Michael Savage of the 7th Infantry Regiment's C Company, https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Wireless_Ridge&oldid=739083, Articles with Portuguese-language external links, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, About Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core. At about 0015 a storm of fire from the supporting artillery and mortars was unleashed upon the Argentine positions. It at once became obvious that much of the information so far given to them was inaccurate. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. With this massive fire support, A and B Coys were convinced the enemy on the 'Apple Pie' feature had been defeated, and began to advance confidently, but they met fierce resistance when they left their trenches. BRITISH
For the bravery shown at Wireless Ridge, 2 Para was awarded three Military Crosses, one Military Medal and one Distinguished Conduct Medal. The bombardment of the western end of the Wireless Ridge continued as the platoons advanced. H-hour was to be at about 0030. Lua error in Module:Coordinates at line 668: callParserFunction: function "#coordinates" was not found. We were up against well armed, well disciplined and highly motivated enemy soldiers in good positions. FORCES2 Para, Radios were still switched on, and several dead lay around the positions. He managed to get hold of our artillery by flicking his radio onto their net, as we were still without our FOO. in. The boost to morale that this form of suppressive fire gave was considerable; fundamentally, the battle was being won by supporting arms, the infantry being free to do their own job, which is actually clearing and securing the ground. In the rear of the company, Private Godfrey of 12 Platoon had a near miss as a piece of shrapnel cut through his windproof and dug into his boot. As the men of 2 Para dug in and The platoon of 2nd Lieutenant Rodriguez-Pérez in fact closed with the British 12 Platoon, under the command of Lieutenant Jonathan Page (following the death of Lieutenant Barry at Goose Green).
The initial idea had been for D Company simply to sweep eastwards along the ridge without stopping, with 11 Platoon on the left, 12 Platoon on the right and 10 Platoon in reserve. Art of Daniel Bechennec, on As they came screaming up over the col and rose to attacking height, the formation split: three went for the area where the artillery gun-line had recently been, three went for 3 Commando Brigade HQ, and three attacked “A” Echelon. They discussed and arranged for co-ordinated fire support, with 3 Para’s mortars, Milan teams and machine-guns all ready to fire from the flank, and Major Martin Osborne’s C Company, 3 Para, in reserve. Commanders: Lt Col D R Chaundler, Maj C D The battalion’s new plan was for a four-phase noisy night attack. The mortars would move forward from Mount Kent to a position in the lee of the hillside south of Drunken Rock Pass, and this would also be the site for a static Battalion Headquarters during the attack. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. They came under heavy machine-gun fire; massive retaliation was initiated by the British machine-gunners and the guns of the Blues and Royals light tanks. As the “O” Group ended the company commanders were told that they would now fly up to Mount Longdon to look at the ground over which they would operate. They had shiny shoes, pristine ironed uniforms and waxed moustaches. (MC) RA, NGFO, 29 Cdo Regt RA (citation D Company was now ready to go into the final phase of the attack and began moving forward again to the west end of Wireless Ridge. Unfortunately there was little left of the fence marked on the maps, and Corporal Barton’s section, at the point of the platoon, could only find a few strands of wire to follow.