“The Royal Marines had lived among the Falkland islanders for a year and were preparing to rotate back to Britain, but there was no way they were going to give up their adopted home without a fight.”

By Ricky D. Phillips

IT’S HAPPENED BEFORE: Governments either hiding, denying or downplaying military actions that might otherwise be embarrassing. But just how – and indeed, why – in 1982, did both Great Britain and Argentina cover up not just an entire battle, but one of the greatest ‘last stand’ actions in a century?

IT WAS APRIL 1, 1982 when the British garrison on the remote British outpost of the Falkland Islands received news that Argentine forces were just hours away from invading.

With them came 6,000 men, an aircraft carrier, destroyers, corvettes and the tank landing ship, Cabo San Antonio. In its hold were eight LCVP landing craft and 21 American-made LVTP-7 Amtrack amphibious personnel carriers, each packed with Argentine marines.

Against them stood just 69 British Royal Marines and men of the Royal Navy, armed only with rifles and a small clutch of anti-tank weapons. Between them and the enemy were 1,800 civilians in the island’s small capital, Stanley.

Despite the long odds, the British unit, known as Naval Party 8901 set to work to throw themselves in the way of an unstoppable juggernaut. None expected to survive the coming battle.

The Argentine Attack

The attack began at exactly 6 a.m. on April 2 with an assault upon the Royal Marines’ barracks at Moody Brook.

Machine guns, tracer fire and phosphorous and fragmentation grenades rent the darkness in a cacophony of flashes. For 10 minutes, 84 Argentine commandos infiltrated the rear of the Royal Marines’ defences laying down fire on the defenders’ accommodation block, followed by what was later called “a classic house-clearing operation.”

The attackers moved through every dormitory, firing bursts into every bunk. When the noise and smoke had died down, the Argentines surveyed the carnage only to find that the barracks were empty. The Royal Marines were already deployed for battle.

Realizing the enemy had just attempted to slaughter them in their beds, the fear the defenders of NP8901 were feeling was suddenly replaced with rage.

“This was the real deal,” recalled Royal Marine Jim Fairfield, standing guard at the British residence of Government House. “It was obvious they wanted us as dead as we now wanted them. The game, as they say, was afoot.”

“Turkey Shoot”

The Royal Marines had planned for a ‘collapsing defence’ with each section of six men strung out from the beaches to the outskirts of Stanley. With no hope of victory, their only option was for one section to inflict as many casualties on the invaders as possible before falling back behind another squad who would continue the fight before falling back themselves, and so on. If they could hold out long enough (and kill or wound as many attackers as possible), someone might start negotiating.

The Royal Marines had lived among the Falkland islanders for a year and were preparing to rotate back to Britain, but there was no way they were going to give up their adopted home without a fight.

Now, with the enemy attacking from behind, several of the sections were ordered back to Government House, resident of the territory’s beloved governor, Rex Hunt. The estate was mostly timber and glass built around an original stone structure. The property was protected by a low stone wall.

“It was a ridiculous place to try to defend,” Hunt recalled. “Not exactly the Alamo.”

At 6:15 a.m., Hunt broadcast over the local radio that enemy landing craft were coming through the ‘narrows’ – the thin neck of water between Stanley’s enclosed harbour and the sea. Terrified islanders raced to their windows to watch. One resident, Neville Bennett, a keen diarist whose house overlooked the narrows, watched a vessel packed with men suddenly explode and roll beneath the water.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” he scrawled in huge letters in his journal.

He later described it as “a Higgins boat, like they used on Iwo Jima.”

Back at Government House, a furious gun battle erupted, with Argentine commandos, led by a captain named Captain Pedro Giachino, firing rounds and grenades into the house, creating a shower of glass and wooden splinters.

The Royal Marines sat tight, not revealing their positions, but noting the muzzle flashes and forward movements of their opponents.

“The enemy were starting down the slope using very basic and uncoordinated fire and movements tactics,” remembered Fairfield. “The words ‘turkey shoot’ flashed through my mind.”

“Everyone held their fire,” he recalled. “We were the defenders, in cover but short on ammo. We could pick our moment. They could not.”

As the firing died down a solitary voice penetrated the darkness from the Argentine lines.

“Mister Hunt! We are Argentine marines,” a 27-year-old lieutenant named Diego Garcia Quiroga voice cried out in perfect English. “The island is taken. Your phone lines are cut. There is no escape. Come out with your hands up!”

A Royal Marine sergeant major named Bill Muir offered a reply.

“Fuck off, you spic bastards!”

Instantly, the Royal Marines let fly with everything they had.

As the gun battle intensified, Giachino led his squad forward, vaulting the wall with Quiroga behind him. In tow were Argentine marines named Urbina, Cardillo, Flores and Ledesma. The attackers made their way into the back garden and charged straight into Royal Marines Mick Sellen, Murray Paterson, Colin Jones and Andy Macdonald, who now opened fire.

Giachino, struck by several bullets, spun around almost falling into the arms of Quiroga, who was suddenly hit in the arm, the groin and full in the chest. Urbina, a medic, dashed forward, firing to cover himself and was also hit. The others ran into the Government House maid’s quarters where they made their way silently upstairs, leaving Giachino, Quiroga and Urbina bleeding in the back garden.

White City

As the gun battle raged around Government House, Section 2 of the Royal Marines had pulled back along the airport road to a small group of white prefab huts on the eastern outskirts of Stanley, known locally as White City. Here, they threw themselves into a ditch as 21 Argentine Amtracks came clanking up the road, each packed with a squad of troops.

The lead vehicle came on unsupported, well ahead of the others. The Royal Marines opened fire with 66-mm LAW rockets and an 84-mm Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, the heaviest weapon in their arsenal. Several shots landed close to the vehicle’s left forcing it to turn sharply right and off the road, where it became stuck on an embankment.

Royal Marines Mark Gibbs and Michael ‘Burt’ Reynolds fired their last 66-mm rockets and watched as both struck the stranded leviathan in the rear left quadrant and just behind the commander’s cupola.

“It rocked on its suspension and blew a huge great cloud of black smoke and then just died,” remembered Marine Mark Gibbs.

His comrades, George Brown and Danny Betts, aimed their Carl Gustav at the stricken Amtrack and fired. The larger round blasted a hole straight through the vehicle’s nose. By now, the Royal Marines were firing with their rifles and a heavy machine gun as the surviving occupants tried to escape. Nobody got out.

Three more Amtracks had arrived, spraying fire everywhere. The Argentine marines dismounted and pounded the British position with a heavy mortar and a recoilless rifle of their own.

The enemy vehicles fanned out to their right, across the front of the British line, leaving one vehicle, dangerously close to the Royal Marines who promptly hit it with “everything we had… literally everything,” according to Reynolds. “It was impossible to miss,” he added.

Despite having no more heavy rounds left, the Royal Marines managed to shoot out the gunner’s scope, effectively blinding the vehicle. They deployed smoke and, under a torrent of fire now coming from several more Amtracks, ran for cover, diving into the gardens of nearby houses and racing back into Stanley.

The Argentine advance was stalled, but not for long.

Fighting Like Lions

As locals watched from their windows, Royal Marine sections 1, 5a and 6 were now battling through the streets of Stanley, taking on opponents who seemed to spring up from every house and garden.

Outnumbered and under attack from all sides, the British troops fought back, vaulting fences, running, rolling and diving, firing everything they had. They took out two more assailants who were firing from behind a fence and at least half a dozen others in various houses and gardens.

“By now there was no firing from cover,” remembered Corporal Nick Williams. “We thought we were dead anyway and we were going to take a few of them with us, so we were blasting away from the hip, Audie Murphy-style, and I think that really shocked them.”

Residents couldn’t believe the heroism these young men who had lived in their community for the last year — always polite, joking and friendly — were now showing.

“I never knew our marines could fight so hard,” remembered one islander. “They were fighting like lions to protect us.”

Incredibly, the defenders had not yet suffered a single casualty, although by now, the enemy’s numbers were growing and the near misses were becoming alarming. With Argentine marines closing in on them from all sides, the British troops fought their way back down to the harbour, with section 1 making a daring dash through a hail of fire, back to Government House. Sections 5a and 6 converged on a boat in the harbour where they regrouped and waited for fresh orders or another opportunity to strike.

Last Stand

Back at Government House, the Royal Marines were still repelling waves of invaders and holding the stone wall like some latter-day Rorke’s Drift, as Andy MacDonald remembered.

“They seemed to be using SWAT-style techniques, running in four abreast, and I must have fired 30 rounds at targets anywhere from 10 to 30 metres away,” he recalled. “They just kept advancing and going down like bags of shite. I dropped one guy who kept running, stumbled and ended up head-first in a raspberry bush, with his legs sticking up in the air, and I know I took down two or three more at least.”

Fairfield continued the fight on the other side of the house.

“We took targets of opportunity,” he said. “There were a lot of targets… and I’m a good shot.”

The Argentines now pulled back to a nearby ridge and behind the cover of some rocks, but were silhouetted against the rising sun offering perfect targets for the Royal Marines’ top sniper, Geordie Gill.

The sharpshooter took careful aim and brought down a section commander, followed by a rifleman who unwisely suck his head out to see what had happened. Gill’s flank man, Terry Pares, put 10 rounds into a radio operator and watched him tumble over too. The Argentines brought up a heavy machine gun to deal with the sniper threat, and now both sides stopped to watch the David and Goliath struggle between a .50 calibre and a single-shot, bolt-action sniper rifle.

Gill fired, ducked, rolled, came up and fired again.

“And then I came up and just saw a head in my crosshairs,” he remembered. “And I fired. The guy jerked up, rolled, and I saw the bi-pod legs of the weapon on their side, with the gunner’s leg thrashing and kicking. I watched him through my scope and finally, he went still. I put another round into his leg for good measure, just to see if he was still alive, but this time he didn’t even twitch.”

Argentine Amtracks, with hundreds of troops in tow, had almost surrounded the house.

An ultimatum was delivered over the radio: If the defenders refused to cease fire, the invaders would turn their guns on the town and its civilian population.

Rex Hunt chose to talk to avoid further bloodshed, but not before his men had captured Cardillo, Flores and Ledesma — the three Argentine commandos who’s scurried upstairs in Government House at the outset of the battle. The trio became the first prisoners of the conflict.

Shamed and Dishonoured

It was a defeat, of that there was no question, but, as OC Major Mike Norman later said: “We came second, but at least we won the body count.”

The brave Royal Marines walked out with their weapons and then destroyed them, bending barrels and firing pins before throwing them to the ground. From around the town, the harbour and the countryside they came in, not like defeated men, but marching proudly as if on parade. They sang ‘Rule Britannia,’ ‘God save the Queen’ and Monty Python’s ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ as they strode, much to the confusion of their captors.

As each section after another came in, the defenders realized that, as if by some miracle, not one of them had been so much as scratched. The Royal Marines were searched and then forced to lay face down in the road in humiliation for photographers.

Ultimately, they were deported to Montevideo, Uruguay, where the British government kept them under press blackout in a hotel for three days until they were finally brought home.

The bar bill accumulated during their brief stay reportedly exceeded £100,000. It was paid in full by the British government, according to the story. When they returned home, all thought they would be greeted as heroes. Instead, British newspapers ran the photos of the group in Argentine captivity with headlines like:“SHAMEFUL SURRENDER,” “HUMILIATING DEFEAT” and perhaps worst of all “ROYAL MARINES SURRENDER WITH BARELY A SHOT FIRED.”

The British government ordered the defenders not to reveal the true story of that day’s battle, presumably so London’s United Nations ambassador could proclaim Britain as the victim.

The Argentines were happy to bury the story, too. That their crack troops had been bested by a handful of Royal Marines was a humiliation they simply could not afford to face. Just one hour into the three-and-a half-hour-fight, Argentine General Leopoldo Galtieri announced a victory with no bloodshed. He was later forced to admit the death of Captain Giachino, who had died of blood loss, and the wounding of two or three others, but could hardly reveal the true number of casualties.

In fact, British intelligence in Buenos Aires intercepted Argentine transmissions that reported “dozens of dead,” which is backed up by records from Stanley’s hospital, where the wounded were taken. Yet for three-and-a-half decades, the official story remained and the lions of Stanley were ignored. Worse, many called them cowards.

The First Casualty

When initially researching the story of the heroes of NP8901 for the book The First Casualty, it was the first time in more than 30 years that many had spoken about the incident in over 30 years. Even more surprising was the revelation that a number of the Argentine veterans of the battle also wanted their stories told.

While the Royal Marines hoped to set the record straight, the Argentine veterans also felt that their part in the battle had been deliberately downplayed.

Finally, the Falkland Islanders themselves sought to share their experiences.

Slowly, The First Casualty came together, with more than 300 participants from three countries contributing.

In the U.K., the story went viral, being featured in major newspapers with even the Queen requesting a signed copy.

It has since gone on to be a five-time best-seller, acclaimed by the Royal Marine Corps and veterans alike, as well as by the British people.

Amazingly, when an attempt was made to have the Lions of Stanley recognized by the British government, they received a cutting rebuke: “We won the match, what does it matter now who scored the goals?”

To this day, the mainstream Internet, including Wikipedia, refuse to accept the testimony of the heroes of NP8901. Fortunately, the people of the U.K. now know what these men did.

A film of the incident was made on the war’s 10^th anniversary. It remains unpopular with the Royal Marines who were there. They believed it cemented a lot of the myths surrounding the story. Many of them hope The First Casualty is worthy of its own feature film which, like the 1961 Siege of Jadotville might finally awaken the world to a battle and a group of incredible men who were wholly swept under the carpet due to political convenience.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ricky D. Phillips is the author of First Casualty: The Untold Story of the Falklands War. Born in London in 1978, he now resides in Edinburgh, Scotland and is a popular name on the lecture circuit as well as being a battlefield guide on the Scottish battlefields. Visit his website HERE.