Dan Snow's History Hit - Goose Green: A Veteran Remembers

Episode Date: January 10, 2021

John Geddes joined the Parachute Regiment as a teenager in the late 1970s. Within a couple of years he was plunged into the Falklands War and the bloodiest battle the British Army had fought since the Korean War. In this podcast John talks to Dan about his experience in the army, his memories of the Battle of Goose Green and subsequent Falklands actions. His recollections are remarkable and sometimes harrowing. 

Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. I've got a veteran on the podcast today, not a veteran of the Second World War, the Korean War, but a veteran of the Falklands War. John Geddes is a remarkable man. He joined the Paras,

Parachute Regiment's teenager, one of Britain's most elite army formations. And he then served through the Falklands War fighting at the Battle of Goose Green, which was at the time one of the largest battles, if you like, fought by the British Army since the mid-century, since the Korean and the Second World War. An entire battalion was involved, as well as support from other arms. This is a remarkable conversation that we had last summer. We were lucky enough to meet in the flesh. I'm very grateful to John for coming on and talking about

what at times was clearly quite traumatic events from his past. This was filmed. This will be going into a documentary about the Falklands War. We've got a big anniversary coming up. We're talking to other veterans. You'll have heard some of them on this podcast. There's going to be a big push on History Hits TV talking about that remarkable conflict. Please check out history.tv. It's like Netflix for history. We've got about, I don't know, hours left of our January sale. So please go and use the code January. That gets you a month for free and then your second, third and fourth month, 80% off. So crazy cheap. If you're ever thinking about it, now is the time my friends, because that window is closing. The window is

closing. If you want to come watch a live recording of this podcast, you can do so in October. If you go to historyhit.com slash tour and get some tickets, get some other people some tickets, we're going to be able to meet in groups bigger than six. We're going to be able to hug. We're going to be able to share a pint glass. You want to do that? Probably don't. And we're going to have a good time.

So head over there and do that. But in the meantime, everybody, here is John Geddes. Enjoy. How do you always wanted to join the Paras? What made me join the Paras was I was an aspiring actor when I was a kid. Around about 17, 18, I went to the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama and I spent a year there. And I didn't get on very well.

I didn't like it very much. I met a film star called Dirk Bogard who told me all about Pimsoll bridge and how he was a lieutenant on there and uh he said you do you do well in the army young man a year later i joined two para how old were you 19 so a little bit older than some of the other guys or yeah slightly older yeah usually about 18 18. Some were quite a lot older, maybe mid, late 20s, some of them. And the Paris in those days had quite the reputation. Was it deserved? Was it earned? Was it the school of hard knocks? Very much so. I think it was hard, but it was fair. It was a fair regime. I never had any problem with it.

I loved my training, loved the environment, and everything it gave me. What were you training for? What were you, back in the early 80s, what did you think the Paras might end up doing if ever war was to break out? Well, fighting. Primarily what Paratroopers joined the Army for,

was to fight. It's a vocation, yes, but to most people, especially the corps, it's a vocation. yes, but to most people, especially the corps, it's a vocation, but paratroopers join the fight, and the main part, infantry. They want to get their hands dirty. And did you guys think about, do you think you're an elite? When you look at other units, you thought we're a bit tough on that? Yeah, we were quite brainwashed into believing that we were an elite, not without good cause. You know, the paras are on average a lot fitter than the rest of the infantry,

therefore the rest of the army, and a lot more motivated and tactically superior, as battles throughout history have proved. A lot of people who haven't served think that you guys must be terrified if you hear that war's broken out, but how did you actually feel

when you heard that day that the Falklands had been invaded? Well, pretty odd, really. Most people had never heard of the Falklands. I thought, hmm, where are the Falklands? North of Scotland somewhere? Seriously? And it wasn't until we got back, got briefed up, and it was pointed out on the map. So we knew where it was and how far it was and thought, you know, why are we going there?

And then the brief continued. We'd heard the news, put two and two together and slowly but surely start the process of getting ready for potential war. And your training prepared you for that kind of war? You must have thought we'll be fighting the Soviets in somewhere in Germany or possibly in Scandinavia or something. Suddenly you're like, whoa, fighting someone completely different it's a completely

different place yeah I mean the army trained from what I can remember on the basis of big formations and battle groups power edge we're pretty flexible we're part of five airborne brigade and we prided ourselves in being able to move quickly at any hot spot in the battle zone and drop in fill the gap and that was the sort of indoctrination at the time that we would pick up drop fill a hole win move up give it back to the army move on again somewhere else on the world stage at that time. In the days after the invasion did you guys were you quite hoping to see action? Oh absolutely yeah absolutely the guys joined the fight they wanted to fight and they were looking forward they

didn't really believe it and so the Sheffield got hit to be honest and we thought yeah this is serious and then there was a more of a somber mood battle preparations because it was still a long way from the sort of islands and slowly started to prepare during the day it wasn't a dry ship so we had a few drinks and a few sober get-togethers within our teams and preparing for the inevitable so So the timings are quite quick, weren't they? So you were told about the invasion. How quickly were you on board the ships? I mean, within days?

I think it was, yeah, it was within days as far as I can remember. Do you remember? What's about saying goodbye to families and all that stuff? Well, I was married to my first wife at the time. We were co-located in the same garrison town of Aldershot and prepared to leave.

And everybody came to see us off, kissed everybody goodbye. Do you think anyone believed some of us might not be coming back at that stage? We talked about it a lot. It sounds sort of bizarre now, but we talked about different scenarios. We'd been introduced to their fighting capability on the ship. We'd been introduced to their esprit de corps. A lot of them were conscripts, as we know, and we just kind of figured it out in our heads.

Yes, this time we will be outnumbered, but we're superior soldiers. I said to the guys, the NCOs particularly, I said, I think we're going to lose maybe 30 guys, but we're going to win, without a doubt. There's no doubt about winning. And individually, did you all think, yeah, we might lose 30 guys, but it won't be me, it'll be someone else?

Yeah. Yeah, it's never going to be you, yeah. So the journey down, a long time on a ship. It was a long time. How did you keep the fitness up? We worked hard. I mean, I was part of a patrol company, and the patrol companies aspired to be a lot fitter than the rest of the battalion.

They worked in small teams. There were reconnaissance on the island, the eyes and ears of the battalion. So we had to be pretty fit to sort of move around at great speed and we did the the normal battalion training but we were in the bilge that's where we slept in the bilge and during the lockdown exercises where if the ship was struck we had a few flights to run upstairs and nine times times out of ten, we'd run out of steam. And the deck would be locked down. Anybody underneath, tough.

The great need was with the most amount of men. And if you were caught downstairs when the ship hit, you didn't go quick enough, then tough. I thought they'd close the watertight doors. Yeah, that happened several times. So this is where we trained. We trained up and down the stairs with our weapon on, with our rifles up and down the stairs

and tried to keep as fit as possible to get off the boat in the event of a strike more than to fight. Self-preservation. And how do you while away the time I mean how long I mean it was weeks

at sea was it yeah it was something like three weeks yeah you know to get down there it was a long time and were you getting news you were hearing things

like Sheffield had been sunk yeah we got regular news they didn't cloud anything you know there was no no stories

usually come over the BBC World Service, which we tuned into all the time. We got messages from the captain, from the boat. He was the first to hear. The commanders on the ship, they were the first to hear. They got disseminated pretty quick. So there were a couple of battalions on the ship. It must have been absolutely packed with soldiers.

It was two para. That was it. Okay. Yeah. So you didn't have any Royal Marines to fight with or anything like that? No, we did on the way back. I heard about that. It was three para.

Was it three para? Yeah, on the way back. And we did fight. We had a horrendous fight on the boat. Oh, you and three para? And three para, yeah. God. Two para and three para had a horrendous fight on the way back.

Bar-clearing brawl. Yeah, it was basically a bar-clearing brawl. power yeah two power and three power had a horrendous fight on the way back but but um bar clearing brawl yeah it was basically a bar clearing ball you know obviously on um on the battalion smoker or the regiment smoker really with two battalions on a boat and stories started flying who were the best you know who was woundedising bad infantry drills with the battalions, who lost more. And it just deteriorated from there. The empty cans started going over two-way, then the full cans, and then everything erupted into a fight. The RSM closed all the doors so nobody went over the side and proceeded with his staff to try and calm the place down they got beaten out of the mess and they waited until until things have calmed down then

roamed the decks with brother lodge sticks uh the rs70 staff beating anybody that was in the corridor back into their uh bunks you know but not a word said the next day is you know that's the the airborne way uh when was the first time going back to the start of the campaign when was the first time you had a sense we are now in a in a combat zone it was still like a big exercise it was just a feeling of a big exercise i mean the the only experience, combat experience, most of it had was places like Northern Ireland. And we just had a heavy tour in South Armagh where we lost 20, 25 guys. You know, there was a lot of attrition on both sides

with the Provo's and Tupara. You know, the big ambush at Warren Point, that was pretty devastating for the battalion and not long after we're getting together for another battle. So yeah it's worth saying you'd been in combat before you'd been in Northern Ireland, you'd fired your rifle. Yes, yes, yeah that's what I mean we've had limited combat experience That's what I mean. We'd had limited combat experience, mostly on counter-terrorist work in the field and a lot on the streets. And as we landed, it was still sort of feels like we're on an exercise because we were supposed to get a signal as we landed at night by the SBS who were trekking inland to give us a red light or a green light.

The green light meaning the landing wasn't going to be opposed. The red light meaning it was going to be opposed by the Argentinians. In other words, they would do the reconnaissance on Argentinian positions on the beach landing at Blue Beach 2. But it didn't happen. They didn't get there in time. So we went out there cold the seal said let's go for it that's it so you were in proper landing craft perhaps ready to fight your way ashore with marines yeah dry just d-day style yeah d-day style as soon as the the front gate went down everybody's off the boat as fast as they could many people ended up in water up to here and this

is you know the Falklands it's the winter it's zero temperature straight away and people are getting sort of cold injuries straight away I grabbed a guy one of my calls signed by the the the weapon dragged him aboard with his LMG, you know, you can't go any further until you sort people out. If you had to fight your way off the beach, then that's a different story. But when you have to move on, people have to change their socks, get ready to happen very quickly. We'd all be well-practiced in our admin, and we set off. It was only daybreak when the Argentinian Air Force

started coming in with their airstrikes. It had become apparent, yep, this is definitely a war zone. I think it's a psychological thing of trying to kid yourself that, yeah, maybe not, maybe not. Oh, yeah, definitely it is. So that first night ashore, you're just, you're bivvying. And I guess your job is to protect that beachhead now so that everything else can start landing. Well, we were there as a staging point to carry on. That wasn't our primary duty to defend the beach ahead.

It was a case of digging in, establishing a hard routine and making ourselves safe, getting ourselves as safe as possible. Dig down about six inches and you hit water. So we spent much of the time digging up sods of earth and peat and building up our defences. Some people had rocky outcrops where they could take cover in the event of any attacks, which were frequent. And how do you stay dry like that? Tell us, as were frequent. And how do you stay dry like that tell us as a stupid civilian how do you stay dry? Don't stay dry. You don't? There is no staying dry you stay comfortable we had as many socks as we could carry I mean but to be honest

ammunition took priority over administrative gear that we'd been prepped for a European war, you know, the boot polish, the brushes, the roll mats, the everything else, it just didn't exist. It's ammunition, ammunition, ammunition. And socks. And socks, ammunition, socks, and rations, that was it, and water. And so the attacks coming in there, air attacks, did these little sangas you were building provide any protection? Not really, but they weren't gunning for us. They were gunning for the ships. So we were a sideshow to what was going on when the aircraft started coming in. And you must have seen, because there was a lot of British ships lost.

Yeah, I mean, by the time we were on Sussex Mountains everybody else was landing by then and digging in further down the valley and the aircraft were coming in on an hourly basis very brave pilots to be honest they were at an advantage in that there was no big time defences air defences set up. There was just no time or resources at the time. So all they had to put up with was small arms fire, which, you know, when two battalions are lying on their backs and... And you're all having a pop at this.

Yeah. Skyhawks coming through. They've got to fly through a wall of lead. Doesn't matter how fast you're going, you're going to hit that wall of lead at some point. And some aircraft were shot down and do you remember seeing antelope and those kind of ships get hit was that did you see yeah yeah devastating yeah that must have felt like real war if you're watching yeah we could it was it was just a panoramic view of the of the valley um san carlos bay being hit the ships getting hit by the argentinian air force

you know um they were getting hit by all kinds of aircraft superintendors skyhawk did you feel you were contributing you felt like you could fire your rifle up in the air and it might well we took took down several skyhawk so uh i think you know that was attributed to small arms fire So I think, you know, there was attributed a small arms fire. They're coming in low. Yeah, maybe 500 feet to get across our position and then head down into the valley to release their bombs. They had to get up a certain height. And then how quickly before you guys were told to crack on

and effectively start taking the fight to the enemy on the land? It was within days. The patrol platoon, or patrol company, is two platoons acting independently on separate fronts. My platoon were tasked with leading the way. Were you going south at that point? Yeah. And I committed to reconnaissance.

And what rank were you at this time? Corporal. Right. We were split down into patrols, so we had a patrol each. So you were in a leadership position? Yeah, pretty much, yeah. And it was a case of finding out information. How many men were on your patrol?

Four. You know, there's different form of patrols, different aspects of the battle area, doing a joint reconnaissance activity, and then reporting back to the platoon leader and Captain Farrar. And we just decide amongst ourselves what was relevant, what wasn't relevant, pass it on to the CO. And so you're moving south from St Carlos Water to Goose Green at this stage, are you?

Yeah. And your patrol, you're out in front, your tip of the spear, you're the most landward British serviceman in the Ex-Personry Force at this point. Apart from Special Forces, yeah. We went out there in light order. In other words, just webbing. And we called them Chinese fighting suits. They were roll-up.

We didn't take any bedding, no sleeping bags, no roll mats. Zip-up trousers, zip-up jacket, sort of a duvet type trousers very thin jacket but it was insulation and we used to zip that up at night and go to sleep damp you know and then roll it up in the morning squeeze it out and put it away we had windproof trousers and smocks so that blew dry pretty quick. The only thing that suffered was feet a lot of the time with a lot of people. So we went out in light order

with the intention of coming back. We came back once. We went out God knows how far and we were called back to the battalion lines to have another briefing from the CO with another task for the patrol battalion. So we went out in light order again. This time we got ordered, while we were on the ground,

head for Goose Green and carry a reconnaissance of the forward battle area there. How do you make contact with the enemy at that point? Aircraft, only aircraft. They could obviously see us, maybe 12, 24, maybe 24 guys for, you know, A patrols. Pilots are going to see something. They can, you know, that's the way they're trained. They pick you up walking during the day.

Whether they were attacking us, we don't know. But they were certainly overhead, sticking down a burst and driving on. And so you're heading towards Goose Green. What had you been told to expect there? Well, one of the primary tasks was meet up with D Squadron, who were pulling back from Goose Green. Of the SAS? Yeah. That was my old squadron. So they were the guys that did the Pebble Island attack. That was my old squadron. So they were the guys that did the Pebble Island attack.

They were the first contact with other soldiers on the ground, apart from aircraft. And, you know, we knew half of them from the battalion. There was, you know, maybe six, seven people from Tupara at the time. And shook hands. They gave us all the information that they had on the forward recce areas and said goodbye. One thing I want to mention is an aircraft that flew, I think I'm pretty sure it was a Skyhawk. It dropped its ordnance around us, carried on into the distance and a plume of smoke

came up from the ground and took out the aircraft. Whether it was a Pucara or a Skyhawk escapes me now. And the aircraft went down, and it was one of the guys in the 16th Troop, which was part of D Squadron, who brought it down with the Stinger. So that was the first aircraft brought down with the Stinger. Impressive. So what did they tell you about Goose Green? From the intelligence briefs we knew it was a small settlement. We weren't aware of the amount of soldiers at Goose Green.

We weren't aware of the dug-in positions around Darwin and Goose Green. That's what we had to find out. All the information we had was from the regiment you know the information that came back from they did you know d squadron did a diversionary attack and pulled back that was pretty ineffective they pulled back g squadron had done their reconnaissance and the int to us from the brigade from the from the battalion hq was the sas have said they've wrecked Goose Green and there isn't a lot of people at Goose Green and a decent parachute regiment rifle company could take it out. One company? One company. So how many people in a company? On the ground, probably about 50 depending on the strength of the different battalions. So that was just the hearsay that came back. And that was the only confirmed

intelligence we had on Goose Green. That's why we had the patrol, our own, you know, the CO had his own patrol elements who fed back real information from the ground. So you get to Goose Green and it turns out to be a completely different scene. Yeah, yeah. We did our reconnaissance tasks at night once the battalion had caught up with us and we'd get to a certain position and the battalion would follow up and we were tasked with different positions on the battle area on the start line to recce our part of the start line so that's what we did. My four-man group went forward and did one particular start and everybody else did that. And as a patrol, were you going to take part in the fighting as well?

No, that wasn't our task at that time. Our task was reconnaissance. If we got into a contact or a fight, then we were to fight our way out because we didn't have the resources to start assaulting positions. That would have been stupid so basically what we did was at night crawling forward we got really close to argentinian positions close enough to count guns machine guns close enough to count men in their trenches some of them were asleep on their machine guns with their helmets on in the mist and the cold and the night. And that was the same case up and down the start line for different reports from different patrols.

And we marked them out as much as we could on paper with a pencil, fed that back to platoon commanders so they could shake out their sections, ready to take on a position. So it would have become clear to headquarters of your battalion that there were a lot of Argentinians there in well-dug-in positions? Yeah, pretty much, yeah. But the decision was made to go for it anyway?

Yeah, that was already done. We were compromised anyway. The BBC announced that Tupara was amassed on start points at Goose Green, ready to attack. So the only protection we had was night. But having said that, the Argentinians were still not very alert and they wouldn't have got that information anyway. Where were you the following day when the battle took place? When did the battle start?

We went back to the start line and then the command was given move forward. So the rifle section started moving forward. They'd already fixed bayonets. We didn't have any helmets. We had black bobble hats. They had helmets on and their full gear, weapon and they advanced to contact. Advanced until you could start getting shot at, you know, and you got something to shoot at. And there was a couple of occasions where there was Argentinians killed before the battle started, you know. And all of a sudden, all hell erupted. The Argentinians started firing from the machine gun posts. And on average, they had probably at least two GPMGs and two 5.0 Brownings,

and they were stood on boxes and boxes and boxes of ammunition, thousands of ammunition. They were well-equipped. And that's a ferocious sort of thing to go against when you're an infantry battalion without support. So it went loud, as we call it. The flares went up, give everybody some light. The tracer was going both ways like a video game,

and we advanced from the back. Our job was done. So we spent a lot of the time keeping our head down and moving up a tactical bound behind. So we were there as reserve. So if a platoon got badly mauled then we would be called up as a reserve

to continue fighting You're listening to History Hit with Dan Snow I'm talking to John Geddes veteran of the Falklands War more after this Land a Viking longship on island shores scramble over the dunes of ancient egypt and avoid the poisoner's cup in renaissance florence each week on echoes of history we uncover the epic stories that inspire assassin's creed we're stepping into feudal j in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed

not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,

was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs, and politicians. Get Douglas Adams, The Ends of the Earth, now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold you've spent decades now in war zones have you ever experienced anything like goose green

uh no in a word you know it's a pretty unique battle to be involved in. And I think the causes have changed as well. Causes are a lot more political now. And back then, it was British passport holders stranded on an island, being accosted by another nation. And it was pretty cut and dry. And the other difference was the lack of support. I think places like Afghan, Iraq,

a lot of air support, a lot of ground support, and sometimes a lot less political support. But in the Falklands, everybody was behind you, and everybody rose to the occasion and fought on. But on that battlefield, there haven't been any more occasions like that have there since then, when a whole battalion are going to attack, bayonets fixed, against an enemy in fixed positions? No, not since the Second World War, really, or Korea.

And what did the battlefield look like when the sun came up? World War really, or career. And what did the battlefield look like when the sun came up? Um, you know, our first contact, our first introduction to what was left on the battlefield was the Gore Scully, where a company had

advanced up a very small valley, I think you might have been there, and they were virtually ambushed from different positions. And it was just a continuation. They were getting advances of contact. There were still advances of contact through one position onto another. And they got severely bogged down in what's known as the ghost gully,

with devastating results. The battalion, TAC-1, almost got wiped out, which are a lot of senior officers, good officers. And that's where the CO was killed. I've got to ask you about Colonel H, your commanding officer. It's become a bit of a controversy, you know, should he have been there? He was leading from the front, he got killed. What are your thoughts when you heard the CO had been killed?

Hard to say. It's quite disheartening, really. He was a well-liked CO by the men. He wasn't a popular commander with his officers, but with the men, he was into fitness. He was into tactics. He was a go-getter. He liked to fight. He wanted to fight. He let the guys get away with murder back in the battalion you know for instance at warren point we used to wear these nylon denim pants and we called them denims they were terrible they never they never fit they were all too skinny and they never fit right and it was a big cause of of burns in explosions something like nylon poly whatever you introduce some flame to it some heat and it turns to napalm basically and then keeps on burning in other words and that's where you

know a lot of guys suffered suffered there that weren't killed they were they were badly burned he got rid of those and we went back to cotton og trousers. And they're very casual. You know, you can hardly get a crease on them. And we loved that. He wasn't one for highly polished boots. He liked dubbing on our boots, you know, so they were never shiny. And that really wound some people up who liked shiny boots. And fitness, fitness, fitness.

He gripped the HQ company who were now and again a bit porky. And at the end of the day, you know, their bedding stores, if they're clerks, they're still paratroopers. They start as paratroopers. And he wanted them to be fighting fit. So they didn't like him for that. But most of the fighting troops in the battalion,

they liked him. He was hard on his officers, very hard, and I think for obvious reasons. You know, you have to be hard. You give him command, you take command, and that's the kind of officer he was. He did what he did. It was an emotional response from a lot of his officers getting killed in the Gorse Gully.

It was his choice to send them forward to take a better look at the battle against NCOs, against men's advice if you go up there go around there go over you're going to get killed you know this is this was to the to the attack the the attack hq guys and h kept pushing them get up i want information and horrendously a lot of them got killed very quickly. The adjutant was killed, who was a particularly good friend of the CO. And I believe it was in that kind of emotional response that he came down out of the Gorse Gully,

ran around into the next spur up the hill and took on a machine gun, which, you know, there had already been a section. A friend of mine, Munster Adams, he'd been up there and they were beaten back because there was an interlocking, overlapping fire from both sides of the valley. We didn't have the resources to take on both of them at the time, you know, waiting to get mortars up. And he'd been shot in the back. Half of his section had been chewed up you know it wasn't the place to go at that time but again he did what he did charged up the hill took on the gun trench and got shot from the other side by another machine gun you know there's no doubt

what he did and why he did it but for me me, it was an emotional decision, not a rational one. And you saw that ground in the morning, did you? As the light came up? Yeah, it was just smoke and ruin because the white phosphorus in the mortar rounds had eventually set fire to the brush, the gorse, so that was smouldering away. A lot of smoke, a lot of dead bodies on both sides,

and the smoke and ruin of battle machine guns military paraphernalia helmets and pretty grim sight but the knights fighting convinced the argentinians they they didn't want any more they they surrendered no no it went on from there everybody gunned up again and carried on during the day advancing to contact during the day yeah so there were several other skirmishes with different companies so i always wonder with goose so is it just a matter of reducing a strong point strong point by strong point you're just you know company attacks mortars machine gun fire suppressing you know one particular argentinian position after another and just edging forward like that?

You know, it doesn't matter how much of a tactical bent you put on it, it all ends up the two men fighting together at the end of the day. You know, there was the different companies were fighting on different fronts, on different positions. A company was bogged down in this in the position. Other companies, company commanders were, D company commander was in a good position to flank that position and the SEAL wouldn't have it, you know. A company got themselves into the shit, they'll get themselves out of the shit. So they were on the beach side and they were doing nothing. D company, they'd had a fierce battle and they'd won and they were chilling out and offering up their services. B Company were tied up in a position called Booker House. They were outgunned from a long way, a long distance by 5.0 Browning machine guns. As soon

as the CO was killed, B Company broke out the Milan and started hitting the gun trenches from 2,000 metres and then rolled them up pretty quickly. The CO didn't want to release the Milan. He wanted to keep them for Goose Green, where there was supposedly pan-odd tanks there. Because Milan is a shoulder-mounted anti-tank weapon. It's an anti-tank weapon. No, no, it's ground-mounted. Ground-mounted anti-tank weapon. It's an anti-tank weapon. No, no, it's ground-mounted. So we started hitting these B Company. The commander was X-22 anyway.

That may have influenced his decisions. And he started hitting the trench from almost 2,000 metres. And they rolled them up pretty quickly. So D Company was still quiet at that time. They offered their services. they were turned down but it was rolled up pretty quickly after the CO got killed. Another corporal just on our flank was crawling up the entrance beyond where the CO attacked with his section uh pig ables and he stood up with a 66 from point blank range into the machine gun that had killed the co this is um i don't know how long it was it wasn't long after because that process was

in operation before the seal would get killed they were looking at a flanking attack um pig stood up with the 66 rocket launcher covered by by the guys, and hit that trench. And he had a smock full of holes. He got highly decorated. He really did well. So the section took over that position and then turned on the position ahead. And from there, that gave A Company, or what was left of A Company, the opportunity to fight their way out of the Gorse Gully. And the white flags started coming up pretty soon after that.

At the end of that battle, when the Argentinians surrendered, you must have been shocked. You weren't expecting that many prisoners to emerge from their positions, were you? Well, that was later on, sort of several skirmishes later. But were you skirmishing yourself at this point your guys? Yeah we had a position inadvertently ended up on the left flank of D company and there was a position called the schoolhouse so we identified that as a as an enemy position we fixed bayonets there and started fire maneuvering our way down into the valley. D Company were on the right flank.

They were pushing through hard, fighting hard for their positions, which were the major positions. We were just on a flank in support, and got into a little re-entrance, ready to assault the schoolhouse. It was a small building and D Company had gone to ground. We handed all our LMG machine guns, M57 grenade launchers, handed all those to D Company via the link man. There was a captain who'd asked for all this gear and we ran ahead in light order to the SLR's grenades and assaulted the building from a flank. So they ended up with six of us actually assaulting the building. Grenades, white FOSS, and horrendous firepower

from D company hammering the position. So it was a bit of a cakewalk for us to grenade the building. Then the building started taking incoming fire from the in-depth positions, the Argentinian positions. They saw it was done and they started hammering that position. So we then got pinned down as a couple of other patrols had rocked up on the left and the right. We were the furthest forward of the battalion by then. Everybody'd gone to ground. Everybody was running out of ammunition. We were running out of ammunition. I had a nice assault major who had joined us, a hardcore paratrooper from the past.

We were taking some serious incoming, and I said, Jed, we've got to go. And he said, I'm not going back. I'm not going back. I looked around. I said, we're not going back. We're just going sideways. That was the only way I could get him out of the fight, you know. So we came down a reverse slope to the right, took over some old Argentine slit trenches,

threw dead bodies out, threw guns out and occupied those positions and waited and got pinned down for the rest of the day. And we were only able to withdraw when night came. What's going through your head when you're pinned down for the rest of the day. And we were only able to withdraw when night came. What's going through your head when you're pinned down? It was fun. I can't put any other... We were laughing. We were laughing. It was fun. We were superbly confident. We looked behind us at the damage the battalion had done.

We were proud. We'd got away with it so far. My call sign was complete. We'd taken a few casualties. They'd been taken back to San Carlos. And we were elated. We were taking photographs, you know. Some of those are on the internet, pinned down at Goose Green. And we thought, you know, eventually, hang on, what are we going to do now? And we thought, you know, eventually, hang on, what are we going to do now? Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence.

Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you

by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. And eventually the daylight started to recede, dusk, and we literally crawled out of the positions backwards.

The reverse slope darkness came in very quickly and we walked back to a company's position at the collie picking up a casualty on the way the machine gunner from d company who was riddled luckily not one single major organ was hit but we put on eight dressings hl dressings shot eight shell dressings. Shot eight times? We plugged eight holes. You know, I remember the distinct number. And he had ran. He was telling us all about it. We threw him on a poncho and carried him out on a poncho.

Asked him what happened. We sort of roughly remembered the incident. We were a bit further forward. A Picaro had come in earlier on in the battle, a machine gunner in sort of the battalion and uh dropped the canister of napalm that dropped behind d company lines would have taken out the whole company a huge part of the company if it landed on the position but it didn't it landed beyond the position and he was getting a stretcher off and the picara came in guns are blazing and

the guys dropped the stretcher they ran one way into cover he picked himself up and his drip that was shoved up behind and ran another 50 meters into a ditch and that's where we found him we tactically walked back because we didn't know what we were going to come across. It was pitch black. We only had a compass bearing back to the position. And we heard this, and all guns were over and under the ditch. And, no, no, no, that's me, it's me. He shouted out his name, and we picked him up, patched him up, carried him out.

When did the Argentinians surrender? Was it the next day then? Yeah, there was a plan launched that night. Keeble had decided to offer a surrender, you know, offer Goose Green command to surrender. So at one point, me and a friend of mine, Dick Walsh, another corporal, were constructing a white flag from anything white we could amass,

ready to take a prisoner down and offer up this bit of paper from the new CO. They changed their mind. They decided to send an officer who was a Spanish speaker and a couple of prisoners to show good faith with a white flag and down on the position the next day. And the letter, more or less, read, the battalion is, they've got the full complement of ammunition. They're being joined by a battalion of Marines. Motors are resupplied, the ammunition is resupplied,

the artillery is resupplied, and airstrikes are booked for 0800 today. If you don't surrender, Goose Green will be bombarded and you will be responsible. Was any of that true? No, none of it. The artillery was still bogged in. The aircraft couldn't fly

because of the, couldn't lift off because of the mist on the aircraft carriers. I don't know what Royal Marines are about either. You wouldn't have liked it if there had been.

No, no. I think there was the platoon in reserve way back. I think they spent most of the time stretcher bearing to get wounded out, which was a good job. And no mortars, completely outside of mortars. We were down half magazines of ammunition. So 50 of us, representatives from the different battalions, basically a fighting patrol of 50 50 walked in to take the surrender and 14, 1500 came out. The only thing they insisted on was they wanted a ceremonial surrender in a quarter angle, throw the weapons into the middle. You know, the officers would

hand over swords to the other officers, but there was a couple of corporals that got there first. You managed to get a sword? I didn't, I didn't, but a good friend of mine, Tom Harley, but there was a couple of corporals that got there first. You managed to get a sword? I didn't. I didn't. But a good friend of mine, Tom Harley, managed to get a sword, an officer's sword. He's still got it today, I believe. When was the last time you slept? During the battle? Never.

It was catnaps, catnaps. You know, every time you stopped, you closed your eyes, somebody woke you up, carried on. But, you know, no hardcore sleep to speak of. I've spoken to a couple of other veterans of Goose Green who have struggled with the things that they saw there. I mean, is that something that you've found difficult for the rest of your life? Not really.

I remember one sort of emotional breakdown, but it was more euphoric. And it was about six or eight weeks after the battle. There was a day in an official remembrance day. Everybody was downtown. The wounded were well on their way to recovery. There was a guy down from three par that had lost his arm from the elbow down. One of our guys lost his leg. He was shuffling around we were going

from house to house in the married quarters drinking we were downtown drinking in all of the bars all of the pubs and it was the end of at the end of that day I decided to call my sister told her about the battle and I got a little emotional that's the only time I've really sort of had a bit of a breakdown. So I said goodbye to my sister, sat down in the phone box and just had a sob. And it was a bit of an emotional release, to be honest. During the battle, you have to stay completely indifferent when you're fighting a battle, completely indifferent, even to seeing your own people killed. Completely, it's just not real.

You know, that's the attitude most people take, that get away with sort of PTSD. And I had that breakdown. There was an old lady opened the door on the phone box and said, have you just come back? And I said, yeah. He said, come and have a cup of tea. Walked into our house, big pot of tea, Kit Kats or whatever,

and she was a war veteran herself. She was a servicewoman herself from the war. And came away just really proud, really happy for that little bit of interaction. And two years later, I joined the SAS. So I was keen to get going on to bigger and better things. So Goose Green wasn't the end of the Falklands for you guys. You had to keep going, didn't you? Yeah, pretty much.

It was a bay called Fitzroy. The battalion was dug in. There was a troop ship came in full of watchguards and munitions heavy heavy munitions obviously we were reinforced reinforce us for a start and compliment everybody else and these were guys we would work with before we worked with them in Northern Ireland we worked with them in Berlin a couple of years before that so we knew we knew a lot of them you know we didn't know that at the time.

We didn't know who was on there. And there was a little bit of activity there. You know, we were all dug in. We walked up onto an embankment where we set up a range and started firing off foreign weapons, basically, Argentinian weapons, with my team. We were firing off their grenade launchers. It's in the middle of nowhere, out in the far distance. We were firing off their grenade launchers.

It's in the middle of nowhere out in the far distance. We were firing pistols. We were firing.45 pistols. We were firing FN automatic rifles, just having a fun afternoon. And we could see the ship in the far distance below, and the bay extended all the way around to another bay on the other side. An air raid warning came through on the radio. Yeah, it's incoming. So got on the ground.

Just rifles in the air. Futile. A couple of rifles, but it's just instinctive. For self-protection. A flight of Skyhawk came in. All three. Did one circuit. Second circuit.

Went straight up the rear end of the ship. They were unloading gear, ammunition at the time, and the whole thing went up. We didn't even know there was a battalion of soldiers on there until they started jumping overboard. And then the mayhem really started. We were in the water, in lightats, dragging lightboats onto the shore. We were picking people up out of the water, throwing them back into the lightboats. And the ones that survived suffered from really, really bad burns. And they lost, I think, about 50 guys on the ship.

The CO was warned to get off the boat. He chose not to. He's going to live with that for the rest of his life. That was a day's work in itself, helping out the Welsh Guards. They got ferried back in the Chinooks that had been able to get in. Took them away, and we had a briefing that night

from the CO. They said, guys, just a bit of an update. The Welsh Guards have been sent back to San Carlos. You know, there's no way they can continue on as Point Battalion. And I'm afraid we're it. We're Point Battalion for Wireless Ridge. So that was our second taste of action as a battalion. Now, Wireless was quite different, wasn't it?

You had a bit more support. Yeah, a lot of support. We had the scimitar tanks, the artillery was up. We had ships in the bay hammering Wireless Ridge, hammering another position called Sapper Hill, which was going to be the big daddy battle for all concerned. We were on the foothills of Wireless Ridge. 3 Para had just completed fighting on Longdon. for all concerned. We were on the foothills of Wireless Ridge.

3 Para had just completed fighting on Longdon. The Marines had their two sisters on the right side of Longdon. And we sat there preparing to fight. Was it like going in for the second time? Is it almost worse than for the first? Well, again, we were a patrol company once we'd done our reconnaissance and same kind of reconnaissance.

Where are they? How many are they? Which positions their guns are in? Which direction? Strengths? Morale, what kind of morale are they in? What kind of condition do we think they're in? Federal left back and the rifle companies formed up and swept over the ridge, stormed the ridge at night. And we were in reserve at that time as a patrol company.

I've talked to other people, so it seemed like there was a huge amount of firepower that night. Huge amount of firepower. You know, it just shocks me to this day, the amount of firepower that went down on both sides especially machine guns it was a hell of a machine gun war gpmgs and uh 50 brownies going both ways and surprised that that uh so many more weren't killed i mean law of avid just says half of us at least should have been killed but it was nowhere nowhere metal flying around yeah of metal flying around. Yeah, and a man of lead going down both ways. Unfortunately, the casualties we did, the company did have, were an own goal brought in by an incompetent artillery sergeant.

He brought it down on his own position. What do you remember about the formal surrender? What was the feeling like? Well, as we walked off the ridge, we could see the flags starting to fly. We knew it was a surrender. We were told to keep advancing. The 3 Para started breaking their positions and coming in onto the ridge and then onward to Stanley. And we were the first people into Stanley. 2 parades at first, which was a good achievement. The formal surrender, we had no part of it.

We just wanted to get warm. We just wanted to get our feet dry. How did you get warm? Well, you know, the good-hearted Fulton Islanders gave up their homes, by the most part. And sheep sheds, cattle sheds. We were lucky. My callsign was in a small cottage

on the outskirts of Stanley, you know. Tea, soup provided by the Fulton Islanders. And we just wanted to get warm, we just wanted to get dry. Some semblance of warm. We didn't care about any ceremonies. Didn't give two hoots about the surrender.

It was done. The fight was over. We'd survived, and we were happy. When you look back, are you glad that you took part in that conflict? Oh, super, super glad, you know. If I was to die tomorrow, I'd die with a smile. You know, when you fought through machine gun positions with 18-, 19 year olds fighting like lions next to you and they've gone down and died the rest is gravy did you think about the

politics much when you're that age not really no brexit politicized me but that's another story yeah well thank you very much thank you amazing hope you enjoyed the podcast just before you go bit of a favor to ask i totally understand if you don't want to become a subscriber or pay me any cash money makes sense but if you could just do me a favorites for free go to itunes money, makes sense. But if you could just do me a favour, it's for free. Go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. If you give it a five-star rating and give it an absolutely glowing review, purge yourself, give it a glowing review, I'd really appreciate that. It's tough weather, the law of the jungle out there,

and I need all the fire support I can get. So that will boost it up the charts. It's so tiresome, but if you could do it, I'd be very, very grateful. Thank you. The charts, it's so tiresome, but if you could do it, I'd be very, very grateful. Thank you. Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit.

Douglas Adams, The Ends of the Earth, explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold.