The Falklands War - Disappointment for the Gurkhas

The taking of Mount William

Ghurkhas wait for action

 While the Scots Guards fought on Tumbledown and 2 Para on Wireless Ridge, the Gurkhas had to take Mount William and then pass the Welsh Guards through to take Sapper Hill. The Gurkhas had to wait until Tumbledown was taken, and the problems the Scots Guards ran into meant that the Gurkhas battle began late. The Gurkhas also faced another problem besides time- a minefield nearly a third of a mile square to the north of Tumbledown. The Gurkhas could either go around it to the north or feel their way through it at its southern end. They went through the southern end. The entire Battalion moved out in one long line and as they crossed the saddle separating them from their objective they came under artillery fire, but they never faltered. The Battalion's mortars had set up a firebase near Goat Ridge to give covering fire, while the Battalion's machine guns and Milans went with them. The Gurkhas also brought with them a selection of 0.5in Browning heavy machine guns.

Ghurkhas wait for action

 Lt.-Col. Morgan skirted the northern edge of Mount Tumbledown under covering fire of the Scots Guards. He missed the minefield before coming abreast of Tumbledown, having lost eight men to Argentine shelling. The Battalion climbed a small re-entrant to approach the summit and B Company swung off to the left to take the eastern end of the mountain, where they took some prisoners that were part of the reserve company that had been planning a counter-attack. Nearby the Scots Guards were relieved, as they had nearly run out of ammunition.

The next phase was for A Company and all the support weapons to form a firebase on the summit of Tumbledown to support D Company's attack on Mount William, a mile away. The Argentine propaganda now backfired. Stories had been bandied about portraying Gurkhas as semi-human cannibals who never took prisoners and went into battle crazed with drugs. The Argentines on Mount William were already feeling insecure after the fall of Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge. When they realised they were about to be attacked by the Gurkhas, it became too much for them. Almost an entire battalion of Argentines fled Mount William as D Company advanced towards the Hill. Lt.-Col. Morgan's men took Mount William unopposed and his men were bitterly disappointed.