Recapture of South Georgia was a zero sum game. Victory would be a thumb in Galtieri's eye. Failure in South Georgia, or even a tepid lack of success would delay or eliminate capture of the Falklands, solidify Argentina's claim to those islands and almost certainly end Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister. Britain's inclination to interfere in military affairs outside Europe was moribund after Suez; defeat in the Falklands would bury the notion. Even in Europe Britain's position as America's best ally there would be questioned if not doubted. She could not afford a picture in the world's press of a second group of captured Royal Marines lying face down in the mud. Margaret Thatcher had never met Major J. M. G. Sheridan RM, but she had unknowingly put her political future in his hands.
On 7 April 1982 Admiral Fieldhouse ordered Captain Brian Young RN in HMS Antrim to proceed at best speed to Ascension Island. Young was concurrently placed in charge of CTG 317.9 the navy, marine and army force intended to recapture South Georgia. Sheridan was the commander land force (CLF). Besides Sheridan's marines Young had four ships: HMS Antrim and HMS Plymouth and a tanker RFA Tidespring. The fourth ship, HMS Endurance, had been the Falkland's station ship and its Captain, Nick Barker, had lengthy tactical experience in the amphibious operating area.. Young had no air support but did have a Wessex 3 ASW helo on Antrim, a Lynx utility helo on Plymouth and two Wessex 5 light helicopters on Tidespring.
Fieldhouse' directive of 9 April 1982 laid out the chain of command for Operation Corporate the name given to the retaking of the Falklands. Fieldhouse followed standard US, NATO and Allied command and control procedures for amphibious operations: the battle fleet commander, amphibious commander and land force commander are equals whatever their rank and pay grade.The Amphibious Group commander directs the amphibious force until the troops complete a secure landing and the land force commander can take up his units' fighting in a coherent and sustainable way. From that moment the land force commander orders fire support missions, logistics over the beach or by air and the host of military tasks that let him complete the operation. In fact the naval commander's only job is to get the troops and equipment onto the beach with as little damage as possible to either so that the ground mission gets done quickly with the fewest casualties(18). Sheridan's tiny force was the sole justification for Young's naval group and the point of the British spear.
The choice of Brian Young to lead CTG 317.9 was as odd as the mission he was asked to complete. He was a successful aviator and commanding officer with no over the beach amphibious experience. Both he and his hard used ship(19) were on the point of retirement when ordered to head south. He had little experience of working with Royal Marines(20). His scant knowledge of the proposed operating area came from books and briefings. Many observers then and since believe that Captain Nick Barker in HMS Endurance, the Falklands station ship, was the better choice. He had commanded a combat ship (HMS Arrow) equipped with Exocet missiles, the surface weapon that the Argentinean navy would most likely use against him. He had watched the Argentinean buildup from close at hand and knew his patch of the South Atlantic. He had landed on South Georgia and walked about. His helicopter pilots were the only British flyers competent to give the amphibious force first hand guidance on South Georgia's unique terrain and awful weather. He knew personally, not by message or letter, many of the British Antarctic Survey's staff including those few still living free on the island. A permanent detachment of Royal Marines lived aboard Endurance and had ship's duties as well. One marine was a ship's cook and another the ship's butcher. Mutual respect had flowered. Barker knew the Argentinean Navy's strengths and weaknesses better than any other Royal Navy officer. He had met and sized up many of the Argentinean officers who were now his enemies. Endurance had a full set of communications gear and regularly intercepted Argentinean military message traffic. Tactical reasoning supported the choice of Barker, too. Managing a ship in combat is difficult enough without ordering other ships and troops; it would have been more efficient if it came to a sea fight to let Barker command the squadron while Brian Young fought his own ship without the need to care for other combatants. Still Young enjoyed Fieldhouse' confidence and a close relationship with Rear Admiral Woodward CTU 317.8 his senior officer during the just finished spring exercises.
Right. Captain Brian Young HMS AntrimYoung and Sheridan, the land force commander, faced unique problems that had little to do with their Argentinean opponents. The efficacy of a system to command, control and communicate with a patch work force operating 8000 miles from London was unproven and questionable because the British military had trained for years almost exclusively to fight a NATO war in concert with US and German allies. Staffs, logistics and battle plans, communications' links, weapons' purchases, training and intelligence efforts were aimed at convincing Soviet leaders that an attack by the Warsaw Pact would fail and that in the event their tank armies would be destroyed. The logistics of fighting an air, land and sea war 8000 miles from London had never been seriously pondered. The Royal Navy was not prepared to fight a battle whose loss could sunder the Anglo-American relationship that Britain's seaborn nuclear deterrent was meant to preserve. No standing orders existed to fight a war that involved amphibious landings a few hundred miles north of the Antarctic circle. As it turned out, neither 3 Commando Brigade nor its follow on 5 Infantry Brigade knew best how to load their gear for an amphibious assault i.e. stow the most needed equipment on top and the least necessary on the bottom. Priceless training time, was lost in reloading both amphibious and supply ships at Ascension Island and on the run south. For that matter success in Paraquat and in the whole Falklands venture hung more on the intelligence, courage and drive of rather junior infantry officers and their NCOs than on staffs' directives.
In contrast to the fleet's grand sendoff from Plymouth, Operation Paraquat was conceived and set in motion under great secrecy. Clandestinity usually wreaths military moves with importance, sometimes efficiency gains, and Paraquat was no exception. Fieldhouse established a Paraquat cell at Northwood separate from other Falklands communications and knowledge of ships' movements was restricted to a dozen or so people. On 8 April 1982 Sheridan's men, Captain Chris Nunn's M company from Vaux' 42 Commando, were sequestered in the unit's gymnasium and allowed no contact with the outside world. By 10 April 1982 two VC-10s had flown Sheridan's force of 132 men and their equipment to Ascension Island. Any thought that the repossession of South Georgia was to be a sideshow ended with Fieldhouse' message on 11 April 1982 to Thompson and Clapp that stipulated repossession of South Georgia as of equal importance to repossession of the Falklands: "as current intelligence indicates clear advantage in landing South Georgia earliest(21)." Thatcher was in a hurry. Woodward was of a different mind. He called Sheridan, the land force commander, back from Antrim yet failed to see the Royal Marines Major. Apparently Woodwardfailed to realize that Sheridan's success justified his ships' and crews' efforts. To this day the reason behind this fruitless trip remains obscure(22).
Modern warfare on the ground demands more than men firing their personal weapons. Vaux and Sheridan assembled as much of a balanced force as they could on such short notice. Awaiting departure from the gymnasium they added two .81MM mortar teams, four signalers, two sections from the commando's reconnaissance troop and three medics including a surgeon. Sheridan was also told that a section of SBS and a troop from the 22 SAS Regiment would join his force as reconnaissance elements. These additions were especially useful because they could land and reconnoiter from their small boats while fleet units remained undiscovered at sea. Sheridan's force still lacked artillery and air support without which it could be isolated and ultimately destroyed by any opponent possessing weapons heavier than .5 caliber machine guns. This deficiency was to be remedied in part by Captain Brian Young's CTU 317.9 which contained two of the Royal Navy's last gun ships, Antrim and Plymouth. Their 4 x 4.5" guns gave Sheridan a sustained firing rate, if both ships acted in concert, of 24 rounds per minute, enough to keep defending forces down in their trenches while his force made their landing. A Naval Gunfire Support Party (NGS)(23) assigned to direct the navy's gunfire gave Sheridan some confidence that he would not be out gunned at least as long as decent weather let the ships remain close ashore.
Sheridan's force as it arrived at Ascension contained 132 officers and men plus 24 Special Warfare troops. His problems had just begun and they were serious. A Royal Marines officer who had arrived at Ascension before Sheridan had set up a small arms range where troops could reset their weapons' sights after the bumpy trip from Britain. While there Sheridan learned that Northwood had ordered an entire squadron of SAS, D Squadron (60 men) commanded by Major Cedric Delves, and two more SBS teams to join his force(24). Northwood wanted seven patrols to scout the island. Common sense shouted that a reduced company of Royal Marines did not need and would have trouble finding valid employment for a reconnaisance force nearly half the size of the original force. More worrisome was the fact that Sheridan had to learn this critical fact informally on a scrap of torn paper from a fellow officer rather through his chain of command. He was not asked if he could use additional help; it was landed on him without discussion or the courtesy of a message.
Ordering seven patrols to infiltrate South Georgia, an island which none of the service chiefs in London knew, demonstrated micro management at its most meddlesome and most risky. Inserting seven patrols ashore instead of two increased the possibility of compromise geometrically. The horrible weather that might mask the patrols' insertions could also prevent them or prevent the men's exfiltration. The decision of when, where and how many to put ashore might better have been left to Young and Sheridan. Not one of Young's force had either adequate space or water or transport to the beach for these additions. Unlike buildings on land, ships at sea cannot add more room. The extra SAS men and their gear thrust an almost intolerable burden into Brian Young's once tranquil world. The ships' evaporators could not keep up with the boilers', crews' and passengers' need for fresh water and rationing began. This wretched excess fueled speculation that senior military persons at Northwood and perhaps Thatcher herself believed that the Falklands matter could be concluded in Britain's favor by a successful attack on South Georgia and that the SAS craved a major part of the action and the credit. Northwood's interference with decisions that should have been made on scene by the tactical commanders began a practice that continued throughout the war and did nothing to hasten its end.
HMS AntrimLoadout for Operation Paraquat was a microcosm of the Falklands campaign. Sheridan's force was split immediately because no one ship in Young's squadron could carry all the personnel and their kit. Most of M Company, the core assault force, went to RFA Tidespring, a tanker, while the mortar crews, communicators, medics and naval gunfire support team went with Sheridan to HMS Antrim. Tidespring was put in the unenviable position of carrying volatile fuels and live ammunition with the immediate prospect of unloading both in rough seas. By 13 April 1982 Captain Young had been told what Sheridan knew informally: that three troops of D Squadron, about sixty men with its command element, would join his force. Through the heroic efforts of both crew and the on board marines Air Troop and Mobility Troop along with Major Delves and their great amount of kit were made safe aboard Antrim. Captain John Hamilton and his Mountain Troop went aboard Plymouth. Delves had black box communications with SAS headquarters that Sheridan did not see. It was clear that the unrequested SAS manning imposed upon Sheridan had the potential of making Operation Paraquat an SAS operation dispite the fact that he was the nominal commander of the landing force. Unity of command was to be observed in the breach.
Young's squadron rendezvoused on 14 April 1982 south of Ascension and began its run south with his assault force riding a tanker while the command elements of the three embarked military organizations lived aboard an ancient destroyer commanded by a naval officer who had never been ordered to complete an opposed amphibious landing. Neither Young nor Sheridan had a trained amphibious staff to work out problems among the very different organizations. No troop reinforcements, logistics support or air support were available. Young and Sheridan would fight hopefully the same war 8000 miles from home with what they carried. If either Tidespring or Antrim suffered major battle damage or mechanical failure the mission would abort. No unanaimous support came from the homefront either. Unbeknownst to Sheridan or Young Fieldhouse told his task group commanders at Ascension Island on 17 April 1982 that the Army's staff "remained unconvinced of the necessity and likely success of an amphibious operation. ....He told us he might be required to repossess the Falkland Islands but only when sea control was firmly established and South Georgia recaptured(25)." No one questioned the military competence and drive of Young's and Sheridan's force. It was their seniors' waffling and the improvidence of the budgeteers that put their success in question. Seldom has so much weighed on a gim-crack military force slapped together in a few days(26).
Endurance's reliable but plodding thirteen knots limited Young's force to about 350 miles advance per day. The travel time was well spent. A makeshift operations room with adequate ship to shore and ship to helicopter communications was installed aboard Antrim. Maps and charts blossomed on available bulkheads. The young marines trained incessantly in their cramped quarters and on Tidespring's more capacious decks. They consumed months of training allowances firing at targets thrown over the side(27). A major problem had to do with getting the reconaissance and assault forces ashore. Young's four ships carried no landing craft and his crews did not know how to use them anyway. Antrim carried a Wessex 3 Anti-Submarine (ASW) helicopter; Plymouth had 1 Wasp ASW helicopter and Endurance had 2 Wasps. Tidespring carried 2 Wessex 5 used mainly to transfer cargo between ships. The helicopters, none built or configured to handle more than a few passengers were already overworked from cross decking men and equipment. Cargo transfers and ASW patrols are placid affairs. Now the pilots had to train themselves for the covert insertion and recovery of the SAS and the landing, perhaps under fire, of a Royal Marines' assault force(28). Flying low under electronic silence and popping up to do a visual and brief radar search of hostile seas was as novel for the pilots as was the prospect they might be fired upon by ground troops hiding behind the next snow covered hill. Ever resourceful maintainers fitted a few GPMG in helos' doors for self protection and a modest capability for suppressive fire.
There was a very human side to this expedition, too. Naval ships are run by a hierarchy. The freshest faced seaman knows his place in the system. When the skipper or the officer of the watch orders: "Come left15 deg." the person at the wheel turns the wheel 15 deg to port and no questions are asked. On the other hand ground operations are more collegial. COs take full responsibility for their missions but usually seek their juniors' and seniors' views and occasional objections. Foolish is the young officer who does not discuss his plans with his senior sergeants. Captain Brian Young had aboard Antrim besides himself 4 commanding officers: Sheridan, Commander Land Forces (CLF); Delves, CO of D Squadron SAS; Eve, head of the Naval Gunfire Group and a junior but veteran head of the SBS detachment. In addition Antrim carried a senior helicopter pilot who headed the crews and maintainers of the embarked Wessex 3. It is a tribute to the sheer professionalism of these very competent and necessarily strong minded men that their different worlds did not fatally collide and that they all strained towards the mission's success.
Northwood's orders to Captain Brian Young to repossess South Georgia on 21 April 1982 were stipulated in his warning order of 14 April 1982 to Major Sheridan(29). With minimum damage to facilities and personnel Sheridan was to:
Recapture Grytviken and Leith.
Neutralize Argentinean Communications.
Capture or kill Argentinean military.
Arrest and remove Argentinean civilians.
Sheridan turned to his reconnaissance force and on 16 April 82 ordered D Squadron: "to establish covert patrols to determine enemy strength and disposition in Stromness, Husvik and Leith(30)." The SBS was similarly ordered to cover Grytviken and King Edward Point. It was at this point that misadventures compounded by misjudgments nearly prevented South Georgia's recapture(31).
Captain John Hamilton commanded 19 Troop (Mountain Troop) of the 22 Special Air Service Regiment (SAS). His Mission Order: "Operations Center 21 April 1982 BK 1 Ser 087" para 7 stated: "To recon Leith, Stromness, Husvik and E. Fortuna Bay for a Squadron sized attack." The Mission Orders' tasks were: "To find routes across Fortuna Glacier, Breakwind Ridge and Konig Glacier." Major Delves, the D Squadron commander insisted on an eight kilometer covert approach to the reconnaissance targets for fear of warning the Argentinean garrison. It could just as well have been argued that a blatant landing preceeded and supported by naval gunfire would frighten green, frozen and isolated troops into quick surrender.
Captain John Hamilton SASBAS members who had been to Fortuna Glacier insisted to Delves and to Hamilton that Fortuna was virtually impassable especially with winter just breaking. Sheridan, an experienced Himalyan climber who had been head of the Royal Marines Mountain and Arctic Cadre joined the voices raised against landing on the glacier(32). Other opponents of this venture, crew and pilots from Endurance who had foot on the ground experience on South Georgia, argued that crevasses as big as London buses made it virtually certain that the SAS men could not drag their pulks (sleds) any meaningful distance even in fair weather(33). If a storm broke, as was likely now that winter had just begun, Hamilton's men would have no choice but to hunker down for an unpredictable period perhaps more than the five days allocated for the reconnaissance. The pragmatic pessimists did not sway him and he sought affirmative advice where he knew he could find it. Delves went aboard Endurance and used its satellite communications to speak with two very experienced Himalyan climbers, Stokes and Peacock, at SAS Headquarters in Britain who advised Hamilton and Delves that Fortuna Glacier could be conquered. Peacock later said he would not have gone against Sheridan's judgment if he had known that it was indeed Sheridan who opposed taking that route(34). In the end Major Delves and Captain Hamilton decided to lift mountain troop onto Fortuna Glacier.
Delves' and Hamilton's insistance that their recon mission be clandestine and thus traverse Fortuna Glacier was a counsel of perfection. Had they looked at their military problem from their opponents' point of view a different picture would have appeared(35). If the Argentine garrison considered a British attack possible or probable it had three choices besides flight by sea or surrender: first, dig in against an attack, second; get destroyed by gunfire from Plymouth and Antrim in their trenches or in BAS quarters; third flee without tactical integrity into the mountains there to die of exposure and starvation. Delves' requirement for a wholly clandestine mission fit standard SAS practices. It was a laudable but disengenuous goal. Soviet satellites overflew the area regularly and Captain Nick Barker in HMS Endurance took scheduled precautions against them(36). Admiral Fieldhouse had already warned his subordinates against transmitting when American satellites were overhead. BAS' Director signalled in the clear to his men on Lyell Glacier that: "Moving to Grytviken possibly involves risk of involvement in later fighting."(37) It is a good rule in such matters that when two parties besides the annointed know hitherto secret information many others almost certainly have an inkling of the matter at hand. By 21 April 1982 it is very likely that several thousand people of different nationalities, except perhaps Argentinean, knew what was about to happen to the well chilled garrisons in Grytviken and Leith(38).
Young and Sheridan knew, on the other hand, almost exactly what they might face once British troops had landed. No ships had reenforced the Argentinean garrison who had no air cover and no artillery. The island could not support more than a few hundred persons, in winter probably fewer. The quality and fighting spirit of the Argentineans was unknown but reasonable men could assume that their1st line troops, always in short supply, were posted either on the Chilean border or on the Falklands themselves and that those few on South Georgia were not assiduously patrolling the mountains now that winter had begun, but rather had esconced themselves in BAS' snug wooden houses(39). South Georgia had no airfield. Troops could not be flown in and no hostile naval activity had been noted. No naval fueling facilities, magazines or repair shops existed for modern warships. The Argentinean occupiers would defend their conquest if they chose to do so, with what little they had at hand. Winter would argue against their retreat into the sub-freezing hinterlands. In short South Georgia was a primitive and isolated military outpost with wretched living conditions eight hundred miles from Falklands that posed no threat to the outside world. It was scarcely defensible. Thatcher and her advisors had got that right.
As Hamilton and Delves planned their clandestine insertion from the ships at sea teams from the BAS who were on the ground performed their own reconnaissance. BAS' Peter Stark who had lived on South Georgia for two years was flown back from the island to HMS Endurance for the express purpose of dissuading Hamilton's troop from trying the Fortuna route. The BAS parties, thirteen plus two wildlife photographers, at Bird Island and Schliepper Bay at the northern tip of the island, at Lyell Glacier and at St. Andrew's Bay, south of Grytviken, traversed their areas on foot and met no Argentinean military. On 20 April 1982 Tony North and Myles Plant watched Cumberland Bay from Barff Point and discovered nothing. Ian Barker and Damien Sanders stood on the high ground between East and West Cumberland Bay and saw neither Argentinean ground nor naval activity. They found no trace of any Argentinean patrols ever having surveilled those likely pieces of military ground. No planes were heard either. The watchers, although not military, had surveyed all but a small area of likely Argentine ground and naval activity and more if the foul weather were considered. It was clear to them that the Argentinean invaders had confined themselves to the comforts such as they were of village life. The BAS patrols, all of whom had useful but short range radios, reported their findings back to Northwood with great speed in a complex radio arrangement that went through South Orkney to Ascension Island thence to BAS headquarters in Cambridge. There Dr. Bernard Law transferred the data to Rear Admiral Tony Wheatley RN at Northwood. At Cambridge BAS headquarters entertained, prior to the the Fortuna Glacier incident, a constant flow of visitors from the Royal Navy, SAS, SBS and various other parties all eager to learn what the intrepid researchers on South Georgia daily took as normal existance. Counsel was freely given(40).
Given the plethora of current data available to SAS headquarters and to Capt. Hamilton his mission order astounds: "To date only information is available from studying maps, air photos and limited local knowledge from BAS personnel and the members of the crew from HMS Endurance."(41) This statement, though patently erroneous, formed the basis for the SAS' plan to take the hazardous route across Fortuna Glacier. In the interests of a clandestinity that was clearly unnecessary Delves and Hamilton rejected first hand information of crucial tactical importance gained by trained scientific observers and by the crew and pilots of HMS Endurance. The cruel fact is that on board Antrim and Endurance, on South Georgia itself and lurking in the British intelligence system were good information and mature judgment on it that most reasonable leaders would have taken as cause to change routes for observing Husvik, Leith and Stromness. Delves and Hamilton were men of their time and exemplars of a splendid bellicist culture. In the matter of Fortuna Glacier they went beyond reason and common sense.
