Changes

Jump to navigation Jump to search
Line 41: Line 41:  
The task of ridding the 6th 'Mercedes' Mechanized Infantry Regiment's 'B' Company remained. On the eastern ridge the fighting was equally tough.  The defenders brought down heavy machine-gun fire and mortar fire on 'Yankee' Company. Private Oscar Ismael Poltronieri, as a machine-gunner found himself very busy indeed. Part of his citation for the Heroic Valour Cross, the highest decoration for bravery, reads:{{cquote|Always volunteering for dangerous missions, manning a machine-gun, holding up attacks, always the last man to withdraw, sometimes overrun by the English, twice given up for dead but always returning to his platoon.<ref>The Fight for the Malvinas: The Argentine Forces in the Falklands War, Martin Middlebrook, p. 239, Viking, 1989</ref>}}
 
The task of ridding the 6th 'Mercedes' Mechanized Infantry Regiment's 'B' Company remained. On the eastern ridge the fighting was equally tough.  The defenders brought down heavy machine-gun fire and mortar fire on 'Yankee' Company. Private Oscar Ismael Poltronieri, as a machine-gunner found himself very busy indeed. Part of his citation for the Heroic Valour Cross, the highest decoration for bravery, reads:{{cquote|Always volunteering for dangerous missions, manning a machine-gun, holding up attacks, always the last man to withdraw, sometimes overrun by the English, twice given up for dead but always returning to his platoon.<ref>The Fight for the Malvinas: The Argentine Forces in the Falklands War, Martin Middlebrook, p. 239, Viking, 1989</ref>}}
   −
Ahead of 'Y' Company was a ridgeline and there Second Lieutenant Aldo Franco's 3rd Platoon, 'B' Company, 6th Regiment, lay in wait. Franco had harrangued his young soldiers and had gained their confidence. While the fight for the eastern ridge was in progress, an Exocet anti-ship missile was launched from a trailer, causing serious damage to the light cruiser 'Glamorgan', and killing 14 and wounding/injuring over 30 British sailors.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12472079 HMS Glamorgan: memorial for Falklands War ship
+
Ahead of 'Y' Company was a ridgeline and there Second Lieutenant Aldo Franco's 3rd Platoon, 'B' Company, 6th Regiment, lay in wait. Franco had harrangued his young soldiers and had gained their confidence. While the fight for the eastern ridge was in progress, an Exocet anti-ship missile was launched from a Marine trailer on Murray Heights, causing serious damage to the light cruiser 'Glamorgan', and killing 14 and wounding/injuring over 30 British sailors.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12472079 HMS Glamorgan: memorial for Falklands War ship
 
]</ref>The British warship had been forced to remain in position longer than expected in support 'Yankee' Company and had been hit while taking a short cut in an attempt to reach the safety of San Carlos with dawn fast approaching.
 
]</ref>The British warship had been forced to remain in position longer than expected in support 'Yankee' Company and had been hit while taking a short cut in an attempt to reach the safety of San Carlos with dawn fast approaching.
    
Major Jaimet was confident of holding the British thrust, now coming from the northern peak. During the advance on the eastern ridge 'Yankee' Company destroyed a 6th Regiment machine-gun post, killing the crew, somehow avoiding the booby-traps laid by the 1st Amphibious Engineer Company platoon under Marine Lieutenant Héctor Omar Miño. A counterattack at the 10th Mechanized Infantry Brigade Headquarters in Stanley House was contemplated but rejected. Then Jaimet received orders at 0445 to abandon the ridge and retire to Tumbledown Mountain. With the breach on Two Sisters Mountain, where Major Cordón's company was supposed to be, the 6th Regiment company had no option but to withdraw with dawn fast approaching.  Franco's platoon formed the rearguard and it filed off, leaving three killed. Time and time again 2d Lt. Franco - he became an Army commando after the war - reported his platoon could hold, but was ordered to abandon Two Sisters.
 
Major Jaimet was confident of holding the British thrust, now coming from the northern peak. During the advance on the eastern ridge 'Yankee' Company destroyed a 6th Regiment machine-gun post, killing the crew, somehow avoiding the booby-traps laid by the 1st Amphibious Engineer Company platoon under Marine Lieutenant Héctor Omar Miño. A counterattack at the 10th Mechanized Infantry Brigade Headquarters in Stanley House was contemplated but rejected. Then Jaimet received orders at 0445 to abandon the ridge and retire to Tumbledown Mountain. With the breach on Two Sisters Mountain, where Major Cordón's company was supposed to be, the 6th Regiment company had no option but to withdraw with dawn fast approaching.  Franco's platoon formed the rearguard and it filed off, leaving three killed. Time and time again 2d Lt. Franco - he became an Army commando after the war - reported his platoon could hold, but was ordered to abandon Two Sisters.
   −
So ended the Battle for Two Sisters Mountain, six hours after 'X' Company came under heavy fire from 2d Lt Llambias-Pravaz's 3rd Platoon on 'Long Toenail'. 45 Commando's losses were 8 dead and 17 wounded. The Argentine losses were put at 20 dead and 50 wounded. 2d Lieutenant Miguel Mosquera-Gutiérrez was wounded during the fighting on the northern peak. Lieutenant Luis Carlos Martella on 'Long Toenail' was killed. Second Lieutenant Jorge Daniel Perez-Grandi was also down. His conscripts carried him away, severely wounded. Perez-Grandi had spent a year in 1978 in the 4th Airborne Artillery Group as a conscript before entering the Buenos Aires Army Academy.
+
So ended the Battle for Two Sisters Mountain, six hours after 'X' Company came under heavy fire from 2d Lt Llambias-Pravaz's 3rd Platoon on 'Long Toenail'. 45 Commando's losses were 8 dead and 17 wounded. The Argentine losses were put at 20 dead and 50 wounded. 2d Lieutenant Miguel Mosquera-Gutiérrez was wounded during the fighting on the northern peak. Lieutenant Luis Carlos Martella on 'Long Toenail' was killed. Second Lieutenant Jorge Daniel Perez-Grandi was also down. His conscripts carried him away, severely wounded. Perez-Grandi had spent a year in 1978 in the 4th Airborne Artillery Group as a conscript before entering the Buenos Aires Army Academy.
    
Naturally the Army needed a scapegoat and Major Ricardo Cordón was court-martialed and sacked. Bad luck played at least a malignant part as the loss of his reserve platoon and communications in the 4th Regiment's 'C' Company.
 
Naturally the Army needed a scapegoat and Major Ricardo Cordón was court-martialed and sacked. Bad luck played at least a malignant part as the loss of his reserve platoon and communications in the 4th Regiment's 'C' Company.
 +
 +
Lieutenant Andy Shaw's platoon, seeking revenge for comrades lost two nights before, gathered several Argentinian prisoners and were preparing to execute them when the British battalion commander, accompanied by British war correspondent Robert Fox, all of a sudden appeared out of the early morning mist to inspect the captured positions.<ref>The Fight for the Malvinas: The Argentine Forces in the Falklands War, Martin Middlebrook, p. 239, Viking, 1989</ref>
    
The Royal Marines now chose to demonstrate that gung-ho as they could be, they also had a human side. When the remnants of 1st Platoon, 'A' Company, 4th Regiment were withdrawn, their wounded platoon commander was overlooked in the dark and taken by the Royal Marines. When it became apparent that the Argentinian Artillery was about to bombard Two Sisters, the Royal Marines moved the wounded officer to a place of safety where he could be shielded from the incoming fire.
 
The Royal Marines now chose to demonstrate that gung-ho as they could be, they also had a human side. When the remnants of 1st Platoon, 'A' Company, 4th Regiment were withdrawn, their wounded platoon commander was overlooked in the dark and taken by the Royal Marines. When it became apparent that the Argentinian Artillery was about to bombard Two Sisters, the Royal Marines moved the wounded officer to a place of safety where he could be shielded from the incoming fire.
17

edits

Navigation menu