The Yompers

With 45 Commando in the Falklands War

Ian R. Gardiner

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781473853423
• eBook ISBN: 9781781599181
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

A British company commander details his experience serving in the Falklands War and reflects on the 1982 conflict.
"Yomping" was the word Commandos used for carrying heavy loads on long marches. It caught the public's imagination during this short but bitter campaign and epitomized the grim determination and professionalism of our troops…
Called to action on April 2, 1982, the men of 45 Commando Royal Marines assembled from around the world to sail 8,000 miles to recover the Falkland Islands from Argentine invasion. Lacking helicopters and short of food, they "yomped" in appalling weather carrying overloaded rucksacks, across the roughest terrain. Yet for a month in mid-winter, they remained a cohesive fighting-fit body of men. They then fought and won the highly successful and fierce night battle for Two Sisters, a 1,000-foot-high mountain which was the key to the defensive positions around Stanley.
More than just a first-hand story of that epic feat, this book is the first to be written by a company commander in the Falklands War. It offers a vivid description of the "yomp" and infantry fighting, and it also offers penetrating insights into the realities of war at higher levels. It is a unique combination of descriptive writing about frontline fighting and wider reflections on the Falklands War, and conflict in general.
"This is the real thing, from someone who gave the orders and led from the front, from beginning to bitter end. His account is articulate, poignant and precise, even though thirty years have elapsed . . . highly recommended." — Military History Monthly

Chapter 1

Listening

Hey folks, here’s the story ’bout Minnie the Moocher, She was a low down hoochie-coocher.

Every war has its music. ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and ‘Pack up your Troubles in your Old Kitbag’ will forever be associated with British troops in the First World War. ‘Lili Marlene’ (vor der Kaserne, vor dem grossen Tor . . .) was so pervasive in the Second World War that German troops who captured Tobruk found their British prisoners whistling the same tune to keep their spirits up. ‘Lillibulero’, which first seems to have been sung by soldiers on both sides in the Jacobite/House of Orange struggles in the seventeenth century, was more enduring still. Until recently it could be heard in the small hours of the night on the BBC World Service. The Romans, presumably singing in Latin, must have cheered themselves in song as they trudged across the known, and unknown, world, building and policing their empire. Did the Carthaginians sing the same tunes, but in Carthaginian? Did the Spartans at Thermopylae whistle some catchy refrain as they defied the Persian army? Did Alexander the Great’s soldiers sing, hum or whistle while conquering Asia? It is inconceivable that they did not. Soldiers enduring boredom, privation and danger have resorted to music in some form or other for solace and good cheer since time immemorial.

For many, the hauntingly evocative ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ sung by Julie Covington or Elaine Page, will trigger memories of the Falklands War, but not necessarily for the Royal Marines of 45 Commando. The music that diverted their minds from the realities confronting them was from the film The Blues Brothers. And it wasn’t just the music. It was the entire sound track. Every ship in the Task Force had its supply of films to entertain those on board. Opportunities to resupply or renew stocks of films were few and far between in the South Atlantic, so films were shared with other ships. And once they had all been watched by everybody, they were recycled again. But some films got stuck in a groove. The Blues Brothers was one of those. On the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Stromness, in which sailed over 300 men of 45 Commando, it was theoretically possible – for those who had the time and stomach to do so – to watch it 24 hours a day. There was only one copy of the film on board, but when it had finished running in the embarked forces galley, it would then be shown in the NCOs’ mess. Then it would appear in the crew’s recreation space, then perhaps the officers’ wardroom, and so on. And in the late, late hours, individual messes might have private showings. I don’t know how many times I watched it: not as many as others, some of whom claimed to have seen it over twenty times. I can well believe it. There would even be sessions where the sound was turned down and men would take on the roles of the screen characters, eventually becoming almost word perfect. I don’t suppose any one marine could recite the entire soundtrack, but between 300 of us, I’m certain we could have pieced it all together. The result was that marines could be heard talking to each other in soundbites from the film. The lyrics of the songs became a means of communicating. The random, absurd utterings of Jake and Elwood seemed to punctuate every conversation. Elwood: It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we gotta full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses. Jake: Hit it!

After the landings, of course, there was no opportunity to watch the film. For some this was a relief; for others, it was a minor bereavement. And on the way home afterwards, there were those who made up for lost time. But in the bitter winter march across the island, in the prelude to the battles, and in their aftermath, men could be heard lightening a shared predicament by whistling or singing ‘Rawhide’, or shaking a tail feather with Ray Charles, or ‘thinking’ with Aretha Franklin. Unlike ‘Lili Marlene’ or ‘Lillibulero’, I don’t believe our music permeated to the other side. I don’t know what the Argentines sang but I’m ready to bet it wasn’t ‘Minnie the Moocher’.

Music, like smell, is famous for triggering long-buried memories. For a certain small group of men, now mostly in their late forties and early fifties, the sound of John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles will forever trigger a very particular set of memories: memories of a long, wet, windy walk in winter when, as teenagers and in their early twenties, with their friends and comrades, they went to war and were watched with bated breath by the rest of the world.

Chapter 2

Leaving

She was the roughest, toughest frail,
But Minnie had a heart as big as a whale.

At five o’clock on the morning of Friday, 2 April 1982, like most other law abiding souls, I was at home; asleep in bed. When the phone rang, it yanked me from a distant other world. It must have been ringing for some time before it penetrated my oblivion. This was before the days of mobile phones or cordless handsets and I had to get up, out of bed, and go downstairs to where our phone resided in the hall. Even in my somnolent state, I was concerned. No one rings at five o’clock in the morning with good news. It was Maureen Morrison, our redoubtable telephonist who presided over 45 Commando’s ancient telephone exchange in a bunker by the officers’ mess tennis courts, telling me: ‘The Commando has been recalled. Get into barracks as soon as you can, and be prepared to deploy on operations.’

A moment or two passed before this sank in. It was five in the morning, after all. Most of 45 Commando Group had just finished a busy and demanding three months’ winter training period in the Cairngorm Mountains, on Rannoch Moor and on the Isle of Skye. One of our rifle companies, Yankee Company commanded by Major Richard Davis, was in Hong Kong, about to return from jungle training in the Far East. We were looking forward very much to going on Easter leave that very day. I was the commander of X Ray Company, one of the three rifle companies in the Commando. I had sent those men who had worked through the previous weekend off on leave already.

Maureen and I were well acquainted. Until three months before, I had been the Adjutant of 45 Commando and inevitably I had spent a great deal of time on the telephone. When you wanted to ring somebody, you picked up a handset and waited for Maureen to answer, and to put you through. The system was antiquated even for those days. Maureen, being the arbiter of whose request for a line was answered first, was a most important ally. She could make life easy – or not – for frequent phone users like me. I had never had to wait more than a few seconds for my phone to be answered, but I was conscious of how much I depended on her. And what if she was out feeding the cats, or taking in a quick burst of sunshine by the tennis courts? Well, business, urgent or otherwise, would simply have to wait . . .

I must have been stunned into silence because she repeated her message. I didn’t think Maureen was known for her practical jokes, but I couldn’t be sure. ‘But Maureen, April Fools’ Day was yesterday.’

Weary of having been likewise challenged by everybody else whom she had rung, she came back with, ‘Och no, it’s for real – get yerself back into Condor Barracks now!’

As I plodded back upstairs, recollections of the TV news the day before began to dispel the sleep from my brain. We had heard of the illegal scrap merchants on South Georgia and knew that the Argentines were making aggressive noises about the Falkland Islands – but weren’t they always doing that? Something must have changed. Perhaps they’d finally invaded. Was the British government really going to send us to the South Atlantic? It’s just as well the Argentines did not invade the day before, April Fools’ Day. Nobody would have believed it.

I dressed in the dark and, for the next hour, scratched around in the garden shed with a torch, gathering together my kit. This wasn’t difficult. We had only recently come off exercise and we habitually kept our stuff more or less ready to go, either on another exercise, or in case a real operation materialised. By six o’clock, I was on my Triumph Bonneville motorcycle with my rucksack on my back, making the 11-mile journey into Arbroath in the gathering daylight, leaving my anxious wife alone and wide-awake in bed. It’s a strange, eerie feeling being called to war from one’s bed. Time has not dimmed the memory of the sensation.

The next few days were unreal, ethereal and highly charged. Having arrived in barracks in a great hurry, we company commanders and other key officers were gathered together in the Unit conference room. We were briefed by our Commando Second-in-Command, Major Rupert van der Horst, together with our Operations Officer, Captain Mike Hitchcock, and the Adjutant, Captain Mike Irwin. Our Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Whitehead, was in Denmark with key members of the staff of 3 Commando Brigade doing a reconnaissance for a NATO exercise. He arrived home that afternoon, but a number of important decisions had already been taken and the recall process was well underway. Not much information was available except a FLASH signal ordering us to prepare for operations in the South Atlantic.

It should be remembered that in 1982 we were in the depths of the Cold War. We had all been on exercises where the scenario had kicked off with a Soviet incursion into North Norway, or Yugoslavia, or some other potential trigger point. And it was often a FLASH signal – the highest priority – which had sent us on our way. We had done this so often that we had become rather blaseéé about it. I had even written imaginary FLASH signals to add what I supposed was authenticity to my own company exercises. Subconsciously, perhaps, we thought it was all theatre. The Cold War would never become hot. We played our parts on this stage enthusiastically and conscientiously enough, preparing for what might in theory be demanded of us, but surely that demand would never be made in earnest? So it was with some awe that we looked at this signal, the likes of which we had all heard of, but never seen for real.

45 Commando Group was unique in the British order of battle. It was based in an ex-Royal Naval Air Station, HMS Condor, near Arbroath in the county of Angus in Scotland. At its heart was 45 Commando Royal Marines, comprising three rifle companies, X Ray, Yankee and Zulu, which were the principal fighting elements of the unit, each of about 120 men. Each company was commanded by a captain or a major and had three rifle troops of about 34 men (a troop being comparable to an Army platoon), each commanded by a lieutenant or second lieutenant. Each troop broke down into three sections of eight to ten men, commanded by a corporal. Each section was divided into two groups – a rifle group of six or so men armed with 7.62mm self-loading rifles (the SLR) and a gun group of two or three men led by a lance corporal with a General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG). Support Company comprised a mortar troop with six 81mm mortars, an anti-tank troop with 18 Milan anti-tank missile firing posts, and a reconnaissance troop which, together with a small surveillance troop, were the Commanding Officer’s eyes and ears. We also had some assault engineers. Headquarters Company looked after all the administrative functions such as the quartermaster’s stores, the motor transport troop, the intelligence section, the signal troop, a sick bay providing a regimental aid post in the field, the chaplain, the chefs, and clerical and financial support.

The men in the Commando were Royal Marines, supported by a small number of Royal Navy people who included the chaplain, the dentist, the doctor, an instructor officer, and their supporting staffs. Everyone wore the Green Beret, all having passed the Commando course at the Commando Training Centre in Devon. What set this unit apart was that it was also supported by a substantial number of British Army personnel who were integral to the Group. We had our own Royal Artillery battery, 7 (Sphinx) Battery, with six 105mm light guns. We also had our own Royal Engineers troop, Condor Troop, and our own Royal Marines helicopter flight, Montforterbeek Flight, with three Gazelle light helicopters. These men too had all passed the Commando course. We even had a Gaelic-speaking Royal Air Force Regiment sergeant, Jock Steele, attached to Zulu Company, thereby completing the representation from all three Services. All told, our commanding officer, assisted by his second-in-command, his adjutant and his operations officer, had operational command of some 1,000 men. United under our Green Berets, and geographically distant from our superior or parent units, we were a self-sufficient, tight-knit organisation. We were also a potent fighting force ready to be launched worldwide on amphibious or other operations, either as the Group alone, or as part of a larger formation. We shared the same messes, we trained together, lived together and drank together, and for the greater part we would fight together.

We were to serve in the Falklands under the command of 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines. This formation normally comprised three Royal Marines commandos supported by its own artillery regiment, engineer squadron, helicopter squadron, air defence troop, reconnaissance cadre and logistic regiment. For the Falklands War, it would have a Rapier anti-aircraft missile battery and other elements attached to it. Two battalions of the Parachute Regiment would also join it in due course. The commander of 3 Commando Brigade was Brigadier Julian Thompson.

Some elements of our Group would be returned to their parent units, but 7 Battery, the battery commander and his forward observation officers, retained their intimate relationship with the Commando. Throughout the war, the battery commander, Major Gerry Akhurst, would never be more than a few paces away from our commanding officer, and the forward observation officers, Captains Derek Dalrymple and Alasdair Cameron, would be similarly attached to two of the three rifle company commanders. A third observation officer, Captain Jim Baxter, was eventually brought in from 8 Battery to work with the third company. Moreover, 7 Battery were short of men so about 20 marines and one Royal Marines officer, Second Lieutenant Steven Turnbull, were lent from the Commando and trained as gunners. They served and fought most effectively as gunners throughout the war.

It may be recalled that the Royal Marines and their core activity, amphibious warfare, had for many years been the subject of much uncertainty in the great defence debate. The survival of the fittest applies to defence just as starkly as it does in the commercial world. No regiment, ship, or squadron is owed a living or a continued existence by the country. Every organisation has constantly to look to its usefulness and relevance in the defence firmament. It was part of the hallmark of the Royal Marines that we should never rely upon one single role for our livelihood. Having played our part in the small wars that punctuated Britain’s withdrawal from empire, we now specialised in making ourselves useful in a variety of ways. We called ourselves commandos and talked about, and practised, the raiding role, but in truth, the likelihood of conducting a raid as envisaged by ourselves was remote indeed. Amphibious warfare too looked an unlikely NATO contingency, although we had made a virtue out of it by selling its utility in the North Norway scenario. So we diversified.

The Royal Marines are an integral part of the Royal Navy, but our planners and our manpower managers made great efforts to meet every request for help from other Arms and Services. They never said no if they could possibly avoid it. So the Royal Marines manned the Special Boat Service to provide the Royal Navy with special forces. We manned the Royal Marines Band Service to make the Navy’s music for them. We gave detachments of Royal Marines to the Navy to put in their ships to give them extra utility – and to fill gaps in their manning plots. We made ourselves the lead experts in maritime counter-terrorism and we protected the Navy’s nuclear weapons. Royal Marines commando units played a crucial part in the Army’s rota of battalions in Northern Ireland. We offered exchange programmes for officers and NCOs in the Army, the Royal Air Force Regiment, and the United States Marine Corps. We developed a very close operational relationship with the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, thereby enriching our political and international credentials. Secondment for officers and NCOs to other countries’ armed forces was encouraged and a solid quorum of Royal Marines had acquired serious operational experience in the Dhofar War in Oman.

But in those days, the British defence community saw only two spheres: NATO, and the rest of the world. They even referred to the rest of the world by its initials: ROW. And just in case there was any doubt about the relative priorities, there was another set of initials, OOA, which signified ‘Out of Area’. The Royal Marines were both ROW and OOA, and the area we were out of was Germany and the North Atlantic: the vital ground, so to speak, of the Cold War. Recognising the importance of the transatlantic lifeline to NATO’s survival on the European continent, we played our part in NATO plans to protect this lifeline from Soviet submarines operating out of northern Russia, and from a potential Soviet invasion of North Norway. Amphibious warfare had some utility here on the flanks of NATO and from this we developed our Arctic and mountain warfare skills and made ourselves the specialists in that most demanding of disciplines.

We had survived thus for about 20 years following withdrawal from empire, but successive defence reviews asked the same question again and again: were we providing value for money? We appeared to be expensive. Our basic training was longer than everyone else’s. Why? The answer, that the resulting superior quality, flexibility and individual commitment were worth the extra cost, was impossible to quantify or measure. But our people tended to stay longer than their Army counterparts, so surely that made us cheaper, not more expensive? Maybe, but it still didn’t look good to the accountants. The charge of ‘eéélitism’ or ‘gold plating’ always seemed to lurk near the surface in every argument. The Royal Marines themselves never sought to be eéélite troops – whatever these are – only properly trained ones. And maybe our training was gold plated, but war is a brutal, vile, utterly unforgiving business and, while one should always be mindful to husband resources, to send people to war without the very best preparation one can humanly give them is nothing less than betrayal. Any corner cutting during training would be repaid by unnecessary loss of lives during war.

The second-century Jewish historian, Josephus, said that the training for the Roman legions was so thorough that ‘their exercises were bloodless battles, and their battles were bloody exercises’. While not many Royal Marines had heard of Josephus, we nevertheless aspired to the same results. We aimed at preparing officers and men who could take their full place on a battlefield the day they passed out of training, without being a liability to themselves or their fellows. Moreover, it seemed to us a self-evident truth that the better trained your troops are, the more options are open to you as a commander and planner. If your soldiers are comfortable working at night, or capable of crossing difficult ground in bad weather carrying heavy loads, the advantages you give yourself over the side that cannot readily do these things are manifold.

I had experienced at first-hand this philosophy, both from my own officer training and through being responsible for training recruits and officers for several years in the 1970s. It was to be triumphantly vindicated in the Falklands War, but these arguments did not cut much ice during the Cold War, when military thinking was dominated by the potential armoured battle on the North German Plain. There, NATO braced itself for the possible advance of the Soviet Motor Rifle and Tank Divisions sweeping towards Calais and Antwerp, and foot infantry skills would not be a predominant factor. Besides, the amphibious capability was costly and there were many who felt that amphibious operations in a modern high-intensity war would be untenable. For a Royal Navy under heavy financial strain, and under great political pressure to concentrate even more on anti-submarine warfare, it was increasingly difficult to see where the Royal Marines fitted into the long-term future.

Many Royal Marines perceived that the Navy would be happy to swap them for a frigate or two, and in the Navy there was a view that the amphibious role to which the Marines had nailed their colours was peripheral and unsustainable, and distracted people and resources from the core business of anti-submarine warfare. I served in a frigate for over two years in the 1970s. During the 1980s I worked in a Naval directorate in the Ministry of Defence for two years, and in the Fleet Headquarters at Northwood for a further two years, so I saw the Navy at close quarters. It was, in the main, peopled by high quality, dedicated professionals. Where the Royal Marines and Royal Navy worked closely together, a mutual understanding and respect would quickly develop, resulting in some powerful and most fruitful relationships. This was especially so in the field of amphibious warfare, where together we had generated a capability second only to that of the Americans, and could work seamlessly alongside them. The Royal Navy personnel who served in 3 Commando Brigade, and the units like the helicopter squadrons who worked with us, were among the most ‘can do’ flexible warriors one could hope to meet anywhere. However, during the Cold War, the central task of the Navy was anti-submarine warfare in the North Atlantic. Unsurprisingly, many of the brightest and best officers became submariners. That was where the action was. There was not much else going on and very few officers had any medal ribbons. If one ever saw a middle-ranking officer with a medal ribbon, the chances were that it was an OBE awarded for sniffing the backsides of Soviet submarines in the Kola Inlet.

The Royal Navy became extremely good at anti-submarine warfare in all its complexities, but many of the submariners themselve...

Table of contents

• By the same author
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 - Listening
• Chapter 2 - Leaving
• Chapter 3 - Pausing
• Chapter 4 - Sailing
• Chapter 5 - Landing
• Chapter 6 - Yomping
• Chapter 7 - Fighting
• Chapter 8 - Returning
• Chapter 9 - Reflecting
• Glossary
• Appendix 1 - Equipment carried by X Ray Company Commander during the battle for Two Sisters
• Index