by Stuart Slade
“Prepare to land the landing force.” The time-honored order that had been a Navy standard since the days of the Spanish Armada echoed through the vehicle hangar. When the cruiser had first been built, decades ago, it had been a spacious aircraft hangar, supposedly capable of housing four seaplanes. In the early 1950s, the U.S. Navy had converted her to a missile cruiser. When better-designed conversions had become available, they’d stripped the missile systems out and sold what was left of the ship to Argentina. The stern half of the ship had been gutted when Argentina took delivery. So, the ship had been rebuilt as an assault cruiser, a hybrid ship that was heavy cruiser forward and amphibious landing ship aft. What had been the floatplane hangar had been extended to give capacity for ten LVTP-7s. A flight deck and helicopter hangar had been constructed where the aft eight-inch guns had once been. Davits amidships carried four LCTs, each capable of landing a single light tank. All-in-all, a useful ship; one the Argentine Navy was proud of.
The vehicle hangar shook again. This time the cause wasn’t gunfire; it was the aft doors opening. As they slid sideways, a ramp started to lower. It allowed the LVTPs to drive down from the hangar to the sea. It was a narrow ramp, wide enough for a single amtrack to use at a time. Caceres gave the order. His amtrack started to move forward, its bows dipped as it descended the ramp then levelled off as the vehicle entered the water. In front of him, the water started to pile up as his vehicle picked up speed. The swell was causing the amtrack to roll. Momentarily, he felt sorry for the troops in the back. The infantry compartment in the LVTP-7 was bad enough at the best of times; when full of seasick Marines, it was hideous.
Over to Caceres’s left, the destroyer Entre Rios was lobbing shells from her 5.3-inch guns towards Port Stanley Airfield. This was a carefully-planned exercise. The airfield was Caceres’s primary objective and the gunfire was calculated to suppress any defenses without destroying the facility completely. The Argentine Air Force was already preparing a squadron of its Ciclone attack aircraft for transfer to the airport. They would be a key part of the defense if the British actually tried to retake the islands. A key part that wouldn’t be there if the airport was destroyed by eight-inch gunfire.
The LVTP company Caceres commanded wasn’t the only part of the landing force coming ashore at Yorke Bay. The landing ship Candido de Lasala had her well deck flooded and more LVTPs were sailing out of the docking area and forming up before heading out The white sand of the beach that glittered so enticingly ahead of the invaders. Once ashore, they would be heading for Port Stanley itself, to join up with the column that was already ashore and advancing from Lake Cove.
Caceres watched the four helicopters from the Almirante Brown lumber overhead. Their job was to seize a bridge about a mile behind the landing beach. That bridge was also a key point. It would provide the armored column with access to Port Stanley. If it went down, the LVTP-7s could swim across, but the M92 light tanks would be stuck until a temporary replacement could be built. So, the platoon of infantry on the Pumas would seize the bridge, remove any demolition charges and hold it until they were relieved by the advancing armor. That part of the plan was already beginning to go wrong. As the Pumas crossed the coast, they were greeted by a barrage of gunfire and the streaks of surface-to-air missiles being fired.
The effects were catastrophic for the helicopters. One blew up in mid-air as it tried to cross the beach. The streak of light connecting it to the ground told Caceres that one of the British Kestrel missiles had claimed the kill. Another was in bad trouble. It was attempting to make a crash landing on the beach itself; probably in autorotation after its engines had been hit. It might have made it, but an anti-tank missile forestalled the landing and the helicopter slammed into the ground and burned. The remaining two helicopters were the victims of machine gun fire. Too slow and clumsy to evade the hail of fire, they staggered out of the ambush and tried to make it back to the Almirante Brown. One made it. The other made a forced landing in the sea half way between the beach and the cruiser. It was not, Caceres thought, an auspicious start to the landing.
He had his own problems. Those facing the main body of the landing force were theirs to be concerned over. His own target was a small sub-bay to the north of Gypsy Cove; one flanked by rocky outcrops. They possibly barred the way to the inviting white sand. As his LVTP-7 plowed through the water towards the beach, he was waiting for the blast of gunfire and rockets that would mark his group being caught in a vicious crossfire. He stooped down in his turret; trying to gain some comfort from the armored protection, but also painfully aware that the armor was paper-thin and wouldn’t stop an armor-piercing bullet from a rifle. The expected hail of fire never came and Caceres felt the bow of his amtrack lift as the treads gripped sand instead of water.
Slightly surprised at his own survival, he glanced over to his right. The explanation for his good fortune was immediately apparent. The main body landing in Gypsy Cove was in chaos. Obviously, the British had expected that to be the main beach. After all, the good road to Stanley lay just behind it and the beach itself was near-perfect for a landing. He could see at least three amtracks and a M92 light tank burning on the water’s edge. The beach was being raked with gunfire from the headland that lay on its west and the small island that Caceres had passed on the way in. Grimly, he realized the troops there must have let him pass, waiting for the greater game to come. More fire was hosing the main body from inland, pinning the troops on the beach. The main body was almost surrounded. Caceres saw another red ball rise in the night sky as an Amtrack exploded just inshore from the water’s edge.
Behind him, the landing craft had dropped their ramps and the M92 tanks surged out, on to the white sand. Their odd shape made them look like beetles that had somehow found their way into this chaos. Caceres picked up the microphone of his radio and got himself patched through to his battalion commander. “Sir, Delfina group is ashore without casualties. Beach is quiet; say again beach is quiet.”
There was a crackle on the radio. He could hear the hammering of gunfire in the background. A lot of gunfire. “We are pinned down here, the beach is mined and there were at least two companies of English marines waiting for us.” The next words were drowned out by the roar of explosions. The cause was obvious. The two cruisers had moved closer inshore and were firing on the rocky outcrops that were allowing the defenders to fire into the Argentine rear. The mix of eight inch and five inch shells were drowning the rock piles in the orange-red balls of explosions. The firing from them ceased.
“Sir, we can swing west and take the defenses in the rear.”
“Negative, Delfina. Say again negative. We’ll look after ourselves here. You carry on with your assigned task. Seize that airfield. Jasmine out.”
Well, orders were orders and that had been made clear enough. Caceres switched from the battalion command net to his company net. “All Delfina units move out. Delfina-One will lead, four will follow, two and three will bring up the rear.” That put his own amtrack and the three of first platoon in the lead, then the platoon of four M92s and the two remaining platoons of infantry at the rear. As his LVTP-7 lurched forward, the driver carefully picked his way through the icy rock field. Caceres was studying his map. Just 300 meters in the road to the airfield should open up. Another 700 meters beyond that and he should be on the airfield itself. Behind him, the beach shook again as the two cruisers offshore hurled more shells into the British defenses at Gypsy Cove.
Headquarters Section, NP8901, Gypsy Cove, Falkland Islands
“Those bloody cruisers are chewing us up.” Sergeant Jordan was of the opinion that stating the obvious was never a bad idea when speaking to an officer. The damage being done by the two cruisers was very obvious. Their blanket of fire from eight-inch and five-inch guns had silenced both the outposts that had done so much damage to the Argentine force. They had sunk at least two LVTPs with rocket hits and their machine gun fire had raked the troops on the beach in a murderous crossfire. The Argentine Mar
ines were trying to take cover using dips in the white sand. That was only a temporary relief. NP8901’s two 50mm mortars were already at work, dropping their bombs into the knots of trapped troops.
“We can write off second platoon.” Captain James Fitzhugh carefully kept the guilt out of his voice. He had known the chance of the platoon’s survival was virtually nil when he’d sent two of its three squads out to hold the two rocky points. The third squad was his reserve and was about to be committed. On the other hand, the chance of first platoon surviving wasn’t much higher. The reports from Lake Cove suggested that third platoon was already gone. This mission had always been a forlorn hope; the islands couldn’t support a large enough defense force to make an invasion impossible. NP8901 was a force small enough to be supported for an indefinite period, large enough to make any invasion force bleed badly so that sovereignty had been defended, small enough that its inevitable loss wouldn’t matter too much. A fine balance, Fitzhugh thought, I just wish that I wasn’t one of the elements being balanced.
“They’re moving behind us on our right, Sergeant. Take third squad and refuse the right flank. Prevent their armor getting behind us. We’ll disengage from here and fall back to Lady Elizabeth Bay with your squad acting as rearguard. From there, we’ll get over the bridge and blow it behind us.” Those of us who survive, which won’t be many. Fitzhugh thought gently to himself. “That’ll buy us a little time.”
“Very good, Sir.” Jordan slipped off. Fitzhugh took another careful look at the beach through his night-vision binoculars. The Argentines were already organizing themselves and starting to assault his beach defense positions. Some of the groups laid down suppressive fire while others slowly moved up the beach. His left flank was already beginning to crumble under the pressure while his center and right were still holding. Now was the time to pull back, while he still could. Once the troops were locked into a firefight, he would have to stand here. That was a bad idea with those cruisers shelling the beach.
“Order all three squads to fall back, towards Lady Elizabeth Bay. We’ve done all we can here.”
Major Caceres’s Column, Approaching Port Stanley Airfield
Every so often, things did work out the way they were supposed to. The road, such as it was, had been where the map showed it to be. It was only gravel with two thin tire tracks the width of a Landrover apart. The ‘heavy’ armor was tearing it apart, spraying the small stones to either side in shotgun blasts. For all that, it was better than nothing. The map also showed the road making a long curve before straightening up for the run into the airfield. Caceres saw the curve approaching. That’s when things stopped working the way they were supposed to.
Three rockets streaked out from a rocky outcrop on his right. Two shot harmlessly overhead. The third hit the second of his four M92 tanks. The tank exploded; immediately dissolving in a fireball as its ammunition cooked off. Light tanks did not take well to getting hit. The response from the Argentine column was instantaneous. They had rehearsed this often enough and had performed the maneuver for real when ambushed by insurgents. The three surviving M92s peeled away from the column followed by the second platoon of three LVTP-7s. They headed straight for the source of the rockets. The semiautomatic 76mm guns on the tanks were firing steadily. Most of the shots went wild as the vehicles lurched on the rock-covered ground. That wasn’t the point. They, and the streams of machine gun fire from the sub-turrets on the M92s and the LVTP-7s, were intended to force the ambushers to take cover. Killing them would come just a little later.
Back on the road, the seven LVTP-7s accelerated. Standard ambush procedure; the nearest forces attacked the ambush while the rest cleared the killing zone as quickly as possible. Caceres didn’t worry about what was happening at the ambush site. He had competent officers; they knew what they had to do and they could be trusted to do it. Instead, he concentrated on commanding his reduced force as it swept around the curve in the road and accelerated along the straight stretch of road towards the airfield. He could see it now. The lights in the control tower gleaming yellow in the darkness. His amtrack vibrated and shook from the gravel as it surged forward. Behind him, the firing from the ambush site reached a crescendo, then abruptly stopped.
Third Squad, Second Platoon, NP8901
There were a dozen machine guns at least, most of them .50-calibers, firing on the squad position. They saturated the area with fire. Sergeant Jordan was already down to three men. He’d lost two when a 76mm shell had plowed into their position. That shell had also cost him one of his two remaining anti-tank rockets. He had the other and he was waiting for the opportune moment to use it. That would be soon; he was all too aware that there weren’t very many moments left. The three LVTP-7s had already dropped their ramps. The infantry inside were deploying, covered by the never-ending hail of machine gun fire. Almost forty Argentines, three tanks and three APCs against a sergeant and three men.
The tanks had stopped moving. Now they picked their shots with deliberation. The remainder of his squad were firing on the vehicles, but their rifles just didn’t have the hitting power to penetrate the armor. They scratched and scarred it but they did no real damage to the vehicles it protected or the men who sheltered by them. The muzzle flashes from their rifles were different. They revealed the position of the British marines to the M92s. The flat cracks of the 76mm guns quickly ended the gunfire.
That was what gave Jordan his chance. While the tanks dealt with the three survivors of his squad, he took careful aim with his rocket launcher. The nearest of the three LVTP-7s had three radio antennas, not two. That suggested it was a command vehicle. That sealed its fate. Jordan fired his rocket carefully into its side. Shooting at amtracks with small rocket launchers was a dicey proposition at best since the flotation tanks and bulky hull shielded most of the vehicle’s vital parts. There were only a few areas where the rocket launcher could actually hurt. Jordan’s rocket hit one of them. The LVTP-7 exploded into flame, its crew leaping out of the top hatches and out of the rear.
By the time return fire arrived, Jordan had grabbed his rifle and was away, squirming through the rocks as he made his escape. He was off to Lady Elizabeth Bay. Before that he needed to know what the Argentine column was up to. The group on the road had already reached the outskirts of the airfield and were about to turn on to the taxiway. The group that had wiped out his ambush were starting to move out, paralleling the road. Jordan guessed they were heading for the end of the runway so they could advance down it. That made sense. With the information filed away, he started to head for the rest of NP8901.
Control Tower, Port Stanley Airfield, Falkland Islands.
“Come on lads, put some muscle into it. Thump it, don’t tap it!”
His words were rewarded by a redoubled effort. The noise of destruction increased exponentially. His two “lads” were furiously wielding heavy axes as they smashed in the radar displays and communications equipment. Warrant Officer Trascott had a 20-pound sledgehammer that he swung with all the berserk enthusiasm of a medieval bishop swinging a mace at the ungodly. He hated being stationed in the Falklands instead of the West Indies or Ascension. He hated the equipment he had to work with here and he hated his job in general. So, the opportunity to wreck everything in sight was a precious one. He meant to take every advantage of it. Outside, the runway lights were going out one-by-one as the third of his “lads” took them out with the other 20 pound sledge. The lad had always liked running. Now he was getting the chance.
There was a hammering on the steps outside. The door to the air traffic control center crashed open. A sweating Argentine Major stepped through, his pistol drawn and his presence backed up by armed men. Men with the Argentine FAS rifles; weapons that looked almost absurdly large compared with stubby British L1A2. “Drop those weapons.” The major snapped out the order in perfect English.
“Do it, lads.” Truscott kept his voice calm and even as he let the sledgehammer fall from his hands. Only a fool took on a 7.65mm Arge
ntine FAS with a sledge. Or an axe. Truscott heard the axes hit the wooden floor with relief. He’d been afraid one of his lads would get carried away with testosterone and try something stupid.
The Argentine officer was looking around at the wreckage of the control tower, struggling not to laugh at the devastation. “You three must really hate the Malvinas.”
“Not a prime posting, the Falklands.” Truscott said agreeably, making sure his hands stayed in sight. “Give us a few more minutes and we’ll finish the job off if you like.”
“That will not be necessary.” The major’s voice was theatrically grave. “You have another man out there smashing the lights? Stop him please.”
Truscott picked up the microphone that fed the Tannoy System. “Give it up Jimmy. The Argies are here. Drop the sledge and walk back to the control tower with your hands raised.”
“Thank you. I am Major Caceres, Argentine Marine Corps. This airfield is now under our control. You are our prisoners and under our protection.” There was an emphasis on the last three words that Truscott didn’t quite understand.
“Warrant Officer Winston Truscott, Sir. These are my lads, Leading Aircraftman Steven Handley and Leading Aircraftman William Scott. The lad outside is Aircraftman Jimmy Fish. All Royal Air Force.”
“Very good. My men will take charge of you. I hope you do not mind riding in an Amtrack back to the beach. I need to get you on to a ship as quickly as possible. Warrant Officer, have you set demo …”
Caceres was interrupted by a massive orange fireball rising into the sky from the outskirts of the airfield. A split second later, the dull boom of the explosion set the control tower rattling.
