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Battle of Mount Tumbledown

The Battle of Mount Tumbledown was an engagement in the Falklands War, one of a series of battles that took place during the British advance towards Stanley. On the night of 13 June – 14 June 1982, the British launched an assault on Tumbledown Mountain, one of the heights dominating the town of Stanley, and succeeded in driving the Argentine forces from the mountain. This close-quarter night battle was later dramatised in the BBC film Tumbledown.

The attacking British force consisted of the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards with mortar detachments from 42 Commando, Royal Marines and the 1/7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles with support from a troop of the Blues and Royals equipped with two Scorpion and two Scimitar armored vehicles. The Argentines defending the mountains were Commander Carlos Robacio's 5th Marine Infantry Battalion (BIM 5).

Prior to the British landings, the Argentine marine battalion had been brought up to brigade strength by a company of the Amphibious Engineers Company (CKIA), a battery of the 1st Marine Artillery Battalion (BIAC), three Tigercat SAM batteries of the 1st Marine Anti-Aircraft Regiment as well as a heavy machine-gun company of the Headquarters Battalion (BICO). As part of the British plan, the 1st Battalion the 7th Gurkha Rifles (1/7 GR) was given the task of capturing the sub-hill of Mount William held by O Company, the 5th Marine Battalion's reserve, and then allow the Welsh Guards through to seize Sapper Hill, the final obstacle before Stanley. The attacks was supported by naval gunfire from HMS Active's 4.5 inch gun.

At the time of the battle, N Company held Mount Tumbledown. Mount William was just south of Tumbledown and in fact the Marine battalion's O Company was on its lower slopes. B Company 6th Regiment was in reserve behind N Company. M Company occupied Sapper Hill. The Argentine defenders held firm under the heavy 'softening up' bombardment, which began at 7.30 local time. As Major Oscar Jaimet recalled in Razor's Edge.

I heard the cries of the wounded calling for their comrades, twelve men wounded before nightfall. We thought we had suffered before, but what luxury and comfort compared to this.

During the battle the 5th Marines Command Post took five direct hits but Commander Robacio emerged unscathed.

Early moves

On the morning of 13 June the Scots Guards were moved by helicopter from their position at Bluff Cove to an assembly area near Goat Ridge, to the west of Mount Tumbledown. The British plan called for a diversionary attack to be made south of Mount Tumbledown by a small number of Scots Guards assisted by the four light tanks of the Blues and Royals, whilst the main attack came as a three-phase silent advance from the west of Mount Tumbledown. In the first phase, G company would take the western end of the mountain; in the second phase Left Flank would pass through the area taken by G company to capture the center of the summit; and in the third phase Right Flank would pass through Left Flank to secure the eastern end of Tumbledown. A daytime assault was initially planned, but was postponed at the British battalion commander's request. Having held a planning meeting with his company commanders the consensus was that the long uphill assault across the harsh ground of Tumbledown would have been suicidal.

Diversion

At 8.30 p.m. on 13 June the diversionary attack began. The 2nd Scots Guards' Reconnaissance Platoon, commanded by Major Richard Bethell (a former SAS officer) and supported by four light tanks of the Blues and Royals, attacked the Argentinian marine company entrenched on the lower slopes of Mount William. On reaching Mount William's southern slopes one of the tanks was taken out of action by a booby trap. The initial advance was unopposed, but a heavy firefight broke out when the two forces made contact and continued for two hours. Two Guardsmen were killed and four wounded before the forward Argentine platoon position fell silent.

Realizing that they could be counter-attacked at any time, the British platoon withdrew from the marine position and inadvertently entered a minefield. Two men were wounded covering the withdrawal and a further four were wounded by mines. The explosions prompted the marine commanders to order the 81 mm mortar platoon on Mount William and Argentine artillery to open fire on the minefield and the likely withdrawal route of anyone attacking Mount William. The barrage lasted for about forty minutes and more British casualties would have been suffered if the ground the mortar bombs landed on had not been soft peat, which absorbed most of the blasts.

Night attack

At 9 p.m., half an hour after the start of the diversionary attack, Major Iain Dalzel-Job's G Company started its advance of nearly two miles. Reaching its objective undetected, the company found the western end of the mountain undefended and occupied it easily. Major John Kiszely's Left Flank passed through them and reached the central region of the peak unopposed, but then came under heavy fire. The Argentines, later learned to be of company strength, directed mortar, grenade, machine gun and small arms fire from very close range at the British company, which suffered two dead, Guardsman Ronald Tanbini and Sergeant John Simeon. Marine Sub-Lieutenant Héctor Mino's 5th Platoon, Amphibious Engineer Company, held the rocks to the right of Marine Sub-Lieutenant Carlos Vázquez's 4th Platoon, 5th Marines in the center and to the left of the 4th Platoon were Second Lieutenant Óscar Silva's RI 4 platoon, who had recently fought well on Goat Ridge. For four or five hours three platoons of Argentine riflemen, machine gunners and mortar men pinned the British down. To help identify the bunkers, the Guardsmen fired flares into the summit. The Guardsmen traded 66 mm rockets and 84 mm rounds with the Argentines protected in their rock bunkers. The enemy refused to budge and the Scots Guards could hear some of the Argentines shouting obscene phrases in English and even singing as they fought. Meanwhile, two Royal Navy frigates, HMS Yarmouth and HMS Active, were pounding Tumbledown with 4.5 inch guns. At one stage Colonel Scott thought the 2nd Scots Guards Battalion might have to withdraw and attack again the next night.

'The old nails were being bitten a bit, if we had been held on Tumbledown it might have encouraged them to keep on fighting.'

The fighting was hard going for Left Flank. The Argentines had well dug-in machine guns, and sniper fire caused all manner of problems. At 2.30 a.m., however, a second British assault overwhelmed the Argentine defences, as British troops swarmed the mountaintop and drove the Argentines out, at times fighting with fixed bayonets. Major Kiszely, who was to become a senior general after the war, was the first man into the enemy position, personally shooting two enemy conscripts and bayoneting a third, his bayonet breaking in two. Seeing their company commander among the Argentines inspired 14 and 15 Platoons to make the final dash across open ground to get within bayoneting distance of the marines. Kiszely and six other Guardsmen suddenly found themselves standing on top of the mountain, looking down on Stanley under street lighting and with vehicles moving along the roads. The Argentines now counter-attacked and a burst of machine gun fire from 3rd Platoon of Second Lieutenant Augusto La Madrid immediately injured three of these men, including the company commander and Lieutenant Alasdair Mitchell, commander of 15 Platoon. For his bayonet charge Major Kiszely was awarded the Military Cross.

Morning

By 6 a.m. Left Flank's attack had clearly stalled and had cost the company 7 men killed and 18 wounded. On the eastern half of the mountain the platoon of conscripts of La Madrid were still holding out, so Colonel Scott ordered Right Flank to push on to clear the final positions. Major Simon Price sent 2 and 3 Platoons forward, preceded by a barrage of 66 mm rockets to clear the forward RI 6 platoon. Major Price placed 1 Platoon high up in the rocks to provide fire support for the assault troops. Lieutenant Robert Lawrence led 3 Platoon round to the right of the Argentine platoon, hoping to take the Argentines by surprise. The advance was noticed, however, and the British were briefly pinned down by gunfire before a bayonet charge overwhelmed the Argentine defenders. Lance-Corporal Graham Rennie of 3 Platoon in the book 5th Infantry Brigade in the Falklands (Pen & Sword Books, 2003) later described the attack:

Our assault was initiated by a Guardsman killing a sniper, which was followed by a volley of 66 mm anti-tanks rounds. We ran forward in extended line, machine-gunners and riflemen firing from the hip to keep the enemy heads down, enabling us to cover the open ground in the shortest possible time. Halfway across the open ground 2 Platoon went to ground to give covering fire support, enabling us to gain a foothold on the enemy position. From then on we fought from crag to crag, rock to rock, taking out pockets of enemy and lone riflemen, all of who resisted fiercely.

As La Madrid had to withdraw in the face of a superior assaulting force, the platoons under Second Lieutenant Aldo Franco and Guillermo Robredo moved in from the eastern edge of the mountain to try to extricate La Madrid and the Marine 2nd platoon (under Second Lieutenant Marcelo Oruezabala) holding the saddle between Mounts Tumbledown and William. Advancing out of the central region of Tumbledown Mountain, the British again came under heavy fire from the Argentines, but advancing in pairs under covering fire, the British succeeded in clearing those RI 6 Company platoons as well, gaining firm control of the mountain's eastern side. Right Flank had achieved this at the cost of five wounded, including Lt. Lawrence. In his moment of victory on the eastern slopes, Lawrence's life nearly ended when a bullet fired by an enemy sniper tore off the side of his head. He was awarded the Military Cross for bravery, but he spent a year in a wheelchair and was almost totally paralyzed. The Argentine soldier in question with a FAL rifle had helped cover the Argentine retreat, firing shots at a Scout helicopter evacuating wounded off Tumbledown and injured two Guardsmen before the Scots Guards mortally wounded him in a hail of gunfire.

Aftermath

At 9.00 a.m. the Scots Guards had gained the high ground east of Tumbledown Mountain and the Gurkhas commenced deploying across the heavily shelled saddle from Tumbledown south to Mount William which they took with a loss of eight wounded. The 2nd Battalion the Scots Guards had lost 9 dead and 43 wounded, and one of the Guardsmen was to lose his way in the dark, to hide for more than a month, not realizing that the fighting was over. The Guards took 30 prisoners, several of them RI 6 soldiers. The bodies of 30 Argentine Army and Marine soldiers were strewn over the 5th Marine Battalion perimeter, one of the dead being an RI 6 soldier who had been allegedly bayoneted to death by a Guardsman while he attended to a wounded comrade.

Unwilling to abandon the hill, Commander Carlos Robacio on Sapper Hill decided the time was ripe to counter-attack and drive back the Guardsmen. Only the personal intervention of Colonel Félix Aguiar, the 10th Brigade Chief of Staff, brought the fighting to an end. The 5th Marines worked their way back into Stanley, leaving M Company to cover the retreat. At the foot of the hill there was an enormous minefield. A group of Sappers went ahead to clear a path across the mines, but when the Welsh Guardsmen advanced they found Sapper Hill abandoned. The delay caused by the mines in fact may have saved lives. The Marine companies had been deeply entrenched and very well equipped with heavy machine guns. To Guardsman Tracy Evens the Sapper Hill positions looked impregnable:

We were led to an area that the company would rest at for the night, I still took in the fact the Argies had prepared Sapper Hill well, they had depth positions that would have made the task of taking it very hard. (Taken from the diary of Guardsman Tracy Evens)

During the battle, a soldier called Philip Williams was knocked unconscious by an explosion, and left for dead. When he came to, the rest of the British soldiers had gone. Williams' parents were informed of his "death" and a memorial service held for him. It took him seven weeks to find his way back to civilization, braving atrocious weather. He was then victimized by the media and fellow soldiers, amid accusations of desertion.

For the courage displayed in the attack, men from the 2nd Scots Guards were awarded one Distinguished Service Order, two Military Crosses, two Distinguished Conduct Medals (one posthumously) and two Military Medals. Men from 9 Para Squadron, Royal Engineers, were awarded two Military Medals and Captain Sam Drennan, an Army Air Corps Scout pilot and former Scots Guards NCO, received the Distinguished Flying Cross.