Back to the Falklands: Brothers in Arms Panorama

This rugged and beautiful landscape

was once the scene of a short, but brutal conflict.

In 1982, a small British Overseas Territory

in the South Atlantic, known as the Falkland Islands,

was invaded by Argentina.

A task force set sail from Britain to reclaim the islands -

over 100 vessels and nearly 26,000 men and women.

Some were as young as 18.

It was the moment I was... Basically, I was robbed of my youth.

I don't think anybody, as a 19-year-old,

should witness that much death.

The British defeated the Argentines in just three and a half weeks,

and returned home victorious.

But what happened after the parades were finished

and the flags were put away?

I just blanked it at first.

I was still young.

But as I grew older, it started eating away at me, like.

One of the veterans has used art to cope with his trauma.

I think a lot of the pain that I suffered from the Falklands,

I've kind of alleviated it with being able to do art

connected with it. So I'm lucky that I have that safety valve.

We'll use his animations

to explore how fighting a war

continues to affect soldiers, even decades later.

It's a devil, really, because you can't see the injury.

Everybody thinks you're all right but underneath, you're screaming.

'And now, Panorama.'

Good evening.

The government, the country, perhaps the world itself sits

precariously balanced this evening

between terrible fighting

and a peaceful solution to the Falklands Crisis.

The first time I heard about the Falklands I thought,

"They've got a cheek, trying to come in to Scotland."

Because that's where I thought the Falklands Islands was.

Panorama is following a group of former Welsh Guards

who have remained friends as they fly 8,000 miles

back to the Falklands

to confront their demons for the first time in 35 years.

As teenagers, they knew little

of what they were getting themselves into.

When you're 19 years of age, you are... You're Superman.

You can walk through walls. You are indestructible.

You are the master of the Universe. You've got...

Everything's in front of you.

Yeah, 19-year-old, not a care in the world.

Nothing at all.

The world is my oyster, you know.

For all their youthful bravado,

all were affected by their exposure to the horrors of war

and still bear the psychological scars.

53-year-old Nigel O'Keefe is divorced and lives alone.

When I first moved here,

my kids used to come here all the time, but...

..because of my alcohol problems, they've stopped coming now. And...

..that's what I miss a lot, my kids.

It's not their fault. It's my fault.

But I have grandkids now and...

My kids don't want them to see that, you know?

They want to put me in a nice light, not...

..nonsense I don't want to throw at them, you know.

Like many veterans,

Mick Hermanis suffers from survivor guilt.

I've got the dread of my life to go back.

It's very, very daunting for me.

We had the highest losses from the British Army.

We left a lot of really good friends down there.

It has affected me. It was diagnosed with PTSD about 20-odd years ago.

I had nightmares for a few years.

Doubted my own sanity and bits and pieces like that,

getting very angry.

Not for what happened in the Falklands, what happened afterwards.

The aftermath. You know,

somebody would say something, and it might be...

Under normal circumstances, you'd just brush it off.

I would go absolutely berserk.

Paul Bromwell has suffered from bouts of aggression

and severe insomnia.

He runs veteran self-help groups

and takes care of mistreated horses

which often exhibit similar signs of anxiety and stress.

I lost a lot of friends.

I think it marked me for the rest of my life.

But since then, since I come back,

I'd have what you'd call a ghost around.

I see things when I'm sleeping.

The Army changes you, big time.

Because they empty you of what you were, they make you what they want,

but then, when you get out, you're still what they want.

But you don't fit into society any more.

Yeah, what happens is you seem to put a barrier up

so that the hurt that you're carrying,

you don't seem to let it out.

You just keep it in.

You're taught that way when you're going through training,

and that's one of the principles where they put...

You get rid of your emotions

and you carry on, it doesn't matter, whatever happens, you know?

But by putting that barrier up, I don't think it ever comes back down.

A fresh-faced Will Kevans,

seen here aged 19, worked as part of a detail

clearing corpses and moving the sick and injured.

We cleaned up the hospital, and, obviously,

there'd been a lot of amputations.

And we...

I think, 82, Lewis, he picked up and said, "What's this?"

And he picked this thing up and this foot just fell on the floor.

And it was like a foot that had been blown off.

So it was just bits and pieces of people in the hospital

that we needed to incinerate. That was our detail for the day.

And this is just all part of the journey for me.

This is the catalyst.

And now the journey, going back to the Falklands.

I guess, reliving it, I suppose. And try to make more sense of it.

I know it's going to hurt,

but I just want to go back there and see it through to the end.

The first time these former Welsh Guards arrived on the islands,

it was on a hastily converted luxury cruise ship, the QE2.

This time, it's courtesy of the Ministry of Defence

who supply cheap flights for veterans

wishing to return to the Falklands.

-Absolutely amazing to be with old friends.

-Let's do this!

I'm extremely excited and ready to rock and roll.

HE LAUGHS

Joined by other veterans,

our group travels to San Carlos where they first arrived in 1982.

# All right now

# Baby, it's all right now... #

This is where we first landed. This is it. This is San Carlos.

Straight on. Straight on.

It was just ships galore. You could see nothing but ships out there.

It was absolutely teeming with ships.

This is what they call Bomb Alley.

It was like as if we'd stepped back in time.

The guys that was landing on the beach in the Second World War.

In your head, this is what we were going to do.

But when we see it, it was just chaos. It was equipment everywhere.

It was everything blowing in your face.

And...the biggest shock was how cold it was.

Once landed at San Carlos,

the infantry needed to carry all equipment on foot,

including weapons, ammunition and provisions.

Each man was carrying around 60 kilos.

Well, I was carrying, probably, the weight of a human being

on my back, through ground...

Well, have a look at what the ground is like around us.

It's chaos.

Surreal, being back here. It's totally surreal.

Flashback! Are you going to cross the jetty now?

Rambo!

HE LAUGHS

In 1982, British forces marched 90 miles from San Carlos

to the capital, Port Stanley.

A combination of tactical factors

meant that many of the Welsh Guards did not complete this march.

Bad press in the years after the war

accused them of not having been fit enough to do the march.

Stung by this criticism,

the men are determined to prove their detractors wrong

by doing the 90-mile tactical advance to battle, or TAB.

It's like a pilgrimage, really.

We want to retrace our steps and do the march that we didn't do

back in the day that the paras and the marines did.

Their route will take them past significant battlegrounds.

And along the way,

each man intends to revisit the scene of a traumatic incident

which has haunted him ever since.

-I have a lot of emotions about it.

-It's very personal.

-It's a personal thing.

-It's got to be done

-for the sake of your own sanity and that.

-Yeah, for your own sanity.

It's going to be tough. It's going to be tough.

But before they hit the road tomorrow,

the team tuck into their rations,

something slightly better than they had back in '82.

Look at this lamb. There you are, boys. And the chef, now, right.

What a job he's done there.

He uses that term very loosely, chef, mind, all right?

So we'll be doing Welsh Guards first, then paras.

THEY LAUGH

I was just saying really nice things about you...

Today, the men will march 22 miles from San Carlos to Goose Green.

It's just a thrill, coming back here and doing this.

And it's fitting, cos at walking pace,

your mind is ticking over, and all the memories are unravelling.

And it's very cathartic.

And I think we're all going to be talking about what happened

and dealing with the demons that each of us have.

Mick's trauma and survivor guilt

are embodied in the carrying of his bergen, or army backpack,

throughout the 90-mile hike to Port Stanley.

This bag symbolises the baggage I've been carrying for 35 years.

Mental baggage.

And the weather is virtually identical

to the way it was back in the day.

COUGHING

That's better, that.

Whoa, that's better. That's opened the lungs up.

That last hill nearly paralysed me.

I'm bursting for a piss.

They might be 8,000 miles from home,

but the weather is decidedly Welsh.

After five gruelling miles, it all proves too much for Nigel,

and he's forced to continue the journey by car.

-It's about a mile now.

-About a mile, you said that about five miles ago.

20-odd miles later,

and it's time for some much needed R&R,

thanks to the hospitality of two locals.

Jan gave us a call to see if we could put them up.

And the answer's always yes.

My connectivity with this island is so strong,

and what we did when we were young men, to come back here and fight,

and the respect that the locals have for us,

it just means so much.

My foot, I tell you what, I've got this bastard gout.

I can feel it.

-You've got a bad jobbie there.

-I know, they're bad.

Nigel is suffering, too. But not with his feet.

Apart from his poor general health,

the return to these islands

is bringing back some unwanted memories.

Once the joker of the gang,

seen here on the QE2 en route to the Falklands,

he has his own demons to deal with.

One of the problems I have before I came out here,

I'm alcohol dependent.

I've been alcohol dependent for quite some years and...

I often ask myself, "Why am I drinking every day and every night,

"and not stopping?"

So I have, myself,

put it down to being over here, I suppose, you know?

And what happened over here.

Nigel's defining memory of the Falklands War

was when his platoon found itself in a minefield

laid by the Argentineans.

We were advancing. It was pitch-black.

There was tracers flying everywhere.

And then a guy from the SAS

came running up the single-file line

and told everyone to stop.

So he said, "We're in a minefield."

And as soon as he told us that, I could hear this screaming.

High-pitched, really, really high-pitched screaming

and I said, "What the hell are women and kids doing out here, like?"

I found out then it was two Royal Marines

who'd stepped on antipersonnel mines.

And that's what the screaming was.

I've never heard a grown man scream so high-pitched like that.

# We come together

# Here we go... #

To me, in my mind, it's like...

It was like an old film.

It is like, "Did that really happen?" and everything.

Maybe now, when I see it again,

I'll realise it was real, like, no?

The day doesn't end well for Nigel, as, once more,

he finds himself unable to cope.

I'm really, really worried about Nigel. He doesn't look very well.

He's come over all clammy, he's been sick.

He really shouldn't have come out.

-It's like Paul said, we shouldn't have bloody brought him.

-I know.

I said, I said... Honestly, I said, let me tell you and all, right?

-I work with people like that every day.

-He wanted to come.

-It's just it's a tough one, isn't it?

-It is a tough one, yeah.

It's a tough one. But which you have told him, "You can't come"?

It's a shame because, you know, what we went through 35 years ago,

it's affected us all in different ways.

To see someone like this now...

With Nigel recovering in hospital,

the group is one man down.

Coming all this way, 8,000 miles, and straight into hospital!

Unbelievable.

-What was we saying last time?

-Sheep!

-Sheep!

Baa!

Today, we're marching to Fitzroy, where the Welsh Guards got hit

on the Sir Galahad, so it's a very significant day for Mick.

Very significant day for a lot of us, really.

-I appreciate it.

-No, I enjoyed having you.

Right, charge.

Oh, it's been a pleasure. You take care.

PLAYING REVEILLE

-Bye-bye.

-Bye!

-Take care!

Is that our lunch up there on the hill?

THEY IMITATE SHEEP

The group reach Fitzroy Bay six hours later.

48 soldiers and crew were killed here when the ship

Sir Galahad was bombed by the Argentinian Air Force.

This is where the Welsh Guard suffered their heaviest losses.

This is it.

This is where we came ashore.

Mick was one of hundreds of Welsh Guards

being transported on the ship.

Planes came in and hit us, half past four in the afternoon.

ARTILLERY FIRE, MISSILE WHISTLES

Bang.

And then whoosh.

Thrown through the air. I got thrown about 15 foot.

You're trying to get guys out and you're choking.

Some of the guys, they went back, they wanted to pull...

You know, I'm talking heroes there, what they done.

If you ever see somebody, they've got on a pair of Marigold gloves,

they peel them off...

and just left them hanging by their fingers -

the flash has blown the skin off his hands.

And he had roses tattooed on his hands.

You could see the tattoos down there on his skin where they'd come off.

The smell was horrendous.

Explosions and burning flesh, right?

It was...

It really got into you, like...

It's in and on you.

Many men were trapped below deck in the burning hold.

Guys going back in there. I had a look, didn't have the guts for it.

Well, I had really...

I just, I couldn't go back in there.

-HE SIGHS

-Dear me.

HE SOBS

When Mick returned home, his survivor guilt

was only intensified by the warmth of his hero's welcome.

All the neighbours in the street are out, the bloody big hero's...

hero's welcome.

As they got up to the door, it's a big picture,

the Welsh Guards rugby team, and the first who I clock,

is Cliff and Yorkie.

They got killed on the Guard, you know, and I just broke down.

The ones who were killed, it broke my heart.

Seeing my mates and I'm getting a bloody hero's welcome

and my two mates ain't there,

just...still shocking.

-All right, boys?

-What's wrong, Mike?

-Come here, come here.

Get in there, Mike.

It's all gone by the way now, boy. All gone by the way.

The men leave Fitzroy with heavy hearts.

It's unlikely they will ever return.

I think the hardest thing was especially with Mike Hermanis

and a view of the other boys, Fitzroy, the actual Fitzroy itself,

is such a big thing and it's such...

When they got there yesterday, very emotional.

He finds now it's hard to leave there and start walking

all over again, and that was the biggest thing this morning,

was trying to get re-motivated to carry on walking.

The approach to the capital, Port Stanley,

takes them past the battleground Mount Harriet.

Paul Bromwell was part of a recce unit leading the way up

the mountains and paving the way for the Paras and Marines.

Paul had walked some 70 miles in sub-zero temperatures by this point.

It was one of the hardest tracks I've ever done.

You've got to imagine yourself doing a marathon.

I'd done a couple of marathons by the time I got here.

It was -3, ice rain,

and we were put in positions right round the bottom of Mount Harriet.

The Argentines were well dug in and convinced that the British

would never attempt something as foolhardy as storming

the mountain at night in these conditions.

That underestimation proved their downfall.

Where we could see a lot of movement and a lot of fire coming in,

it was coming in both ways.

We all opened up and whatever we could see,

we put enough firepower down

to let the Marines go forward.

We were just waiting for something to go wrong, you know?

Despite what Paul and his comrades suffered that night,

a plaque on the site fails to even mention them.

We fought on this mountain and yet it never comes out.

It's always the other regiments have taken it,

that they've done everything.

There's no mention on here whatsoever

about what the Welsh Guard's done on this mountain itself.

I don't want this thought to leave my life all the time,

but it never goes away.

It was so surreal to be involved in this and then within a week,

I'm walking down the street at home and...

..it was like two worlds apart.

I'd been through hell and when I went home,

it just seemed nothing had changed.

Everybody else was carrying on with their life and yet inside,

it was hurting a lot.

So much. I'd lost too many good friends.

It's the last push to Port Stanley and for Will,

the incident that has most haunted him occurred after

the Argentine surrender on this road.

I remember walking up and seeing something in the road and it

was the body of a dead Argentinian.

And for reasons I still don't understand today,

I put my hand down

and I wanted to look at the guy's face.

And I'd picked his head up

and I looked at no face.

There was no face there at all.

It was just a cross-section of his skull.

All of his teeth were all over the place,

there was bone fragments and blood all over the place,

and it's something that has haunted me

for a very long time, seeing that,

and that's what I remember about coming into Port Stanley.

Some of the lads were looking through his possessions

and they found photographs of his family and it just...

It made me think immediately that this guy could have been me,

could have been any of us.

He was just a soldier,

fighting for a war that he probably didn't believe in

in a foreign country and a place that he'd never heard of,

and probably as scared as me, and unfortunately he'd been killed.

Covering an average of 22 miles a day,

then men have done their march in four days.

Not bad for ten old geriatrics!

Exactly, we've done pretty good.

I started blubbing, coming up the hill just then.

Yeah, I'm proud of us all, mate, I'm proud of us all.

-I tell you what, mate...

-Set a few demons to rest now.

Yeah. Suck on that.

-Hip-hip...

-ALL:

-Hooray!

-Hip-hip...

-Hooray!

-Hip-hip...

-Hooray!

Come on, boys, all together, all together.

One, two, three. Bam, done it!

Well done, boys. Let's get some photos.

Get some photos.

This is it.

Cheers, mate. I've been carrying this.

My Falklands War's over about 35 years,

this is it, the monkey's off my back.

Get in there!

That's it, baggage ended.

The Argentines lost 649 men,

almost three times that of the British.

When the conflict was over,

Will and some comrades were detailed to return

500 Argentinian prisoners using a modified old Sealink

cross-channel ferry which had sailed all the way from the UK.

During this time,

they discovered a poignant connection with the prisoners.

We were sectioned to deal with the prisoners on the car deck.

We had about 500 of these engineers who'd helped clear the mines.

And we were taking them back to Puerto Madryn in Argentina

on this cross-channel ferry.

And my mate strikes up a conversation with one of these guys.

They can barely speak each other's languages but it transpires

that some of the prisoners we had were Welsh

because when the Welsh were oppressed,

they left Wales to go and settle in Patagonia,

and yet we're fighting with each other.

It's St David's Day,

exactly 102 years since the formation of the Welsh Guards.

A fitting time to pay their respects to fallen comrades.

SOBBING

It's closure, it's closure, you know?

I can go home now and not think about this place no more,

and I can move on in my life now.

I think it's about the futility of war.

I think you realise what a futile thing it is.

I mean, obviously we achieved an objective by going there

and taking the islands back and that needed to be done...

..but at what cost?

At what cost, you know?

Shall we go home? Let's go home. Come on.

There's not a single day goes by when you don't think about it,

think about the boys,

the friends that we lost in this.

There were some bloody fantastic boys we lost up there.

People forget, when they're walking down the street

and doing their shopping every day,

is that the freedom for them to do that,

somebody paid for it somewhere.

And I know that a lot of my mates, they paid for it with their lives.

Look, freedom isn't free. Somebody's paying for it.

# Through these fields of destruction

# Baptisms of fire

# I've witnessed your suffering

# As the battle raged higher

# And though they did hurt me so bad

# In the fear and alarm

# You did not desert me

# My brothers in arms... #