1982 Falklands Peter and Dan Snow: 20th Century Battlefields

In April 1982, an invasion by Argentina provoked

one of the most ambitious military undertakings in British history.

Britain sent a naval task force and 15,000 men

to fight for a small group of islands on the edge of the Antarctic.

Britain was at war with Argentina but the odds were spectacularly uneven.

I'll look at the challenges that faced the British struggling to fight

8,000 miles from home,

while the Argentinians were fighting on their own doorstep.

They had to fight up here in freezing conditions

on exposed hilltops and across wide open ground.

I'll experience how the British troops

-used darkness to their advantage against a well defended enemy.

In a way it was one of the most improbable conflicts ever.

More than 30,000 men went to war over a group of barren and windswept islands,

that were home to only 2,000 people.

This is the story of the battle for the Falklands.

This may look like a sleepy little seaside town somewhere in the British Isles.

In fact, the United Kingdom is 8,000 miles away.

These are the Falkland Islands, a remote British territory in the South Atlantic.

The nearest mainland is Argentina, just 400 miles to the west.

Life for the 2,500 people who live here is isolated,

hardy and undisturbed, but in April 1982,

all that changed, when these islands became the setting

for the last invasion of British territory.

On April 2nd 1982,

about 100 Argentinian marines landed here on the Falklands.

Their objective - to capture the capital, Stanley.

They were the advance party.

There were 2,000 more men on their way,

but the job of these marines was to seize the town

and force the British governor of the islands to surrender.

Soon, the extraordinary news of the Argentinian invasion hit bulletins across the world.

The Falkland Islands, the British colony in the South Atlantic

has fallen, that's what Argentina is saying.

It claims its marines went ashore as a spearhead this morning

to capture key targets, including the capital Port Stanley.

The Islands were defended by just 69 Royal Marines and the invading

Argentinians in their hundreds overwhelmed this tiny force.

They moved up here and surrounded Government House, demanding the surrender of the Falkland Islands.

As Argentinian armoured vehicles rolled towards Government House, a fire fight broke out.

Trapped inside, the British Governor, Rex Hunt,

broadcast a defiant message on the local radio station.

The invasion of the Falklands transformed a long-running dispute

between Britain and Argentina into a major international crisis.

For two centuries, both countries have claimed the Falklands.

The Argentinians did control the Islands for nearly a decade

until 1833, when the British expelled them.

Britain has governed the Falklands ever since.

The Argentinians call the islands the Malvinas, and they tried to persuade the British to give them up.

Britain had long considered handing over this small relic of Empire to Argentina, but the Falkland Islanders

liked their British identity and didn't want to give it up.

It became clear to the British government

that overriding the wishes of the islanders was out of the question.

The people here wanted the Islands to stay British sovereign territory.

This made agreement between Britain and Argentina almost impossible.

Talks got nowhere and the future of the Falkland Islands remained in an uneasy deadlock.

But in 1981, a new military government seized power in Argentina.

At its head was the Army Commander, General Leopoldo Galtieri.

His regime was a rule of terror, and the country's economy was collapsing.

He badly needed to find a cause that would win his government popularity.

There was one issue Galtieri knew his people cared passionately about -

their claim to the Falkland Islands.

Galtieri would unite the Argentinian nation by seizing the Falkland Islands from Britain by force.

It looked like the perfect answer to his problems.

And on April 2nd 1982,

Galtieri's repossession of the Falklands was going exactly to plan.

Within hours of landing, hundreds of Argentinian troops were all over Stanley.

They had even seized the radio station.

The Governor, Rex Hunt, had little choice but to surrender.

He broadcast a final message to the islanders from Government House.

The governor and the royal marines were escorted off the Islands and sent back to Britain.

The civilians were left wondering what would happen next.

We heard these tremendous bangs on the back door

and there were shouts for us to come out.

We had to go out and sit in the yard,

and this Argentine was there with a machine gun trained on us.

Mum thought we were going to be shot.

8,000 miles from Britain, the islanders were left unprotected and isolated.

CAR HORNS BLARE

When the news of the British surrender hit Buenos Aires that afternoon, 200,000 Argentinians

poured into the main square, wildly applauding the liberation of the Islas Malvinas.

Galtieri's plan had worked.

As the crowds celebrated, Galtieri was confident

that Britain would not react. He assumed that because

the distant Falklands was hardly a vital British interest, Britain would not fight for them.

But Galtieri was making one crucial error. He'd seriously underestimated

Britain's prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

In 1982, Britain's first female prime minister

was governing a country in trouble.

Britain was in recession, unemployment had just passed the three million mark,

and there'd been some of the worst rioting of the 20th century.

But Thatcher was a formidable character.

She knew that to hesitate could spell doom for her unpopular government.

She summoned parliament and gave a defiant response to Argentina's invasion.

We are here because for the first time for many years,

British sovereign territory has been invaded by a foreign power.

The government has now decided that a large task force will sail

as soon as all preparations are complete.

HMS Invincible will be in the lead and will leave port on Monday.

And so, in the spring of 1982, a British task force set sail.

Ahead lay an 8,000-mile journey across the Atlantic Ocean to the Falkland Islands.

In all, 93 ships would sail to the Falklands, a hastily gathered

fleet of warships, supply ships, and even cruise liners like the QE2.

At the heart of the fleet were two aircraft carriers - HMS Invincible and HMS Hermes.

Hermes was the flagship and home to the Task Force Commander, Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward.

Woodward's fleet would take three weeks to reach the Falklands.

During that time, Britain would try for a diplomatic solution,

but if that failed, the task force would have to go to war when it got there.

By April 17th, the first wave of the task force had sailed

right down into the South Atlantic and was just off Ascension Island,

the nearest British base to the Falklands.

There were still another 3,500 miles to the Falkland Islands themselves.

The ships were in two groups. To the south was Woodward's naval fleet.

This was the advance party, made up of two aircraft carriers and fighting ships that would

battle for the control of the air and the sea around the Falkland Islands.

Once they had gained air superiority,

then the men carried in the second group of ships

would launch an amphibious landing.

The only way to win back the Falklands would be to have troops fighting on the ground there.

As the fleet sailed south, United Nations and US diplomats tried for a peaceful settlement.

But by April 30th, any hope of a diplomatic solution evaporated.

Neither side would back down.

Neither Britain nor Argentina had officially declared war but now war seemed inevitable.

The Argentinian garrison of these islands watched the British military response to their invasion with

growing concern. The race was now on to get organised and re-supplied before the British arrived.

The Argentinian army did have some professional soldiers

but the majority of its men were young conscripts.

To strengthen its forces, the army recalled reservists, more experienced men who could

stiffen the ranks of those who had just begun their military service.

My commanding officer came on the radio at four o'clock in the morning

and told me to wake up all the men.

We had to be in the Malvinas in 36 hours.

You could see that the soldiers felt very proud.

By the end of April,

there were 13,000 Argentinian troops on the Islands,

and with them, their new commander.

The man in charge was Brigadier General Mario Menendez.

Menendez was a tough soldier who had made his name fighting rebels in remote parts of Argentina.

He was quickly sworn in as the new governor of the Falklands.

His first task was to prepare his defences.

Strategically, Menendez's position was strong.

As you can see, the Falkland Islands are about 400 miles from Argentina.

That put the islands just within range

of Argentina's air force, based on the mainland.

The main two islands are West and East Falkland, each around 50 miles from end to end.

Menendez positioned 2,000 of his men on West Falkland,

1,000 men here at Goose Green,

and about 10,000 in the hills to the west of Stanley.

These hills were the Argentinians' last line of defence.

But Menendez hoped his ground troops wouldn't have to fight at all.

He planned to neutralise the British task force out at sea

before they had a chance to set foot on land.

The Argentinian air force was well trained and could launch

high-performance fighter bombers from bases on the mainland.

These aircraft could attack the task force once they were within range.

Against this force, the British could only take as many fighters

as they could fit onto their two aircraft carriers, that was just 34 planes.

34 against nearly 100 Argentinian fighters.

This small force was supposed to gain air superiority,

protect the British fleet and prepare the way for the amphibious landings,

all this from the confined flight decks of the two carriers

as they ploughed through the heaving South Atlantic seas.

It was an enormous challenge.

On 1st May 1982, the battle for the Falklands began.

The first clash between Britain and Argentina was in the air.

But despite being the underdog, the British immediately showed

they were a force to be reckoned with.

There was one thing that the Argentinians hadn't expected.

Britain's latest acquisition, the Sea Harrier.

God, you can feel the power of that thing. It's unbelievable.

That's what's required to get it off this tiny deck. Whoa!

This aircraft was brand new, untested in combat when it was sent to the Falklands.

Unique in its ability to take off and land vertically and operate from short runways,

the Harrier quickly proved it was versatile and extremely reliable.

And the Harrier had another killer advantage.

It was armed with the latest air-to-air heat-seeking missile, called Sidewinder.

Four Argentinian aircraft were shot down on the first day by Sidewinder. Another 15 would follow.

The British seemed to be smashing the Argentinian air force, but they could only maintain

their advantage in the air while their ships below remained safe.

The most important ships in any naval task force are the aircraft carriers.

If the carriers are lost, so too are their vital aircraft.

The two aircraft carriers in the Falklands had to be protected at all costs, and although

the action continued in the skies, the focus of the battle shifted to the rough seas of the South Atlantic.

On 1st May, Woodward's main task force was 100 miles northeast of the Falklands.

The British government had declared a 200-mile exclusion zone

around the Islands and said it would attack anyone entering it.

Up here, to the northwest, a cluster of Argentinian warships was approaching, among them

the Argentinian flagship, the aircraft carrier, the Veinticinco de Mayo.

She carried aircraft that would soon be within close range of the British fleet.

But even more menacing, the British reckoned, was another group of ships to the south of the Falklands.

A cruiser, the General Belgrano and two destroyers,

which the British believed were armed with lethal Exocet missiles.

These missiles could sink the British aircraft carriers if they got within range.

The Royal Navy could not afford to risk an Exocet attack on its vital carriers.

The loss of even one carrier and her combat aircraft could mean defeat.

Without both, the British task force would have to withdraw from the fight completely.

The Argentinians appeared to be threatening a pincer movement against the British fleet.

The carrier, the Veinticinco de Mayo, from the north

and the Belgrano group from the south.

The Belgrano group was being tracked

by a submerged British submarine, the Conqueror.

Conqueror's captain feared that if the Belgrano turned north,

it would move into these shallow waters.

The Conqueror would struggle to track the ship in the shallow water

and risked losing sight of it.

The Belgrano might then head for the British fleet and put the task force in grave danger.

Beneath the waves, Conqueror's commanding officer saw that the Belgrano was steering

an erratic course just outside the exclusion zone.

The situation was so critical that the Prime Minister herself was consulted.

She gave the order to attack. The Conqueror launched its torpedoes.

There were masses of injured men.

Most of them had been burnt and there were men covered in oil.

When I got to my life raft, I asked a sailor to come with me again

and look for the people that were missing, including the commander.

Within 45 minutes, the Belgrano had sunk.

Immediately, the entire Argentinian navy,

fearful of further submarine attacks, turned round and headed home.

The British had scored a huge military success and Galtieri's plan seemed to be faltering.

But he was still able to unleash the weapon the British feared most.

The Argentinians had recently bought five air-launched Exocets.

These half-ton missiles could seek out and destroy a ship

from over 30 miles away.

On the morning of 4th May, two Argentinian strike aircraft,

each armed with an Exocet, took off from the mainland.

On that particular day in 1982, Woodward posted three ships like this as his front line of defence.

They were destroyers. HMS Coventry, HMS Glasgow and HMS Sheffield.

They were armed with anti-aircraft missiles.

These ships could shoot down aircraft,

but they were unreliable against low altitude targets like Exocets.

That morning, things had been relatively quiet for the British task force.

Then, just before two o'clock, the Argentinian aircraft were picked up

by the radar room on board HMS Glasgow.

Glasgow immediately sent an urgent warning to all the other ships and went to full action stations herself.

But 20 miles away, onboard HMS Sheffield,

the scene couldn't have been more different.

Here, the ops room wasn't fully manned

and only part of the message from the Glasgow was picked up. But it was worse than that.

At that exact moment, HMS Sheffield was using its satellite equipment

to send a message back to Britain and that blocked its radar.

The Sheffield couldn't see the Argentinian aircraft approaching.

Back on the Glasgow, two fast moving dots, possible Exocet missiles,

suddenly appeared on the radar screen and were closing in at 700mph.

With a mixture of relief and horror,

the captain of the Glasgow realised that the missiles

were headed not for them, but straight for the Sheffield.

HMS Sheffield was the first British ship to be destroyed by enemy action

since the Second World War.

Of the 281 men aboard, 20 were killed and 26 were wounded.

Blood had now been shed on both sides of the conflict.

By mid-May, the South Atlantic winter was closing in.

Some Harriers had been lost in combat and now the bad weather was beginning to hinder the pilots.

The success of the British plan relied on having complete control of the air

to provide cover for landing the ground troops,

but the British didn't have that cover and now time was running out.

It was politically unthinkable to abandon the operation now,

they would have to take the huge risk of putting in the ground troops without total air cover.

On 18th May, the second wave of ships, including ferries

and the cruise liner the Canberra, arrived just off the Falklands.

On board was the amphibious landing force.

The 3,000 men were a mixture of Royal Marine Commandos and Army Paratroopers

and they were led by Brigadier Julian Thompson.

Thompson was an experienced commander. He knew that his troops were vulnerable

without air superiority, but the pressure of time meant the landings had to go ahead.

The British had looked at all the landings site options

on both West and East Falkland.

Since Stanley over here was their ultimate target,

it made sense to land here on East Falkland.

They plumped for this natural harbour here at San Carlos Bay.

It would be out of range of enemy artillery

and was only very lightly defended,

a great advantage for any amphibious landing.

And here I am with San Carlos Bay behind me

and that's the entrance over there,

that's where the British landing force came in.

These hills also offered Thompson's men and ships

some protection against low level air attack, but there was one problem with this landing site.

It was a long way from San Carlos here across to the spot

where Thompson knew the decisive battle would be fought.

Here in the strongly defended mountains just west of Stanley.

Between the two was 50 miles of difficult country.

Thompson planned to move his landing force right across the island

with a shipment of helicopters that were due to arrive any day.

But now the priority was to get his men on dry land as soon as possible.

In the early hours of 21st May,

3,000 British troops headed for the landing beaches.

Each man carried his rifle, ammunition and enough rations

for two days. This was the moment they'd been waiting for, for weeks.

Once ashore, the British troops made their way up into the hills and dug themselves into strong positions.

One unit, the second battalion of the Parachute Regiment, known as 2 Para,

were based up here on the Sussex Mountains overlooking the bay.

It was just a question of time before the Argentinians arrived.

The men braced themselves for an air attack.

Then, at 10.30, all hell broke loose.

The Argentinian High Command sent in wave after wave of their fighter bombers from the mainland.

For five hours, these aircraft bombed and strafed the fleet sitting in the bay.

The surrounding hills made it almost impossible for the ships' radars to detect the enemy aircraft,

so the British were unable to get a fix on the attacking planes until it was too late.

From these positions up here, the Paras had a grandstand view of the action in the bay.

All their supplies for the land campaign were still

being unloaded from those ships coming under attack.

The Paras had to watch helplessly as their lifeline was under fire.

By the end of the day, five British warships were hit

and one ship, HMS Ardent, was sinking.

And the attacks continued on the next day.

The British had positioned anti-aircraft missiles around the bay,

but it would be days before these delicate units were operational.

On the water, the men had resorted to strapping

machine guns onto the ships' rails in a desperate attempt to hit the low-flying Argentinian jets.

More conventional anti-aircraft guns,

some operated by sailors as young as 17, did score a few successes.

But all these efforts did little to blunt the relentless onslaught of the Argentinian air force.

The British ships unloading vital supplies for the land campaign made easy targets.

On May 23rd, HMS Antelope, just out there,

was the next vessel to take a fatal hit.

We watched with lumps in our throats

as Antelope raged with fire and finally sank.

She was our escort and everybody felt a great loss,

as she was more than just a ship to us.

In four days, eight British ships were damaged and two sunk.

During these attacks, 25 men died and many more were injured.

While the British were reeling from the attacks in San Carlos water,

the Argentinians were celebrating their triumphs.

On 25th May, it was Argentina's National Day,

a day of patriotic ceremony, and after the successes of their air campaign,

Menendez and his troops in the Falklands had even more reason to celebrate.

SPEAKS IN SPANISH

But it wasn't over yet.

The Argentinian air force was preparing another raid

that would hit the British land campaign where it really hurt.

A massive container ship, the Atlantic Conveyor,

had just arrived from Britain. She was loaded with thousands of tons

of supplies, but, more importantly, the helicopters needed by the British forces to get them to Stanley.

She was preparing to go into San Carlos that night.

At 3.36pm on 25th May, two Argentinian aircraft flying from

the mainland picked up the British carrier group just off East Falkland.

Once in range, they released their Exocets.

The missiles locked onto two frigates.

The ships fired up metal foil to confuse the missiles radar and the Exocets veered away.

But then they found another target, the defenceless Atlantic Conveyor.

Fire ripped through the ship

and all nine helicopters still onboard were destroyed.

Thompson was relying on them to carry his men across East Falkland to Stanley.

At one stroke, most of his transport had now disappeared.

Margaret Thatcher wanted Stanley back in British hands quickly,

but the main British force was still 50 miles away.

And with no helicopters, the only way

for the troops to get there was to walk.

The marines called it yomping and this was to be one of the classic yomps of all time.

Men carried up to 120lbs of kit on their backs

through very uneven ground and with the rain lashing down.

The men had four days of hard marching ahead of them.

And at the end of this slog, they would have to fight a battle.

The British main force of 2,000 men were on the move to Stanley,

but one unit of around 500 men was going in a completely different direction.

The men of 2 Para weren't heading east towards Stanley,

they were heading south towards a settlement that was heavily garrisoned by Argentinian troops.

They had been ordered to win a quick and morale-boosting victory.

But the battle that lay ahead of them wouldn't go as planned.

The name of the settlement was Goose Green.

The Argentinians had a base at Goose Green

because of its strategic importance.

It's on a narrow strip of land just five miles long by a mile wide.

So the Argentinians had stationed an infantry regiment here,

centred around a small grassy airstrip.

This is Goose Green Settlement and San Carlos is beyond those mountains way over in the distance there.

Here's Goose Green on the map case.

Aware of the British landing in San Carlos, the Argentinians reinforced

their garrison here at Goose Green, fearing an attack from the north.

Ready for a British assault, all they could do now was wait.

The man in command of 2 Para was Colonel H Jones.

Known as H to his men, he was brave but impulsive and he believed in leading from the front.

Jones knew Goose Green would be a formidable target and he drew up a detailed battle plan.

The ground at Goose Green was wide open and featureless, offering little protection.

Jones' objectives were the airstrip and the settlement of Goose Green, held by the Argentinians.

2 Para was split into several companies.

They would fight their way south in the dark and then close in on the airfield.

Then they would take the settlement in daylight.

But the Argentinians held a strong position

on the high ground of Darwin Hill.

They were protected by minefields in front

and supporting artillery back behind the airfield.

At 10.30 that night, the British began the attack.

One company, about 100 men, moved rapidly up here on the left,

clearing out any enemy positions that they came across.

2 Para were making good progress

until they reached this spot on the north side of Darwin Hill.

This was the point at which Colonel H Jones' plan started to go badly wrong.

One company were pinned down there by fire from well-placed machine guns up on the hill.

It was rapidly becoming clear that there were more Argentinians

than they had thought and what's more,

their will to fight was strong.

Then the sun began to rise and light flooded across Goose Green,

illuminating the men on the wide open battlefield.

The men of 2 Para on the low ground were completely exposed

to Argentinian fire and couldn't advance.

Somebody had to do something.

It was time for Colonel H Jones to do what he thought he did best - lead from the front.

He identified an isolated Argentinian position just up there

that he thought that he could take out on his own.

Clutching his submachine gun, he charged up the hill,

but immediately, withering fire broke out

from this hill up there, other Argentinian positions.

He was seen to fall over but he got back up and kept charging,

then he was shot in the back and collapsed mortally wounded only metres away from his target.

This memorial marks where Jones fell.

As their commanding officer lay dying,

it now fell to the second in command, Major Chris Keeble, to lead the men.

2 Para were pinned down out in the open and they were still

a mile short of their objective - the airstrip at Goose Green.

This was 2 Para's position. This is where they were pinned down

by heavy fire coming from the Argentinians dug in along this ridge.

Keeble decided that rather than risk more losses,

he'd bring heavy fire down on the Argentinian defences on the ridge.

While this was happening, two of his other companies

moved around to the west to bring pressure on the Argentinians' flank.

Slowly, 2 Para pushed forward as Argentinian fighter bombers hit them from the air.

Then their luck turned and they got their first air support of the fight.

Two Harriers swept over the battle

and dropped cluster bombs on the Argentinian artillery positions.

After 14 hours of intense fighting,

the Para's steady progress saw them closing in on the Argentinians.

But they'd taken a lot of casualties and they were utterly exhausted.

That night, Keeble decided on a cunning ploy

to try and bluff the Argentinians into an early surrender.

He sent a letter to the Argentinian Commander.

In a highly confident tone, he demanded an Argentinian surrender

and warned them that he would bombard them heavily and hold

them responsible for any civilian casualties if they went on fighting.

Amazingly, the gamble worked. The Argentinians agreed to surrender.

The next day,

the Paras were astonished to see over 900 Argentinians,

nearly twice their own number and nearly three times more than they had expected,

lay down their weapons.

CHEERING

After six weeks under Argentinian occupation, Goose Green was back

in British hands, and the soldiers of 2 Para were heroes.

But the battle for this tiny place had come at a huge cost.

Lieutenant Colonel Jones, Captain Wood,

Captain Dent, Lieutenant Fari,

Corporal Hardman, Corporal Sullivan.

More than 70 soldiers were dead, 16 British and over 50 Argentinians.

What had begun as a quick raid to seize back the airstrip and liberate the community

had turned into a bloody battle in the struggle for the Falkland Islands.

The British had won the first round of their land campaign against

all the odds, but ahead of them still was the battle to regain Stanley.

While 2 Para had been fighting at Goose Green,

the main British force had crossed the island

and was now just 12 miles from the capital.

But the soldiers knew they faced a tough fight between them and Stanley.

We've got to take Stanley.

There's no stopping us now, I don't reckon.

Got to get it done fast so the only way to do it is get in there.

Do you have any feelings of apprehension then?

Oh, yes, definitely. Without a shadow of a doubt.

Everything seemed to be going to plan, but then the British campaign suffered a massive blow.

What followed was the largest single British loss of life in the war.

Just a few miles away from the troops, two landing ships,

Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram, were anchored just off this bay.

They were packed with nearly 500 troops - reinforcements for the assault on Stanley.

These ships should have been off-loaded under cover of darkness,

but a series of delays and misunderstandings meant they were still here when the sun came up.

The Argentinians spotted the ships and called in their air force from the mainland.

Two Argentinian fighter bombers swept in on a deadly bombing run.

They caught both ships in broad daylight packed with troops and ammunition.

49 men were killed and a further 115 injured in the disaster.

But this British tragedy was a significant morale boost for the Argentinians.

Menendez was told that 900 British had died

and he now expected a slackening in the British momentum.

But he was in for a rude shock.

Nine days after the landings at San Carlos, a senior commander,

Major General Jeremy Moore, took overall control of the British land campaign.

Undeterred by the Argentinian air attacks, Moore moved around

9,000 troops into position near the hills surrounding Stanley.

The battle for Stanley was about to begin.

Here's Mount Kent, where we are now.

Heavy Argentinian forces lay between Moore here and the capital.

He would attack in two stages on two separate nights.

On the first night, his offensive would sweep from north to south -

a three-pronged attack on the Argentinians.

Moore planned to take this outer ring of hills,

the largest of which was Mount Longdon in the north here.

On the second night, the British would assault

another ring of hills nearer Stanley, centred here on Mount Tumbledown.

Success would leave them just two miles from Stanley.

The first targets were the Argentinian troops dug in all over Mount Longdon.

Mount Longdon is a natural fortress.

Over 500 feet at its highest point,

it dominates the surrounding moorland.

For the British forces, this was a dangerous place to attack

and after their experiences at Goose Green, they didn't

want their troops caught advancing in the open terrain in daylight.

So they made a key decision. All the battles to retake Stanley would be fought at night.

Night fighting is a highly effective strategy.

Every soldier in the British forces has to be as good at fighting in the dark as in daylight.

I joined the British Army on a training exercise to experience what it's like.

The attack began with flares and machine gun fire once we'd crept as close as we could in the pitch dark.

It's incredibly noisy. It's actually quite bewildering.

Just moving around in these positions is very difficult, you're weighed

down by your equipment, there's people tripping over, falling in the frozen stream and turning ankles.

The enemy is not the only challenge in this dark and difficult terrain.

Despite how hard it is to operate in the dark,

it's imperative that the attacking troops don't get pinned down.

One of the most important things... We've done our attack, we've gotta keep up the momentum,

keep up speed, I guess to keep the enemy off balance.

We're about to go over this rise now and interestingly the commander here

is constantly telling everyone what's going on in the rest of the battlefield, even though it's only

50 or a 100 metres away, it's very confusing. We can just hear firing and lots of shouting.

So he's constantly going round telling everyone at what stage

we're at, trying to keep everything going to plan.

For the British troops on the Falklands,

keeping to the plan and maintaining momentum would be the key to their success when fighting at night.

At 8pm on 11th June, the British forces began their attack on Mount Longdon.

But 3 Para, who were spearheading the advance,

found themselves trapped in a bewildering maze of steep-sided alleyways.

These narrow gullies here channelled the men into the killing grounds of

the Argentinian machine gunners and snipers up above and then grenades

were rolled down in amongst them. One officer compared it to like being stuck in a bowling alley.

The grenades, they were just bouncing down

the side of the rock face.

We thought they were rocks falling until the first one exploded.

Despite mounting casualties, the men pushed forward.

One sergeant, Ian McKay, dashed up a slope

and knocked out a stubborn Argentinian position.

He was killed but later awarded the Victoria Cross.

For seven hours, the British forces battled their way up Mount Longdon.

Their assault was just too forceful for the Argentinians to hold off.

So desperate were the Argentinians to smash the British attack

that Menendez risked his own men's lives

by ordering his own artillery to bring down fire on their own positions here on Mount Longdon.

But it didn't do any good.

By 6.30am, the British had captured the mountain.

As day broke, the British brought in the dead and injured from both sides.

Most of the Argentinian casualties and prisoners

were conscript soldiers, young men drafted into the army.

While these soldiers had fought well, many of them

were worn down by the conditions before the battle had begun.

Some of them were even captured in their positions like this one,

huddled up in their sleeping bags trying to escape the battle and the cold.

I am tired, cold, unhappy.

I swear that I can't take it any more,

even though this is my duty as a man and a soldier of the fatherland.

Although this had been a bloody battle for both sides, the British

attacks had taken all the high ground they planned to on the first night.

But another night's fighting still lay ahead.

Of the remaining mountains that had to be captured on the second night,

by far the most vital was that one over there.

That's Tumbledown, the last major obstacle between the British and Stanley.

The men charged with recapturing Tumbledown were the 2nd Battalion of the Scots Guards.

Just eight weeks earlier, they had been on ceremonial duties, like guarding Buckingham Palace.

This would be the first experience of war for many of them,

and they now had to confront perhaps the toughest target of the campaign.

If the Argentinians lost Tumbledown, they lost Stanley.

So they had put their best men up here - the elite 5th Marines.

700 heavily-armed crack troops were dug into the protective

positions in the caves and rocks high in the mountain.

These Argentinian marines had been trained to fight at night

and they outnumbered the attacking British forces by almost two to one.

The Argentinians were confident they could hold the British off.

As soon as darkness fell, the fighting began.

Aye, it was murder.

We were coming under mortar fire, machine gun fire, sniper fire.

You name it, it was coming towards us.

Well, there's a saying, expect the unexpected, and that was unexpected.

You cannot really describe it,

nobody could describe it if they'd not been there.

Three hours into the battle, things were going badly for the British.

The Scots Guards' attack had come to a complete halt.

They were taunting us, the odd word in English,

calling us to come on, and I think they mentioned surrender.

The combination of cold, uncertainty and the general

awareness that we were stuck led to the group ego shrinking and shrinking and shrinking.

At that stage, I thought we had blown it.

That's Mount Tumbledown behind me up there,

and here it is on the Map Case.

The Scots Guards had approached Tumbledown from the west

and made their way up this slope here unopposed.

But now one company, about 120 men, were pinned down here by stiff

opposition from the Argentinians positioned in the rocks and crags up above, on top of the ridge here.

Then 30 Scots Guards climbed up onto higher ground to the north

undetected by the Argentinians down below.

Now they were able to bring sustained fire down on the Argentinians' exposed flank.

The rest of the company stormed the Argentinians' strong point.

The Scots had made the breakthrough.

As dawn broke, the battle was still raging on Tumbledown

and the British forces prepared to throw everything they had

into the fight for Stanley.

They hammered the remaining enemy positions in a final all-out bombardment.

Soon Argentinian troops could be seen fleeing.

The British troops had effectively destroyed their enemy's will to fight

and the Argentinians retreated,

flooding back into Stanley in their hundreds.

The Argentinian resistance was crumbling.

As the demoralised defenders poured into Stanley, the men were heard arguing with their superiors.

Discipline among the Argentinian troops was breaking down.

It wasn't long before they were surrounded.

And on 14th June, the British demanded the Argentinians surrender.

Realising that he had little choice, Menendez accepted.

After two-and-a-half months, the battle for the Falklands was over.

Gentlemen, I've just heard that the white flag is flying over Stanley.

The Argentinians had occupied Stanley for 74 days,

but now, as 2 Para marched into the capital, it was back in British hands.

A month later, the first British troops arrived back home to jubilant celebrations.

This victory had given people a renewed sense of pride in their country

and a feeling that Britain could lift itself out of its recent decline.

And riding on the crest of this success was Margaret Thatcher.

Within a year, she won the general election with a resounding majority.

The Iron Lady had cemented her position as a major world leader.

In Argentina, the news of the surrender was taken very badly.

Far from uniting the people, the war had left the Argentinians furious at the army and the government.

Just three days after Argentina's defeat,

Galtieri was forced from power and military rule collapsed in Argentina.

Over in the Falklands, the legacy of this bitter conflict lives on.

Nearly 1,000 people died in the war. 252 British servicemen,

three Falkland Islanders and almost 700 Argentinians.

After the war, the British government offered to return

the bodies of the Argentinian dead to Argentina for burial,

but their government refused.

They said that these islands were part of Argentina and the bodies would remain here.

For the Falkland Islanders, these graves are a daily reminder

that Argentina refuses to drop its claim to their homeland.

After the war ended, Britain greatly increased its permanent military presence on the islands.

Now there's one serviceman for every two civilians living here.

Today, the islanders are still determined the Falklands remain British.

As long as Britain continues to respect their wishes,

there'll be no early end to this bitter territorial dispute.

Next time...

In 1991, Kuwait was at the centre of the last major war of the 20th century.

Saddam Hussein's Iraq had invaded,

leading to a battle unlike anything seen before.

I'll be getting to grips with some of the challenges

faced by the men and women on the frontline.

And I'm going to be explaining the tactics

of a war dominated by cutting-edge technology.

It was called Operation Desert Storm, The Battle For Kuwait.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd