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Abuse Setting aside our conflicting social, legal, and medical perspectives on the use of cannabis, we might be able to agree that abuse begins when the use of marijuana begins to have a negative impact on the user, his or her loved ones, or the larger community. The use of cannabis has now moved beyond purely recreational. The negative consequences are beginning to accumulate, but the user is also not physically or psychologically dependent on the drug. With marijuana, the negative consequences may include subtle differences in learning and memory, life dissatisfaction, and financial and legal difficulties. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, "heavy marijuana users generally report lower life satisfaction, poorer mental and physical health, relationship problems, and less academic and career success compared to their peers who came from similar backgrounds." Some of the adverse effects of regular use include the following: Increased likelihood of dropping out of school. Among workers, increased absences, tardiness, accidents, worker's compensation claims, and job turnover. Learning and memory problems that persist after the acute effects of the drug have worn off. Among young people, long-lasting negative impact on brain structure and function, especially in areas responsible for learning and memory. Heavy use during the teen years is linked to up to an eight-point reduction in IQ, and the lost cognitive abilities are not restored when the youth quits smoking as an adult. Doubled risk of automobile accident when driving under the influence. Respiratory problems similar those experienced by tobacco users, including cough, phlegm production, more frequent acute chest illnesses, and heightened risk of lung infection. With high doses, temporary psychotic reaction including hallucinations and paranoia in some users. An association with mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts among adolescents. (However, this does not mean that the marijuana use caused these problems.) An increased risk of neurobehavioral problems among infants who were exposed to marijuana prior to birth.
Among adults, any amount of use that affects workplace behavior, productivity, financial circumstances, legal issues, driving, health issues, disturbance to family life—or that occurs while pregnant, when children are present, or while experiencing mental health problems—should certainly be considered abuse. Estimates are that 9 percent (1 out of 11) of people who wait to try marijuana until they are at least eighteen years old will eventually become dependent, which is about the same rate as those who try alcohol. For comparison, a higher percentage of people who try nicotine (tobacco), opiates, or stimulants such as cocaine will eventually become dependent. Abuse of marijuana by adolescents Among adolescents, the use of marijuana is especially troubling; the risks are not worth any perceived benefits—social, pleasurable, or otherwise. The likelihood of marijuana dependence increases as the age of first use decreases. Typical signs of abuse include the following: decline in grades school suspensions increased family arguments loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities driving under the influence legal entanglements loss of friends
Marijuana interferes with various aspects of maturation. During adolescence, teens are beginning to strike out on their own, determining the values they wish to adhere to that set them apart as individuals. Teens also need to feel a sense of belonging (as do all people), but during this developmental stage, identifying with a peer group is part of the process of establishing an identity separate from their parents, and of seizing control of their own lives. They develop an awareness of themselves and others as sexual beings. They being to seek meaning in life—the sense that life is "more" than just their own perceptions, and that they can contribute to a greater whole. The choice to experiment aligns with a teen's desire to explore the world. The attraction to use more regularly gives a teen a false sense of fulfillment of other developmental tasks: Marijuana use sets the teen apart from others. ("I don't follow the rules like everyone else.") It creates a feeling of identity. ("I'm a risk taker" or "I am part of the counterculture.") It comes with a built-in peer group. (The procurement and use usually leads the teen to a group of peers who help each other obtain and use the drug and have their own code words for marijuana use, creating a much-needed sense of belonging.) Marijuana use can, at first, provide a sense of transcendence and greater meaning. Its use usually makes teens feel as though they are doing something other than what their parents would do, thereby establishing a sense of personal autonomy. It is generally viewed as something that "grown-ups" do, and so teens feel they are being more mature.
The trouble is that regular marijuana use actually interferes with maturation—both psychologically and physically. Real identity and autonomy arrive through the slow steps of learning to take full responsibility for one's actions, making mistakes and making amends, trying out different values (or observing them in others), learning new ideas, broadening one's perspective, and so forth. Marijuana disrupts memory, it disrupts learning, and it provides a false sense of meaning and a false sense of belonging. The result is that regular marijuana use in adolescence delays psychological, social, and emotional development. Because young people move through these developmental stages relatively quickly, early onset of use results in greater disruption of these important developments. Dependence For years, the word on the street was that no one could get addicted to marijuana. Both research and experience have proven that incorrect. Physical dependence (the occurrence of withdrawal symptoms when a person quits using) and psychological dependence, or addiction, do occur with marijuana. As noted earlier, about one of every eleven adults who use marijuana will become dependent on it; about one of every six people who start using in their teens will become dependent; and one to two of every four people who use daily are dependent.
In 2009, about 18 percent (one out of five) of people who went into drug treatment reported marijuana as their primary drug of abuse. This number was much higher—61 percent—for people under the age of fifteen. Cessation of marijuana use does result in physical withdrawal symptoms, including the following: irritability sleeping difficulties craving anxiety increased aggression fatigue nausea or cramping These physical withdrawal symptoms are real, not just a symptom of quitting an activity. The body has adjusted to certain levels of cannabinoids. When these are withdrawn, the brain has to readjust, undoing the changes to return to its normal baseline state. The symptoms occur as a result of this adjustment. Generally, marijuana withdrawal symptoms are mild compared to those associated with alcohol or opioids such as heroin. Psychological dependence (or addiction) to a drug can occur with or without the presence of physical dependence. In the case of marijuana, signs of addiction include the following:
loss of control over how much and how often the drug is consumed unsuccessful efforts to quit or cut down devotion of time and effort to procuring the drug abandoning academic, social, and recreational activities in favor of using marijuana continued use despite negative consequences denial of obvious consequences The path to marijuana addiction varies from person to person. Adriana, in her midthirties and now abstinent from all drugs and alcohol, described the course of her addiction: In college, I joined a group of people who didn't drink heavily, but they smoked pot. I tried it and liked it. I instantly felt relaxed, euphoric, and just comfortable with who I was. Another important thing: marijuana made me part of a group. I'd traveled halfway across the country to start college, and didn't have a single friend. But marijuana gave me an instant bond. We had rituals of getting together to roll joints and then going driving. We had rituals about when to use and when not to. And I was one of those people who kept proving to others that pot doesn't affect you, because there I was using with my friends and still getting good grades.
That went on for a while. Then gradually my grades started to drop, but I didn't pay attention, or I denied it as a consequence of my using. And I was beginning to use it more and more. Before long, I was dropping classes. Meanwhile, some of my pot friends had gone a different direction. They were using less, or only using after a big project was over, really focused on their work. Then the first ones, the ones ahead of me, graduated. And before long it seemed the others in my grade were graduating—and I was not. In fact, I'd take a semester off, then go back, then take another semester part-time. It was harder and harder to set goals, and every time I disappointed myself (and my parents) by failing at another goal, it got even harder to set a new one. It was easier to just be passive about things, to decide it didn't matter if I did well or not. My parents kept calling to check up. I'd always been open with them about my grades, but refused to tell them why I was taking time off, except to pursue other opportunities. I don't know, it was like it was just easier to put things off than to set a goal. But I could feel their disappointment, and I was disappointed too. I gradually reduced my contact with them. It's not that I broke away from them—I still saw them for family things, went home a few times a year. It's more that I pulled away emotionally. In hindsight, I wanted to protect my using from them. I sensed they'd call me on it if I gave even a hint.
It seemed like I was always able to find work and to find people who wanted to get high, though. I settled into a job that wasn't too challenging, and dropped out of school with about a semester left to go. All my peers were long gone. I kept plugging away at work, but the reality was I'd have to get up early to smoke just to feel normal. I'd find ways to use a little at work. And it just seemed like I had radar for who would want to get high and who wouldn't, and I kept finding the kinds of people to hang out with who made it easy to be stoned. It got to the point where I just knew my life wasn't going the way it should. Suddenly I'm in my early thirties, and my old friends are doing interesting things and starting families. And there I am one morning, scrounging around for bits of marijuana under the sofa cushions, down on the floor in my shabby apartment, digging seeds out of shag carpet so old and filthy a dog wouldn't lie down on it. And that's when I realized things were really, really out of whack.
Addiction is the overwhelming urge to use despite all negative consequences. To be sure, Adriana's life was not horrible. She was not in trouble with the law. She had work. She had a place to live and food to eat. But her life was also not what she wanted, or what she knew it was capable of being. It was stunted. And it was wrapped around finding her drug of choice and using it. The drug ran her life, not the other way around. She was dependent on it. Among adolescents, the path to dependency can be shorter. And, as noted, the earlier the use begins, the more likely a person is to become dependent. Timmen Cermak, MD, author of Marijuana: What's a Parent to Believe? describes some of the precursors to addiction among adolescents who become dependent on the drug. "Marijuana is no longer a matter of curiosity. [The user] is now actively seeking the mood swing. This attraction is often propelled by a lack of emotional safety somewhere in their lives." This lack of safety, he adds, may include parents who argue or who are divorced, delayed or premature puberty, academic difficulties, learning disorders, ADD, pressure to get into a prestigious college, and social awkwardness. The road to addiction begins as the adolescent substitutes the "relatively dependable drug effect for doing the hard psychological work of developing internal means for dealing with life."
Cermak notes that escape from troubles becomes a primary motive for using marijuana. A vicious cycle occurs, in which the numbing effects of the drug (including its effect of reducing the capacity to learn) make life without the drug more stressful and less pleasant. The problems compound, and the adolescent's non-using, non-dependent peers begin to race ahead, leaving the young person further alienated and with an increasing need to escape a failing life. Eventually the adolescent must use in order to feel normal, a hallmark of dependence. External observers will see increasingly erratic behavior, mood swings, decreasing levels of school performance, loss of interest in usual activities, loss of longtime friends, and hostility as the young person seeks to protect his or her use and shifts values to accommodate the drug. When not high, the young person may experience depression brought on in part by the boredom and apathy of a chemically dulled mind. A family issue Adolescent or adult, the addiction becomes a family problem. When a child or adolescent is using drugs, the disruptions affect parents and siblings. Kathleen Schultz, LICSW, LADC, Supervisor of chemical dependency programs at Hazelden Adolescent and Young Adult Services, notes: "This is a family disease. The use affects siblings and parents, the entire family system. Siblings of the user get set aside or neglected as the using child draws the parents' attention. The child may be stealing from siblings to get drug money. Older siblings who use may influence younger ones to start using or help them hide their using from their parents. The parents wind up fighting over the child and what they should do, which takes a toll on their relationship. Their work suffers, as they are worried and preoccupied around their child's use and can't focus. By the time we see families here, they feel like they're broken."
As "mild" as the marijuana high may seem when compared to drugs like heroin, prescription pills, or meth, dependence on it ultimately looks like dependence on any other drug. The drug takes over the user's life and damages family and friends as well. Does addiction run in families? Scientists are still trying to understand how addiction develops, who is at risk for becoming an addict, and who is not. The central question as to why and how some people move from first use (legal or not) to addiction is complex and only partially answered. There is some evidence of a genetic tendency to become addicted. We know this from some famous studies of identical twins placed in separate adoptive homes at infancy. Such studies are very useful, because identical twins have exactly the same genetic makeup; from a biological standpoint, they are the same person. The research has shown that if one twin member became an alcoholic, the other was likely to as well, even though neither adoptive family exhibited any alcoholism. When researchers discovered this, they realized that alcoholism had at least some genetic components—it isn't all about how you were raised, or what environmental conditions you are faced with, or what sort of family raised you. Alcohol and marijuana are not the same, but the characteristics of addiction are similar with both substances.
Research suggests that trauma during childhood may set the stage for addiction. In this case, trauma describes a child's experience of "being powerless at the hands of parents or caregivers who were responsible for [their] safety and nurturance." Abuse and neglect are two forms of trauma. Both experiences put children in fearful, insecure surroundings and sever trust. Survivors of these experiences exhibit differences in parts of their brain. The changes appear to make the brain more susceptible to addiction. The progression from first use to addiction differs from one person to the next, and also differs from one substance to another, but the basic story is the same: First use is usually for experimentation or social reasons, often during adolescence. Over time—sometimes quickly, sometimes over many years—the individual consumes more and more of the substance, and eventually craves it just to feel normal. The person often becomes extremely creative and skilled at obtaining the drug and obtaining the money necessary to support its use. The person may make repeated attempts to stop using the substance as the consequences increase, and the people around the person may try to get him or her to quit. Eventually, the person goes back to using, rationalizes or denies or ignores the consequences, and manipulates or deceives loved ones to obtain the substance, which has become more precious than life itself.
The road to recovery often begins when the person "hits bottom" and finds help—through a treatment program or self-help group, or a combination. Treatment Treatment for drug addiction involves treating medical conditions related to the impact of the drug, including withdrawal symptoms, illnesses related to long-term use, and co-occurring disorders. (The term co-occurring disorders refers to substance abuse along with another mental health condition such as depression or an eating disorder.) It also involves helping the individual develop patterns to resist relapse and strengthen recovery. Generally, treatment involves one or more of the following protocols: Residential treatment. Such programs last from a few days to many months. The longer versions may include a halfway-house program that helps the addict gradually reintegrate into society. Outpatient treatment. These programs offer many of the features of residential treatment, but only occur for several hours daily or a few days a week. During this time, the patient can continue to work and returns home each day. Participation in a self-help group, such as Narcotics Anonymous. There are groups around the world, and in metro areas one can often find a group every day of the week. Maintenance therapy. This therapy is not used for marijuana but is worth understanding, since you may encounter it when reading about treatment options. Maintenance programs are useful when the addiction is to an opioid drug (for example, prescription painkillers such as OxyContin or fentanyl, or illegal opioids such heroin or opium). They may combine other therapies with a maintenance dose of methadone, buprenorphine, or naltrexone, which reduces cravings for the opioid painkiller.
Most programs, except for the maintenance programs, emphasize permanent abstinence from the class of drugs used by the addict, and usually emphasize abstinence from all mood-altering drugs, except when medically necessary. In general, residential treatment is suited for those people who are more prone to relapse, for those who have fewer social supports, and for those who have a co-occurring psychiatric condition. Outpatient treatment is suitable for people with more supports, less complicated life conditions, and a less severe addiction. Outpatient treatment is less expensive than inpatient treatment. Most residential and outpatient treatment programs use a team consisting of medical staff, chemical dependency (that is, addiction) counselors, perhaps clergy, mental health professionals, and others, including volunteer recovering addicts. The treatment of addiction is usually tailored to the individual and his or her condition and situation, and involves the following: Behavioral therapies that address motivation to change, incentives to quit, learning skills to resist relapse, developing strategies to avoid situations that trigger cravings and fond memories, improving problem-solving skills, and improving personal relationships. Medical detoxification from the drugs. Sometimes the patient stays on a medical unit during this period. Medications as needed, depending on the individual's condition. Medication may be needed to help with the symptoms of withdrawal. Also, many addicts reach treatment having neglected their health and with depressed immune systems, and some may have diseases contracted through the method of taking drugs (needle sharing, for example). Assessment for co-occurring mental disorders, such as depression or bipolar disorder, that may require other attention and medical intervention.
The face of dependence and treatment varies from one person to the next. Marijuana users enter treatment with several shared complaints, including loss of control of use, cognitive impairment, poor motivation, decline in job or academic performance, decreased self-esteem, depression, and the complaints of a partner or parent. These are similar to the problems presented by users of other drugs, but the marijuana user lacks severe withdrawal symptoms. However, the decline in cognitive skills and motivation is more often expressed by marijuana users than by other drug users. This makes sense given that THC affects the brain's ability to experience something as "new." Treatment helps lift the fog that surrounds chronic marijuana use. With increased clarity comes a better ability to spot the ways in which one has denied the negative consequences of use, the ways in which drug craving and seeking has limited personal freedom, and the ways in which relationships have been harmed. Co-occurring disorders
Co-occurring disorders, or dual diagnosis, refers to having a simultaneous mental health disorder and substance use disorder. It is common for addicts and alcoholics to also suffer from depression, anxiety, or more severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The question of which comes first, the addiction or the mental illness, is being heavily researched, but it's likely different for everyone. There is research showing that people who use drugs or alcohol early in life are more likely to develop mental or emotional problems. It's also true that many people with mental illnesses "self-medicate" with drugs or alcohol to numb emotional pain, relieve anxiety, or quiet the voices that come with schizophrenia. In the past, the medical profession emphasized treating one disorder first, typically the addiction, before addressing mental illness. It is now understood that treating both simultaneously leads to better outcomes. Any successful addiction treatment program will include a mental health assessment and treat any co-occurring disorder simultaneously.
The goal of addiction treatment is to end the addict's cycle of behavior. Good care begins with a careful evaluation of the problem, a diagnosis, a physical evaluation, and a full drug-use history, which may involve contacting the patient's family and others familiar with the patient's life. The treatment program may use psychological tests and other evaluation methods. Detoxification in the early stages of treatment is essential, but the addict remains prone to relapse—after all, many addicts have "quit" multiple times without therapeutic intervention. Therefore, treatment methods help motivate the patient to plan to avoid relapse. Because addicts have been so preoccupied with their drug of choice—from obtaining it, to using it, to recovering from a binge, to getting the next dose—they have often lived in denial of the consequences to themselves, their loved ones, their employers, and the community around them. Therapy includes helping addicts understand the true impact of their actions on other people. Addicts often build up a strong defense system of denying the consequences of their behavior. Part of therapy often involves breaking through that system, perhaps using facts gained from those people addicts have harmed, to help addicts come to grips with their behavior and motivate true change.
The person entering recovery needs to address well-being from a number of directions: physical, mental, vocational, family, and social. Therapeutic methods usually involve a combination of the following: Group therapy, in which the members of the group learn from each other's experience and deal with a variety of relevant topics such as honesty, impact of addiction on the family, making amends, using support systems, coping with loss, and more. Individual therapy, in which a counselor helps the patient with specific behaviors and concerns, assists in developing individual plans to avoid relapse, reviews traumatic life events that may have predisposed the person to abuse drugs and may serve as triggers to use again, and more. Education about the nature of addiction, the nature of marijuana dependence, and other facts relevant to the individual's situation. "Bibliotherapy"—the assigning of specific books or reading material that pertains to the patient's unique circumstance, may be part of the education. Unstructured fellowship, in which patients spend time bonding with and learning from other people who are beginning a life of recovery. The support of others who share the addict's challenges appears to be essential in lifelong recovery, so treatment programs help patients learn to seek such support at an early stage.
Many outpatient and residential programs also help familiarize patients with Twelve Step programs. For marijuana, Narcotics Anonymous, which is similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, is a typical choice. Some treatment programs also include a family component, in which members of the family learn about the disease, how it has affected them, and strategies they can use to ensure their own mental health while coping with the problems their loved one's addiction creates. Twelve Step Programs For years, before the widespread development of alcohol and other drug addiction treatment programs, the only option was a Twelve Step program. These programs remain an important option for people who have been through treatment, and the first five Steps of these programs are often incorporated as part of treatment in residential and outpatient programs. People have also begun a program of lifelong recovery from addiction by relying solely on a Twelve Step program. With the wide availability of treatment today, though, it's smart to explore professional treatment options, but participation in a good recovery group is also a significant factor in avoiding relapse and enjoying a healthy life after ceasing drug use. Research has documented that people who participate in a Twelve Step recovery program are more likely to remain abstinent than those who do not.
Twelve Step groups meet at locations all over the world. They are free and often happen in donated space, such as churches and community centers; they can even be found in airports. They welcome newcomers, and members remain anonymous (hence names such as Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous). The groups emphasize mutual help, which occurs as members share stories, help each other with recovery, and support each other in avoiding relapse, both during and outside of meeting times. The groups are named for their Twelve Steps. These Steps involve internal, reflective examination of the self, as well as external actions, such as making amends and reaching out to fellow addicts. Many books have been written about how these programs work therapeutically, and at this point it is well established that they play a key role for many people in recovery. People who "work the Steps" come to grips with the impact their addiction has had on themselves and on other people. They admit to their wrongs and bad behaviors, and make amends to those they have harmed when possible (and when doing so would not cause further harm to a person). The process of "working the Steps" is continuous, not a one-time event. People describe major life changes as a result of participation in these programs. They tend to say they are "in recovery" from addiction, not "recovered" from it. This helps remind them that it is easy to slip back into old behaviors.
Maintenance Therapy Opioid addiction (not the subject of this booklet) is the only type of addiction for which maintenance therapy is an option. It is usually used for heroin addiction, but is also used with addiction to prescription painkillers. Maintenance therapy uses methadone or buprenorphine. Methadone is a synthetic opioid and acts on the same receptors as morphine, heroin, and other opioids. When used in therapy, methadone does not deliver the sought-after high, but it reduces withdrawal cravings and blocks other opioids. In the program, patients report for a daily dose of methadone. Buprenorphine maintenance is similar to methadone maintenance. Research shows these treatments to be effective for heroin addiction. Research-based principles of drug addiction treatment The National Institute on Drug Abuse has identified thirteen principles that research has found to be associated with effective addictions treatment: 1. No single treatment is appropriate for all individuals. 2. Treatment needs to be readily available. 3. Effective treatment attends to multiple needs of the individual, not just his or her drug use. 4. An individual's treatment and services plan must be assessed continually and modified as necessary to ensure that the plan meets the person's changing needs. 5. Remaining in treatment for an adequate period of time is critical for treatment effectiveness. 6. Counseling (individual and/or group) and other behavioral therapies are critical components of effective treatment for addiction. 7. Medications are an important element of treatment for many patients, especially when combined with counseling and other behavioral therapies. 8. Addicted or drug-abusing individuals with coexisting mental disorders should have both disorders treated in an integrated way. 9. Medical detoxification is only the first stage of addiction treatment and by itself does little to change long-term drug use. 10. Treatment does not need to be voluntary to be effective. 11. Possible drug use during treatment must be monitored continuously. 12. Treatment programs should provide assessment for HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases, and counseling to help patients modify or change behaviors that place themselves or others at the risk of infection. 13. Recovery from drug addiction can be a long-term process and frequently requires multiple episodes of treatment.
Adolescents in Treatment Adolescents in treatment for marijuana are also restarting the process of maturation, which has been blocked by chronic drug use. Family involvement is critical. The family, as noted, has usually experienced its own problems as a result of the user's behavior and troubles. Typically the family, including siblings, will be invited to the treatment at some point, although this depends on the unique needs of the patient and other family issues. Family involvement helps parents learn to make new boundaries about their teen's behavior. Teens may need to be separated from their using environment, which may mean finding a new school, careful monitoring of friends, and otherwise keeping triggers and old using pals out of the picture. In some cases, the teen may have other disorders (learning impairments, ADD, eating disorders, self-mutilation, and so on) that need to be addressed during and after treatment. These issues may even need to be addressed before addiction treatment can be expected to succeed.
Early in recovery from addiction, the adolescent may be very much out of step with his peers. During adolescence, maturation occurs at a rapid clip, so one or two years of stalled development can put a young person dramatically behind others of the same age; if a teen started using at age thirteen and got into treatment at age sixteen, when she returns to school, she will have the emotional maturity of a seventh grader but be seated among—and look like—high school students. The teen can feel odd and inept without her drug; she has lost her automatic network of friends, and the general awkwardness of adolescence becomes amplified. Moreover, just when she wants to be pulling away from parental monitoring (and when most parents are hoping to relax the reins a little), her parents will need to be extra vigilant and firm. Lack of motivation and dulled cognitive skills have put the teen behind academically as well. A part of treatment for adolescents involves helping them get back on track with these important developmental tasks. Family education and involvement helps them all come to grips with the difficult balancing act.
Advice for Parents It does not make sense to talk about preventing drug use without talking about preventing alcohol and tobacco use as well. These activities are all linked. Parents, school administrators, juvenile justice workers, or youth-serving professionals who frown on drug use but look the other way when teens drink are making a mistake. The young teen experiences rapid physical changes, and his or her friends also change quickly. Our brains are not mature until our early to mid-twenties. The teen's brain may even be wired to take risks, as risks are a way of gradually gaining necessary independence from parents. This is a key reason why young people seem to seek out new, thrilling, and sometimes dangerous activities. At the same time, young people are concerned with fitting in among their peers. They are self-conscious about their bodies, they worry about how they compare with other people, and they begin to question values and rules they once just accepted. Young people seem to use drugs for a variety of reasons, including pleasure, to fit in or bond, and because they are unaware of the risks.
Is my child using? Here are some indicators that your child may be using marijuana. He or she may seem dizzy or uncoordinated. seem silly and giggly for no reason. have very red, bloodshot eyes. have a hard time remembering things that just happened. be in possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia, including pipes and rolling papers. have an odor of marijuana smoke on clothes and in the bedroom. use incense and other deodorizers to mask the smell of marijuana smoke. use eye drops. wear clothing or jewelry or have posters that promote drug use. have expenditures. More general signs of use include the following: declining school work and grades loss of motivation loss of pleasure from former activities abrupt changes in choice of friends, groups, or behavior change in sleeping habits abnormal health issues deteriorating relationships with family less openness and honesty Of course, a growing teen may be uncoordinated, silly, forgetful, and so forth without drugs. Use your judgment, don't leap to conclusions, and watch for an accumulation of signs. If you suspect use, talk to your child, set clear boundaries and expectations, and be ready to seek help if the behaviors do not change. Your job is to support and protect your child. If you spot serious signs of drug effects (such as nausea, vomiting, hallucinations, psychoses), call 911 immediately. For nonthreatening situations, when you discover alcohol, marijuana, or other evidence of drug use, here are some actions you could take:
Let your child know you are concerned and that you disapprove. Set limits and consequences. Monitor their behavior and physical signs of use. Get outside help. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has a free helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). The website is www.samhsa.gov. Researchers have studied young people to uncover what puts them at risk of using drugs and what seems to reduce that risk. The main goal for parents and communities is to delay the onset of use. We know that with alcohol, at least, people who begin drinking before the age of fourteen are significantly more likely to develop alcohol dependence than those who do not drink until after age twenty-one. We have also seen that for marijuana, one in six people who start using in their early teens will become dependent, while only one in eleven of those who start after age eighteen will become addicted. Delaying the first use requires a combined effort of home, community, school, and the other institutions that help shape children's lives. That is, this is not just a problem for the home, for the school, for a congregation, or for the police. It's a public health problem that requires attention from multiple arenas. From all parts of the community, children need to receive consistent messages about alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. The goal is to establish a norm that illegal use is not acceptable.
A community-home-school norm of nonuse is part of prevention. Research has helped us understand that young people who experience certain conditions are more likely to try drugs or alcohol, and that other factors may protect young people. It may be that decreasing risk factors and increasing protective factors will prevent or delay first use of alcohol or drugs. The table below lists these factors. As with consistent messages, these risk and protective factors are not just a parent's responsibility. Some are inborn, genetic tendencies. Some have to do with social norms in a community. Some have to do with schools. And some have to do with the child's home and extended support network of relatives and family friends. It's always tempting to burden one segment of the system with all the work involved in reducing risk and increasing protective factors. We pass a regulation and put a new class in the school. Or we decide that "those problems" only happen to dysfunctional families, and will never happen in our family. The reality is that no child grows up in isolation. Children influence their peers. They learn from everything around them. Children with a perfect home life may still be bullied at school, have learning difficulties or challenges that put them at risk, or, through no fault of their own or their parents, live in neighborhoods where abusing alcohol and drugs is the norm. The decision to use alcohol or other drugs happens in a social environment, and we must therefore work together to agree on and promote messages and protective factors, as well as reduce access.
A variety of factors might influence a young person to try marijuana: peer pressure curiosity word of mouth that it's fun ease of access (the substance is easily obtained or is inexpensive, or both) easy access to an identity and peer group What messages can you give your children about marijuana? The Partnership at Drugfree.org is a nonprofit that helps parents address alcohol and drug abuse with their teens and young adults. Its education program, Parents360, suggests that parents start with the following basic message: Avoid putting anything in your body that would change your feelings or emotions. The human brain is an incredible machine, and you need to be even more careful with a teenage brain because it is a work in progress. Tips for Delaying First Use of Tobacco, Alcohol, or Other Drugs More generally, parents should clearly communicate the risks of using any mood-altering drug, including alcohol. Children should know that parents will be upset if they use these substances; research shows that children who believe their parents will be upset are 43 percent less likely to use. Other useful steps include the following:
Establish open communication, so that it is easy for your child to talk honestly with you. When you have conversations, avoid asking questions with yes or no answers. Control your emotions—don't overreact. Express your feelings constructively. Show you care. Spend time alone with your child. Find some activities you can enjoy together. Set clear expectations and appropriate consequences. Accept your teen. Show that you appreciate her attempts to follow rules and communicate. Never tease or criticize harshly. Respect your child's increasing independence and understand how his actions fit into his drive to mature and to fit in with peers. Besides building these communication skills, parents also need to monitor their children. Know whom your child is with, what they are doing, where they will be, and when they are expected home. Talking to Your Children about Your History with Marijuana With four out of ten Americans having tried cannabis at some point, many parents are likely to be in the position of trying to talk to their children about something they themselves once experimented with (and may occasionally still use). They may even remember their use fondly as a part of growing up, or have expressed certain opinions about the legalization issue.
Kids have a nose for hypocrisy, and they love to catch us in the act. Anyone who has spent years reminding their kids to chew with their mouth closed, keep their elbows off the table, and keep their napkins in their lap knows just how eagle-eyed young people can be when it comes to catching parents breaking their own rules. And as parents who want to teach our children the value of forthrightness and honesty, we may not want to lie about our past. If we used marijuana and experienced no negative consequences and had some fun—what are we to do and say? Before you get to the point of deciding what to do, make an honest assessment of your past experience. Did you move beyond the point of experimentation, where you needed to increase dosages in order to get the same mood swing? Were you really devoid of negative consequences? What do you remember of your friends who used marijuana? Did you lose friends because you didn't keep using with them? Did friends leave you because of your use? Evaluate your own relationship with marijuana, past and present, with rigorous honesty. Think about the risks and benefits carefully.
You also need to assess your own child's maturity and your usual responses to his or her questions. Children's and teens' capacity to understand nuance changes as they develop. Where once it may have been OK to simply distract them (and change the subject) when they caught you mistakenly putting an elbow on the table, at a certain point it becomes acceptable to talk about your own mistakes, the importance of setting high standards for oneself as well as one's children, and, even the rudeness of pointing out someone else's social gaffe. When is it safe to have a real dialog with your child about your own history? A key question is whether your child is open to real dialog on other subjects. Does she listen to your responses, ask questions, and divulge her own thoughts and observations? What happens when you discuss homework, dating, sex, different tastes in music? A parent who is also recovering from addiction is probably on sure ground talking about the negative consequences of drug and alcohol use. But the parent who used pot and did not become addicted—for whom everything turned out OK—is in an uncomfortable spot. One recommendation for parents in this position is to follow three steps:
First, acknowledge your former pot use, but simultaneously make it clear that you are very concerned about your child's welfare. Second, talk about the increased risks of starting use early, as well as the stronger nature of pot today. (The THC content is much higher than when you were young. High doses make it harder to control and increase the risks.) Third, be sure you are prepared to talk about the real risks you took with marijuana. Even if you were not arrested, did not get in an accident under the influence, or did not get suspended for use, these were likely real risks you faced, and risks your child faces. You may remember the fun times associated with use, but it is likely that you are glossing over the fear you experienced, or the negative consequences others experienced. Drug and alcohol use often comes up in television and movies. Use these moments to talk to your children about use. Ask them their thoughts and listen. Find out what is going on in their lives. Parents and communities all have a role to play in setting the tone for responsible norms around all types of drugs—not just marijuana, but tobacco, alcohol, illicit street drugs, over-the-counter drugs, and prescription medications.
Stay informed and communicate with your child. Notes Introduction "Monitoring the Future: National Results on Drug Use 2012 Overview," National Institute on Drug Abuse (2013), 12, www.monitoringthefuture.org//pubs/monographs/mtf-overview2012.pdf. Different surveys report varying amounts; see also the sidebar "Marijuana: Quick facts." "Summary Health Statistics for US Adults: National Health Interview Survey," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2011), 10–11, www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_251.pdf. "Monitoring the Future," 12. History Alan Piper, "The Mysterious Origins of the Word 'Marihuana,"' Sino-Platonic Papers, no. 153 (July 2005), www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp153_marijuana.pdf. "Medical Marijuana: Historical Timeline," ProCon.org, updated November 7, 2012, <http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000143>. Joycelyn Elders, "Myths about Medical Marijuana," Providence Journal, March 26, 2004. "The Case for Medical Cannabis," San Francisco Patient and Resource Center, <http://sparcsf.org/the-case-for-medical-cannabis>.
"Marinol," Drugs.com, www.drugs.com/pro/marinol.html. "Quotes from the IOM Report Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," ProCon.org, www.drugs.com/pro/marinol.html. How Cannabis Acts in the Body National Institute on Drug Abuse, Marijuana: Facts Parents Need to Know, rev., NIH publication, no. 10-4036 (March 2011), 7–26. "DrugFacts: Drug-Related Hospital Emergency Room Visits," National Institute on Drug Abuse, March 2011, www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/drug-related-hospital-emergency-room-visits. Timmen Cermak, Marijuana: What's a Parent to Believe? (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2003), 37. Ibid., 41. Use, Abuse, and Dependence David J. Nutt, Leslie King, and Lawrence Phillips, "Drug Harms in the UK: A Multicriteria Decision Analysis," The Lancet 376: 9752 (November 2010), 1558–1565. "Maturation of the Prefrontal Cortex," Office of Population Affairs, www.hhs.gov/opa/familylife/tech_assistance/etraining/adolescent_brain/Development/prefrontal_cortex/. Lin Edwards, "Brain Is Not Fully Mature until 30s and 40s," Phys.org, December 22, 2010, <http://phys.org/news/2010-12-brain-fully-mature-30s-40s.html>.
"The Science of Drug Abuse and Addiction," National Institute on Drug Abuse, www.drugabuse.gov/publications/media-guide/science-drug-abuse-addiction. Definitions of abuse, physiological dependence, psychological dependence, and pseudoaddiction are from Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. "Prescription Medications: Misuse, Abuse, Dependence, and Addiction," Substance Abuse Treatment Advisory 5:2, May 2006. "Drug Facts: Marijuana," National Institute on Drug Abuse, revised December 2012, www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana. Ibid. Cermak, Marijuana: What's a Parent to Believe?, 57. "Is Marijuana Addictive?" National Institute on Drug Abuse, www.drugabuse.gov/publications/marijuana-abuse/marijuana-addictive. Cermak, Marijuana: What's a Parent to Believe?, 99–100. Drew Pinsky, When Painkillers Become Dangerous: What Everyone Needs to Know about OxyContin and Other Prescription Drugs (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2004), 10. Pinsky, When Painkillers Become Dangerous, 11–16. Treatment Cermak, Marijuana: What's a Parent to Believe?, 160.
National Institute on Drug Abuse, Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research Based Guide (Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, 1999; reprinted 2000). Cermak, Marijuana: What's a Parent to Believe?, 171–77. Advice for Parents National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Make a Difference: Talk to Your Child about Alcohol, NIH publication no. 06-4314 (revised 2009), <http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/MakeADiff_HTML/makediff.htm>. Adapted from Make a Difference: Talk to Your Child about Alcohol, 31. The Partnership at Drugfree.org, Parents360: Synthetic Drugs: Bath Salts, K2/Spice: A Guide for Parents and Other Influencers (February 16, 2012), 8, www.drugfree.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Parents360-Synthetics-Bath-Salts-K2-Spice-Parents-Guide-FINAL-2-13-12.pdf. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Make a Difference: Talk to Your Child about Alcohol, NIH publication no. 06-4314 (revised 2009). The Partnership at Drugfree.org, Parents360: Synthetic Drugs, 11.Available in this Hazelden Quick Guide series
Get Smart About Prescription Painkiller Abuse Get Smart About Synthetic Drugs Get Smart About Marijuana Get Smart About Nicotine Get Smart About Alcohol Get Smart About Heroin The Get Smart collection of e-book shorts describes each of the major drugs, its historical, cultural, and legal context, its addictive qualities, and information on prevention and treatment. For more information or to purchase, go to your favorite e-book retailer. About Hazelden Publishing As part of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, Hazelden Publishing offers both cutting-edge educational resources and inspirational books. Our print and digital works help guide individuals in treatment and recovery, and their loved ones. Professionals who work to prevent and treat addiction also turn to Hazelden Publishing for evidence-based curricula, digital content solutions, and videos for use in schools, treatment programs, correctional programs, and electronic health records systems. We also offer training for implementation of our curricula.
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Goose Green 1982 - Gregory Fremont-Barnes Introduction Timeline Historical Background: What were they Fighting for? The Armies > Argentine Forces > British Forces The Days Before Battle: Opposing Plans and Dispositions > The Argentine Plan of Defence > British Plans and Landings > Preparations for Battle The Battlefield: What Actually Happened? > The Assault Begins > The Advance on Boca House and Darwin Ridge > B Company's Attack on Boca House > Final Objectives: Goose Green Airfield and School > The Last Act After the Battle: Strategic Postscript > Preparations for the Advance on Stanley > Operations on 11–12 June: Mount Harriet, Mount Longdon and Two Sisters > Operations on 12–13 June: Mount Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge The Legacy: Lessons Learned from Goose Green > Professionalism and Esprit de corps > Misallocation of Time > Argentine Inertia and Failure to Counter-attack > Inadequate Co-ordination of Fire Support and Absence of an All-arms Approach > Inadequate Transport and Resupply > Faulty Command Style
> Inadequate Numbers, Composition and Disposition of Defenders > A Final Word Orders of Battle > Argentine forces > British Forces Bibliography and Further Reading Author and Publisher's Note Copyright INTRODUCTION Goose Green was the first and the longest battle of the Falklands War. It represented a fourteen-hour struggle with The Second Battalion the Parachute Regiment (2 Para) pitted against various sub-units of the Argentine army and air force over nearly featureless, wind-swept and boggy ground, most of it in clear daylight and against entrenched defenders. 2 Para were heavily outnumbered and lacked proper fire support; by all calculations they should have lost. In the event, they not only succeeded, but captured or killed the entire Argentine garrison – a force more than twice their size – and so set the tone for the engagements that were to follow in the drive against Stanley, the capital of the Falklands. The battle is notable for a number of features. It was fought within just a week of the British landings at San Carlos Water – at the western end of East Falkland, the larger of the two main islands – as a consequence of the political priorities set by the British government to seize the initiative and maintain the momentum of the attack from the outset of the campaign. In doing so, ministers overrode the judgement of the land forces commander, Brigadier (Brig.) Julian Thompson, who believed an attack south was unnecessary and a diversion to the main thrust of his offensive against Stanley, clear on the other side of the island. A victory at Darwin and Goose Green, the government and its strategists at Northwood and the Ministry of Defence in London concluded, would form a prelude to further attacks in the drive on the capital. In so doing, it would preserve the high degree of public support enjoyed at home and set a precedent for other successes on the battlefield to come.
Marines from 42 Commando disarm Argentine prisoners at Stanley, 14 June. (Ted Nevill) Thus, Goose Green stands as an example of how political intervention can and does – for good or ill – interfere with military priorities set by commanders in the field. Thompson was quite right: the Argentines at Goose Green did not pose a threat to the beachhead established by the amphibious landings, and London made little attempt to establish this as a rationale for 2 Para's attack. So long as Thompson could prosecute his advance across the northern route to Stanley – an operation feasible by foot and by helicopter – the garrison at Goose Green could be pinned in place, exerting very little influence on events beyond the narrow isthmus upon which the tiny settlements of Darwin and Goose Green sit. Nor did the Argentines expect such an attack, which accounts for the peculiar composition of the forces deployed there. The Battle of Goose Green may, nevertheless, be seen as a pivotal event in the Falklands War. By boosting the morale of British forces and, conversely, fatally damaging that of the Argentines, its result had a profound effect on both sides for the remainder of this brief, yet decisive, campaign. Victory at Goose Green established British forces' moral superiority over the defenders, a position which maintained the momentum of the ground offensive until the point of Argentine surrender on the Falklands as a whole, little more than two weeks later.
The battle is also noteworthy for the degree to which the attackers operated outside an all-arms context. When 2 Para struck on 28 May 1982, it did so largely unassisted, with the odds heavily against it. The battalion faced twice its numbers; the defenders occupied entrenched positions overlooking gently undulating, open ground, which they could sweep with rifle, machine-gun, mortar and artillery fire. The quality of 2 Para's highly trained, highly motivated personnel bore no resemblance to their opponents, but in light of 2 Para's almost complete lack of support from other arms, it found itself largely dependent on its own resources to cope against poor odds. This was exacerbated by the lack of air support until the close of the battle; only the briefest naval support; the absence of most of the battalion's heavy weapons until very late in the day; the absence of armoured support; and grossly inadequate artillery support. The battalion was left to fight its way through enemy defences with rifle, grenade, machine-gun, light anti-tank rockets and just two mortars. It took fourteen hours of close-quarter fighting to move 6km (3.7 miles), some of it in darkness. This, by any standard, stands as a remarkable achievement.
The fact that Goose Green need never have been fought in order for British forces to attain their objective – defeating the main concentration of Argentine forces in and around Stanley – must not detract from the battle's significance. Having made the decision to engage the Argentine garrison there, a great deal hinged on the outcome of the engagement – particularly if Britain had lost. The British were off to an auspicious start a week before Goose Green, when 3 Commando Brigade, of which 2 Para constituted but one of five battalions, had effected a successful lodgement and secured a bridgehead against possible counter-attack. But victory was by no means inevitable, for at the same time Royal Navy ships just offshore found themselves under intense air attack and suffered accordingly high losses: four ships destroyed and five seriously damaged in the week of the landings. If to these losses were added a defeat inflicted against 2 Para, it is difficult to underestimate the negative repercussions that would have occurred back in Britain, both in Whitehall and amongst the public at large.
Quite apart from the serious impact on the morale of the armed forces in theatre, a repulse of 2 Para would result in a delayed offensive against Stanley, and time was in woefully short supply. Even if the simultaneous movement east of ground forces proceeded as planned (and there would have been a real prospect that, in the wake of a defeat at Goose Green, this offensive would be cancelled altogether with forces digging in around Ajax Bay in a defensive posture) it was more than likely that the Argentines, elated by success at Goose Green, would launch a counter-thrust against the meagre British forces, 3 Para and 45 Commando Royal Marines, already en route to Mount Kent on foot. True, reinforcements were on their way to the Falklands in the form of 5 Infantry Brigade, but the delay forced upon Thompson would have derailed his timetable – a timetable utterly dependent upon taking Stanley before the full weight of winter brought a swift halt to any British offensive. Ships could not operate in the rough seas of the South Atlantic winter; aircraft could not fly combat sorties, or helicopters ferry troops and supplies or evacuate the wounded; logistics would break down; and the troops, exposed to snow and freezing winds, would find themselves huddled in a ring around San Carlos and unable to move or, worse still, obliged to disembark. This, in turn, would have forced the Task Force to Ascension Island 6,500km away or, more probably, home to lick its wounds and reflect on its failure to liberate the Falklands.
Argentine prisoners. In all, 13,000 fell into British hands during the course of the war. 2 Para's flag flying over Goose Green after the settlement's liberation on 29 May. (Dr Stephen Hughes) In the event, the Argentines surrendered on 14 June – with no time to spare for the Task Force. In this respect, the outcome of the fighting at Goose Green may rightly be seen to assume a position of vital importance to the war itself. TIMELINE 1982 --- 19 March \| Argentine scrap metal merchants land at disused whaling station at Leith on South Georgia, a dependency of the Falklands lying 1,300km to the south-east, and raise the Argentine flag 21 March \| HMS Endurance embarks with a Royal Marines (RM) detachment and sails for South Georgia 24 March \| Endurance lands RM contingent to monitor Argentine activities at Leith 25 March \| An Argentine naval vessel lands Argentine marines at Leith 29 March \| The junta, or Argentine military government under General Galtieri, approves its final plan for the invasion of the Falklands
31 March \| Endurance disembarks her RM detachment at Grytviken, South Georgia 2 April \| Argentine troops invade the Falklands. Governor Hunt orders the garrison of 72 Royal Marines to surrender after it offers spirited resistance. In Britain, Margaret Thatcher's government prepares a task force for deployment to the South Atlantic, with 3 Commando Brigade under Brigadier Julian Thompson rapidly concentrated for imminent departure from Portsmouth 3 April \| Argentines defeat small contingent of Royal Marines at Grytviken, South Georgia 5 April \| First elements of the Task Force sail from Portsmouth, including 3 Para aboard the requisitioned P&O liner Canberra 11–16 April \| Reacting to the dispatch of the Task Force from the UK, Argentines reinforce the islands by air with 9 Brigade under Brigadier General Oscar Jofre, Land Forces Commander, himself under Brigadier General Mario Menendez, Commander-in-Chief and governor of Las Malvinas 12 April \| Britain declares a 200-mile Maritime Exclusion Zone (MEZ) around the Falkland Islands
16 April \| Task force proceeds south from Ascension Island, approximately 6,500km from the Falklands 22 April \| Senior Argentine commanders meet to devise defensive strategy to prevent Task Force re-establishing British control over the Falklands 25 April \| Brigadier General Omar Parada, Commander of 3 Brigade (West Falkland and the western half of East Falkland), posts 12th Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Italo Piaggi to Goose Green, reinforcing the small garrison already there 26 April \| Argentine commander on South Georgia surrenders to a company of Royal Marines landed to retake the island. Second Battalion the Parachute Regiment sails from Hull aboard the North Sea passenger ferry Norland 28 April \| Britain announces Total Exclusion Zone (TEZ) around the Falklands to include aircraft and ships of all nations 30 April \| Main Task Force reaches TEZ May \| Piaggi lays mines at various points on the Darwin-Goose Green isthmus, particularly near the beaches 1 May \| Royal Air Force (RAF) Vulcan bomber strikes Stanley airfield, but with limited results
2 May \| Nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano 4 May \| Argentine Exocet missile, fired from an aircraft, strikes HMS Sheffield, causing her to sink six days later 6 May \| 2 Para arrives at Ascension Island 7 May \| Main body of amphibious task group leaves Ascension Island 12 May \| The requisitioned luxury liner Queen Elizabeth II sails from Southampton with 5 Infantry Brigade 14–15 May \| A squadron of the Special Air Service (SAS) raids Pebble Island, destroying eleven Argentine aircraft on the ground \| As a precaution in the event of attack, Piaggi concentrates all 114 residents of Darwin and Goose Green in the latter settlement's community hall 21 May \| Amphibious landings made at 0430 hrs by 3 Commando Brigade, consisting of 2 and 3 Para, and 40, 42 and 45 Commando RM, in San Carlos Water. HMS Ardent sunk by aircraft, signifying the beginning of six days of regular air attacks on British vessels in Falkland Sound \| 2 Para leaves the beachhead and advances south to Sussex Mountain, establishing itself on the summit around 0630 hrs; SAS launch diversionary raid against Argentine position near Darwin
22 May \| 3 Commando Brigade established ashore at Ajax Bay, with Rapier anti-aircraft batteries in place and a defensive perimeter around the beachhead. Thompson meets with Lieutenant Colonel 'H' Jones, Commanding Officer of 2 Para, and orders him to conduct a raid against Goose Green 23 May \| HMS Antelope sunk 23–24 May \| Jones draws up plan for raid against Darwin-Goose Green 25 May \| HMS Coventry sunk. More critically, when the transport vessel Atlantic Conveyor is mortally damaged by an Exocet on the same day, the Task Force loses all ten helicopters on board, causing a transport and logistics crisis for Thompson. At nightfall, 2 Para begins its march to Camilla Creek House, designated as the start line for the raid, but Thompson cancels the operation and troops return to Sussex Mountain 26 May \| Northwood resurrects plan for raid against Goose Green. Jones is elated 27 May \| In the early hours, 2 Para leaves Sussex Mountain for the second time and advances to Camilla Creek House. At 1000 hrs, BBC World Service announces presence of a parachute unit poised to attack Goose Green; at 1500 hrs Jones assembles 'O' group and issues company orders consisting of a six-phase, silent/noisy, night/day battalion attack
\| 45 Commando and 3 Para commence 'yomp' and 'tab', respectively, from San Carlos to Mount Kent as preparation for assaults on ring of Argentine defences west of Stanley 28 May \| Battle of Goose Green 29 May \| Argentines surrender at Goose Green; over 1,200 prisoners taken 30 May \| Major General Jeremy Moore arrives in the Falklands and replaces Thompson as land forces commander; Thompson resumes command over 3 Commando Brigade 31 May \| 42 Commando RM transported by air from San Carlos to Mount Kent, while 45 Commando reaches Teal Inlet on foot. 3 Para, also on foot, reaches Douglas Settlement 1 June \| 5 Brigade begins disembarking at San Carlos. 3 Commando Brigade forward HQ established at Teal Inlet 2 June \| Helicopters ferry 2 Para to Bluff Cove in the south of the island 5 June \| Scots Guards embark for Fitzroy aboard Sir Tristram 6 June \| Welsh Guards embark for Fitzroy in HMS Fearless but ship withheld. Scots Guards land at Fitzroy, where 5 Brigade establishes forward base 8 June \| Argentine aircraft bomb Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram at Fitzroy, killing dozens of Welsh Guardsmen and sailors. Moore finalises plans for final offensive against defenders dug in west of Stanley
11–12 June \| Thompson launches three simultaneous battalion-sized attacks against Mount Longdon, Mount Harriet and Two Sisters 12–13 June \| Two further simultaneous attacks, against Mount Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge 14 June \| Argentine forces in the Falklands surrender to General Moore, bringing a close to the fighting as weather conditions continue to worsen and British supplies near exhaustion 20 June \| In the final operation of the war, part of M Company, 42 Commando, Royal Marines accepts the surrender of Argentine garrison on the remote island of South Thule, South Sandwich Islands, 2,000km (1,240 miles) south-east of the Falklands HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: WHAT WERE THEY FIGHTING FOR? The Falkland Islands are situated deep in the South Atlantic, 13,000km from Britain and approximately 650km from Argentina. In 1982 the islands were – and continue to be – the subject of a territorial dispute between the two countries. The dispute formally dates from 1833, but rests on a complex chain of events which preceded that year. In 1540, the islands appear to have formed a refuge for several months for the crew of a Spanish ship that survived a violent gale in the Straits of Magellan. The crew made no claim on behalf of Spain and did not leave a settlement behind. Half a century later, in 1592, the islands may have been sighted by the British vessel Desire, but there is no solid evidence of the authenticity of this claim and no landing appears to have been made at the time. A Dutch ship is confirmed to have sighted outlying islands of the Falklands two years later, but again, no settlers remained behind to establish a claim. The first confirmed British connection took place in 1690, when Captain (Capt.) John Strong, sailing the Welfare out of Plymouth, sighted land and sailed along the passage between the two main islands, naming this body of water Falkland Sound, in honour of Viscount Falkland, the First Lord of the Admiralty. Yet again, no one remained behind, leaving the place for the use of French seal-hunters, who from 1698 regularly landed there and named the islands Les Iles Malouines in honour of St Malo, their home port in Brittany. The Spanish subsequently altered the name to Las Malvinas, the title since adopted by the Argentines.
Actual settlement of the islands dates from 1764, when the French established a presence on Port Louis, East Falkland in an effort to colonise the islands as a whole. The following year Capt. John Byron, on behalf of the British government, landed on West Falkland at a place he dubbed Port Egmont, 130km (80 miles) from the French settlement, proclaiming both islands and the many hundreds of smaller ones around them on behalf of his sovereign – although he left behind no one to furnish substance to his claim. In 1766, another British captain landed a hundred settlers at Port Egmont, almost certainly unaware of the existence of the French settlement at Port Louis, although a short time later a British ship encountered the post and informed the inhabitants of their rival claim. Events became more complex the following year when, upon becoming aware of the existence of Port Louis, the Spanish disputed the French right to occupy what Madrid regarded as its territory. They did so on the grounds that the islands formed an offshore dependency of its mainland colony, the Royalty of La Plata, which included all of modern-day Argentina and considerably more territory besides. The French agreed to evacuate the islands in return for financial compensation, so enabling the Spanish to replace the garrison with one of their own, together with a governor at Puerto Soledad, their new name for Port Louis.
Two years later, in 1769, a Spanish ship sighted Port Egmont while sailing in Falkland Sound, in consequence of which six Spanish ships carrying 1,400 troops arrived at this tiny post the following year and forced the British to evacuate it. In 1771, after threatening to send a naval expedition to retake their post and establish their claim over the islands by force, the British obtained Spain's acquiescence in restoring Port Egmont, but Madrid insisted that, in doing so, it did not relinquish its overall sovereignty of the islands. Owing to the excessive expense of maintaining its presence at so great a distance, the British removed their settlement from Port Egmont in 1774, leaving behind a plaque laying claim to the whole of the Falkland Islands. Meanwhile, at Puerto Soledad on East Falkland, a succession of Spanish governors served at their respective posts down to 1811, in which year, owing to the end of Spanish rule over La Plata, the Spanish settlements withdrew, leaving the islands unoccupied until 1826. In the meantime, however, Argentina had emerged as an independent state in 1816 and, as a result of its perceived inheritance of Spain's former territories, claimed the Falklands at least as early as 1820, when a ship arrived. They did not, however, establish a permanent settlement. This soon changed when, in 1826, the Argentines established a settlement at Puerto Soledad, posting Louis Vernet as governor. London sent its protests to Buenos Aires but took no military action. Five years later, the American government sent the warship Lexington, under Capt. Silas Duncan, to remove Vernet on grounds that the Argentines had employed force in denying American sealers access to the islands. The American government made no claim and, in 1832, Argentina dispatched a new governor, Major (Maj.) Mestivier, to the islands. Unrest amongst his men arose, however, and in the process of their mutiny the men murdered Mestivier. In 1833 Buenos Aires sent another governor to restore order, but during the course of his efforts to do so, Capt. John Onslow of HMS Clio arrived with a small force that evicted the Argentines, raised the Union flag and proclaimed the islands for King William IV. From this point on British settlers arrived, establishing themselves mainly at Stanley harbour, and inaugurating a period of sovereignty which remained disputed but physically unopposed until the Argentine invasion of 2 April 1982.
Since 1833 Argentina's claim has rested – and continues to rest – on the basis that upon independence from Spain, Argentina could rightfully claim her former territories, including Las Malvinas (the Falkland Islands). The foundation for such a claim has its regional precedents, too. Chile controls the Juan Fernández Islands, which lie 650km (400 miles) offshore – not to mention Easter Island, which is situated 3,200km west, deep in the Pacific. Ecuador, another former Spanish colony, administers the Galapagos Islands, more than 1,000km away, and Brazil rules Trinidade Island, also over 1,000km offshore. The Argentines contend that the British used force to evict their governor in 1833 and then introduced settlers to confirm an illegal transfer of power. The fact that the British had controlled a small post on West Falkland, Argentina deemed irrelevant, as Port Egmont survived a mere five years, the British abandoning it decades before the Argentines began their own settlement of the islands in 1826, which itself came closely on the heels of a continuous period of Spanish control stretching from 1767 to 1811.
* POINT-DETONATING ARTILLERY ROUNDS When firing at an entrenched defender, it is usually preferable to delay the explosion of shells by a fraction of a second in order to allow the shell time to penetrate into the target – a simple process achieved by turning a small screw contained in the fuse. At Goose Green, however, the softness of the soil enabled PD ammunition to penetrate so easily that gun crews dispensed with time-delayed fuses. Indeed, the sogginess of the ground actually reduced the effectiveness of artillery fire, since the ground absorbed some of the impact of the explosions, limiting its effect. To those on the receiving end of artillery or mortar fire, therefore, the otherwise unpleasant soggy ground provided some advantage. * The British, for their part, assert that the arguments underpinning their claim to the islands hold greater merit, on the basis that Argentine control of the Falklands remained tenuous during the seven-year period preceding British arrival. Above all, they assert that since 1833 Britain has maintained a continuous, stable presence, with its inhabitants almost wholly of British descent, in many cases tracing their predecessors' residence back five or more generations. From the British perspective, the principle of settling a claim of sovereignty stretching back more than a century and a half makes little sense in light of the fact that, if the same principle were applied across the world, virtually no nation would stand immune from territorial adjustment, sometimes radically so.
The problem, at length, rests with the definition of sovereignty. Argentina possesses a de jure claim to this principle dating back a considerable period, whereas Britain's de facto position of sovereignty lends a degree of credibility to her case. Nor does the complexity of the issue stop there, for the Falklands include the dependencies of South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and, significantly, all modern British governors based at Stanley have been invested with authority over the British Antarctic Territory as well. South Georgia is 3,750 square km of glacier and mountain, which lies 2,000km from the South American mainland. Although a seemingly worthless piece of territory, it was important for whalers for generations and has been the site of a British scientific research station since 1909. Moreover, Argentina's claim only dates from 1927. The South Sandwich Islands lie 750km south-east of South Georgia and consist of a chain of volcanic islands measuring 240km long, discovered by Captain Cook in 1775 during his voyage en route to the Pacific. Conditions amongst these very isolated islands are Antarctic; characterised by permanent ice and strong, freezing winds. They are uninhabited and, perhaps as important, uninhabitable. Apart from Argentina's unauthorised establishment of a 'scientific' base on Cook Island from 1964 to 1982, the islands have never been occupied. Finally, control of at least a portion of Antarctica rounds off the whole, complicated issue of sovereignty across a large swathe of the South Atlantic. While various nations with interests in Antarctica, including Argentina, Britain and Chile (all of whom dispute the same area of that frozen continent) have by international agreement dating from 1961 consented to hold their territorial claims in abeyance, the fact remains that a British scientific presence has existed for decades and successive British governments have refused to establish any precedent whereby recognition of Argentine claims to the Falklands can be construed to extend to the British Antarctic Territory.
Argentina's claim over the Falkland Island dependencies led, in 1947, to Britain putting its case before the International Court of Justice at The Hague, but Argentina refused this arbitration. When Britain unilaterally submitted its case in 1955, the court agreed to consider the dispute, but when Argentina announced its refusal to comply with any decision reached, officials closed proceedings the following year. In 1960, however, Argentina believed it had a strong case on the basis of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly's new policy designed to encourage self-determination; specifically, to render independent the numerous colonies, particularly those in Africa, still under white rule. Yet the Falklands stood in a unique position, for the UN declaration did not take into account – much to Argentina's dismay – the peculiar situation of the Islanders, who were themselves white, maintained a democratically elected local government in Stanley, and wished to maintain their colonial relationship with Britain. In short, the wording of the new UN declaration, while applicable across much of the world, did not meet the criteria of a largely self-governing people who desired to preserve their connection with its mother country. 'All peoples,' the document read,
>... have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development... Immediate steps shall be taken, in trust and non-self-government territories or all other territories which have not yet attained independence, to transfer all powers to the peoples of those territories, without any conditions or reservations, in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire, without any distinction as to race, creed or color, in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom. The dilemma created by this statement left the UN only able to issue a vaguely worded resolution in 1965, which invited the British and Argentine governments to open negotiations based on the aspirations stated in the declaration, in order to find a peaceful solution to the dispute. Apart from a few abstentions, including Britain's, ninety-four nations in the General Assembly voted in favour of the resolution, but its wording was sufficiently unclear on the principle of sovereignty as to leave Argentina frustrated that her claim over the Falkland Islands remained tenuous. In such peculiar circumstances, the principle of self-determination – whether or not in tandem with sovereignty, however defined – operated effectively and to the satisfaction of those who wished to retain their connection with the mother country.
Talks nonetheless began in 1966, but with no result. Even if successive British governments wanted to separate the link with the Falklands owing to the damage the issue was causing for trade and diplomatic relations across South America (and evidence of this emerged all the way up to 1982), the fact remained that they could not do so as long as the islanders themselves expressed a desire to remain a UK Overseas Territory; that is to say, effectively self-governing except insofar as its trade, defence and foreign relations were concerned. Besides, notwithstanding the disadvantages arising out of the dispute, Britain continued to maintain an interest in the South Atlantic quite apart from the Falklands themselves, long before engineers discovered large oil reserves beneath the sea floor – reserves which still remain unexploited. Moreover, no joint control proved feasible since neither the islanders nor the Argentines were prepared to reach a compromise. Appeals to the wider world from Buenos Aires counted for little, since most people could appreciate that exchanging Argentine for British sovereignty would merely result in the deeply unpopular control of one group over another – in precise contradiction to the UN 'Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples' of 1960. Besides, so long as open hostilities did not occur – especially those which might potentially involve repercussions elsewhere – the dispute remained practically unrecognised by everyone except the parties immediately concerned. Talks between London and Buenos Aires concluded only two months before the Argentine invasion in April 1982, with no progress.
If in international law nations increasingly gave credence to the principle of self-determination over sovereignty, then the arguments seemed, by 1982, to be favouring Britain. However, the Thatcher government did little to develop an impression in the minds of Argentine military and political leaders that Britain stood determined to hold on to the Falklands, irrespective of Argentine demands. Not only did the British government do little to bolster its claim with a clear policy, a number of circumstances in fact probably went far in persuading the Argentines that Britain was gradually withdrawing its interests in the South Atlantic, thus inadvertently encouraging Buenos Aires to cease its hitherto frustrated diplomatic initiatives and choose a military option. Since the 1950s, for instance, the British garrison in the Falklands consisted of one naval party, which in 1982 totalled a mere forty-two Royal Marines, plus the ice patrol vessel HMS Endurance, the only ship the Royal Navy regularly deployed in South Atlantic waters. Neither the British Army nor the Royal Air Force possessed any assets in the area, and the closest British forces beyond the Falklands garrison were stationed in Belize, the former colony of British Honduras, almost 8,000km (5,000 miles) away. The Argentines occasionally made naval demonstrations in the area, prompting the government of James Callaghan in 1977 to dispatch a submarine and a few surface vessels, but these maintained a distant station, undetected by the Argentines, and no substantial naval presence remained to monitor Argentine activity.
Under Margaret Thatcher's premiership, further signs developed which, quite erroneously, indicated to Argentina that Britain would not resist armed intervention. When, in 1981, the helicopter aboard Endurance sighted the Argentine base in the South Sandwich Islands and recognised that the size of the buildings exceeded the needs of the scientific community, which Buenos Aires insisted composed its only occupants, London rejected the captain's request to evict them. In the same year, when the British scientific station on South Georgia moved to a more modest building for the sake of cost-effective maintenance, the Argentines wrongly assumed this represented a greatly diminished financial investment in the area. When the British government postponed construction of new barracks for the Royal Marines' garrison on the Falklands, again the Argentines interpreted this as a sign of Whitehall's growing indifference to future British sovereignty over the region. Much more critically – and the significance of two further factors cannot be underestimated – the 1981 UK Defence Review under John Nott reached the conclusion that, rather than replace the veteran Endurance, she should be decommissioned after completing her tour of duty, leaving no Royal Naval presence in South Atlantic waters at all. Further, in the same year, by a single vote the House of Lords refused to grant full rights of residence to Falkland Islanders – a privileged status already extended to residents of Gibraltar. Unsurprisingly, Buenos Aires attached much significance to these developments, a circumstance that was reinforced when, at the failed UN talks in February 1982, only two months before the invasion, the British delegation issued no firm statement declaring the Thatcher government's resolve to oppose any aggressive moves by Argentina to enforce her claim over the islands.
* THE PARAS The Paras ranked amongst the best of Britain's armed forces. Unlike the Royal Marines Commandos in 3 Commando Brigade, they were not specifically trained in winter warfare; indeed, they were imminently due for jungle training in Belize when war broke out. However, they could operate in practically any environment. Put simply, a paratrooper could march faster, entrench himself more effectively and shoot more accurately than his Argentine counterpart, who displayed a much lower standard of marksmanship, fieldcraft and general discipline. The Paras were entirely volunteers, often with many years' professional experience, National Service in Britain having been abolished twenty years before. This fact alone rendered 2 Para innately superior to the defenders at Darwin and Goose Green. Argentina's decision to leave their best troops behind in case of hostilities with Chile proved a costly mistake. * Moreover, Argentina's growing relationship with the islanders themselves almost certainly encouraged the impression in Buenos Aires that the connection with their neighbour was not altogether unwelcome. Indeed, even as diplomatic sparring continued, the islanders sustained their decade-long agreement with LADE (Líneas Aéreas del Estado), a commercial airline run by the Argentine Air Force that operated bi-weekly flights to the mainland; they made use of an Argentine maritime freight service; permitted the maintenance of storage facilities for petrol, bottled gas and oil supplied by Argentine companies; and enjoyed the benefits of obtaining medical services from Argentina for patients requiring more resources than the islands could supply. Not only did employees from the airline and the fuel companies reside amicably in Stanley, but Falklands school children received instruction in Spanish from teachers recruited from the mainland. In short, while the islanders certainly expressed no interest in Argentine rule, the general trend in relations suggested advantages in strengthening connections with the mainland.
All these factors, together with hyper-inflation in Argentina and growing public disillusionment with the deeply unpopular, highly repressive junta under General (Gen.) Galtieri – whose regime consequently sought to distract opposition by galvanising opinion around a highly emotive issue such as Las Malvinas – laid the basis for Argentina's invasion in the spring of 1982. THE ARMIES## Argentine Forces In 1982 the Argentine army numbered approximately 60,000 troops, which compared favourably with other South American forces. The brigade functioned as the principal operational unit, each performing a specialised function according to its type: armoured, mechanised, infantry, mountain, jungle and airmobile. Argentine infantry regiments consisted of approximately 550–650 officers and men, divided amongst several companies, but of which only three consisted of 'rifle' companies tasked with conducting most of the fighting. Each company in turn was divided into three platoons, often including support weapons like heavy machine-guns. Platoons tended to be organised on the American model, with their squads (the equivalent of a British section, or half-platoon) led by sergeants. Officers and newly commissioned officers (NCOs) were professionals; careerists who trained and led conscripted soldiers serving a year of military service, which commenced when they turned 19.
Since the training cycle began in January, with whole regiments bringing in new recruits for training, most units were only just into their fourth month of training when they received orders to pack their kit and board aircraft. They were to reinforce the amphibious troops who overwhelmed the diminutive Royal Marine garrison based at Moody Brook Barracks, just west of Stanley, in the course of brief fighting on 2 April. The recruits can only be described as 'green' and had not yet even handled heavy weapons such as mortars, machine-guns or anti-tank guns – hence the importance of recalling reservists. Morale was generally poor, for although they enjoyed the benefit of adopting a defensive position, digging in proved extremely difficult owing to the thin layer of soil through which water rapidly penetrated, and beneath which a lower layer absorbed and retained the water. Trenches consequently became waterlogged, or even flooded when it rained. Frostbite and trench foot became common maladies, leading to the continuous loss of personnel through sickness. Still, from the comparative safety of his entrenched position – trench or bunker – at Goose Green, even the newest recruit was capable of mounting a creditable degree of resistance to an attacker.
* Argentine soldier Argentine rank and file wore a padded, hooked parka with a zipped front, and knitted cuffs, American-issue steel helmet, olive drab fatigues and high black combat boots, the typical Argentine soldier carried an equipment harness (in British parlance, 'webbing') usually of grey-green leather, a bayonet frogged on the left hip, a canteen, and a small pack on the right hip. Leather gloves were used extensively, together with a field cap with pile-lined flaps. In addition, he carried the light 'assault pack', to which he attached a blanket and a spade thrust under the straps at the back. Alternatively, he carried a horse-shoe blanket rolled around his body. His rifle, unlike his British counterpart's, was automatic, and together with the excellent, widely issued optical equipment also available to the crews of the heavy .50 calibre heavy machine-gun, offered a degree of superiority over the attackers' Self-Loading Rifles (SLR) and General-Purpose Machine-Guns (GPMG). Nevertheless, many soldiers were mere raw recruits, and even reservists paled in terms of training, discipline and motivation against their opponents.
Argentine officers Very little is known about the Argentine commanders who served in the Falklands, especially those below the rank of brigadier. At Goose Green, 1st Lt Estoban commanded C Company 25th Infantry Regiment, the bulk of that unit remaining at Stanley, 100km away. The son of an Air Force officer, Estoban was 27, and had graduated second in his class of 250 from the Army's academy. One of his subordinates, Lt Roberto Estevez – the only Argentine officer to die in the battle – served as a platoon commander in C Company. Officers were all professionals, most of whom deliberately remained aloof from other ranks, a characteristic which British personnel noted as one of the many features which served the Argentines ill during the campaign. Officers received better rations than their men, including alcohol, whereas meals served to British troops were identical for all ranks. * Argentina did deploy marines and other elite units to the Falklands, but as they did not figure in the fighting at Goose Green they need not concern us here. The paucity of hardened troops in the islands was, in fact, to prove a grave error in Argentine strategic planning. In light of concerns of growing tensions with Chile over a long-standing territorial dispute involving the Beagle Channel – which runs through Tierra del Fuego at the southern-most point of the continent – the Argentines saw fit to retain their best troops for a scenario that envisaged a Chilean attack. Meanwhile, 13,000 Argentines dug in on the Falklands in anticipation of a possible British military response. If it was necessary that the bulk of Argentine forces remained at home, they did at least call up a large proportion of reservists – men who had left the ranks only the previous December when their term of service had expired. These, together with a leavening of officers and NCOs, characterised the ground units available for the defence of the isthmus on which sat the settlements of Darwin and Goose Green. Officers were traditionally drawn from wealthy families with a long tradition of supplying their sons to the military; NCOs were also professionals, but a lack of education and their humbler social background denied them promotion to officer rank. The army, therefore, stood socially stratified, characterised by a wide social gulf between officers and other ranks.
Capt. Mark Worsley Tonks (who took over as adjutant of 2 Para), Lt Col David Chaundler, Maj. Chris Keeble, and Regimental Sergeant-Major (RSM) Simpson in front of a captured Argentine anti-aircraft gun. At Goose Green the defenders deployed four such weapons: two each of 35mm and 20mm guns. Army and marine units on the Falklands had at their disposal armoured cars; 105mm and 155mm artillery; 20mm, 30mm and 35mm anti-aircraft guns; and Roland, Tigercat and Blowpipe surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), though most of these remained amongst the main garrison at or around Stanley, on the other side of East Falkland. Specifically, Argentine troops deployed at Goose Green possessed no armoured cars, no field guns except two pack howitzers, and no SAMs. They were, however, armed with light machine-guns, the American 3.5in rocket launcher fitted with a folding bipod, and as many as six rifle grenades per soldier. Air force personnel responsible for maintaining aircraft at the airfield at Goose Green deployed three anti-aircraft guns, which could help repel Harrier attack as well as operate against ground targets. The local commander could also call upon limited air support and helicopter-borne reinforcements. Very fortunately for their opponents, no jet fighters operated well in the islands owing to inadequate airstrips – and hence the regular raids conducted by Super Etendards and Mirages from the mainland 650km away. The Argentine air force could, however, operate Pucara aircraft locally out of Pebble Island, Goose Green and Stanley. The Pucaras best served in a counterinsurgency role, but constituted a particular menace to helicopters, of which the British maintained precious few. It had two seats, though the Argentines normally only supplied the pilot, who enjoyed excellent manoeuvrability, a speed of 78 knots and impressive firepower, including two 20mm cannons, four 7.62mm machine-guns, plus either air-to-ground missiles, napalm or bombs. The Argentines initially deployed a squadron of twelve Pucaras to Stanley as of 9 April, moving some of these to Goose Green on the 29th. Some of these propeller-driven light aircraft flew over Goose Green during the battle on several occasions, taking off from the 450m-long grass airstrip controlled by air force personnel under Vice-Commodore Wilson Pedroza, whose anti-aircraft capability there consisted of two twin 35mm Oerlikon and six twin 20mm Rheinmetall guns.
* Brigadier General Mario Menendez Brigadier General Mario Menendez was commander of all Argentine forces in the Falklands. Although in control of numerically superior forces, he laboured under the disadvantage of not knowing the site of the British landing or whether or not it would constitute the main effort or merely a diversion. Unable to disperse his troops everywhere, Menendez compromised by distributing them across the islands in key locations, with most concentrated around Stanley. He described the strategic problem thus: 'There was really no structured plan for the defence of the islands because the original plan for the occupation of the Malvinas did not contemplate the possibility of a British military reaction. Naturally this caused serious problems later on because we had to improvise a defence plan, and when other military units started arriving in the Malvinas sometimes they didn't have proper logistical support... We tried to organize a defence as best we could.' (Adkin, Goose Green, p. 78)
General Menendez. (Ted Nevill) * Argentine anti-aircraft gun. Four of these operated at Goose Green, largely in a ground role during 2 Para's advance against the flagpole position and the schoolhouse. British Forces The Second Battalion The Parachute Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel (Lt Col) 'H' Jones formed the mainstay of the British force at Goose Green. The regiment as a whole consisted of three battalions, two of which served in the Falklands, with 3 Para distinguishing itself at Mount Longdon, two weeks after Goose Green. 2 Para had a strength of about 650, divided into several companies each led by majors, with each company divided into three platoons led by captains, themselves divided into sections led by corporals. These personnel, like all other components of the British Army and in sharp contrast to Argentine forces, consisted entirely of volunteers – all thoroughly professional and, specifically in the case of this elite battalion, highly trained, at the peak of physical fitness and exceptionally well motivated. Maj. Chris Keeble, second-in-command (2ic) at Goose Green, described his unit's unique bond:
> I was enormously attracted to the Parachute Regiment because of this wonderful feeling of comradeship. We all have to go through a traumatic selection process, which weeds out a great number of people. We are united in our hardship, by what we have done. It is a very good way of preparing for the actual trauma of war. Soldiers do not fight for Queen and country, or even for Maggie [Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister] – they fight for each other. But they need to know that their comrades would do the same. Selection produces that mutual trust. (Arthur, Above All, Courage, p. 191) In a subsequent interview, he added: >... we are a body of people welded together by our traditions, by our regiment, by a feeling of togetherness. We're a family of people and you have to remember that. We all know each other, we know each other's families. This is a body of people who would die for each other... We have to win, the mission is paramount. It is more important than anything else. (Adkin, Goose Green, p. 22)
2 Para wore camouflage of light green, yellow, light red-brown and black, and headgear consisting of either a helmet or their distinctive maroon beret with characteristic winged cap badge. They wore 'Northern Ireland' boots and sometimes over-boots or puttees, which were intended for use in central Europe rather than amidst the topography and climate of the South Atlantic. Indeed, the inadequacy of their boots became apparent practically from the moment they stepped foot in the Falklands. Equipment was standard 1958 pattern issue, together with a variety of rucksacks, a windproof suit, water bottle, poncho roll and lightweight shovel, to mention but a few items of 'kit' they carried. Weapons included the self-loading rifle, or SLR, with Trilux sight attached, which together functioned as the standard firearm for British infantry and paratroopers in 1982. Other weapons included the general purpose machine-gun (GPMG) – a modified 7.62mm form of the popular Bren light machine-gun from the Second World War – a direct-fire weapon with a range of 1,800m (2,000yd), which provided sustained fire when the gunner had a line of sight to his target. They also employed the much heavier .50 calibre machine-gun, meant for supporting fire against trenches, bunkers, sangars and light vehicles.
British paratroopers. At Goose Green these men wore lightweight 'Fighting Order', but on the trek to Sussex Mountain they carried their rifle, a minimum of seven full magazines, four grenades, two full water bottles, their entrenching tool, rations, webbing, and a Bergen containing washing kit, spare boots, sleeping bag and arctic clothing. Everyone carried extras, such as rockets for the 66mm or 84mm rocket launchers, bombs for the platoon 2in mortar, two or more bandoliers of ammunition for the GPMG, a weapon sight for their rifle, spare radio batteries or shells for the M79 grenade launcher. The Blowpipe, a surface-to-air missile meant to defend ground troops against aircraft attacking at low altitude, could be carried and deployed by an individual soldier. Radio or optical tracking guided the missile, which, with its high explosive warhead, weighted 21kg (47lb) and measured 4ft 7in in length. It was remarkably effective against dug-in enemy positions, but added considerably to the burden already borne by soldiers who, in the case of those who marched to Goose Green from the landing site on East Falkland, did so without the benefit of helicopter transport. An individual infantryman might also carry a Milan – a wire-guided missile fired from the shoulder – intended for use against armour, but which was discovered in the course of the campaign to prove highly effective against bunkers and sangars. Its guidance system relied simply on keeping the target in the cross hairs as the missile hurtled forward to a maximum range of 2,000m (2,200yd). The Milan's hollow-charge high explosive warhead could penetrate most armour plating and, as with the Blowpipe, proved devastating against Argentine trenches at Goose Green and then, only a fortnight later, against the defensive positions encountered in the mountains west of Stanley.
* British Paratrooper Members of 2 Para wore a windproof DPM parachute smock based on a version developed during the Second World War, together with over-trousers, all in camouflage of light green, yellow, light red-brown and black. They also carried foul-weather clothing, which consisted of thin rainproofs of various varieties, but for 2 Para usually constituted of an olive green waterproof smock lined in white. They wore a parachute brevet on the right sleeve of their smocks above a blue 'DZ patch' and rank chevrons. The new fibre paratrooper's helmet replaced the old metal version and was often worn with scrim nets, though paras often just wore their maroon regimental beret with dulled cap badge. Footwear came in the form of either the standard-issue 'boots DMS' or 'boots, high, combat'. Webbing consisted of 1958-pattern Combat Equipment Fighting Order (CEFO), an olive-green nylon rucksack and NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) equipment. He often wore padded black leather 'Northern Ireland' gloves, carried a lightweight shovel and a self-loading rifle, better known as an SLR, which could mount a Trilux SUIT sight, which, however, the paras usually detached for close-quarter fighting or discarded altogether as useless under the Falklands' damp conditions.
Corporal (Cpl) John Geddes of C Company described the Paras' raison d'être: Fire and move! Fire and move! That's the mantra of the infantryman and when's all said and done, motivated and well trained as they are, paras are infantrymen. They're just specialist infantry who can be dropped in on a battle from the air. The idea is to close with the enemy and not to sit in some shell scrape exchanging fire with him like insults. The idea is to get up close and personal and then kill the bastard. British paratrooper in full kit. * Sgt Chris Howard, from the anti-tank platoon, 3 Para. The standard 81mm mortar provided further support to the paras, firing at a rate of fifteen rounds per minute and sending ordnance with considerable accuracy to distances of between 4,500m and 5,600m, depending on the strength of the charge employed. Rounds weighed almost 4kg (10lb). The mortar itself weighed nearly 36kg (80lb) and required a three-man team to operate it as part of the specialist mortar platoon of the battalion's support company. Mortars could fire high explosive bombs, smoke or illuminating bombs. Crews were not supposed to strike targets closer than 200–300m from friendly forces, though in action they sometimes neglected this rule. The mortar's principal function was to act as mobile artillery, firing at very high angles and thus taking advantage of cover from walls, steep hills and gullies. The mortar also has a high rate of fire. At a normal rate of eight rounds a minute, the two mortars available to 2 Para would require eighty rounds to sustain fire for five minutes – and yet only about 500 bombs lay at the first baseplate position at the start of the action. The shortage of this vitally important support weapon would persuade the commanding officer to place his precious mortars in reserve, putting his faith in the more powerful fire support that the artillery and HMS Arrow could provide.
The paras tended to attack with two platoons 'up' – that is, forward – and one in reserve. In destroying trenches, they tended to crawl forward or make short bursts when under fire before employing whatever heavy weapons they had at their disposal, including 66mm rockets, as well as grenades. Trench-clearing in particular involved machine-guns and grenades, either white phosphorus (WP) or L2s – the standard high explosive. To illuminate a trench in the dark, infantry could fire a flare or call for mortar-fired illumination rounds. Often they could identify their enemy's position by identifying the source of the colourful lines of tracer fire, which lit up the night sky. Communication in action posed all manner of problems, as individual soldiers did not have radio contact with their section or platoon commanders. Even for those in possession of the new Clansman radio, a reliable instrument, noise produced under fire could render communication difficult and sometimes impossible. During a mortar barrage on D Company, for instance, Second Lieutenant (2nd Lt) Chris Waddington found that command and control became a shambles when his men could not hear him shouting – and nor could he hear the sound of his own voice. The source of the cacophony of battle lay with bursting artillery shells, which upon impact with the soft peat produced a muffled crash; belt-fed machine-guns rattled off in a constant staccato; grenades exploded with a recognisable thump; and of course, rifle fire produced incessant popping. All forms of ordnance were easily distinguishable from one another, particularly for troops with long experience of exercises on Salisbury Plain or elsewhere, and even young soldiers could differentiate between distant and close rifle fire. Lieutenant (Lt) Peter Kennedy, C Company, noted how 'Enemy small arms fire began to fly past us, but buzzed like angry bees rather than the expected crack because they were reaching the limit of their range'. (Adkin, Goose Green, p. 206)
Members of 3 Para's anti-tank platoon, with machine-guns, move off Mount Longdon. Amongst other support weapons, an anti-tank platoon carried the Milan, a wire-guided missile fired from the shoulder for use against tanks. Troops soon discovered, however, that the Milan performed superbly against bunkers, trenches and houses. Artillery supporting 2 Para at Goose Green came in the form of the 105mm light gun, which entered service shortly before the Falklands War, replacing the 105mm pack howitzer. It had a range of 14,500m, which, from the gunners' firing position at Camilla Creek House, meant that the artillery could cover the whole area of the isthmus without advancing the gun line. Six guns comprised a full battery, with a single weapon manned by a crew of six who provided an average rate of fire of three rounds per minute. On this basis, a battery was capable of bringing down fire on a target area at a rate of eighteen shells per minute. At Goose Green only three guns, or half a battery, were present. Rates of fire can vary, but with an expectation of 360 shells an hour over several hours, the rate of expenditure ought to have been high, were it not for the shortage of transport – especially helicopters capable of operating at night. Only a dozen Sea Kings were available to move the guns and their crews to the firing position at Camilla Creek House, in support of an operation meant to be fought almost entirely in darkness. Specifically, three helicopters were required for the three guns, and a fourth for the twenty-eight personnel, leaving eight to ferry ammunition. Each helicopter could only move one box at a time, underslung in a net, with each box containing forty-eight shells. This only represented 384 shells, which, at an average rate of fire, would be exhausted in an hour.
Helicopter on shipboard landing pad. Before the Atlantic Conveyor went down the British had eleven Sea King and five Wessex helicopters as medium-lift aircraft. These could only operate during the day, since only four crews had training and a complement of night-vision goggles. With Stanley separated from San Carlos by 100km of inhospitable ground and with weather conditions deteriorating daily, helicopters became all the more vital for conveying troops and supplies forward. The officer in command of the guns decided to send forward only high explosive (HE) shells on the basis that the targets almost certain to be encountered would include infantry defending trenches, vehicles and guns. HE rounds fired by the artillery could explode as airburst or point detonating (PD), with the former exploding 30ft above the ground and sending a shower of shrapnel over a wide area; the latter detonating once the shell made impact with the ground. At Goose Green, airburst shells suited the defender, since 2 Para attacked over exposed ground (bare terrain), whereas the British opted for PD rounds, since these were more effective against dug-in troops making use of trenches and bunkers. The British required no armour-piercing ammunition, since intelligence revealed that the Argentines possessed no tanks in the area. As the frigate HMS Arrow, lying offshore to the west of the isthmus, could fire star-shells from her powerful 4.5in main gun to partially illuminate the night sky, the artillery was not supplied with illumination rounds – which, in the event, proved short-sighted. Moreover, since 2 Para's mortars could provide smoke cover once dawn arrived, the British did not supply the guns with smoke rounds.
Responsibility for choosing targets for the guns rested with the gun position officer (GPO) at the gun line. To carry out this function he needed to know the location of the target, its type, the timing of fire, the type of ammunition required and the length of the barrage. All of this was provided by the forward observing officer (FOO) who positioned himself with the infantry, preferably so that he possessed line of sight to the target and could, consequently, observe the fall of the shells, thereby enabling him to order adjustments to targeting if necessary. Thus, the effectiveness of fire support depended heavily on the competence of FOOs. The battery commander stood forward with the infantry, as he had to be in place to advise the infantry commander on the role of artillery support. He collaborated on questions concerning fire support planning and moved about with the infantry commander in Tac 1, the battalion's headquarters, consisting of the CO and his staff. In action, the battery commander controlled the FOOs, determined the priority of targets, monitored ammunition expenditure and decided when and if the guns ought to bear on a different target as circumstances required. He seldom interfered with the actual firing of the guns, which took their direction from the FOOs via radio.
* Lieutenant Colonel 'H' Jones VC, OBE, Commanding Officer of 2 Para Born on 14 May 1940, the 42-year-old son of a wealthy West Country landowning family was better known as 'H' owing to his dislike of 'Herbert'. He attended Eton College before joining the Devon and Dorset Regiment in 1960, serving later in Northern Ireland and transferring to the Parachute Regiment in December 1979 as its commanding officer. Jones possessed a fiery temper, exuded boundless energy and believed strongly in the notion that officers lead from the front. Upon hearing news of the invasion while on a skiing holiday in the French Alps, Jones raced home and demanded that 2 Para form part of the Task Force, which already contained 3 Para. Mortally wounded on Darwin Hill at about 0930 hrs, 28 May, Jones received a posthumous Victoria Cross for, according to his citation, not only his own exemplary conduct, but for the impact of his unit on the campaign as a whole: 'The achievements of 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment at Darwin and Goose Green set the tone for the subsequent land victory on the Falklands. They achieved such a moral superiority over the enemy in this first battle that, despite the advantages of numbers and selection of battle-ground, they never thereafter doubted either the superior fighting qualities of the British troops, or their own inevitable defeat. This was an action of the utmost gallantry by a commanding officer whose dashing leadership and courage throughout the battle were an inspiration to all about him.'
His conduct and commendation have remained the object of controversy ever since. In his memoirs, Private (Pte) Tony Banks, D Company, expressed a commonly held opinion: 'My view is that Jones should never have been in that position [acting in the role of a section leader] in the first place. He was in the Falklands to lead the whole of 2 Para, not a small assault force. He was gung-ho and brave but irresponsible.' (Banks, Storming the Falklands, p. 125) Lieutenant Colonel 'H' Jones VC, OBE. * THE DAYS BEFORE BATTLE: OPPOSING PLANS AND DISPOSITIONS The Argentine Plan of Defence The British reacted rapidly to news of the Argentine invasion: on 5 April dispatching to the South Atlantic the carriers Hermes and Invincible, followed four days later by the Canberra carrying three Royal Marine commandos (40, 42 and 45, each the equivalent of a battalion in the army) and Third Battalion The Parachute Regiment (3 Para). This response was entirely unexpected by Galtieri's government, which now sought to reinforce its garrison, for as it stood, it did not comprise a force whose composition suited the role of repelling an expeditionary force tasked with recapturing the Falklands. Reinforcements dispatched from the mainland came in the form of 9 Brigade under Brigadier General (Brig. Gen.) Oscar Jofre, whose men arrived by air between 11 and 16 April and deployed around Stanley, with Jofre appointed land forces commander under the islands' overall commander and governor, Brig. Gen. Mario Menendez.
When senior Argentine commanders met in Buenos Aires on 22 April to devise their strategy of defence, holding Stanley stood at the forefront of their plan; well aware that its fall would mark the end of Argentine control – in Clausewitzian terms, the capital represented their opponent's 'centre of gravity'. The high command deemed the retention of West Falkland important, but not essential, for it contained only small, isolated settlements at Port Howard and Fox Bay. Even the area immediately across Falkland Sound – the western end of East Falkland, which included San Carlos and Darwin-Goose Green – strategists did not assess as critically important to hold. Sixty-five kilometres (40 miles) separated these positions from the outer ring of rocky eminences dotting the otherwise flat, bleak and boggy landscape immediately west of Stanley, and thus they calculated that their primary means of defence must hinge on holding the series of elevated points between Mount Kent and Wireless Ridge, the latter of which lay on the very fringe of the capital. In fact, Argentine commanders possessed but few alternatives to such a strategy, for by dint of their position as the defender, their troops did not enjoy the benefits of holding the initiative. Their approaching opponents on the other hand, while labouring under major disadvantages of their own – an extended logistics tail, warships and supply vessels vulnerable to air and naval attack, to name but a few – could profit from their ability to determine the point of attack, until that moment exercising the element of surprise.
The coastline extended for hundreds of miles and while Galtieri and most of his staff reckoned the British would effect a landing somewhere near Stanley, this deduction could only remain speculative until the Task Force actually made its appearance. Defending every beach and cove naturally presented a physical impossibility – and even after the landings took place, the British could, the Argentines reckoned with a reasonable degree of logic, deploy their forces rapidly by helicopter, subject to the degree to which they could successfully contest command of the air. In short, the defenders concentrated their forces in and around Stanley, on the basis that a landing elsewhere obliged the attacker to cover a great deal of ground before reaching their ultimate objective. Complicating matters still further for Menendez and his far-flung forces, the British might open their offensive by launching a diversionary landing, thus drawing off the attention of the defenders before executing the main attack elsewhere. The Argentines considered the possibility of British landings at more than half a dozen locations across East Falkland – including the actual site, San Carlos – but its situation 90km (56 miles) from Stanley ruled it out from further consideration. In the end – and well before the arrival of the Task Force in hostile waters – the Argentines concentrated around the capital four infantry regiments, minus C Company 25th Regiment, which they deployed at Goose Green, and a further regiment on West Falkland.
* THE SETTLEMENTS Goose Green and its smaller, neighbouring settlement of Darwin sit on a narrow isthmus which separates Lafonia from the rest of East Falkland. This land bridge measures only 10km (6 miles) long and 2km (1.2 miles) wide. It is treeless, constantly swept by wind and consists of low ridges and open grassland rendered permanently soggy by constant precipitation and a high water table. In 1982, fewer than 150 people inhabited the two settlements combined, which constituted part of 'the Camp', the name given by the islanders to describe the largely unpopulated area – home to large numbers of grazing sheep – extending beyond the limits of Stanley. * Soon thereafter, while the Task Force continued its progress to the South Atlantic, the Argentines deployed another brigade to the islands, consisting of the 4th, 5th and 12th Regiments under Brig. Gen. Omar Parada. It did not enjoy a high standard of efficiency or experience and hailed from near the Uruguay border in the sub-tropical north – and thus was poorly acclimatised to the chilly conditions characteristic of the South Atlantic at that season, unlike brigades based in the far south of Argentina. Worse still, the high command dispatched these troops so hastily to the Falklands that many of the brigade's reservists did not reach the point of departure and thus it contained many recent recruits. Argentina might have sent a better-trained brigade, but they had held back the best personnel to monitor the border with Chile, with whom Buenos Aires harboured a long-term dispute over islands in Tierra del Fuego, and whom it was feared might take advantage of Argentina's temporary weakness and launch an attack.
With the last Argentine reinforcements reaching the islands in late April, Menendez, the land forces commander, now boasted a force of 13,000 troops, including about 6,000 infantry. Parada, Commander of 3 Brigade, controlled West Falkland where the 5th Regiment and 8th Regiment held Port Howard and Fox Bay, respectively. His command also included the tiny settlements of Darwin and Goose Green, situated on an isthmus that sits astride the southern land route from Stanley to San Carlos, via Fitzroy; the northern route is located north of the chain of mountains in the centre of East Falkland, which requires movement via Teal Inlet. The two settlements – they are not large enough to warrant description as towns – together held 114 people. They existed solely for the purposes of supporting local sheep farming and consisted of little more than a few dozen structures: a store, a community centre, the manager's house, a school, shearing sheds and barns, and houses. This represented the only significant concentration of civil population in the west of the island and, together with the airstrip at Goose Green, necessitated that the Argentines provide a permanent garrison there. This included the 12th Regiment under Lt Col Italo Piaggi, who arrived on 24–25 April, replacing in command Lt Estoban, whose company took the place of B Company 12th Regiment, which had remained at Stanley as a strategic reserve. Piaggi also had a platoon detached from C Company 8th Regiment, whose parent unit remained at Fox Bay.
Disembarkation rehearsal for 2 Para aboard Norland. Paras were used to deploying on operations via C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, not landing craft, and thus required at least rudimentary practice at what their amphibiously trained Royal Marines colleagues found second-nature. (Dr Stephen Hughes) * OVERALL STRENGTH In the Falklands as a whole, the Argentines enjoyed a clear numerical superiority – 13,000 men all told – as compared to about 8,000 ground personnel comprising the Task Force opposing them. The Argentines deployed forty-two 105mm pack howitzers and four 155mm guns, for forty-six pieces of artillery in total, as compared with thirty-six British guns of the Royal Artillery. But if the Argentines could bring more men and firepower to bear, the British more than compensated with troops of superior training, morale and motivation. In terms of weaponry, no appreciable difference stood between a British and Argentine soldier; but in terms of aggression and a 'will to win', the former possessed a clear advantage.
* Piaggi spent weeks laying mines in the centre of the isthmus north of Darwin: behind the beaches on the western side; to the east, placed north of the school bridge; and just north of the airstrip and Goose Green settlement itself. Others were laid on Goose Green peninsula and further south. He was short of support weapons and HQ in Stanley had declined to send him any artillery, apart from his anti-aircraft guns. In all, this body of troops was known as Task Force Mercedes, named after the town where the 12th Regiment was based, and included twelve Pucara aircraft, four anti-aircraft guns and associated air force personnel. Piaggi's men were not only inexperienced but also lacked heavy equipment and support weapons, most of which were left behind in Argentina during the rush to dispatch troops to the islands. This materiel was meant to come by ship but never arrived, thus denying 12th Regiment all of its vehicles apart from three Land Rovers, commandeered from their local owners and allocated one each to A and C Companies and the Reconnaissance (Recce) Platoon. What little support weapons Piaggi had consisted of two 81mm and one 120mm mortars, although he ought to have had ten of the former and four of the latter. He was meant to have thirteen recoilless rifles but had only one. Of the normal complement of twenty-five light machine-guns he possessed fewer than half that number. He had no artillery apart from the anti-aircraft guns, which could indeed fire on ground targets, though their crews were not trained for this role. Piaggi's command thus suffered from numerous problems: poor training, a force lacking cohesion and homogeneity, indifferent morale, poor mobility and poor communications. Even though Parada believed an attack unlikely, since Stanley was assumed to be the most likely target, he nonetheless ordered Piaggi to undertake the necessary defensive measures at Darwin-Goose Green.
Piaggi's deployment reflected his inability to predict the direction and manner of attack, should the British decide to make a thrust in the Darwin-Goose Green area. His orders bade him to defend both settlements, as well as the airstrip. The air force personnel and guns were responsible for air defence, but Piaggi was left to defend against either a landward approach from the north, amphibious landings somewhere along the isthmus, or helicopter insertion, probably with a view to seizing the airstrip. Still, he understood that he could not hope to man the entire coastline with his three companies in case of seaborne attack, and thus satisfied himself with laying mines along part of the 10–12km (6–7.5 miles) of coastline and deploying his infantry principally near Goose Green. Manresa's A Company 25th Regiment was positioned about 3km (1.8 miles) north of Goose Green, occupying high ground west of Darwin, while C Company 12th Regiment under Fernandez was deployed about 1.5km (0.9 miles) south-west of Goose Green on a low hill. This did not entirely solve the dilemma of monitoring the beaches, but from these positions the two companies could both observe the coastline to east and west, and prevent an enemy moving along it from north and south. This left Aliaga's C Company 8th Regiment, which occupied ground near Salinas Beach to the west of Goose Green, and Estoban's C Company 25th Regiment, which remained in reserve at the settlement.
* GOOSE GREEN IN ARGENTINE STRATEGY Commanders on the Falklands assigned no particular value to the Darwin-Goose Green area with respect to the overall strategy of defending Stanley. The area stood a great distance from the capital and even if the British captured it – and there was no reason to believe they would – its loss would have no effect on the defensive plan to hold Stanley. The only reason it held a garrison was because of its airstrip, which, apart from those on Pebble Island and at Stanley, could provide facilities for Pucara aircraft. * Even before the Task Force reached South Atlantic waters the British opened hostilities when, before dawn on the morning of 1 May, an RAF Vulcan bomber struck Stanley airfield. In response, Pucaras at Goose Green went aloft in search of a possible heliborne landing by British troops, despite the fact that, unbeknownst to the Argentines, the landings would not take place for another three weeks. Two Pucaras, seeking to take off around 0725 hrs, found themselves under attack by three British Harriers sent from HMS Hermes.The Harrriers dropped cluster bombs on the airstrip, destroying one Pucara and seriously damaging two others, leaving five dead and fourteen wounded. Three Pucaras, already airborne and attempting to land an hour later, were redirected to Pebble Island, just north of West Falkland, owing to the closure of Goose Green's airstrip. A further four Pucaras were dispatched to Pebble Island in the forthcoming days until, on 14–15 May, D Squadron SAS raided the airstrip there and destroyed all eleven aircraft on the ground. On the same day, four more Pucaras arrived at Goose Green, but the catastrophe at Pebble Island persuaded the Argentines to remove them to the safety of Stanley lest they suffer the same fate. This left only three damaged aircraft at Goose Green, kept behind to serve as decoys. As such, the garrison comprised many air force personnel and several anti-aircraft guns, but no serviceable aircraft. Three more Harriers attacked the airfield on 14 May, but this time the anti-aircraft crews were ready and managed to shoot down one of them. As a result of the obvious danger of further British air attacks, the Argentines shifted some of their defensive positions closer to the houses of Goose Green settlement, together with helicopters, on the assumption that the British would not attack such structures. At the same time, they decided to concentrate all 114 residents of Darwin and Goose Green into the latter's community hall, on whose roof they painted a red cross. The garrison proceeded to occupy the residents' houses, which the troops plundered and rendered filthy with excrement deposited on floors and in baths.
* PIAGGI'S DECISIONS By moving a platoon from 8th Regiment north to man the trenches near Boca House prior to B Company's reaching that objective, Piaggi thereby positioned a unit with a clear field of fire extending as far as 1,000m beyond the gorse line. Accordingly, although Crosland's men had made good progress against light resistance in the pre-dawn hours, Piaggi's decision proved a sound one, for this redeployment would hold up B Company for four hours, making a mockery of 2 Para's timetable. * Neither Piaggi at Goose Green nor his superiors at Stanley had any notion of where the British intended to land. Indeed, they assumed that air raids against Goose Green might continue, perhaps even an SAS raid undertaken – but the place did not seem a natural target of attack. Still, Piaggi kept his men busy constructing bunkers, digging trenches, laying mines and sending out patrols. His troop dispositions, however, remained unchanged, apart from his response on 15 May to growing anxiety over the presence of British ships in Falkland Sound. As a result of these anxieties, Piaggi received orders to establish an observation point at Port San Carlos, which he did with one platoon, two anti-aircraft guns and two mortars, plus a detachment at Fanning Head, 10km (6 miles) away. Quite unbeknownst to Piaggi, 3 Commando Brigade had already designated San Carlos as its landing site in five days' time.
British Plans and Landings While the operational name for the expedition as a whole was known as 'Corporate', for the actual landings themselves the British applied the code name 'Sutton'. A great deal of thought and planning went into choosing the landing site. Brig. Julian Thompson RM and Commodore Michael Clapp RN, who commanded the amphibious task group with responsibility for landing the troops and supplies, wished ideally to land unobserved. If this proved impossible, they hoped at least to arrive unopposed, as landing craft crowded with troops are extremely vulnerable to artillery, mortar- and machine-gun fire, not to mention aircraft. British strategic planners sought to meet several criteria: a landing site composed of beaches whose sand consisted of sufficient firmness to admit landing craft and offloaded vehicles; a site that permitted an approach by night; a site around which a perimeter defence could be established to successfully oppose a counter-attack; and a site situated within a reasonable distance of Stanley, the final objective.
2 Para undergoes physical training on the deck of Norland. The Parachute Regiment prides itself on the extremely high standard of fitness demanded of its men, who alternated by company in running round the ship's decks as part of the regular, rigorous exercise regime carried out during the seven-week journey to the South Atlantic. Thompson issued orders for Operation Sutton from HMS Fearless on 13 May, and would assume command of all land forces approximately a week after the first landings. In the meantime, with 3 Commando Brigade nearing the islands and 5 Infantry Brigade on its way south, Thompson led 3 Commando Brigade only. He was to secure a bridgehead on East Falkland, establish a defensive perimeter around it so that reinforcements could be brought in, gather intelligence on the strength and intentions of the enemy, and 'establish moral and physical domination over the enemy, and further the ultimate objective of repossession'. These aims, the likelihood of whose attainment increased with 5 Infantry Brigade's arrival about a week later, would set the stage for the offensive across East Falkland, which was to follow in the wake of the landings.
Planners began the process of selecting landing sites by carefully studying a detailed map of the Falklands and took advice from Maj. Ewan Southby-Tailyour, whose yachting around the islands during prior service with the Royal Marines garrison had furnished him with an intimate knowledge of the entire coastline and tides. Nineteen beaches were considered, until the planners reduced these down to three: Cow Bay/Volunteer Bay, Berkeley Sound and San Carlos, ultimately selecting the last of these as it met all their criteria. Although it happened to be much further from Stanley, this factor alone did not impose insurmountable obstacles. Paradoxically, in fact, the site's considerable distance to the capital lent a degree of advantage, insofar as it introduced the element of surprise, since the Argentines were unlikely to suspect it as a landing site. Indeed, early intelligence gathered by the Special Boat Service (SBS) indicated no enemy presence in the area, with the nearest Argentines 30km (18.6 miles) away at Goose Green, where Thompson's intelligence officer reckoned the garrison strength at 300–500 men, possibly with some artillery, anti-aircraft guns and assorted air force personnel. There always remained the possibility of heliborne reinforcement from garrisons further east but, for the moment, circumstances for an amphibious operation appeared very favourable.
The landings were to take place at night owing to the absence of British air superiority. 2 Para would be the first ashore. All units would then establish defensive positions in order to resist an expected Argentine response by land and air once daylight appeared. Artillery and Rapier anti-aircraft batteries would be landed at first light by helicopter. No detailed explanation of the landings need concern us here, apart from 2 Para's. While other units would establish a defensive position near their own landing sites and form a base from which to launch an advance on Stanley, 2 Para was to advance to Sussex Mountain, immediately to the south, to dig in, erect barbed wire and lay mines. This was vital ground, since it would help secure the beachhead and provide a commanding view of the whole area for miles around. At about 0430 hrs on Friday 21 May, the SAS launched a diversionary attack just north of Darwin with the mistaken belief that the Argentines possessed a strategic reserve in the area, which could pose a threat to Operation Sutton. Approximately forty SAS troopers opened fire on Manresa's A Company, but they did not seek to engage it for any period, much less attempt to dislodge it. Piaggi reported the raid, but was, as yet, unaware of the landings further north. 'H-Hour' – the time when the landing craft were meant to disgorge their troops on the beaches – was set for 0230 hrs on Friday 21 May. This would give 2 Para four hours of darkness with which to reach and ascend Sussex Mountain, dig in and ready themselves for any attempt by the garrison at Darwin-Goose Green to oppose the establishment of a beachhead by the other four battalions. In fact, a small force of Argentines was positioned at Fanning Head and sighted the ships offshore, before the SBS drove them off. Landing craft, involving the whole of 3 Commando Brigade, duly put ashore five elite battalions – 2 and 3 Para; 40, 42 and 45 Commando Royal Marines – from 0430 hrs, with three more battalions scheduled to arrive nine days later.
2 Para was the first unit to disembark, but the landing craft carrying its individual companies lowered their doors in more than 1ft of water, so the troops became wet the moment they stepped out on to what they expected to be more or less dry sand. From there, the priority was to reach the top of Sussex Mountain before the Argentines at Darwin-Goose Green decided to deny it to them. But 2 Para was behind schedule in their endeavour to arrive at their objective by dawn. The landings took place late, with 2 Para leaving their craft at approximately 0430 hrs instead of 0230 hrs. Sunrise then came at 0630 hrs – too late to allow the paras to reach the top of Sussex Mountain in darkness. A good deal of time was also wasted on the beach trying to organise the men into their correct sub-units and establish a proper order of march. The distance also confounded the timetable, for the 8km (5 mile) route was uphill and the battalion heavily encumbered by overloaded Bergens. Nothing but slow movement could be expected, especially for those carrying Milans, machine-guns, mortars or Blowpipes. Even before the troops left the beaches, the shortage of helicopters required them to carry artillery shells, Rapiers, bulk ammunition and stores. Jones' men, like their comrades in 3 Para and the three RM commandos, had to carry enough food and ammunition for two days of fighting, plus two 81mm mortar bombs and a host of other items, weighing in all at least 50kg (110lb). Moreover, 2 Para, like practically everyone else, were partly wet with no possibility of drying out – a serious threat to the troops' health amidst prevailing winter conditions.
British landing craft. 2 and 3 Para, plus 40, 42 and 45 Commando Royal Marines all came ashore by this means before dawn on 21 May. Entering San Carlos Water, 2 Para and 40 Commando landed at San Carlos Settlement, 3 Para and 42 Commando at Port San Carlos, and 45 Commando just north of Ajax Bay. At dawn on the 21st, the paras reached the top of the 240m (800ft) Sussex Mountain, which stood unoccupied – though Argentine aircraft spotted the troops' presence. Meanwhile, at Goose Green, Vice-Commodore Pedroza ordered four of his six Pucaras to fly to San Carlos Water and return with a report. One was hit and downed by a Stinger fired by the SAS, its pilot ejecting; another failed to take off owing to HMS Ardent shelling the airfield. Sea Harriers attacked the other two over San Carlos; one escaped and the other was shot down, the ejecting pilot reaching the ground safely by parachute before walking back to Goose Green. As discussed, Thompson planned to shift his troops east from around San Carlos in an offensive against Stanley. Time was of the essence, since the onset of winter meant he must capture his objective and secure repossession of the islands in the next three weeks. Otherwise, the campaign would grind to a halt as temperatures dropped, snow fell, winds increased – thus endangering helicopters – and the seas became too choppy for Harriers to take off and land, and for the ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, civilian supply vessels and warships of the Royal Navy to operate safely. While he prepared plans to shift the bulk of his forces east, Thompson met with Jones early on the morning of 22 May and told him he wanted 2 Para to conduct a raid on Goose Green, consistent with orders from Northwood 'to establish moral and physical domination over the enemy'. This pleased Jones immensely, as his unit would clinch the first opportunity to come to serious grips with the Argentines.
* TRACER AMMUNITION By their different colours, the firework-like brightness of tracer ammunition trails appearing in the night sky readily identified the nationality of the troops firing it: green or white for the Argentines and red for the British. The British also fired parachute illuminating and other flares to aid their visibility, which before sunrise around 0600 hrs cast light only a few metres. * The idea for the raid arose out of pressure exerted from London for a rapid advance once the troops landed. The government wanted swift action and the chiefs-of-staff were happy to oblige. Thompson planned to move his five battalions, plus 5 Infantry Brigade, to Mount Kent as soon as possible for a push against the ring of mountain defences west of Stanley. At the same time, Jones spent 23 and 24 May planning the conduct of his raid. The intelligence in his possession, supplied by the SAS, suggested the presence of only a single company of infantry (approx 100 men), though Capt. Alan Coulson, Jones' intelligence officer, thought this suspiciously low. Be that as it may, when Jones learned he had no helicopters at his disposal for moving his troops, he scrapped his initial plan to move his men by air. His proposal for a seaborne approach Thompson also turned down, since it involved various perils, including moving by night up Brenton Loch and landing at Salinas Beach opposite Goose Green. Navigation among the rocks would require radar, the detection of which would alert the Argentines and scupper the mission.
Without sufficient helicopters and in the absence of air superiority, Jones therefore concluded that the advance must be made on foot. Thompson approved his altered plan on the 24th and Jones duly briefed his company commanders. Paras from D Company began moving off Sussex Mountain as night fell on 25 May, with a total distance of 15km (9.3 miles) to be covered to Camilla Creek House, the battalion's start line for the raid. But as the paras reached about halfway to Camilla Creek House, Jones radioed with news that the raid had been cancelled; the weather was deteriorating and even the helicopter pilots equipped with night vision could not fly, thus rendering it impossible to move forward the artillery meant for 2 Para's support. Without guns, the raid was likely to fail. Jones, well known for his short fuse and fiery temper, was furious and made his thoughts abundantly clear to all around him. Preparations for Battle Fortunately for Jones, Whitehall demanded immediate action from Thompson, who was himself keen to advance but feeling constrained by the lack of helicopter lift to move his forces to Mount Kent, the staging area for the final advance on Stanley. Pressure arose from many sources owing to the mounting losses of ships in the week of the landings, and the fact that, with the beachhead established and not itself under attack, nothing appeared to prevent 3 Commando Brigade from moving out and taking the fight to the Argentines. Parliament, press and public were also keen for some sort of (successful) engagement and an early termination of the war. On the diplomatic front, too, Thatcher's government grew concerned that the mounting international call for a ceasefire would leave British forces in a perilous situation, paralysed by inertia at San Carlos with the worst of winter imminent. Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, at Northwood, as well as the other chiefs-of-staff also wanted Thompson to assume the initiative, break out of the beachhead and engage the Argentines. Politicians, the military and the public all expected the Task Force to deliver a short, sharp, decisive blow, resulting in the repossession of the Falklands and South Georgia. Not surprisingly, then, despite its relative insignificance in military terms, Goose Green became the focus of Thompson's attentions.
Naturally, like any commander 'on the ground', Thompson understood the logistical constraints better than anyone and perfectly appreciated that, notwithstanding his keenness to advance, he required the heavy-lift capacity of helicopter transport so fundamentally important to an operation of this kind. Eleven of these vital machines were aboard a 15,000-ton requisitioned civilian container ship called the Atlantic Conveyor, due to arrive late on the 25th. Unfortunately, on the same day, an Exocet missile struck her, causing a massive fire that destroyed three Chinooks, six Wessex and one Lynx, as well as tons of supplies. One Chinook, auspiciously airborne at the time of the attack, landed safely on another vessel – but the loss of ten helicopters represented a serious blow both to Thompson's mobility and to his system of supply. In short, his plan to convey infantry and marines to Mount Kent by helicopter had to be drastically altered, severely limiting his options for an immediate blow to be struck against the Argentines – including the bringing up of 5 Infantry Brigade, which was approaching East Falkland but still about five days away. Thompson could now recce Mount Kent but could not move his troops rapidly, as originally hoped.
Northwood would have none of it, and even as news of the loss of the Atlantic Conveyor became known at home, strategists intervened and resurrected the idea of an attack on Goose Green, overriding Thompson's objections that he could furnish no artillery support for 2 Para. New instructions directed him to attack Goose Green without fire support, if necessary. For this task, the brigade commander retasked 2 Para on the 26th to prepare itself for a raid – much to Jones' exultation. The battalion moved out that night. The main thrust east also took shape: although Thompson could move 42 Commando by helicopter, early on the 27th he ordered 3 Para and 45 Commando to proceed on foot, leaving the deeply frustrated 40 Commando to provide security for the now expanded beachhead and the vital supply depot and medical facility at Ajax Bay. 2 Para, meanwhile, would also advance on foot, but only via the much shorter route to Camilla Creek House, from which Jones planned to launch not merely a raid, but a full-scale battalion attack.
Chinook at night. Both sides suffered from acute shortages of these aircraft, especially the British, who lost ten helicopters when an Exocet missile fired from an Argentine fighter sank the container ship Atlantic Conveyor on 25 May. 'We'll have to bloody well walk,' one of Thompson's staff concluded, referring to the necessity of marching some of the troops across East Falkland towards the final objective – Stanley. The Argentines, meanwhile, could do little in response to the landings. Their forces on West Falkland possessed no transport and there were insufficient numbers of helicopters with which to convey troops from Stanley. To expect their infantry to move by foot was absolutely out of the question: traversing 80km (50 miles) with troops whose fitness bore no relation whatsoever to that of the paras and marines, while under possible British air attack, and with no means of shifting supplies forward over open ground, seemed to Menendez foolhardy in the extreme. When the junta proposed this very plan, Menendez refused, citing arguments whose wisdom his superiors felt grudgingly obliged to accept. Besides, the landings around San Carlos could still constitute a diversion to the main landings elsewhere, so denuding troops from the Stanley area appeared inadvisable. A counterstroke from Goose Green also seemed impractical, since the 12th Regiment constituted an under-strength regiment without artillery support or transport. The British, on the other hand, occupied high ground, in greater numbers, with naval gunfire and aircraft at their disposal. The best Menendez and Parada could do was reinforce Goose Green with two 105mm pack howitzers, only one of which reached Piaggi after an air attack grounded the vessel carrying them. These guns were, however, supplemented by two more flown in some days later. In short, Menendez, like Thompson, came under considerable pressure to take action: in the case of the former, now that the Argentine high command determined that San Carlos was not a diversion; in the case of the latter, owing to pressure to get on with the job. Ironically, therefore, almost precisely at the same moment as the Argentines accepted the impossibility of moving west on foot across East Falkland, Thompson was proposing to do precisely this – but obviously moving east instead of west – with elements of his own, albeit better trained, disciplined and motivated forces.