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for the main attacks towards Stanley, NGFO teams were retasked. FO5 went to 45 Cdo RM for the attack on Two Sisters. Again the party split: Bdr Oliver and LBdr Ferguson with X Coy to attack the southern “Sister” from the west and LBdr Muncer and I with the Commando main effort against the northern “Sister”. The fireplan was to be silent, but it went noisy as the enemy opened up with machine gun fire against Y and Z Coys assaulting the ridge. CO 45 Cdo’s Tac HQ (with BC 7 Bty, LBdr Muncer and myself was between these 2 lead companies and “well placed to engage” (we were so close there was a direct incentive to engage – fixing bayonets in the middle of a fireplan was not something I had been taught on my FOO’s course!). The fire was effective and, because we were so far forward, it was possible to bring the rounds in to within 100 metres of the assaulting troops. By first light we has reorganised on the position, but at the very moment of triumph GLAMORGAN was badly damaged by an Exocet as she turned away from the gunline. Over the next 24 hours we experienced enemy counter-fire for the first time. The 105mm Pack Howitzers were largely ineffective, but the occasional 155mm, especially amongst the rocks on the ridge, gave us a taste of what we had been dishing out for the previous 6 weeks. At first light on 13 June FO5 was regrouped to 2nd Battalion Scots Guards for the attack on Mount Tumbledown. In stark contrast to 45 Cdo, 2 SG’s Tac HQ never moved forward of the line of departure and, with poor communications to the forward companies and their FOOs, it became extremely difficult to coordinate effective fire. YARMOUTH and AVENGER did sterling work against depth targets, but the close fight bogged down for
FALKLAND ISLANDS 1982 (NGFO 2)
hours. In hindsight we should have left Tac HQ and moved with the lead company, but all previous experience has shown that Tac HQ, whether at squadron or commando level, was an ideal balance between target acquisition and comms, both forward and back. At first light on 14 June we were regrouped to 45 Cdo for the attack on Sapper Hill and Port Stanley. Somewhere along the way, Paddy Ferguson had picked up an Argentine 3.5” rocket launcher, certain of its requirement for getting ourselves into the capital. Thankfully for all concerned, it was unnecessary as the enemy capitulated at that point. They had clearly got wind of Paddy’s rocket launcher! So what did we learn? We, and more importantly the supported arms, learned that NGS could provide accuracy and lethality unachievable by any other system, especially in the absence of 155mm artillery, 63 bombardments, totalling more then 7500 4.5” rounds (167 tons of HE) has guaranteed the future of NGS; ship designs were changed: guns were re- introduced onto the later Type 22 Frigates. But this is an education process, and one which must continue if NGS is not again to become sidelined or, worse, extinct. It is an education process in which the NGFOs and NGLOs have a key role; the firepower which they control makes them far more influential that they may think. Fortune also played its part. My NGFO Team had been together for almost 2 years. The confidence which such cohesion imparts, both within the team itself and to those who the team supports, should not be underestimated. Another couple of months and FO5 (along with 3 other NGFO teams) would have had significant personnel changes. To my team, I owe my survival.
By Lieutenant Colonel W A McCracken MBE MC RA(V)
Recently I received a note from our President “inviting” me to scribble a few lines on may experiences and recollections of the Falklands conflict. When I first joined 29 Commando Regiment as a young(ish) captain Brigadier Brendan was my adjutant and I fully appreciate that such an “invitation” should be viewed as a huge privilege and that to refuse would be at the very least rude and quite possibly distinctly foolhardy! I have to say that the first thing that jumps to mind as I sit down to write this is that I find it so hard to believe that the events I am attempting to recollect happened twenty years ago. I’m not quite sure whether to put this down to “doesn’t time fly when you are enjoying yourself” or “doesn’t the clock tick faster as you get older?”! Probably a bit of both but either way this landmark has crept up and it is only proper that we should mark this significant event in our history. Even more so since it also coincides with the 60th Anniversary of the formation of Combined Operations Bombardment Units and the 40th Anniversary of 29 Regiment’s conversion to the commando role. When the conflict began to break I found myself on exercise in New Zealand listening to BBC
World Service broadcasts of a Task Force being assembled and dispatched etc. Sods law, I was probably the nearest British soldier to the Falklands but not exactly in a position to project my combat power over the horizon as the saying goes! I’m sure anyone from this organisation will fully appreciate I was enduring a complete nightmare – to be left stranded on the other side of the world as your unit was deploying for the first time in light years on what was a tailor made escapade for us. However I needn’t have worried as I was recalled to the UK very quickly! This was by means of me sharing a VC10 with CGS (or should it be the other way around?!) who just happened to be visiting the multi-national exercise I was involved in. I had never realised that you could just walk straight on to an RAF aircraft or that they had so much leg room or champagne and smoked salmon available on board! Couldn’t help asking myself one or two questions about South Cerney, the AMC and my hitherto experiences of flying Crab Air!
I was very lucky in that by the time I arrived back in Poole the politicking and horse trading over the orbat and team
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