Assault on Mount Kent, Falkland Islands

Mount Kent Battle
Part of Falklands War
Date 29 May–11 June 1982 Location Mount Kent, East Falkland, Falkland Islands 51°40′23″S 58°06′47″W / 51.673°S 58.113°W / -51.673; -58.113Coordinates: 51°40′23″S 58°06′47″W / 51.673°S 58.113°W / -51.673; -58.113 Result British victory
Belligerents
Argentina 602 Commando Company	United Kingdom 22nd Special Air Service
Commanders and leaders
Captain Eduardo Villarruel, Captain Tomás Fernández Captain Andrés Ferrero	Lieutenant-Colonel Mike Rose, Major Cedric Delves
Casualties and losses
9 killed (including Lt. Castagnari), 18 wounded or injured (including 11 Gendarmerie injured in Puma crash and 4 Air Force commandos wounded in Sea Slug missile strike) and 5 captured (including 4 Marine special forces)	5 killed (friendly fire) 11 wounded (including 3 Royal Marines[1], 4 Gurkhas, and 4 SAS commandos[2][3])[4][5]
Location within Falkland Islands

The Assault on Mount Kent was an engagement during the Falklands War between British and Argentine forces.

Background

In late May, forward Special Air Service patrols from G Squadron had established that a number of high peaks overlooking the Argentine defences around Port Stanley, were largely undefended, especially after the Argentine heliborne reserve, Combat Team Solari (B Company, 12th Infantry Regiment) was helicoptered to Goose Green and the 4th Infantry Regiment had received orders to abandon Mount Challenger and take up new positions on Mounts Two Sisters and Harriet.

An initial reconnaissance element from Major Cedric Delves' D Squadron inserted into the area of Mount Kent by helicopter on 25 May, allowed for the rest of the squadron to arrive safely on 27 May in time to counter a strong Argentine Special Forces insertion, under the command of Captain Eduardo Villarruel, second-in-command of 602 Commando Company.^[6] The commander of 602 Commando Company, Major Aldo Rico, had instructed the four Argentine patrol commanders involved to seize Mounts Kent and the surrounding peaks in order to allow further reinforcement to be flown in, namely Major Jose Ricardo Spadaro's 601st National Gendarmerie Special Forces Squadron and Major Oscar Ramon Jaimet's heliborne-trained.^[7] B Company, 6th Infantry Regiment that had also undergone night-combat training the previous year.^[8] The SAS patrols in the form of Air Troop, Boat Troop and Major Delves' tactical headquarters found themselves hard-pressed and fought a number of fierce patrol actions with around 40 Argentine Army Special Forces before the Argentines eventually withdrew. Air Troop were initially driven back in the fighting but managed to hold onto the summit of Mount Kent until reinforcements in the form of Royal Marines arrived.

Actions

The first engagement during the Assault of Mount Kent occurred during the night of 29–30 May 1982 when Captain Andrés Ferrero's 3rd Assault Section from 602 Commando Company ran into Air Troop from D Squadron, 22nd Special Air Service on the slopes of Mount Kent, suffering one badly wounded (First-Sergeant Raimundo Viltes) and abandoning much equipment.^[9] The British took control of the situation, but at the cost of two wounded SAS troopers.^[4][10]

That night, HMS Glamorgan (D19) shelled the 40-man Argentine Air Force Special Operations Group (GOE) at Stanley Airfield guarding the Skyguard fire-controllers, killing Lieutenant Luis Castagnari and wounding four other commandos from GOE preparing to take part in the occupation of Smoko Mount in support of the Argentine Army commandos.^[11]The shocked Argentine survivors would later claim the missile that killed Castagnari to be a Shrike anti-radar missile fired by a Sea King, when in fact it was a Seaslug missile launched in the ship-to-shore role.

The next day, Captain Tomás Fernández's 2nd Assault Section attempted to seize Bluff Cove Peak. The radio operator in Captain Fernández's 12-man patrol, First Sergeant Vicente Alfredo Flores,^[12] sent out the following radio message from the slopes of Bluff Cove Peak at about 5 PM on 30 May: "We are in trouble" and then forty minutes later: "There are English all around us... you had better hurry up". ^[4]

First Lieutenant Rubén Eduardo Márquez and Sergeant Oscar Humberto Blas from the 2nd Assault Section, had around 11 am local time on 30 May,^[13] shown great personal courage and leadership in the patrol battle that took place on Bluff Cove Peak and were posthumously awarded the Argentine Nation to the Valour in Combat Medal. The Argentine Commandos under Captain Fernandez had literally stumbled on a camp occupied by 15 SAS troopers, with the SAS reporting two more wounded in repelling Fernandez's patrol.^[14][15]

On Mount Simon, Captain Jose Arnobio Verseci's 1st Assault Section, listening to Captain Fernandez's patrol attempts to escape the British encirclement, decided to abandon the feature and attempt to link up with the 601st Combat Engineer Battalion forces guarding Fitzroy.^[16]

That following day, another SAS ambush takes place when Lieutenant-Commander Dante Camiletti's Marine Special Forces patrol (minus Camilletti and corporal Juan Carrasco who had been captured at Verde Mountain and Teal Inlet respectively) after returning from reconnoitering San Carlos, are ambushed by Captain Gavin Hamilton's Mountain Troop on the lower slopes of Estancia Mountain and sergeants Jesús Pereyra and Ramón López are seriously wounded and captured along with corporals Pablo Alvarado and Pedro Verón who are captured unwounded.

That night, Captain Peter Babbington's K Company of 42 Commando, Royal Marines arrived nearby via helicopters. At about the same time, the 2nd Assault Section, having hidden all day, emerged from their hides intending to withdraw from the area but came under prompt and heavy fire from Boat Troop.^[17] The sight of a night firefight in progress confronted K Company. The Marines quickly took cover and after the fire fight had died down Major Cedric Delves of D Squadron, 22 SAS appeared and assured them that all was well and that the SAS had destroyed an Argentine patrol.^[18] In reality there were no further casualties in Captain Fernandez's 2nd Assault Section, although one member, Sergeant Alfredo Flores with the Thompson Manpack Radio, was captured in this action.^[19]One British Intelligence Corps NCO on loan to the SAS is reported wounded in this action.^[20][21]

One American historian's account states the following:

The SAS finally managed to surround the main commando group, consolidating into a position near the peak, and ambushed them with one of those devastating, explosive onslaughts of automatic fire and GPMG fire for which the regiment is famous.^[22]

Flight-Lieutenant Andy Lawless, co-pilot of the sole surviving RAF Chinook (Bravo November), took part in the mission to deliver artillery guns and ammunition to the SAS and describes the crash of the helicopter (possibly as a result of small-arms fire) soon after:

We knew the SAS were outgunned. Our job was to land 105-mm howitzers] of 29 Regiment Royal Artillery. Rose told me the landing site was flat and secure. The mission was to be flown all at night with night-vision goggles. We had three 105—mm guns inside and ammunition pallets under-slung. Then the fog of war intervened. The ground was not flat and covered in boulders. We could not find anywhere to land and we spent time manoeuvring to drop off the under-slung loads. We had to put them exactly where the gunners wanted because they could not roll the guns very far across the terrible terrain. I can distinctly remember troops moving under the rotor disking firing their guns - this was not part of the plan. There were incoming artillery rounds. Once we dropped off the guns we went straight back to San Carlos to bring in more guns and ammo. Then we hit water. We were lucky because if we had hit solid ground we would have been dead. We hit at 100 knots. The bow wave came over the cockpit window as we settled and the engines partially flamed out. I knew we had ditched but I was not sure if we had been hit. Dick said he thought we had been hit by ground fire. As the helicopter settled the bow wave reduced. We had the collective still up and the engine wound up as we came out of the water like a cork out of a bottle. We were climbing.^[23]

The action in the Mount Kent area continued, and around 10 am on 31 May, the recently arrived Royal Marines spotted a column of Major Mario Castagneto's 601 Commando Company advancing on jeeps and motorbikes to rescue the stranded patrols of 602 Commando Company, but Castagneto's men were dispersed and forced to withdraw after coming under heavy mortar fire that injured both Castagneto and Drill Sergeant Juan Salazar.

There were losses on both sides involving aircraft as a direct result of the operations being carried by both British and Argentine Special Forces in the Mount Kent area. Throughout 30 May, Royal Air Force Harriers were active over Mount Kent. One of them, Harrier XZ963, flown by Squadron Leader Jerry Pook—in responding to a call for help from D Squadron^[24]—attacked Mount Kent's eastern lower slopes, and that led to its loss through small-arms fire. At about 11.00 am on the same day, an Aerospatiale SA-330 Puma helicopter was brought down by a shoulder-launched Stinger surface-to-air missile (SAM) fired by the SAS in the vicinity of Mount Kent. Six National Gendarmerie Special Forces were killed and eight more wounded in the crash.^[25]

The only British death in the SAS operations to counter Argentine commando patrols in the high ground overlooking Stanley Common occurred when an SAS patrol accidentally fired upon an SBS patrol in the early hours of 2 June and SBS Sergeant Ian ‘Kiwi’ Nicholas Hunt was killed.^[26]

Brigadier Julian Thompson would later defend his decision to send SAS patrols to reconoitre Mount Kent ahead of 42 Commando:

It was fortunate that I had ignored the views expressed by Northwood [British Military Headquarters in England] that reconnaissance of Mount Kent before insertion of 42 Commando was superfluous. Had D Squadron not been there, the Argentine Special Forces would have caught the Commando before de-planing and, in the darkness and confusion on a strange landing zone, inflicted heavy casualties on men and helicopters.^[27]

The Special Air Service won praise for successfully defending Mount Kent and the surrounding peaks. From the citation for the Distinguished Service Order won by Major Delves:

Following the successful establishment of the beachhead in San Carlos Water, Major Delves took his squadron 40 miles behind enemy lines and established a position overlooking the main enemy stronghold in Port Stanley where at least 7000 troops were known to be based. By a series of swift operations, skillful concealment and lightning attacks against patrols sent out to find him, he was able to secure a firm hold on the area after ten days for the conventional forces to be brought in.^[28]

A Scorpion tank from the Blues & Royals helped clear Mount Kent from the remaining Argentine special forces and engaged 4th Regiment troops digging in on the lower slopes, opposite Murrell River. According to the gunner aboard, Mark Flynn:

Paul Stretton and I were scanning hard for targets. He was using his binoculars, I had the gun sight. I spotted a couple of Argies digging in on a shoulder of ground about 4 kilometres away. The Scorpion's 76mm gun had an effective range of 6 kilometres, which put them well within range ... At 10x magnification, even in the overcast conditions I was startled by how clearly I could see them. Grey-clad and grey-helmeted, they looked to me a bit like Second World War German soldiers. Studying the area more carefully, I saw that there were dozens of Argies spread across the face of the slope. Most were already dug in, but a few were still busy hacking new slit trenches in the bony ground ... I pressed the fire button. 'Firing now.' The first shell winged off to the target, hit the ground about 200 metres in front of the Argies and exploded in a shower of earth and rock.... I followed the orange tracer as it floated towards the enemy, then focused in on the two Argies, who seemed oblivious to the fact that we were ranging in on them. They were standing together near the trench. To me, it looked as if they thought their own artillery was firing. The 76mm high-explosive round hit the right-hand Argie square in the chest. He turned into a red fog of blood ...We put harassing fire down on the enemy in earnest, round after round smack in among them ...In a little while we began to hear return artillery fire whistling overhead, but it was overshooting our own position by a long way: if anything, it looked as if the Argies were firing at the Paras coming up on foot about six clicks to our west .. I was inexperienced in tank warfare then, so when Paul Stretton told Frankie to move out I was so surprised I protested: 'But this is a brilliant position!' I'm getting pot shots and they can't see us! Why don't we stay here? We were ruining the enemy's day while the Paras and Marines came forward. Why would we want to move? Stretton ignored me. It was just as well: less than thirty seconds after we moved, an enemy shell whistled in and exploded on the exact spot we'd just quit.^[29]

3 PARA reached Estancia House on 1 June, and shortly thereafter D Company patrols came across blood stains and field dressings indicating that the wounded First-Sergeant Raimundo Viltes under the care of First Lieutenant Horacio Lauría had received first aid there along with the Argentine Marine special forces wounded and National Gendarmerie commandos injured, before they were evacuated. According to Sergeant Jerry Phillips:

It must have been some fight because all our rifle company patrols were reporting blood, bits of meat and bandages scattered all over the area. From the way things were scattered the SAS must have been up against at least seventy enemy.^[30]

On the night of 3-4 June, the 3rd Assault Section, 602nd Commando Company returned to the British forward lines, reaching the summit of Mount Challenger after a difficult approach. Upon returning to Port Stanley Major Aldo Rico along with First Lieutenant Jorge Manuel Vizoso Posse, (second-in-command of Ferrero's patrol) tried to convince Brigadier-General Oscar Jofre to helicopter forward a rifle company in order to attack the recently arrived British artillery batteries the commandos claimed to have located using their night binoculars, but an irritated Jofre told them to go and leave the decision making process up to 10th Brigade Headquarters.^[31]

The 4th Regiment also carried out patrolling, and on the night of 6-7 June, Corporal Nicolás Albornoz along with eight conscripts crossed Murrell River and reached the area of Mount Kent where they spotted a number of British vehicles, but the patrol soon came under mortar fire and had to withdraw.^[32]

Aftermath

With the loss of this high ground, Argentine Air Force Canberra bombers carry out several bombing runs against British troops congregating in the area. Their first attack, by six Canberras against British troop positions in the Mount Kent area, took place on the predawn darkness of 1 June after Captains Ferrero and Villarruel were given a map of the area and told to pinpoint the British positions there. Lance-Corporal Vincent Bramley later recalled a near-deadly attack carried out on the 3 PARA positions on the night of 9 June:

Next morning Intelligence told us that Argie Canberra-bombers had dropped their load not three hundred metres from us. If they had hit us the battalion would not be around today. We spent the day digging full-scale trenches. Better late than never.^[33]

During the night of 9-10 June, a fighting patrol reportedly fired on several members of a mortar platoon from 45 Commando on the lower slopes of Mount Kent, killing four and wounding three Royal Marines.^[1][34]

British gunner Neil Randall would record the sad loss in his diary entry for that 10 June:

The worst news of the day is that there was a friendly-friendly contact during the night. 45 had shot up their own mortar section who had deployed to support the evening patrols. There are 4 dead & 1 very seriously injured. These things are bound to happen during the confusion of war, but it bloody well shouldn't most of this is down to poor passage of information between senior commanders. But its the grunt on the ground that faces the consequences of their inadequacies.^[35]

Lieutenant Andrew Shaw would later reveal these losses took place near Murrell River when his night-fighting patrol entered the Kill zone (grid reference 263740) between two other Royal Marine patrols and two Argentine Special Forces patrols on the southern lower slopes of Two Sisters.^[36]

Early on 10 June, one Gurkha company moved forward from Bluff Cove to a position near Mount Kent^[37] to establish a patrol base from which to carry out aggressive patrolling, but the Forward Observation Officer on Mount Harriet, Captain Tomás Fox spotted the company and directed 155mm artillery fire against it, wounding three Gurkhas on 11 June. Describing the moment he was injured, Lance Corporal Gyanendra Rai said:

I was absolutely convinced I would die. I was in severe pain. It was like someone had driven a four-pound sledge hammer through the side of my back.^[5]

References