Battle of Wireless Ridge
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The Battle of Wireless Ridge was an engagement of the Falklands War which took place on the night of 13 June and 14 June 1982, between British and Argentinian forces during the advance towards the Argentinian occupied capital of the Falklands Port Stanley.
The British force consisted of 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment,(2 Para), a troop of the Blues & Royals, with two Scorpion and two Scimitar light tanks, as well as artillery support from two batteries of 29 Commando Regiment, Royal Artillery and naval gunfire support provided by HMS Ambuscade's 4.5-in gun. The Argentine force consisted of the 7th Infantry Regiment and detachments from other units.
In the closing hours of the 13 June, D Company began the attack, advancing upon an Argentinian occupied hill north-west of Wireless Ridge. It had been hit by an immense barrage from British guns, from land and sea. In the preceding 12 hours, British artillery had fired 6,000 rounds with their 105mm pieces, and as they began their push, they were further backed by naval fire and the 76 and 30mm guns mounted on the light tanks. The approximately seventy casualties sustained by the Paras a few weeks earlier at the Battle of Goose Green, (including the loss of their commanding officer), had induced them not to take any unnecessary chances the second time around. When D Company reached the hill, they found that the Argentinian C Company of the 7th Infantry Regiment had withdrawn due to the heavy bombardment. As Major Philip Neame's D Company started to consolidate their position, the Argentinian 4th Airborne Artillery Group opened fire. A and B Companies had just crossed their start-lines to the north of Wireless Ridge. They met fierce resistance for when they left their trenches they came under heavy machine-gun fire and a massive retaliation was initiated by the British machine-gunners and the guns of the Blues & Royals light tanks.
Sergeant 'Mac' French of 3 Para had a grandstand view on Mount Longdon of the frontal assault by A and B Companies of 2 Para which was repulsed by A Company of the 7th Infantry Regiment:
"They tried going over the top first, but the incoming fire was too heavy so they went back behind the peat and waited for more artillery to soften them up." (Hugh McManners, The Scars Of War, p. 185, HarperCollins, 1994)
The Argentinian defenders there eventually withdrew in the face of such withering fire and A and B Companies took their objective. By this stage of the battle there were not many Argentine officers left. The Forward Artillery Observation Officer (Major Guillermo Nani), the Operations Officer (Captain Carlos Ferreyra) and the A and C Company commanders (Captains Jorge Calvo and Hugo Garcia) and three platoon commanders (Lieutenants Antonio Estrada, Jorge Guidobono, Ramon Galindez-Matienzo) were wounded. C Company then moved down from their northern start line to advance to a position east of Wireless Ridge where they found a platoon position to be unoccupied.
Final assault
D Company then began the final assault from the western end of Wireless Ridge, under the cover of heavy fire from HMS Ambuscade, tanks, twelve 105mm artillery guns, several mortar pieces and anti-tank rockets. Earlier the Argentinian general headquarters in Port Stanley had instructed Major Guillermo Berazay to conduct a regimental-sized counter-attack. He was told to assemble his A Company of the 3rd Infantry Regiment and the dismounted Panhard AML-H90 squadron as well as B Company of the 25th Special Infantry Regiment, (who were marching from Stanley Airport), at the ruins of Moody Brook. When Berazay arrived at the shattered barracks there was no sign of the company from the 25th Infantry Regiment, but there were about seventy men from Captain Rodrigo Soloaga's cavalry squadron there. They had retreated after making a stand on the western end of Wireless Ridge. Shattered by the weight of fire unleashed on them, they had lost six killed, had nearly fifty wounded and were in disorder after an ineffectual and uncoordinated counter-attack. Major Neame's parachute company took the first half of the obective relatively easily but upon advancing to the second half, came under very fierce attack from Major Berazay's company of conscripts. Private Patricio Perez, who had just left school, in the book Speaking Out: Untold Stories From The Falklands War recalls the unnerving experience of 66mm rockets coming straight at them like undulating fireballs. He believes he shot a British Paratrooper and became enraged when he heard that his friend Private Horacio Benitez of his platoon had been shot. (Source: www.britains-smallwars.com (http://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/David/WirelessRidge.htm))
The platoon of First Lieutenant Victor Rodriguez-Perez of Major Guillermo Berazay's A Company in fact closed with the British 12 Platoon, under the command of Lieutenant Jonathan Page (following the death of Lieutenant Barry at Goose Green), and D Company found itself gradually losing the momentum of the attack as the Argentinian conscripts stoutly stood their newly-won ground.
Major-General John Frost of the British Army describes the resulting attack on Lieutenant Page's 12 Platoon:
"For two very long hours the company remained under pressure. Small-arms fire mingled with all types of HE [high explosive rifle-grenades] fell in and around 12 Platoon's position as the men crouched in the abandoned enemy sangars and in shell holes." (Source: John Frost, 2 Para Falklands - The Battalion At War, Buchan & Enright, 1983)
But Major Neame's D Company's officers and NCOs rallied the men to capture the final part of their objective and in the face of immense fire, the Argentinians having ran out of ammunition broke and retreated.
It was not all over yet. Near the church in Stanley, intent on helping Berazay, Major Carrizo-Salvadores of the Argentinian 7th Regiment, helped by Argentinian Army chaplain Father Jose Fernandez, assembled about a platoon of the more determined 7th Regiment conscripts, issued each man with a fresh magazine and, with everyone singing the "Malvinas March", led them towards Wireless Ridge from Moody Brook but were stopped by heavy artillery and machine-gun fire. 2 Para had suffered three dead and eleven wounded. The Argentinians suffered approximately twenty-five dead and about fifty were taken prisoner.