36 hours of fierce fighting in the great land battle of the Falklands War

“On May 28, from our positions, we saw automatic weapon fire, explosions and flares. I remember our soldiers from Corrientes and Chaco, firm in their positions, accept this reality and wait for the moment when the British appear before us. And they do it like that. We set off the automatic fire of our weapons, I remember the ‘long live the motherland’ and the ‘sapucay’ of the Corrientes soldiers who were emboldened and defied the British attack “, told many years after the battle of Darwin-Padrera del Ganso (Goose Green), then second lieutenant (20 years) Ernesto Orlando Peluffo.

39 years ago, on May 27, 1982, the 36 hours of combat at Darwin-Goose Meadow in what would be the first big clash on the ground of the Falklands War. There were 50 Argentinian and 19 British dead.

A few days earlier, although at the high cost of the ships sunk and damaged by the heroic actions of the Argentinian pilots, the British had managed to land in San Carlos, northwest of the island of Soledad, to establish their head of the bridge. Although they were not on their way to Puerto Argentino, they immediately dispatched paratroopers to Pradera del Ganso, a colony where a hundred kelp lived and the Argentines had founded a garrison of 642 men, “the Mercedes group”.

It was made up of the 12th and 25th Infantry Regiments, the Anti-Air Defense Artillery Group (GADA) 601 and a section of the 8th Infantry Regiment, the 9th Engineer Company and the 4th Airborne Artillery Group. .

In this small peninsula which had to the north the Darwin Institution (where the Argentinian cemetery is today), there was also an airfield where the Air Force installed the Condor military air base, to maintain communication with Puerto Argentino, with planes and helicopters from Pucará . From May 1 to the previous battle of Pradera del Ganso the base had been subjected to heavy British naval and air bombardments.

When disembarking at San Carlos on the night of May 21, the only resistance on the ground was that of a group of 63 soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Daniel Esteban, which even flipped four helicopters before retreating.

On May 27, they had already started their advance. At 3 a.m. they reached Camilla Creek (Caleta Camila). An entire exhausted battalion remained in the buildings for the night. “Four hundred men threw themselves into all the rooms and hallways of the abandoned house and neighboring shelters that made up the settlement of Caleta Camila, dozing and trembling with cold from the lack of sleeping bags and blankets.”, told Britons Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins in The Battle of Malvinas.

Almost at 11 p.m. on May 28, a naval cannonade was fired on the Argentine positions, and at 2:30 p.m. on May 29, the English infantry launched their attack, with mortar and machine gun fire, north of the isthmus on the “Mercedes force”, managing to pass the Exploration section.

“The battlefield was constantly lit by flares, you could see practically everything”, he then remembered Second Lieutenant Jorge Zanela, gunner, who with “battery A” (rescued from the patroller “Rio Iguazú” attacked by the English and failed) began to support the “Mercedes” task force at 2 am. Without a forward observer to direct the fire, they fired according to a topographic map, ordered by the Lieutenant Carlos “Indio” Chanampa, battery head.

“It was until the first light of the morning, when in Darwin the enemy was stopped by the sections of Second Lieutenant Peluffo, Lieutenant Roberto Estévez who had been reinforcement and Second Lieutenant Guillermo Ricardo Aliaga, at Boca House “Zanela remembers. Estevez began to “regulate” the fire he could stop the English attack for six hours, and in this action he was killed, just like shortly after the Soldier Fabricio Edgar Carrascul that he had continued to direct the artillery fire. There, in Pradera del Ganso, Estevez, a missionary, died at the age of 25, who until the last moment of his life did not stop leading and protecting his men. For the army, one of the greatest archetypes of heroism and delivery in the Falklands.

To second lieutenant Peluffo, to whose aid Estevez, who was with the reserve, had arrived after five hours of fighting, a bullet had pierced his helmet and carved a lateral groove in his skull. He was bleeding profusely. The 12th regiment claimed 12 victims during those hours.

“Those of us who survived after Estevez’s death have relinquished our position. We had fought at close range, 25 or 50 yards from the English. We would go out, shoot and enter the wells. Every time the soldiers came out, they received impacts on their bodies. “recalled Peluffo, another of those who fought heroically in this battle.

That morning, troops under the command of Lieutenant Esteban, which had been withdrawn to Puerto Argentino after the fight in San Carlos, were transferred by helicopter to Pradera del Ganso and joined the fighting. At 10:30 a.m., the troops in command of the Second Lieutenant Juan José Gómez Centurión (In recent years, he would be a senior Macrista official, customs chief and presidential candidate in 2019) they counterattacked under enemy fire and managed to regain a height two kilometers north of Pradera del Ganso.

In this circumstance, there was a parliament of Gómez Centurión, with the leader of the English parachute regiment 2, the man who commanded the entire British attack, Lt. Col. Herbert Jones. Each demanded the surrender of the other. In a subsequent armed confrontation, Jones lost his life, according to the official report from the Argentine military.

The episode – the circumstance of Jones’ death – is still controversial because although Gómez Centurión also assumes combat shooting after parliament, other accounts – including the official English version, by researcher Lawrence Freedman – says Jones fell from machine gun fire from a soldier (Oscar Ledesma, Cordoba conscript) When courageous – albeit reckless – Jones put a platoon in front of an attack on an Argentinian trench.

It doesn’t matter, At noon the British with much superior forces launched their massive final attack. Years later, the Lieutenant Colonel Italo Angel Piaggi (died in 2012) would assess that “The English were practically able to ‘overtake us’ … According to the media, they must have run over us in less than 24 hours “.

And made the decision to “Decide whether or not to sacrifice my men for no good reason.” On May 30 at 11 a.m., there was a ceasefire. The British would have other tough fights to come, but with the rear and flanks covered, they continued their unstoppable path towards the reconquest of Puerto Argentino.