Julian Thompson: Self - 3 Commando Brigade, Royal Marines

Quotes 

• Brigadier Julian Thompson : Tony Wilson wandered in and said "I want you to walk to Fitzroy". And John Crossland looked up and said "Brigadier, are you pissed?"

• Tom Hardy - Narrator : The advance to capture Mount Kent was about to stall, due to the biggest logistical disaster of the war.

  Lieutenant Chris Parry : I remember thinking and saying to all my fellow officers, "25th May is Argentina's national day. It is inconceivable that they won't conduct a big strike." And we were all thinking to ourselves "We've just got to get through until sunset and things will be fine."

  Tom Hardy - Narrator : The biggest British supply ship, Atlantic Conveyor, moved in with a naval escort to unload its cargo.

  Lieutenant Chris Parry : I have to say that I wasn't aware that Atlantic Conveyor was coming in in daylight.

  Tom Hardy - Narrator : Unlike the Royal Naval vessels, the civilian container ship had no anti-missile protection. When the convoy was attacked by Exocet missiles, the warships fired aluminium strips, known as chaff, to attract the projectiles away from their targets. But behind the curtain of chaff lay the Atlantic Conveyor.

  Lieutenant Chris Parry : And then we heard that the Atlantic Conveyor had been struck by one, maybe two, Exocets. At the time we thought it was criminal that the Atlantic Conveyor was brought in before sunset on that day. And even today, I don't know who made that decision.

  Tom Hardy - Narrator : The ship's supplies were essential to the land forces.

  Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rose : Four Chinooks, a lot of Wessex helicopters, all our combat supplies, rations, tents, had all gone down in the Atlantic Conveyor.

  Brigadier Julian Thompson : The whole game was changed hugely.

  Brigadier John Waters : I remember thinking "Oi, oi, this is all getting a bit serious."

• Tom Hardy - Narrator : With marines and paras now advancing across the north part of East Falkland, Julian Thompson and his team still favoured a swift strike on the capital. But the arrival of Jeremy Moore and Tony Wilson's 5 Brigade at San Carlos put a stop to that.

  Brigadier Julian Thompson : I was about to give orders for our attack when I was told to move round to the south, and I stopped it.

  Tom Hardy - Narrator : Moore proposed a new plan, moving 5 Brigade along a separate southern route, a so-called 'great leap forward', allowing them to catch up with the Marines and Paras. Now scant resources would have to be shared between two brigades.

  Lieutenant Colonel Ivar Hellberg : I didn't for the life of me think that I would have to look after the logistics of 5 Brigade as well. But I had to divide my very slim resources twice as much as before. I did get over and see the commander of 5 Brigade, to try and bend his ear a bit, and I came away empty-handed. I think that's as far as I dare go.

  Brigadier Julian Thompson : I perceived that Tony was engaged in some sort of race with 3 Commander Brigade to get his chaps there first. The thing about military setups is, everyone thinks about their own side. Even people on your own side that aren't part of you are the enemy.

  Brigadier John Waters : One of the principles of war is to concentrate your force, and we were spreading ours out.

  Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rose : The idea that we should attack from coast to coast with inadequate combat and logistical resources, and most of all an inability to communicate from the headquarters round to the southern flank... I was shocked when I heard, and I even tried to argue with General Jeremy Moore, who wasn't in a listening mode. And it was the first time I felt during the entire war that we might actually lose this war.

• Tom Hardy - Narrator : 5 Brigade began their Great Leap Forward. Most of the troops would need to be moved by ship. But without the knowledge of other commanders in the field, Brigadier Wilson decide to fly 2 Para to secure Fitzroy by commandeering the last remaining Chinook helicopter.

  Brigadier Tony Wilson : [archive footage]  We shoved as many soldiers as we could into that Chinook, and we kept cramming them in, and when they didn't fit any longer, we literally booted them into the helicopter and got them in.

  Brigadier Julian Thompson : My brigade recce troop were on some high ground overlooking Fitzroy about 10 miles away. And they saw a Chinook landing in Fitzroy.

  Lieutenant Colonel Nick Vaux : We assumed, because the Argentines had Chinooks, that it must be some kind of raid. And so we started to call down an artillery strike on the helicopter.

  Brigadier Julian Thompson : And the guns were being heaved round from pointing that way to pointing that way.

  Lieutenant Colonel Nick Vaux : The senior gunner realised that it actually might be our own, so at the last minute the strike was called off.

  Brigadier Julian Thompson : We nearly lowered a fire mission regiment onto our own side. Because we weren't kept in the picture as to what the hell was going on.

• Brigadier Julian Thompson : I tell you who wins wars - its the troops. Generals can make plans. The responsibility for making it work devolves very quickly to the lowest level.

• Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rose : The truth certainly needs to be told about some of the things that went wrong. The Board of Inquiry into the loss of the Tristram and the Galahad turned out to have been a complete whitewash by saying it was necessary to open up a southern flank. Actually the opposite is true by 180 degrees. But that remains in the public record today that the southern flank was necessary to the retaking of Port Stanley. Wrong! It was not. It nearly cost us the war.

  Brigadier Julian Thompson : The order to attack and capture Goose Green - well, it slowed the whole thing down. I thought it was a stupid thing to do. We wouldn't have lost so many people. Maybe 'H' would be alive today.

  Tom Navin : These lessons *do* need to be learned so it doesn't happen again. It's not about catching people out and slagging people off, or anything like that. It's about making a difference in the future, isn't it.