We pick up after the sinking of the Galahad and the debacle at Fitzroy and Bluff Cove. The British war cabinet was plunged into an argument over information. 

New Brigade commander Moore had panicked and sent a message that he’d lost 900 men – we know it was 51. The Argentinians naturally believed the 900 figure and also thought that the British attack had been stunted.

It hadn’t, but London ironically gained as it lost. 

The Ministry of Defence faced the media and responded that the casualties had been heavy and that this may delay an attack on Stanley. The war cabinet was under extreme pressure to make the casualty list public, but they were refusing. It would only be released after the end of the war, further confusing the Argentinian military who wanted to believe that the English would not finally retake the Falklands. 

As Margaret Thatcher’s ministers sweated under the glare of public opinion, it was fortunate for this government that the Falkland’s War was so brief. The graphic pictures reaching the British public had shocked the nation, one in particular of a sailor on a stretcher with a bloody stump where his leg had been blown off.

The Navy had always been against reporters embedded amongst them, now they conducted a mini told you so campaign. And yet, the pictures helped the British public understand the difficulties of the campaign, and their support increased instead of waning.  

However, the attempt at opening up another front for 5 Brigade instead of focusing on the main job at hand – to take Stanley – was a mistake. 

Apologists for the British army point out that it could have been worse, which is rather monty pythonesque – and no solace to the families of the 51 men whose lives were thrown away, nor the shoddy communication that bedevilled the British Falklands campaign.  

Brigadier Thompson’s 3 Brigade was lining up to deal with Stanley, and in the end, 5 Brigade’s involvement slowed things down. The political future of a vast area of the South Atlantic was going to be decided on the outcome of a series of battles on hills with innocuous sounding names like Mount Longdon, Two Sisters, Tumbledown, Wireless Ridge, Mount William, Sapper Hill. 

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