Battle of Two Sisters
The Battle of Two Sisters was an engagement of the Falklands War during the British advance towards the capital, Port Stanley. It took place from 11 to 12 June 1982 and was one of three battles in a Brigade-size operation all on the same night, the other two being the Battle of Mount Longdon and the Battle of Mount Harriet. Fought mainly between an assaulting British force consisting of Royal Marines of 45 Commando and an Argentine Company drawn from 4th Infantry Regiment.
One of a number of night battles that took place during the British advance towards Stanley, the battle led to British troops capturing all the heights above the town, allowing its capture and the surrender of the Argentine forces on the islands.
Prelude
Composition of forces
The British force, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Whitehead, comprised the Royal Marines of 45 Commando, supported by the anti-tank troop from 40 Commando and six 105 mm guns of 29 Commando Regiment. The 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment was held in reserve. Naval gunfire support was provided by the twin 4.5-inch guns of HMS Glamorgan.45 Commando was instructed to seize Two Sisters Mountain under cover of darkness, and to continue onto Mount Tumbledown if time permitted. However, Argentine resistance proved stiffer than anticipated, and the second phase of the attack was cancelled.
The Argentinian force originally occupying Mount Challenger was commanded by Major Ricardo Cordón and consisted of the 4th Infantry Regiment or RI 4. The bulk of the defenders were drawn from C Company, with the 1st Platoon and 2nd Platoon positioned on the northern peak of Two Sisters, and the 3rd Platoon on the southern peak. The 1st Platoon of A Company and the Support Platoon were located on the saddle between the peaks.
Major Óscar Jaimet’s B Company of the 6th Mechanized Infantry Regiment or RI Mec 6, acted as the local reserve, and occupied the saddle between Two Sisters and Mount Longdon. In early June, Jaimet’s company was reinforced by the Support Platoon under Second Lieutenant Marcelo Dorigón, drawn from B Company of the 12th Regiment. This platoon had remained on Mount Kent after the rest of B Company had been helicoptered forward during the Battle of Goose Green.
No-Man's-Land
On 2 June, the 4th Regiment's Operation Officer, Captain Carlos Alfredo López-Patterson, arrived to help in the defence of Two Sisters. He would visit the rifle platoons in order to maintain the defenders informed and raise morale:On 4 June, the three rifle companies of 45 CDO advanced on Bluff Cove Peak, on the lower slopes of Mount Kent, and were able to occupy the feature without opposition and were met by patrols from the Special Air Service. On the night of 29 May, a fierce firefight had developed over capturing the two important hills, as they were intended to form part of an Argentine Special Forces line.
Captain Andrés Ferrero's patrol reached the base of Mount Kent but were then promptly pinned down by machinegun and mortar fire. First-Sergeant Raimundo Máximo Viltes was badly wounded when a bullet shattered his heel. Air Troop had two SAS men wounded by rifle fire. Probing attacks around the D Squadron, SAS positions continued throughout the night and at 11:00 am local time on 30 May, about 12 Argentine Commandos tried to get up the summit of Bluff Cove Peak, but were driven off by D Squadron who killed two of the attackers, First Lieutenant Rubén Eduardo Márquez and Sergeant Óscar Humberto Blas.
First Lieutenant Márquez and Sergeant Blas had shown great personal courage and leadership in the contact and were posthumously awarded the Argentine Medal of Valour in Combat. During this contact, the SAS suffered another two casualties from grenades after the Argentine Commandos had stumbled on a camp occupied by 15 SAS troopers.
Throughout 30 May, Royal Air Force Harriers were active over Mount Kent. One of them, responding to a call for help from D Squadron SAS, was badly damaged by small arms fire while attacking Mount Kent's eastern lower slopes. Sub-Lieutenant Llambías-Pravaz's platoon was later credited with the destruction of Harrier XZ963 flown by Squadron Leader Jerry Pook with another claim going to 35 mm Oerlikons of the 601st Anti-Aircraft Artillery Group under the command of 2nd Lieutenant Roberto Enrique Ferre.
The Harrier crashed into the South Atlantic 30 miles from the carrier HMS Hermes, Squadron Leader Pook ejected and was rescued.
On 5 June, two Royal Air Force Harriers operating from 'Sids Strip', the San Carlos Forward Operating Base, attacked the Argentine defenders on Two Sisters with rockets around midday.
A heavy mist hung over the Murrell River area, which assisted the 45 Commando Recce Troop to reach and sometimes penetrate the Argentine 3rd Platoon position under Subteniente Marcelo Llambías-Pravaz. Marine Andrew Tubb of Recce Troop later recalled:
For his patrol action, Lieutenant Chris Fox received the Military Cross, while Subteniente Llambías-Pravaz was able to pilfer and sport a Commando Beret that the Royal Marines had left behind during the Argentine counter-ambush.
In general terms, the Argentines were thoroughly entrenched, about 6,000 metres or less across no-man's-land. The Argentine positions were mined and heavily patrolled.
The 4th Regiment also carried out patrolling, and on the night of 6–7 June, Corporal Oscar Nicolás Albornoz-Guevara along with eight conscripts from Subteniente Miguel Mosquera-Gutierrez's 1st Platoon crossed Murrell River and reached the area of Estancia Mountain where they detected a number of British vehicles, but the patrol soon came under mortar fire from 3 PARA and had to withdraw.
On 8 June, Corporal Hugo Gabino MacDougall of B Company, 6th Regiment, claimed to have shot down a Harrier using a shoulder-launched Blowpipe missile. The British confirm the loss of a GR.3 Harrier on that day, following an emergency landing at San Carlos due to battle damage. The pilot, Wing Commander Peter Squire walked away uninjured and XZ989 was scrapped post-war.
The 12th Regiment Support Platoon under Subteniente Dorigón attached to Major Jaimet's B Company would reportedly live off the land. Private Ángel Ramírez:
At about 2.10 am local time on 10 June a strong 45 Commando fighting patrol probed the 3rd Platoon position. In the ensuing fight, Special Forces Sergeants Mario Antonio Cisneros and Ramón Gumercindo Acosta were killed; two more Argentine Special Forces lying in ambush for the Royal Marines were wounded. The British military historian Bruce Quarrie later wrote:
Major Aldo Rico, commander of the 602 Commando Company, had a lucky escape in this engagement, when an enemy 66mm projectile exploded uncomfortably close to him and First Lieutenant Horacio Fernando Lauría. Captain Hugo Ranieri, who took part in this intense engagement as a specialist sniper, claims that First Lieutenant Jorge Vizoso-Posse, although wounded, shot three of the retreating Royal Marines in the back. First Lieutenant Horacio Fernando Lauría and Sergeant Orlando Aguirre claim to have destroyed a British machine-gun with rifle-grenades in this engagement.
On that same night, a friendly fire incident occurred when Royal Marines returning from a reconnaissance patrol were mistaken for Argentines in the dark and a British mortar team opened fire on them. In the confusion, four Royal Marines were killed and three were wounded.
The next day, Sub-Lieutenant Llambías-Pravaz's men recovered the rucksacks and weapons the Royal Marines had left behind, and these were presented as war trophies to Argentine war correspondents in Port Stanley who filmed and photographed the British equipment.
The Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre also carried out patrolling against Two Sisters; Sergeant Joseph Wassell and Lieutenant Fraser Haddow played an important part in the capture of the mountain when they discovered with their binoculars from their observation post on Goat Ridge, the command-detonated barrels of mines the Argentinian Marine engineers had dug in and planned to use on the saddle and eastern half of the mountain.
On 11 June, several GR-3 Harriers took off from San Carlos airbase to drop cluster bombs on Mounts Longdon, Harriet and Two Sisters Mountain.
The Argentine Medical Officer with the 6th Regiment's B Company, First Lieutenant Alejandro Steverlynck reports that one Argentine soldier was killed during the final British air attack on Two Sisters and that he had to comfort with the assurance his wounds were minor and that he would now have a warm hospital bed and be able to watch the 1982 FIFA World Cup in Stanley Hospital before the young soldier died in his arms a short time later, but not before obtaining a smile from the dying man before the morphine that was applied took any real effect.
Night battle
Captain Ian Gardiner's X-Ray Company spearheaded the assault on Two Sisters, accompanied by the unit's Commando-trained chaplain, the Revd Wynne Jones RN. Lieutenant James Kelly's 1 Troop secured the western third of the spineback on the southern peak without opposition. However, at 11:00 pm local time, Lieutenant David Stewart's 3 Troop encountered stiff resistance on the spineback and was unable to advance. After their attempt to dislodge the Argentine 3rd Platoon failed, Lieutenant Chris Caroe's 2 Troop launched a follow-up attack, but were beaten back by artillery fire called in by the Argentine Forward Observation Officer, Sub-Lieutenant Javier Tagle, of the 4th Airborne Artillery Group.For nearly four hours, X-Ray Company remained pinned on the slopes. British softening-up fire swept back and forth across the high ground, but the Argentine 3rd Platoon under Second Lieutenant Llambías-Pravaz, supported by a section from Mario Pacheco's 10th Engineer Company and shouting Guarani war cries, repelled all attempts to dislodge them. The position was finally cleared at about 2:45 am.
Recognising that a single company could not secure Two Sisters before dawn, Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Whitehead brought up the battalion’s remaining two rifle companies. At about 12:30 am local time, Yankee and Zulu Companies began their assault on the northern peak of Two Sisters, known as 'Summer Days'. In a hard-fought engagement lasting two hours, the Marines faced two well-positioned Argentine rifle platoons under Subtenientes Mosquera-Gutiérrez and Pérez-Grandi. Despite sustained heavy machine-gun and mortar fire, they succeeded in capturing the summit.
Argentine mortar platoon commander Lieutenant Martella, who had already expended much of his ammunition attempting to stop 42 Commando’s advance on Mount Harriet, was killed during this phase of the battle. Two British platoon commanders were wounded in the bombardment, and a Royal Engineer attached to clear booby traps was killed. Marine Chris Cooke later recalled: "The three officers in my company pledged to have a drink together at the other end of the island, but only one made it, the other two left with shrapnel wounds."
Zulu Company platoon commander Lieutenant Clive Dytor was awarded the Military Cross for rallying 8 Troop and leading a bayonet charge to take the peak. Reflecting on the moment, he said:
"I began listening to our rate of fire and I realised we were going to run out of ammunition. Then I remembered a line in a book about the Black Watch in the Second World War. They were pinned down and the adjutant stood up and shouted, 'Is this the Black Watch? Charge!’ What I didn’t remember, until I read it again later, was that he was actually cut in half at that point by a German machine gun. The next thing I knew I was up and running on my own, shouting, 'Zulu, Zulu, Zulu,’ which was our company battle cry and also the battle cry of my father’s old regiment, the South Wales Borderers."
Second Lieutenant Aldo Eugenio Franco and his RI 6 platoon, having abandoned a planned counterattack in conjunction with Major David Carullo’s Panhard armoured car squadron, because Argentine forces no longer held the peaks of Two Sisters, provided covering fire for the withdrawal and prevented Yankee Company from attacking C Company during its retreat.
Augusto Esteban La Madrid, a second lieutenant in the local reserve who had been tasked with supporting Major Cordon, told historian Martin Middlebrook that during the final stages of the action, "Subteniente Franco's platoon was left as a rearguard, but he made it back to Tumbledown OK."
Private Oscar Poltronieri, who delayed Yankee Company with accurate fire from his rifle and a machine gun, was awarded the Argentine Nation to the Heroic Valour in Combat Cross, Argentina’s highest decoration for bravery.
Sub-Lieutenant Nazer had been wounded while covering the withdrawal. The remnants of his platoon, placed under the command of Corporal Virgilio Rafael Barrientos, later occupied positions on Sapper Hill. Sub-Lieutenants Mosquera-Gutiérrez and Pérez-Grandi were also wounded during the British bombardment, and their remaining troops were placed under the command of Captain Carlos López Patterson, the 4th Regiment’s Operations Officer. He established blocking positions between Mount Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge alongside the dismounted 10th Armoured Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, under Captain Rodrigo Alejandro Soloaga. These forces engaged forward elements of 3 PARA, notably A Company on Mount Longdon, with heavy machine-gun and mortar fire during 12 and 13 June. This pressure eventually forced No. 3 Platoon to withdraw from the eastern summit.
After securing Two Sisters, 45 Commando came under retaliatory fire from surrounding Argentine positions. Captain Gardiner’s X-Ray Company reported Corporal Frank Melia wounded during the daylight hours of 12 June, after attracting mortar fire originating from Tumbledown Mountain. Several Marines sheltering in abandoned Argentine bunkers on Two Sisters were incapacitated due to near-misses from Argentine shellfire including 105mm OTO Melara and 155mm CITER L33 rounds. Although the bunkers provided some protection, repeated shock waves from close impacts caused temporary and, in some cases, permanent hearing loss.
On 13 June, two Argentine A-4 Skyhawk from Grupo 5, attacked vehicles and helicopters stationed near 3 Commando Brigade Headquarters, located on the lower western slopes of Two Sisters near the Murrell River. The raid resulted in one helicopter crewman injured and significant damage to three Gazelle helicopters.
The attack, involved one Skyhawk dropping bombs while the second strafed with 20 mm cannon fire. The damage was confined to helicopters and nearby vehicles, one crewman suffered a blast wound and perforated eardrums, another a mild concussion. Overall disruption to 3 Commando Brigade operations was limited, though the damage did cause delays to 2 PARA's preparations for the following evening’s assault.
On the morning of 14 June, as 45 Commando positioned on the forward slopes of Two Sisters prepared to reinforce the Welsh Guards consolidating on Sapper Hill, a Snowcat tracked vehicle from 407 Transportation Troop entered a minefield. The driver dismounted to warn following vehicles of the danger, but stepped on an anti-personnel mine, sustaining severe injuries that required evacuation by helicopter.