RE: [OT] Goose Green

From: ~ On Behalf Of Ryan M Gill
Sent: 15 March 2002 17:38
Subject: Re: [OT] Goose Green

> At 8:58 AM -0800 3/15/02, John Atkinson wrote:

>> If "gong hunting" means what I think it does, then
>> it's a permenant state of all officers.  Lt. Col.
>> Jones may have been an exception, but I'm a bit
>> skeptical.

> I've heard several conversations about this, most seem
> to think that since he was leading from the front, he
> wasn't 'gong hunting' or at the least, he was doing so
> with good justification.

At that point in the battle both the adjutant and the
second in command of "A" Company had been killed, and
from a recent television source I think I recollect that
two other junior officers had also become casualties.
There was a big hole in "H" Jones' chain of command,
and the next most senior soldier in the charge was a
sergeant.

The mortars stayed up with the battle, but ran out of
smoke far too early. Once battle began, the artillery
could not be safely used. The troops resorted to white
phosphorous grenades to provide cover.

Yes, there have been criticisms that a battalion
commander has no business leading an attack like that.
Pre-battle intelligence indicated that there were no
more than three to four companies defending Goose Green,
and Lt. Col Jones thought that the Argentinians would
fold up if attacked. His battalion second-in-command
stated that he believed the Colonel had calculated that
it would be better to risk ten to do what might take a
hundred later.

As was the case later in the war, the enemy junior
officers and NCOs stayed in their machine gun nests
and had to be evicted with heavy weapons.

culled from "Eyewitness Falklands", Robert Fox
(war correspondant in the battle at Goose Green)

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