Disappointment for the Gurkhas
The taking of Mount William
While
the Scots Guards fought on Tumbledown and 2 Para on Wireless Ridge, the
Gurkhas had to take Mount William and then pass the Welsh Guards through
to take Sapper Hill. The Gurkhas had to wait until Tumbledown was taken,
and the problems the Scots Guards ran into meant that the Gurkhas battle
began late. The Gurkhas also faced another problem besides time- a minefield
nearly a third of a mile square to the north of Tumbledown. The Gurkhas
could either go around it to the north or feel their way through it at
its southern end. They went through the southern end. The entire Battalion
moved out in one long line and as they crossed the saddle separating them
from their objective they came under artillery fire, but they never faltered.
The Battalion's mortars had set up a firebase near Goat Ridge to give covering
fire, while the Battalion's machine guns and Milans went with them. The
Gurkhas also brought with them a selection of 0.5in Browning heavy machine
guns.
Lt.-Col.
Morgan skirted the northern edge of Mount Tumbledown under covering fire
of the Scots Guards. He missed the minefield before coming abreast of Tumbledown,
having lost eight men to Argentine shelling. The Battalion climbed a small
re-entrant to approach the summit and B Company swung off to the left to
take the eastern end of the mountain, where they took some prisoners that
were part of the reserve company that had been planning a counter-attack.
Nearby the Scots Guards were relieved, as they had nearly run out of ammunition.
The
next phase was for A Company and all the support weapons to form a firebase
on the summit of Tumbledown to support D Company's attack on Mount William,
a mile away. The Argentine propaganda now backfired. Stories had been bandied
about portraying Gurkhas as semi-human cannibals who never took prisoners
and went into battle crazed with drugs. The Argentines on Mount William
were already feeling insecure after the fall of Tumbledown and Wireless
Ridge. When they realised they were about to be attacked by the Gurkhas,
it became too much for them. Almost an entire battalion of Argentines fled
Mount William as D Company advanced towards the Hill. Lt.-Col. Morgan's
men took Mount William unopposed and his men were bitterly disappointed.
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