Talk:Battle of Mount Longdon

Contradiction?
'Four or five bodies lay sprawled there, close together. This time they were our own men: the camouflaged Para smocks hit my eyes immediately. CSM [Company-Sergeant-Major]Wicks was standing over them like a guardian, screaming at some of his men to cover the further end of the path and a small crest... I turned and looked at our own lads, dead on the ground, mowed down when they tried to rush through this gap.'

On the face of it this vivid incident from Vincent Bramley's memoirs is confusing. Accounts of the battle and subsequent analyses do not record a group of four or five men being shot down, fatally, in one place. Of the incidents that come closest, MG positions on the north west slopes of Fly Half first took out the commander of 4 Platoon and four or five of his men, one of whom was mortally wounded, then broke up the subsequent section attack led by the platoon Sgt, Ian Mackay, with four others, of whom Mackay and one other were killed. Earlier, crossfire had caught 6 Platoon on the south side of the summit where three men died in quick succession and eight were wounded. The other two 6 Platoon dead were farther forward. Bramley describes coming across the 6 Platoon dead still lying where they fell later the same day.

At the moment of the action quoted above, most of the 3 Para dead from the night action, scattered about 'Fly Half' in singly or in pairs, had yet to be collected, as shown by Bramley's own account and those of others (Colbeck, 'With 3 Para to the Falklands';  Fuller, Weekes, 'Green Eyed Boys'). Possibly the men he saw were wounded being gathered by the CSM of B Coy, and Bramley, in his stressed, excited state and in the half light of a foggy dawn, believed them to be dead but this does not seem likely. Apart from the awful stillness of the dead, there would have been field dressings in evidence and people attending the living. He does not say he recognised any of the casualties. Most of the dead on Fly Half were known to him. Did he see dead Argentine Marines in US disruptive camouflage and believe they were British? Again, unlikely. His reference to 'the camouflaged Para smocks' is emphatic although the British uniforms had by this stage become so filthy, with the distinctive green background colour becoming greatly subdued, that they might, arguably, have been more easily confused with the Argentine camouflage (and vice versa).

It is hard to resolve these contradictions or account for what this vignette might actually be referring to. Memory of experiences under great stress are intense but sometimes strangely fractured but being his first view of what he took to be British dead the details must surely have been imprinted indelibly in Vincent Bramley's mind. While certainly vivid and written by an eyewitness, because the reference is contradicted by independent evidence it should perhaps should be removed until the question is resolved.JF42 13:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC) JF42 (talk) 12:12, 18 June 2011 (UTC) JF42 (talk) 12:14, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Style
Some of the writing in this article is dreadful. Not only does it use British army abbreviations and slang which are not appropriate for an encyclopedia article (without explanation), but a less gung ho, neutral (civilian?) POV is required. This article at least includes an Argentine account of the event.

I also had to do a great deal of "mopping up" - i.e. indenting people's quotes so that they stand out from the article text, and linking Falkland placenames. --MacRusgail 15:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Lentils, green peas & mutton
Regarding this edit, I've reverted it because it is adding information of no relevance to the topic. This I have made plain in my edit summaries. Please stop edit warring and "threats" of seeking admin intervention, feel free to do so, but be aware of WP:PETARD. Wee Curry Monster talk 10:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if contributors and the people appointed to keep an eye on vandalism can help. I've been accused of willfully engaging in war editing by adding information of "no relevance" regarding the Argentine 7th Regiment experience in the Falklands/Malvinas. All I did was re-insert valuable information about the actual food dished daily to conscripts in the lead-up to the battle for Mount Longdon during the Falklands/Malvinas War and the few luxuries often overlooked, using the testimony of ex-conscript Jorge Altieri (who is well known in Argentina) and accomplished British historians in the form of Martin Middlebrook, Nicholas van der Bijl, etcetera. --Malvinero (talk) 11:09, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Nope you're rewriting history that the officers were benevolent, the conscripts well fed. This is a fiction .  Wee Curry Monster talk 11:42, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The cited interview actually says quite the contrary of Malvinero's edit ; in Altieri own words: No estábamos bien alimentados previo a los combates como debe ser, estábamos debilitados. (We were undernourished before the battle, we were weakened). Crystal-clear, I guess.


 * As for the cause of this failure, I partially agree with the comment of islander Taff Davies on "The Enemy Within: Investigating Torture in The Malvinas": "The Argentine equipment and supplies was in very many ways far superior to that of the British; it was Argentina’s logistical system that was virtually non-existent….".--Darius (talk) 23:33, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I just edited this part of the article to fully adhere to what sources says.--Darius (talk) 23:49, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Layout
I've tried to lay the edit page out so that it's easier to find one's way around (spacing and so-on).

RASAM (talk) 10:24, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

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