Once again, ANZAC Day will be a solemn one. Normally there are parades and ceremonies, but this year is one for introspection.
I’ll tip back a pint this evening in memory of all the ANZAC troops, from World War One’s Battle of Gallipoli to the battle fought today. I’ll think of friends in both the Australian and New Zealand militaries and good times deployed to bad places.
In the early morning hours of 25 April, 1980 President Carter announced to a stunned world that the United States had undertaken an ambitious raid into Iran to liberate 52 American hostages held illegally at our Embassy compound in Tehran. The assault force of what was known as “Operation Eagle Claw” can be seen here, loading C141s.
Unfortunately, the task force was unsuccessful and we lost eight American servicemen in a horrible aircraft ground collision.
However, their deaths were not in vain. The hostages were eventually repatriated and the accident was the watershed event that created, over the next several decades, the world’s preeminent Special Operations capability; USSOCOM and its components. Forty years later, we wouldn’t be where are without the determination of that fledgling task force. Join me in remembering those that had the guts to try.
The history of today’s largest First Responder Distributor, GALLS®, started as one immigrant’s dream of America.
The Peddler was for many rural Americans, the only way to shop.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lexington, Ken. (April 2021) – GALLS® is today the largest leading distributor of law enforcement and 1st responder apparel, gear, and equipment with over 100 locations, 300,000 sq. ft. of distribution, and 1,500 employees. Although its origins were modest compared to the size and breadth of the organization today, the founding principle is as relevant now as it was when Phillip Gall took a wagon laden with household ware into the hills and hollers of Kentucky at the turn of the 19th century.
“Phillip Gall was the epitome of the American dream come true,” Mike Fadden, CEO of GALLS Inc. said. “As an immigrant in a new country, he found a unique niche to call his own, and through his steadfast pursuit of building long-lasting customer relationship, was able to turn a ware-laden wagon into a very successful Lexington, Kentucky-based family business.”
As an immigrant from Lithuania, Phillip Gall came to America with a dream of finding freedom and opportunity for his family. Settling in Lexington, Kentucky with his wife and son, Isaac, Phillip traveled the backroads of Lexington’s surrounding hills peddling household items such as cookware, sewing supplies, and tools. Phillip Gall visited his customers’ homes, tucked away in the woods, or standing alone surrounded by farmland, that every visit was special. He developed close relationships with his customers, seeming to know what they wanted and how to turn every exchange of their hard-earned money for goods into a special occasion. Phillip Gall brought his own customer service expertise to the Kentucky hills.
At the turn of the 19th century, Isaac, now a grown man, with his father, opened a second-hand store on Water Street in Lexington. Eventually, the second-hand store transitioned into a pawn shop, which eventually transitioned into a retail store including outdoor camping equipment, firearms, and police gear.
Phillip Galls’ store continued to meet the needs of their customers, whether it was moving the store to better locations or including products that their customers were seeking.
Sidney, Isaac’s son, grew up spending available time at Phillip Gall’s storefront helping out with everything and anything that was needed to service their growing customer base. It was a natural move for Sidney after he came home from serving in the war, to come into a partnership with his father, Isaac. During his tenure at Phillip Gall, the storefront moved from Water Street to West Main Street in 1972.
“During the third generation’s tenure of the Phillip Gall store, Sidney had developed both sides of the business, the outdoor and the law enforcement, as far as it could go within the confines of its location and their business model,” Fadden continued. “Times were changing and Sidney found within Alan Bloomfield, the potential to concentrate on one part of the business and relinquish the other part.”
In 1983, the Phillip Gall store sold off the police equipment and firearms part of the business to a young man who had also grown up in the storefront retail business in downtown Lexington. Alan Bloomfield’s parents owned a women’s department store and the retail business was in his blood. After the purchase, Phillip Gall was called Phillip Gall Outdoor & Ski and continued to serve outdoor enthusiasts. The police part of the business, now operated by Alan Bloomfield, was renamed Galls Inc. Alan Bloomfield hit the ground running, sending flyers to police departments offering specials on everything from guns to uniforms. During Bloomfield’s ownership, Galls Inc. became a national and international supply house for police, EMS, fire, and first responder equipment and the largest mail order and catalog house within that community. Within five years, the Galls Inc. Catalog won the National Catalog Association’s “Catalog of the Year.”
“Bloomfield was a legend in the catalog business. He took a relatively small mom-and-pop cop shop and turned it into one of the largest and most dynamic police and emergency equipment suppliers in the world. He was very much a visionary and saw outside the borders of Lexington and by building the Galls Catalog and mail-order business extended his product line offerings to law enforcement across the country,” Fadden remarked. “By 1995, Bloomfield had taken Galls Inc. from a 4-person, family-based company to a 250 employee-based distributor powerhouse. And he felt it was time for him to step aside.”
Aramark, a company founded in Philadelphia in 1936, provided uniform services, as well as food and facility service to clients in the healthcare, education, business, prisons, and leisure industries, purchased Galls Inc. in 1995 and quickly brought the catalog giant into the digital age. Within two years, Galls Inc. had inside and outside sales force to facilitate serving their growing law enforcement customer base. The new sales force was able to adapt to the current conditions and needs of the community. By 1999, Galls added a new sales partner with the launch of Galls.com allowing existing customers to interface with Galls and attracting new customers with their state-of-the-art website.
“Galls is changing rapidly during these years. The rapid growth included more service centers, more employees, and new technologies. At the same time Aramark purchased Galls, I came aboard Aramark,” Fadden said. “Little did I know at the time that my future at Aramark would put me in a leadership position at Galls. Meanwhile, my focus is primarily on the direct sale and rental uniform side of operations at Aramark. Those twenty-five years, in a variety of leadership positions, became critical stepping stones for my future position at Galls.”
CI Capital, a private North American investment group, purchased Galls Inc. in 2011 and began an accelerated program of growth and acquisitions including some of the top equipment and uniform vendors such as Quartermaster, Blumenthal Uniforms, Muscatello’s, Patriot Outfitters, and Red the Uniform Tailor, to name a few. As part of their aggressive growth platform, Galls continued to streamline processes within their company, and in 2011, eQuip, an online uniform and equipment procurement and management software platform, was launched.
“When a company is in serious acquisition mode and undergoing explosive growth, it is primarily focusing on building its infrastructure and streamlining processes such as accounting, distribution, sales, and marketing. It’s an inward-focused style of management, and although necessary for the company to grow, customers can start to feel as if they are no longer priority number one,” Fadden continued.”
In 2018 Galls, again changed hands when CI Capital Partners sold the company to Charlesbank Capital Partners based in Boston and New York. Within the next several years, Galls accumulated six more uniform and police equipment companies and a change of leadership when Mike Fadden became the new CEO of GALLS in June of 2020.
“Up until the past couple of years, Galls was still a traditional catalog-style company with a smaller B2B mindset in which either agencies came to us or our sales team drove sales to agencies,” Mike Fadden explained further. “Galls was this large company, now comprised of many smaller companies, across the country doing business their way. Unfortunately, in all of this massive growth, something very special was lost, something I think Phillip Gall would instantly recognize; the personal relationship with the customer was beginning to suffer.
As we enter this new decade, businesses are facing increased competition from outside and it is my imperative that we at Galls will always lead when it comes to outstanding customer service. That doesn’t just mean a pleasant voice on the other end of the telephone, but finding ways to provide efficient, cost-effective, and personalized service to our customer base. When I came aboard, Galls already had some of these service drivers in place such as eQuip, which allows our customers to manage their uniform and equipment purchases and uniform allotments. It gives them power and confidence over their budgets they never had when dealing with outside sales reps. What I found in my first 90-days were often small errors, whether a misshipment of product or delays and backorders due to the complicated order processing we had. It was literally dying from a thousand small cuts.
First things, first. We needed a central location to receive customer complaints, suggestions, or compliments and that box literally became my email address. We have been including a small card, a gesture, to our customers in every shipment, to let them know Galls IS listening and we want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly about our company. Since this out-reach program began, we have accumulated enough data to understand where our strengths and weaknesses lay and to act on them.”
Fadden and his executive team drove significant changes to the company’s IT structure to allow greater transparency between departments, increase efficiency, and speed up the process from initial ordering to delivery, thus shortening the duration while eliminating waste and cost overruns. In February of 2021, “Chief to Chief,” an email newsletter for agencies’ executive management was created. The monthly newsletter features a video of Mike Fadden, CEO of Galls, talking directly to the email recipient and encouraging an open dialog between one Chief to another. Again, Mike’s email box has been inundated with praise, suggestions, and some complaints, but Mike and his team compile all results and present changes to the company that has, in a few short months, already benefited customers and Galls’ employees.
“I think Phillip Gall could walk into our headquarters and not only be amazed at what he started but be proud of what Galls’ is doing today, in respect to building the trust and loyalty between our company and our customers,” Mike Fadden concluded. “He never lost sight of the importance of excellent customer service and it helped him build his dream, the American dream. It is our responsibility to continue to build on that tradition because superior customer service is one thing that never goes out of style.”
Each year, we remind our readers of the events of April 19th, 1775. Fabled as the “Shot Heard Round The World,” this was the true beginning of the American Revolution, a worldwide conflict which would engulf the super powers of the day in battles as far away as India, and last for another eight years.
Rebellion had already been brewing on the North American continent for a decade. Finally, in the early hours of the day, North American Militiamen fired on British troops, starting a war that would result in the ascendency of the American Eagle over this land we now call the United States.
This battle is also where we draw our concept of the iconic Minute Man from.
Each Patriot’s Day, we honor those men at Concord and consider what it must have been for them to stand there together, in the face of the world’s greatest army and take up arms in the defense of their colony from oppression.
This militia came together on that morning to protect their arms from seizure by an oppressive government. That is a fact.
“Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”
-John Parker
Captain of Militia
As the initial volleys of fire were exchanged near daybreak on Lexington Green, colonial volunteers fell back in the face of over 500 occupying British troops. But as the battle moved on to Concord, the tide turned, and the redcoats were routed as more and more colonists joined the fray.
The British troops retreated through Concord where they were reinforced. Despite boasting a strength of 1700 men, they remained no match for the determined colonists who forced them to retreat to the safety of Charlestown in Boston. The militiamen continued their pursuit which transformed into the Siege of Boston.
Today, join me in remembering those American warriors who pledged their lives to give us our hard fought freedoms and this great land.
Eugene Morrison Stoner is the father of the AR family of rifles (and everyone knows AR stands for Armalite Rifle), that includes the AR-5, AR-15 and the M16. The family of M16s are one of the most iconic weapons engineered in world history. Stoner worked for the Vega Aircraft Company installing armament units after graduation from a vocational high school and before joining the Marine Corps right after Pearl Harbor was attacked. He served in the Pacific until the end of the war. In 1945 he went to work for Whitaker, an aircraft equipment maker in 1954, he transferred to Fairchild Engine & Airplane Corporation as chief engineer for a newly formed small division called Armalite, which was headed by George Sullivan, a patent counsel for Lockheed Corp. They met at a local range, where Sullivan was testing a new prototype for an Air Force survival rifle.
The AR5, is the product of Eugene Stoner’s feedback on the survival rifle. The AR5 is now better known as the AR7, or Henry Rifle’s US Survival Rifle. Stoner finished the first run of the ArmaLite AR-10 design in 1955. This was a game-changer in the world of small arms – a firearm that was small, quick to shoot, and didn’t weigh a ton. When the AR-10 was chambered for the 7.62x51mm NATO. When it was changed to chamber the new .223 Remington round its name was changed to the AR-15. Stoner’s name would go down in history if he had done nothing but build the AR-15, but he did so much more than that. He was a self-made man with only a high school education. Stoner changed the world as we know it forever, in addition to changing the landscape of American firearms, as well as the world stage, by inventing the M16. That gun, along with the AK (idea stolen from WW2 German guns) family of weapons, are the two most famous guns globally. He also designed one of the most iconic weapons of the Vietnam War and SEAL Team’s history. Eugene Stoner, left ArmaLite around 1961 to join Cadillac Gage Corp. There he started to build an entirely new set of weapons.
In 1962, known as Stoner 62, the first version, chambered the 7.62x51mm NATO ammunition. Later that year, it was changed to chambered for 5.56mm to help save weight. The name also changed to the Stoner 63. That system, developed and promoted until the early 1970s, was extensively tested as the XM22 (Stoner 63A rifle), XM23 (Stoner 63A carbine), and XM2077 by the U.S. military (light machine gun with belt feed). However, the Mk.23 model 0 belt-fed light machine gun configuration was used in small numbers by both the Navy and some Marines in Vietnam. In general, the Stoner system was somewhat too costly and also slightly over-complicated for a dedicated light machine gun, though having the advantages of modularity and interchangeability of parts allowed for great versatility in tactical use. The Stoner was known for being a little finicky when cleaning and maintaining, but reliable if proper care was taken. Overall, between 1962 and 1971, some 3,500 to 4,000 Stoner M63 weapon kits were made. Of those, some 2400 Stoner 63 Light machine guns were purchased by the U.S. Navy for Special Forces in Vietnam and about 100 more were purchased for the enhanced Mk.23 mod.0 variant. Starting in 1963, the Stoner 63 was used in combat in Vietnam, primarily in the hands of SEAL Teams.
The Stoner machine gun was developed to maximize firepower. The versatility of the Stoner 63 made it the perfect weapons system for the newly minted SEAL teams during the Vietnam War. SEAL Teams One and Two evaluated the 63A, saying that the weapon was “significantly superior” to the M60 machine gun and suggested at least six guns for every 12-man SEAL platoon. It was also claimed that immediate action drills and tactics for contacts with the enemy were based around the weapon system and were actively established by SEAL platoons to fit with the 63A.
One of the last times the Stoner was used by the U.S. Military was by the Marines in limited numbers during the 1983 invasion of Grenada. Despite its success, the Stoner 63 never saw wider acceptance. After the Army provided the 63A Light Machinegun (LMG) version for evaluation to some Green Berets in the 1970s, the branch concluded that the unique platform was too tricky for battlefield maintenance, which is ironic, given that it was the unique recoil buffering mechanism of the Stoner 63 that helped make the platform so flexible in the first place, in combination with the multi-use receiver.
The Stoner 63 framework has several barrel types for LMG models, with different lengths and profiles. Small, fluted barrels were used by the Navy Mark 23 model 0 machine guns, but other models (with long barrels) also saw action in Vietnam.
A universal bolt group is used in the stamped steel receiver, with a multi-lug rotating bolt and a long-stroke gas piston with a gas tube. For the attachment of all other sub-assemblies and the quick-detachable barrel, the receiver also has many sets of mounting points. The receiver is so orientated in the rifle. The carbine configuration is such that the gas device lies above the barrel and the feed unit’s mounting points are below the receiver. Some pictures are so iconic people make shirts out of them( Thirty Seconds Out)
The receiver is turned ‘upside down’ in all machine gun setups, either belt or magazine fed, with the gas system being below the barrel, ejection on the left side, and the feed unit above the receiver. The trigger unit has no hammer in the machine gun configuration; instead, its sear interoperates with the cut in the gas piston rod, only allowing fully automatic firing, and only from the open bolt. The magazine feed unit can handle patented curved box magazines and can be used to configure both rifle and machine gun. It was only possible to use the belt feed unit in machine gun setups.
Early guns had a left-side feed, which often triggered jams due to ejected shells’ reflection back into the ejection window. Later guns had a right-side feed that eliminated this problem. The 100-round box containers, made of plastic, were issued with late production LMG’s with right-side feed. All the containers were clipped to the receiver’s rim, and various rear sight units were available for different setups, with the front sights being mounted on quick detachable barrels. The charging handle was located on the right side of the bolt carrier for the earlier Stoner 63 device weapons; the safety and fire selector were merged into one control, located on the trigger unit’s left side. The charging handle was attached to the gas piston rod on the modified Stoner 63A device and projected from the top in the rifle/carbine configuration or from the bottom in the MG/LMG configuration; safety was formed as a separate lever on the front of the trigger guard, with the fire mode selector still located above the pistol grip on the side of the trigger unit. Plastic was the traditional buttstock and forearm. All Stoner 63 light machine guns were supplied with detachable folding bipods; although Cadillac Gage Corp produced tripods and even vehicle mounts, it seems that they were never really used in combat.
The Stoner machine gun is one of the most iconic weapons of the Vietnam War. I always think about buying an airsoft version just to frame and hang in my garage. But, that said, I started out as a 60 gunner so, if anything, I would have to get an Echo Three first. If you have ever had the opportunity to fire one, you are a very lucky person. Well not in the “hey those guys are shooting at us, I should return fire with my Stoner”. I mean more of the “Hey, I am shooting a Stoner on the range”……not that shooting back at people that are shooting at you is bad thing.
The new website SOGSITE tells the history of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observation Group which conducted special operations is the SouthEast Asia theater, including “over the fence” cross-border reconnaissance missions into Cambodia and Laos.
During World War II, the Bataan Death March was a horrific forced march by the Japanese Imperial Army on American and Filipino prisoners of war. The 63-mile march from the southern end of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines began on April 9, 1942, with at least 72,000 POWs. According to some accounts, 75,000 soldiers were taken prisoner after the Bataan surrender; about 12,000 Americans and 63,000 Filipinos. The Bataan Death March resulted in an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 deaths due to the prisoners’ deplorable conditions and cruel treatment.
“This was the First Murder”
Captain William Dyess was a fighter pilot stationed on Luzon when the Japanese invaded. Captured when the American forces on Bataan surrendered, he joined the Death March and was interned by the Japanese. In April 1943, Captain Dyess was one of three prisoners able to escape from their captors. Captain Dyess eventually made his way back to America, where his story was published.
“The victim, an air force captain, was being searched by a three-star private. Standing by was a Jap commissioned officer, hand on the sword hilt. These men were nothing like the toothy, bespectacled runts whose photographs are familiar to most newspaper readers. They were cruel of face, stalwart, and tall.
‘’The private, a little squirt, was going through the captain’s pockets. All at once, he stopped and sucked in his breath with a hissing sound. He had found some Jap yen.
“He held these out, ducking his head and sucking in his breath to attract notice. The big Jap looked at the money. Without a word, he grabbed the captain by the shoulder and shoved him down to his knees. He pulled the sword out of the scabbard and raised it high over his head, holding it with both hands. The private skipped to one side.’
‘Before we could grasp what was happening, the black-faced giant had swung his sword. I remember how the sun flashed on it. There was a swish and a kind of chopping thud, like a cleaver going through beef’.
‘The captain’s head seemed to jump off his ‘shoulders. It hit the ground in front of him and went rolling crazily from side to side between the lines of prisoners.’
‘The body fell forward. I have seen wounds, but never such a gush of—blood as this. The heart continued to pump for a few seconds, and at each beat, there was another great spurt of blood. The white dust around our feet was turned into crimson mud. I saw the hands were opening and closing spasmodically. Then I looked away.’
‘When I looked again, the big Jap had put up his sword and was strolling off. The runt who had found the yen was putting them into his pocket. He helped himself to the captain’s possessions.’
“This was the first murder.”
Oriental Sun Treatment
As the prisoners were herded north, they collided with advancing Japanese troops moving to the south, forcing a brief halt to the march:
“Eventually, the road became so crowded we were marched into a clearing. For two hours, we had our first taste of the oriental sun treatment, which drains the stamina and weakens the spirit.
The Japs seated us on the scorching ground, exposed to the full glare of the sun. Many of the Americans and Filipinos had no covering to protect their heads. I was beside a small bush, but it cast no shade because the sun was almost directly above us. Many of the men around me were ill.
When I thought I could stand the penetrating heat no longer. I was determined to have a sip of the tepid water in my canteen. I had no more than unscrewed the top when the aluminum flask was snatched from my hands. The Jap who had crept up behind me poured the water into a horse’s nose-bag, then threw down the canteen. He walked on among the prisoners, taking away their water and pouring it into the bag. When he had enough, he gave it to his horse.”
Drop-outs
The parade of death continues its journey as its members inevitably succumb to the heat, the lack of food, and the lack of water:
“The hours dragged by and, as we knew, they must. The drop-outs began. It seemed that a great many of the prisoners reached the end of their endurance at about the same time. They went down by twos and threes. Usually, they made an effort to rise. I never can forget their groans and strangled breathing as they tried to get up. Some succeeded. Others lay lifeless where they had fallen.
I observed that the Jap guards paid no attention to these. I wondered why. The explanation wasn’t long in coming. There was a sharp crackle of pistol and rifle fire behind us.
Skulking along, a hundred yards behind our contingent, came a ‘clean-up squad’ of murdering Jap buzzards. Their helpless victims, sprawled darkly against the white of the road, were easy targets.
As members of the murder squad stooped over each huddled form, there would be an orange ‘flash in the darkness and a sharp report. The bodies were left where they lay, that other prisoners coming behind us might see them.
Our Japanese guards enjoyed the spectacle in silence for a time. Eventually, one of them who spoke English felt he should add a little spice to the entertainment.
‘Sleeper?’ he asked. ‘You won’t sleep? Just lie down on the road. You get good long sleep!’
On through the night, we were followed by orange flashes and thudding sounds.”
Arrival at San Fernando
Finally, after five days without food and little water, the dwindling column arrives at its destination:
“The sun still was high in the sky when we straggled into San Fernando, a city of 36,000 population, and were put in a barbed wire compound similar to the one at Orani. We were seated in rows for a continuation of the sun treatment. Conditions here were the worst yet.
The prison pen was jammed with sick, dying, and dead American and Filipino soldiers. They were sprawled amid the filth and maggots that covered the ground. Practically all had dysentery. Malaria and dengue fever appeared to be running unchecked. There were symptoms of other tropical diseases I didn’t even recognize.
Jap guards had shoved the worst cases beneath the rotted flooring of some dilapidated building. Many of these prisoners had already died. The others looked as though they couldn’t survive until morning.
There had been no burials for many hours.
After sunset Jap soldiers entered and inspected our rows.
Then the gate was opened again, and kitchen corpsmen entered with cans of rice. We held our mess kits and again passed lids to those who had none. Our spirits rose. We watched as the Japs ladled out generous helpings to the men nearest the gate.
Then, without explanation, the cans were dragged away, and the gate was closed. It was a repetition of the ghastly farce at Balanga. The fraud was much crueler this time because our need was vastly more significant. In our bewildered state, it took some time for the truth to sink in. When it did, we were too discouraged even to swear.”
References:
This eyewitness account appears in Dyess, William E., The Dyess Story (1943);
brokenmap.com/horrors-of-the-bataan-death-march
In 1982, Gen. Galtieri’s Argentine military regime faced increased domestic trouble at home and they were looking to hold on to power. Since the formation of the Argentine state, the Malvinas issue (Basically the Sovereignty over the Falkland Islands between Argentina and the United Kingdom) had created political and domestic passions and heated debate in Argentina. It was the ideal moment for Galtieri to reclaim what Buenos Aires called the “lost islands”. Negotiations with the British over sovereignty had been going on for many years, with various British governments being more sympathetic than others to the proposal. Long-standing tensions between the two countries reached a head on March 19, 1982, when some Argentinian scrap metal workers lifted their country’s flag at an abandoned whaling station on the even-further-away island of South Georgia, which was then a Dependency of the Falkland Islands. Two weeks later, on April 2, Argentinian troops stormed South Georgia’s Leith Harbor, overwhelming main British outposts without causing any casualties. But after conquering the islands, Galtieri and the junta regime faced one big problem: Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher’s Conservative government, which was dealing with increasing unemployment, rising interest rates, and an ailing economy, was also facing a degree of domestic hostility. The Argentine invasion of British sovereign territory was intolerable to Thatcher and much of the world and had to be dealt with. There were no contingency measures for the Falklands at the government level or within the military, let alone possessing the mechanisms to launch a task force to fly the 7,000 miles to the islands. Despite efforts to secure a diplomatic solution at the United Nations and through the Reagan administration, the two parties were stubborn and war appeared inevitable.
Lt. Col. Mike Rose, commanding officer of 22nd Special Air Service Regiment in Hereford, was on the phone to the headquarters of the British Antarctic Survey Group in Cambridge during the afternoon of Friday, 02 April 1982. Having learned that Argentine forces had invaded the Falklands, Rose swung into action and called in the regiment’s top advisors, canceled leave, and created a command situation. The situation was a difficult one for SAS planners. In the case of the invasion, no contingency arrangements were in place to rehabilitate the Falklands. This possibly owed more to the Ministry of Defence’s general disbelief that an operation to recover the Falklands was feasible. The tiny British settlement of the Ascension Islands, about 3,700 miles from the UK and halfway between the Royal Navy’s ports and the Falklands themselves, was the only practical ‘jump off’ point for the Falklands.
In Hereford, events started to move fast. Keen (had to use a British word) to play a pivotal role for his men in the upcoming operation, Rose provided SBS (Special Boat Service) with the services of two specialist Boat Squadron men who were preparing to sail to the South Atlantic. Rose was closely aligned with Brigadier Julian Thompson OBE, who commanded a landing on the islands for the operation code-named “Corporate”. An advance group from “D” Squadron SAS joined their SBS comrades on Sunday, 04 April and flew to the Ascension Islands. The Falklands Task Force was commanded by Rear Adm. Sandy Woodward on his flagship HMS Hermes, specially approved by the British Cabinet. The Battle Command Headquarters, Operation Corporate’s command center, was also located onboard Hermes. In an attack on the island of South Georgia, about 900 miles south of the Falklands, the men of D Squadron SAS’s mission were to join 42 Royal Marine Command.
San Carlos Bay beaches on East Falkland offered the best hope of a British landing for Task Force Commander Woodward. On the opposite side of the island from Port Stanley, before the long march across the island to seize Stanley, the Brits needed to establish a bridgehead. The problem for Woodward was that, to the west of the San Carlos beaches, the Argentinians had built a forward airbase on Pebble Island. The threat needed to be neutralized, with a garrison of over 100 men armed with ground attack IA-58 Pucaras, each with two 20 mm cannons and four 7.62 machine-guns. D Squadron’s boat troop men, fresh from South Georgia operations, were assigned to recce on Pebble Island. On the night of Tuesday, 11 May, the reconnaissance party’s forward frame edged its way to the narrow one-mile strip of land bordered by the sea on either side and offered no natural cover. The D Squadron men had to travel with extreme care and were forced to leave their Bergen backpacks in a shallow hollow to avoid detection against the horizon. However, the Argentinian sentries were not especially alert. The rest of Woodward’s landing fleet gathered before beachhead landings at San Carlos as the recce party confirmed Hermes’ findings.
G Squadron Assault (Mountain Troop)
The timeline was tight for the attack on Pebble Island. The assignment was given to Capt. John (Gavin) Hamilton, a young 29-year-old Mountain Troop Leader. Hamilton and his men had already survived two helicopter crashes in Fortuna Glacier’s blizzard conditions in the thick of the South Georgia action. Still, he led his men to seize the outpost of Grytviken, the former whaling station. He was under no illusion as to the scope of the mission and the dangers involved as he briefed the Mountain Troops’ men.
Onboard HMS Hermes, Hamilton briefed his men, but there were some problems. As the Hermes faced the South Atlantic’s heavy headwinds, she was well behind schedule, and she arrived late at the launch site. The foul weather had stopped the Sea King helicopters from being set up on the flight deck as they steamed west to make things worse. With the legendary SAS versatility, Hamilton was forced to revise the attack plan and change the production to take 30 minutes instead of the initial 90. With the men of the Mountain Troops armed with 81 mm mortars, M203 grenade launchers, and the deadly Rule 66 mm anti-tank rockets, the Sea King left Hermes’ deck. In support, to take out the Argentinean garrison positions, a Naval gunnery officer landing with the SAS said he would help provide the Naval Gunfire Support (NGFS) directing the fire from the decks of HMS Glamorgan of their 4.5-inch guns. The Sea King touched down four miles from the airstrip at a point marked out by the Boat Troop in reasonably calm weather. As troops from the Boat Squadron established a defensive perimeter, Hamilton and his men emerged from the Helo and started to unload mortar bombs and light guns. The Mountain Troopers were instantly hit by the unbelievable moonlight and the silhouette problems against the solid landscape began. The SAS men humped their way across Pebble Island to the airstrip after a short briefing from the Boat Troop (G Squadron) commander.
The outline of the FMA IA 58 Pucará (an Argentine ground-attack and counterinsurgency) (COIN) came clearly into place as they approached the airstrip, as rounds from the guns of HMS Glamorgan started crashing into the Argentinian garrison. Hamilton assembled his men on aircraft dispersals and calmly affixed explosive charges to the waiting Argentinian jets, receiving inaccurate incoming small arms and machine gunfire. The shells from Glamorgan destroyed the Argentinian fuel dump, ammunition store, and watchtower as the first of the Pucaras were blown up, producing some secondary explosions, and illuminating the remaining Pucaras further. The SAS men took out 11 planes, including six Pucaras, four Turbo-Mentors, and a Skyvan transport aircraft, in a 20-minute frenzy of destruction. Between them, in glaring view of the enemy, Hamilton and ‘Paddy’ Armstrong, a Mountain Troop explosives specialist, had destroyed another four Pucaras.
Withdrawal and Assessment
The whole operation was running on time. Within 30 minutes, the SAS had neutralized the Argentinian outpost and all the aircraft. There were minor casualties; one man was struck by shrapnel, and one was concussed from a remote-controlled Argentine mine. The entire SAS force was picked up by the Sea Kings on a tight schedule and transported back to HMS Hermes and Glamorgan, where a well-earned, full-cooked English breakfast awaited! Hamilton confirmed, de-briefly, that the Argentinians had not put on the island a radar facility and that the garrison was made ineffective. As a result, the Argentine force on Pebble Island played no part in opposing the landings in San Carlos, and again the SAS supported the main landing force that had famously crossed East Falkland to free Port Stanley.
On 10 June 1982, while directing naval gunfire from a position overlooking an 800-strong Argentinian garrison, Capt. John Hamilton was tragically killed. Hamilton, surrounded, was killed while covering a soldier who slipped through Argentina’s lines and was finally taken prisoner. The Military Cross was posthumously awarded to Hamilton and the award’s quote cited his “outstanding determination and character, his extraordinary will to fight despite hopeless odds and wounded suffering”. Only four days later, Maj. Gen. Jeremy Moore accepted the surrender of the islands’ Argentine forces, and the Union Jack was returned to the Falklands.
