Diversion
At 8:30 p.m. on 13 June the diversionary attack began. The 2nd Bn Scots Guards' Reconnaissance Platoon, commanded by Major Richard Bethell (a former SAS officer), and supported by four light tanks of the Blues and Royals, attacked the Argentinian marine company entrenched on the lower slopes of Mount William. On Mount William's southern slopes, one of the tanks was taken out of action by a booby trap.
The initial advance was unopposed, but a heavy firefight broke out when British troops made contact with Argentine defences. The Argentines opened fire, killing two British soldiers and wounding four. After two hours of hard fighting, the British secured the position.
Fearing a counter-attack, the British platoon withdrew into an undetected minefield, and were forced to abandon their dead. Two men were wounded covering the withdrawal and four more were wounded by mines. The explosions prompted the Argentine Marine Major Antonio Pernías to order the 81 mm mortar platoon on Mount William and the longer-ranged 120mm mortars attached to 'C' Company, 3rd Infantry Regiment on Sapper Hill to open fire on the minefield and the likely withdrawal route of anyone attacking Mount William.The barrage lasted for about forty minutes and more British casualties would have been suffered if the mortar bombs had not landed on soft peat, which absorbed most of the blasts.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Mount Tumbledown
Famous quotes containing the word diversion:
“If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“[F]rom Saratoga [N.Y.] till we got back to Northampton [Mass.], was then mostly desert. Now it is what 34. years of free and good government have made it. It shews how soon the labor of man would make a paradise of the whole earth, were it not for misgovernment, and a diversion of all his energies from their proper object, the happiness of man, to the selfish interests of kings, nobles and priests.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Without [diversion] we would be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us on to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)