Penal Company on the Falklands: A Memoir of the Parachute Regiment at War 1982

By Philip Neame and Cedric Delves

A British Army veteran recounts the exploits of his rifle company in the Falklands War in a memoir of heroism, humor, and disaster.

In April of 1982, the Argentinian junta invaded the Falkland Islands. On leave at the time, the 2nd Battalion Parachute Regiment was recalled to join the task force to recover the Islands. With no parachutes, they made an 8,000-mile journey into battle on a North Sea ferry. Philip Neame was commander of a 100-strong rifle company with a reputation for troublemakers that earned them the nickname “Penal Company.”

After winning the first major land battle on the Falklands, 2 PARA was the only battalion to fight in a second. At Wireless Ridge, Penal Company rose above its reputation to play a decisive role. Yet in the final moments they suffered a deadly artillery barrage—from their own guns.

This searingly honest account explores the realities of war—the tightrope between success and disaster, comedy and tragedy; the strength of companionship and the solitude of fear. Above all, it is a tribute to a band of brothers who, taking their nickname as a badge of honor, fought, cursed, and laughed together, to win through on those ‘ringing plains of windy Troy.’

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781399070720

Book preview

Prologue

On 1 April 1982 an Argentinian Task Force invaded the Falkland Islands. At the time I commanded D Company, one of three 100-strong rifle companies of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment. 2 PARA was on leave, and I was enjoying some ice climbing in the Highlands of Scotland. Five days later I received a telegram with the single word: ‘BRUNEVAL’. Whoops of excitement from me, rather less from my wife. Bruneval was 2 PARA’s barracks, named after one of its Second World War battle honours. 2 PARA was being recalled to barracks, to play its part in the recovery of the Islands. No planes, no parachutes – instead a journey of more than 8,000 miles to the South Atlantic on a North Sea ferry to get us into battle.

2 PARA was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel H. Jones, who was to be awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross at the Battle of Goose Green. After fighting the first battle of the war, 2 PARA went on to fight the last at Wireless Ridge, the gateway to the capital, Port Stanley. Here, D Company played the decisive role but, in the closing moments, suffered a horrific artillery barrage – and more men lost – from our own guns.

Years after leaving the Army, I was asked to give a lecture on my experiences at the Royal Engineers Depot. As I rose to speak, hands waved from the back of the crowded room. To my amazement, a dozen of those from D Company ’82 had somehow learnt of my talk. They had come from across the UK to hear their story told.

I told it as it was: how D Company was the Cinderella of 2 PARA, at the back for everything: on training exercises, always starting in reserve; in barracks, the parking lot for those who proved too much of a handful for A and B Companies. I told how, with little recognition, it had, in the view of Martin Middlebrook in his history of the war, Operation Corporate, seen ‘more action than any other sub-unit in the Falklands war’. Afterwards, I joined them at the bar. Colin Delaney, my erstwhile company medic, put a beer in my hand: ‘Phil, didn’t you know we were known as Penal Company?’ I hadn’t, but now a lot fell into place.

Stationed again in the Islands throughout 1989, I was fortunate to retread the ground over which we had fought, cursed and laughed; to discuss ‘H’s death and whether the battle for Goose Green had even been necessary. Draining my beer, I decided I was uniquely placed and owed it to them to record the experience and privilege of leading Penal Company to war.

Mine is a personal view: walking a tightrope between success and disaster, comedy and tragedy, joy and grief, the strength of companionship and the solitude of fear. But above all, it is a tribute to those who helped me through testing but treasured moments in that sub-Arctic winter ‘down south’ forty years ago.

Chapter 1

MV Norland:Midnight, 20 May 1982, Falklands Time

MV Norland, an ageing P&O car ferry that normally carried tourists between Hull and Rotterdam, in complete darkness noses gently into San Carlos Water. I hear the distant growl of the anchor chain. Relief. The mines and submarine threat behind us, now is the moment.

Below decks, the dim blue emergency lighting endows everyone with an eerie pallor. Rifle in hands, stooped with over 80 pounds on my back, I compete with the swell to stay on my feet. The smell of sweat, fart and diesel fills the airless Continental Lounge. Dressed for a sub-Arctic winter, the sweat is pouring off me, washing camouflage cream into my eyes. I just wish that ‘Wang’ Hanley, my company runner, would stop looking at me, his squint further disorientating me.

Looking around, few were talking. I was not alone wrestling with the turmoil in my mind. I had yearned for such a moment for fourteen years. I would not wish to be anywhere else, but … What am I doing here? Will I, can I, do what the Company expects of me?

A sharp click and the PA system hums to life. ‘You’ve been a wonderful bunch of passengers.’ The familiar Yorkshire tones of the ship’s master, Don Ellerby, sound warm, intimate. ‘It’s been a pleasure having you aboard. We hope you have a good time ashore, and we look forward to sailing you safely home shortly.’

Don Ellerby’s ‘passengers’ are not his usual tourists going ashore in Rotterdam. They are some 650 young men of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment. 2 PARA were preparing to leave their home of the last four weeks, to do business with the Argentines.

A love for this man and his ship wells up in my throat. This is our Mother Ship. We’ll go ashore, do what we have to do, and bloody well travel home in her.

Happier now, with nothing to do but wait for the landing craft to come alongside and bear us to we know not what, my thoughts drift to how this unusual journey began …

Chapter 2

Penal Company

Any new Army posting starts with an interview with the Commanding Officer. I had recently returned from my honeymoon – three months on the highest unclimbed mountain in China. Now, in October 1981, freshly promoted to Major, I duly entered the office of Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Jones and saluted, to be met by an intense, wiry man with lively eyes and, when deployed, an engaging smile. He reportedly hated his given name, and to everyone he was known as ‘H’ Jones, or just ‘H’. The Commanding Officer of a battalion is God of his domain. I idly mused whether anyone ever commented ‘what an unusual name’ when he introduced himself, but quickly decided I was not going to put this to the test. A restless, nervous energy, with a suppressed impatience, radiated from his every move and expression. It was like watching a fizzing firework, waiting for the ‘bang’.

He pointed me to a chair and, with no preliminaries, said ‘You’re to take over D Company.’ The battalion had recently returned from a two-year tour in Northern Ireland, where it had taken catastrophic casualties in an IRA ambush at Warrenpoint. He told me that he was in the process of reorientating the battalion from counterinsurgency (COIN) operations, where minimum force and care of own casualties were pre-eminent considerations, to ‘conventional’ all-arms operations, where the violence of the full range of heavy weapons was brought to bear and casualties had to look after themselves until immediate objectives were secured. I listened politely; this was all very obvious.

‘Are you clear what I expect?’ I gave a sage nod, trying to convey he could rely on me. Then he thoroughly disarmed me: ‘Of course, let’s be honest, your Confidential really all hangs on how well we get on.’ Everyone knew this, but no one ever articulated it. The Confidential Report was our annual performance review, on which careers were made or broken. Another nod. ‘God’ did not need to spell out the one-sided aspect to our relationship. As I left, I inwardly smiled at his brazen confidence to say it exactly how it was. It promised to be an interesting posting. Little did I know.

I headed to D Company’s offices. It was time I got to know my ‘Toms’. Toms? The name derives from ‘Tommy Atkins’, the nickname for the British soldier in the First World War, usually shortened to just ‘Tommy’. After the Second World War the term fell into disuse, except within the Parachute Regiment. ‘Tom’ is a term of respect for soldiers in the Parachute Regiment – the Toms refer to themselves as Toms with pride. By comparison, ‘squaddie’, a term used by ‘lesser’ regiments to refer to their soldiers, is patronizing and disrespectful. The Toms themselves, however, can also be patronizing, referring to officers, where respect has not been earned, as ‘Ruperts’ – after the rather hapless Rupert Bear. The Toms refer to these ‘lesser’ regiments as ‘crap-hats’. Strictly, anyone not entitled to wear the maroon beret is a ‘crap-hat’ although, despite their sand-coloured berets, the term would not normally be applied to the SAS, and the Royal Marines, with their green berets, might be referred to as ‘cabbage-tops’. More respectfully, marines were referred to as ‘boot-necks’, or just ‘booties’, after the leather neck collars that once formed part of their uniform. Over time, the rest of the Army, tiring of this disrespect, forbade the use of the term ‘crap-hat’. The Toms, as ever with orders that they thought misguided, had the answer. ‘Crap-hats’ instead became ‘hats’, the tone standing in for the omitted adjective, as in: ‘Don’t worry about him, Sir, he’s just a HAT.’ The right provincial accent, say Liverpudlian, makes the comment particularly