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south georgia lies 54 degrees south of the equator in the south atlantic ocean some 1 900 kilometers
off the coast of argentina a cold and inhospitable place covered in jagged snow-capped mountains
fords and glaciers until its discovery by european sailors in 1675 the island had no permanent native
population for the next 300 years the island would remain largely uninhabited save for a handful of
whalers and sealers harvesting the rich waters of the antarctic ocean but in april of 1982 this
frozen little speck of land became the touch point for one of the last great conventional wars of the
20th century and played host to an extraordinary incident in which a small band of 22 british royal
marines managed to hold off a vastly superior argentine force and even disable an entire
warship this is the impossibly badass story of mills marauders and the battle of gritviken
along with the south sandwich island south georgia is administered as a dependency of the falkland
islands a british overseas territory lying 1 400 kilometers to the east though the british have
claimed sovereignty over the parkland since 1833 this claim has long been contested by argentina
where the islands are known as las isles malvenas in 1982 argentina was gripped by economic and
social turmoil in the wake of its seven-year dirty war which saw the rise of a brutal
military dictatorship or junta led by general leopoldo galtieri air brigadier basilo lamidozo
and admiral jorge anaya gautieri and anaya in particular saw the re-taking of the falklands
is an ideal means of distracting the argentine people from their current troubles settling an old
school with britain and reasserting argentina's prestige and dominance in the region calculating
that the british would not bother to retake such a small archipelago thirteen thousand kilometers
from the whole mars anaya set the invasion for early april 1982. on march the 19th the
argentine transport ship ara bahaya buen sessaiso steamed into lath harbour on south georgia without
clearance and unloaded a team of 19 scrap metal workers officially the landing was part of a
business deal between argentine scrap metal dealer constantino davidoff and the british company
christian salvinson to salvage the remains of a defunct whaling station on the island however as
part of a secret military plan codenamed operation alpha the workers had been infiltrated by a squad
of argentine commandos who proceeded to raise the argentine flag over the harbour at the time the
only british presence on the island was a team from the british antarctic survey led by trevor
edwards who disturbed by the argentine's actions demanded that they lower their flag and report
to senior antarctic survey officer steve martin at the island's capital of gripkin the argentine
commander captain briatore agreed to number the flag but refused to report to revitkin and
while he and the rest of the scrap metal workers departed on march 22 antarctic survey members soon
reported the presence of other argentine personnel on the island prompting trevor edwards to
contact rex hunt governor of the falklands hunt duly dispatched the royal navy ice patrol vessel
hms endurance carrying a small contingent of 22 royal marines to monitor the situation
as the endurance steamed towards south georgia the argentines dispatched the corvettes ara drummond
and ara granville to intercept her as well as the ara bahia pariso to land a contingent of 10
naval commandos on the island over the next week the endurance and the argentine vessels played
a game of cat and mouse in the waters around the island while british and argentine officers worked
to find a diplomatic solution when it could be found endurance steamed into griffin harvard and
offloaded its contingent of marines consisting of two detachments of 8 and 12 men under the command
of 24 year old lieutenant george thompson and 23 year old lieutenant keith mills on the day they
landed april the 2nd 1982 argentina launched operation rosario the large-scale invasion of
the falkland islands the 650-man invasion force quickly overwhelmed the island's tiny garrison
and within hours the british government at the capital of port stanley capitulated
on the same day the argentine corvette a.r.a giraco carrying 40 marines and two helicopters was
dispatched to south georgia to capture the island but bad weather delayed its arrival by 24 hours
the 22 marines at gravikan cut off from support and 13 000 kilometers from home braced themselves
for the coming assault the radio message from london instructed them not to resist beyond
the point where lives might be lost to no avail to which lieutenant mills infamously replied sod that
i'll make their eyes water with the invasion force only hours away the marines set about fortifying
the harbour lining the beach with barbed wire and anti-personnel mines and building a makeshift bomb
packed with nuts bolts and harpoon heads which they placed under the jetty the marines had barely
enough time to snap a group photo before the sound of a helicopter was heard in the distance
the battle of grivican had begun argentine operations began at 11 41 am as an aerospacial
puma helicopter from guerrero landed a contingent of 15 argentine marines across the harbor from the
british positions a second helicopter took off at 11 45 but was struck by small arms fire from
the royal marines causing it to crash land with the loss of two lives and four being wounded the
marines had drawn first blood raising a chair of elation among the tiny force as lieutenant
thompson later recalled there wasn't a single one of us that wasn't prepared to fight it out to the
last man we weren't expected to come back shooting down that helicopter was like a gift that kicked
off the battle and we were 16 nil up from the start following the loss of the helicopter the 15
argentine marines already on the island attacked the british positions but were pinned down by
heavy fire having accidentally left their mortars behind on the ship the argentines called upon the
greco for fire support the corvette which only had just left drydock following an extensive repair
sailed into the narrow bay at 11 55 and opened fire on the british positions with her 20 40
and 100 millimeter automatic cannons however after only a few shots all three guns jammed and became
an operative now completely defenseless the ship had no choice but to complete her turn
around the bay exposing her flanks to the british who immediately opened fired with rifles machine
guns and an 84 millimeter cargo staff anti-tank recoilless gun the marines landed over 200 hits
on the corvette as it sailed past as lieutenant thompson later recalled it was raking us with its
40 millimeter anti-aircraft gun until we wiped out the gun crew we then used a carl gustav but
three out of five rounds didn't go off if they had would have sunk it but we put it out of action and
it was listing at 30 degrees we whacked out at texas at launchers with rocket launchers and
hit the 4-inch gun on the front and disabled it we were putting sniper fire through the bridge so
they didn't know where they were going at the same time they were landing troops from two or three
other ships and we were out numbered fifty to one or a hundred to one if you count everyone on their
ships seriously crippled the gereko limped out of the harbor until she was at last beyond the range
of british fire it is now saw that the commander of the argentine forces captain carlos trombetta
was unaware of the royal marine's presence on the island and believed he was only facing members of
the british antarctic survey team otherwise he would likely have not exposed his vessel
to such dangerous conditions whatever the case this bizarre engagement remains one of the few
occasions where ground troops armed with only light weapons have taken on a warship and come
out on top meanwhile a helicopter from the bahaya parisio had been ferrying more argentine troops
ashore out of range of british fire with the greco safely out of range the argentines attacked again
wounding royal marine corporal nigel peters in the arm at the same time though greco managed to
repair her 100 millimeter gun and opened fire on the british positions realizing he was outnumbered
and now guns lieutenant mills finally decided to call it quits and approach the argentine positions
waving a white flag in a legendary bit of british bluffmills announced that he and his men would
keep fighting unless the argentines agreed to his terms including safe passage for his men off the
island the argentines agreed only to discover to their shock that they had been facing a force of
only 22 marines it was 12 48 pm mills marauders as they became known had managed to hold out against
a vastly superior force for more than an hour inflicting 12 casualties to every one this action
has been likened to a modern-day rorke's drift the 1879 battle in which 139 british soldiers held out
against a force of five thousand zulu warriors in natal south africa mills and his men were disarmed
and taken aboard the baha'i parisio the marines were treated well as corporal andrew lee later
recalled the argentines bore us no malice they didn't understand the job we did they were marines
like ourselves mills marauders were taken back to argentina and airlifted back to the uk where they
arrived on april 20th to a hero's welcome 15 days earlier contrary to admiral anaya's calculations
the british government of prime minister margaret thatcher dispatched a naval task force to the
south atlantic to retake the falkland islands many of the marines who had bravely defended
south georgia on the opening day of the conflict would return as part of operation parakeet which
succeeded in retaking the island on april 25th the fighting on the falklands would rage on for
another 50 days finally ending on june 14 1982 with the surrender of argentine forces at port
stanley the falklands war lasted for a total of 74 days and claimed the lives of 649 argentinians and
255 british military personnel and three falkland islanders it was the last large-scale conventional
engagement the united kingdom would fight entirely on its own and the last major colonial war in the
history of the british empire and while the conflict saw its fair share of heroic action
on both sides few can compare to the sheer badassery of 22 lightly armed marines taking
on an entire warship and winning so i really hope you found this video interesting if you did please
do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe and as always thank you for watching
you