Two Sides of Hell - They Spent Weeks Killing Each Other, Now Soldiers From Both Sides of The Falklands War Tell Their Story. Vince Bramley
to shout ‘Viva Argentina’ as we left so that they could see we were happy to go.
‘We were taken to El Palomar and waited and waited to board a Boeing 707 for a flight to Rio Gallegos in the south. For many of us it was our first time in the air. We thought it would be like it is in the commercials and joked about the service we would get from the flight attendants. There were no flight attendants. There weren’t even any seats for us. Only the officers and NCOs were given seats. The rest of us had to sit on our kit on the floor. We were all there crammed in together. Then the plane took off. I can still see it now - bodies, kit, weapons, everything flying all over the place. It was just like being on a crowded bus when the driver suddenly hits the brakes.
‘At Rio Gallegos there was another long delay – twenty-four hours this time. Apparently the delay was because a plane had gone off the short runway in the Malvinas. So we actually set off for the Malvinas on 15 April.
Kevin Connery was a soldier’s son. His father, Frank, spent twenty-five years in the Royal Engineers, serving in the sort of places the Army liked to use on the recruiting posters – and some they didn’t – raising his large Catholic family of three boys and five girls with his wife Winifred. Kevin was born in Southampton in April 1957 and was soon a seasoned traveller as the family followed Frank on his postings in Turkey, Malaya and Singapore. Kevin’s earliest memories are of Gilman Barracks, Singapore, with its swimming pool which helped the lively five-year-old burn off his near-boundless energy and cool off after playing in the tropical sun. It was also the place where he had his first brush with death.
He contracted malaria and remembers his fear and confusion as his grieving family gathered at his bedside, crying and praying for him. He was not expected to live. But there was a streak of determination running through the sickly mite, a determination to live, a resolve to enjoy more days in the sun at the pool in Gilman Barracks.
Kevin fought the disease – ‘I suppose God had destined me for better things’ – and recovered. It was a long haul, but he made it. Just as he did, his whole life was turned upside down again by the sudden death of his beloved mother. Some of his sisters were by this time in their teens and like every big family they drew together to give each other strength.
Young Kevin continued his schooling in Singapore and began to develop a passion for rugby, one of the great loves of his father’s life too. But nothing is for ever in the Army. Frank’s time was nearly up and he was posted to Marchwood in Hampshire to finish his service. He quickly settled down to life in England again. There was to be no more upheaval, no more moving every few years, and Frank quickly found himself a job. Kevin’s four elder sisters and eldest brother had married and left home and Frank looked after young Kevin, Sean and Kathleen.
Kevin became the ‘potman’ at the local British Legion, collecting the empty glasses and returning them to the bar, earning pocket money and embarking on a new journey, this time of knowledge. He was fascinated by the yarns the old soldiers told as they sank their pints. He was absolutely enthralled by their tales.
At the age of eleven Kevin went to the local secondary school – ‘its name was Hardley and we nicknamed it “Hardley educational”’ – where he spent five unhappy years, being bullied and playing truant.
‘I was skinny, puny and thoroughly bullied. I had sandpaper rubbed over my face and my hands burned on the Bunsen burners. I was kicked and pushed and punched and in the end was frightened of my own shadow.’
He allowed the bullying and the truancy to overshadow his natural intelligence and ability, he now realizes. But despite it all he left school at the age of sixteen with five O levels and two CSEs. He was going to do what he had always wanted to do: join the Army. He had first applied when he was fourteen and had been told he would be welcome in the Royal Engineers, his father’s old regiment. Kevin wasn’t sure, and although he knew all the old soldiers’ stories, he had still not decided what type of soldiering he preferred. But he made his mind up after attending a two-day course at the Youth Selection Centre at Brookwood, near Camberley, Surrey.
‘I saw a poster of a Paratrooper landing ready for action. I knew right away that was going to be me. My brother Sean had already joined 1 Para and he had broken his back. My family was against me joining, but I had made my mind up. I was adamant, 100 per cent adamant. Sean being a Para had nothing to do with my choice.’
Kevin went to the depot as a ‘crow’, a boy soldier. Like everyone else he faced P Company, the rigorous, week-long training for Parachute Regiment selection which sees more men quit than pass. Most of those who drop out do so because they just cannot hack it or decide it is not for them or that they want to try some other type of soldiering with a non-airborne regiment. They become what Paras call ‘craphats’, or ‘hats’ for short. There was no danger of Kevin being consigned – or consigning himself – to the ranks of the hats. Today he remembers the training ‘as a long but worthwhile torture’.
It was also a journey of discovery for him, a long, hard, painful road which saw a wretched little fellow become a self-confident, professional military man.
‘When I arrived I was a kid with no aggression whatsoever – only a puny, picked-on kid. The only violence I had ever used was on the rugby field in tackles, not fighting. The very day I joined, my squad was marched into the gym for a spot of “milling” – a crude form of boxing – under the platoon sergeant, Frank Pye. God, was he a hard bastard!
‘I sat on the bench awaiting my turn to go into the centre. I was shitting myself. The whole thing was scaring the shit out of me. I was shaking with fear knowing I was certain to be beaten up. I knew I was going to get beaten up because I always got beaten up. Nothing has ever frightened me so much. I went into the ring to fight a guy called Nick Newbold, who was the same build as me, and he proceeded as I knew he would – to punch almighty fuck out of me. Then Frank Pye stepped in. He dragged me to the corner of the gym.
‘To the day I die I shall always remember his eyes. He looked into mine, deep into mine, deep inside me. He read my life story there and then on the spot. He had a big face, a big man’s face, and he said: “Go in there and fight all the people who ever bullied you and all the people who ever put pressure on you. Go in there and just fight, just let it go, son.”
‘I went back into that ring and, do you know, it took three adults to pull me off him. I fought with such aggression - it just seemed to seep out of every pore in my body. Frankie pulled me to one side again and said, simply: “You’ll do.”’
That moment of controlled aggression changed young Kevin Connery. He was determined he would pass the course. Frank Pye, a legendary Parachute Regiment NCO, had turned a boy into a man.
Kevin joined the ranks of 3 Para – with the distinctive green DZ flash on the arm of his parachute smock – in 1978 in Germany. By this time he was completely dedicated to the battalion and the regiment, to his comrades, and to the traditions of professionalism and bravery he was required to respect and uphold. Kevin Connery, just like the rest of us, was a Paratrooper from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. All he needed was the chance to prove himself.
As Britain seethed over the invasion of the Falklands the men of 3 Para were leaving their base in Tidworth, Hampshire, for Easter leave. Kevin had already beaten them to it. He was on honeymoon with his bride in Switzerland. As British Rail staff hurriedly scribbled notices to post at all mainline stations saying ‘All 3 Para personnel return to barracks immediately’, Kevin was blissfully unaware of all the drama. He was more concerned with doing what honeymooners do and talking to his wife about their future life together to be concerned about what was happening in the world outside.
As officers and NCOs set about the task of getting the battalion ready for war, groups of excited soldiers dropped everything and poured back to camp. Other teams were tracking down the soldiers who had missed the recall. Some, they knew, would bitch and moan, but there wasn’t a man among them who would want to miss out on the chance of a good scrap. Not even Kevin. When he was found he immediately began his preparations to return to his unit, a decision which shocked his bride, but no one else who knew him. Newly married man or not, it was: ‘Sorry, darling, we’ve got to bin the rest of the