The Paras - The Inside Story of Britain's Toughest Regiment. John Parker
of it. The second person to get hit was the medic. He died in our arms… we just watched his life drift away. Another guy who was shot finished up in a perfect place for us to take cover. We were sitting on him most of the night. He was dead but it was a ghastly thing… Three of my men sacrificed their lives trying to help the wounded… the self-sacrifice and camaraderie my soldiers showed that night was the most religious thing I have every seen. One of them… a quiet 29-year family man was killed in what was a virtually single-handed attack on enemy positions to save his colleagues. He was awarded the Victoria Cross, posthumously.’
This quotation draws us to another equally important aspect of the Paras story, the reason I begin these chapters with the words of the widow of one of their dead heroes. Her recollections prove that tough and renowned they may be –the Paras still bleed.
John Parker, February 2002
H, as he was universally known because he hated the name Herbert, was at the Army’s United Kingdom Land Forces HQ in Wilton, Wiltshire, when he learned that he was to command 2 Para: the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment, with its renowned history, including the famous Second World War exploits at Arnhem portrayed in the film A Bridge Too Far. As the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina in April 1982, H – Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Jones – learned that it was unlikely his battalion would be sent. He lobbied furiously, and at home his wife and the mother of his two sons, Sara, watched as he burned the phone lines to anyone who could help get his unit included in the Task Force bound for the South Atlantic. H was hell-bent on going to war. He eventually made it and never came back.
Today H is one of the revered heroes of the Parachute Regiment, and as with anything that stands out in that regiment, he became, posthumously, a controversial figure. Sara herself – so close to him in those ambitious days that she could read his thoughts – stood up for him and his Regiment. Unusual though it may be for a woman’s words to lead into a story which delves into the innermost thoughts and recollections of some of the world’s toughest soldiers, there is no doubt that those who knew him will appreciate the reasons.
Any realistic Army wife knows that is what her husband trains for. The reality of war is never very pleasant but if somebody is trained to do the job he wants to go off to see if he can do it and what it will be like for him. Although you mightn’t like it in your heart, you have to accept it and recognize that is the type of man you are married to. It is what he wants to do. And I always knew it as far as H was concerned. We first met when I was 15 and married when I was 23 and he was 24. He was on operational service in places like Northern Ireland and had been decorated for his work there. Worry about him? Well, I suppose you worry less about him as the colonel than you would if he was a platoon commander. You pretend to yourself that as he is the CO he is likely to be safer. But you don’t sit down and imagine things, see in lurid Technicolor what is going on. And the other thing is that most of us are optimists anyway.
When H went off to the Falklands it was a funny situation because we didn’t know what was going to happen, if anything. There was all sorts of political toing and froing and it might have all turned into a damp squib with them all going off to sea then turning round and coming back again. Being optimistic I told myself: ‘Well, it won’t come to a landing…’ When it got to the stage when they were getting closer – they were in the South Atlantic and it was getting rougher and they were on a North Sea ferry – then I did begin to worry. In the early stages he had flown to Ascension Island for the planning meetings and I thought he would be coming back before finally leaving but he rejoined the battalion at Ascension. So I never saw him again. He was pretty good at writing letters but they were very slow in getting through to us. I got quite a lot of his letters after he died.
But what was really sad was that all ours were returned, too, unopened. It is sad to think that all those letters were written by the boys and me and they never got to him. When H was killed, Graham Farrell, the regimental colonel, came to tell me. When I saw him I thought he was coming to take me off to see someone else to give them bad news, but he was coming to see me. We knew the night before that Goose Green was to happen and it was all in the newspapers and on the news that there had been a battle. The boys were home for half-term. I had collected David from the train from Sherborne. Rupert was with me and when we got back we were talking about it. H’s name was in the newspapers as the commanding officer, but we did not know he had been killed. We knew the regiment had been victorious but we also knew there had been casualties. We did not know who the casualties were.
I remember ringing one of the officers at the Para Depot and saying that it was great that we had been victorious or something similar, and he said: ‘We must guard against over-optimism.’ I didn’t realize at the time what he was saying. He knew there had been casualties and he must have known the names and was awaiting confirmation before breaking the news. At that time we had a set-up within the battalion, a wives’ club and various other things which involved both the officers’ and soldiers’ wives. We also had a very good families officer. I was 40 at the time, probably one of the oldest women ‘in the regiment’, so to speak. Some people saw me as the Mother of the Battalion. Everybody was worried, but there was not a lot of crying on my shoulder. The Parachute Regiment produces a higher quality of soldier, a better-educated soldier in the ways of the world, a more independent type of person, and that quality is reflected in their wives and they are more able to cope. An independent soldier tends to marry an independent wife. The wives of 2 Para were used to coping with things because of the time the men spent away on exercises or Northern Ireland tours.
About 24 hours after H was killed I was told. And it was then I realized why they had said we must guard against over-optimism. I couldn’t believe it even though I knew I had to. I don’t think anybody who is given a shock like that actually appreciates what they have been told at the time. It is like a sort of bad dream and it isn’t for weeks, months, that you actually accept that it is for real, that it is true. We were lucky in a way because it was half-term and the boys and I were together. They told me first and I told the boys. In a way, it was easier because we were together and my mother was there and the wife of the commanding officer of another Para battalion. About a week afterwards we had a families day. And I remember going to that. I don’t know why I felt I should go but I just knew I had to go. I suppose I felt that as I was the colonel’s wife I had a duty to the battalion he commanded. I was very proud of the regiment and with that comes all sorts of attachments and duty is one of those attachments.
The wives of the senior officers and senior NCOs had a fair weight of responsibility in looking after the younger ones. You have to remember we were just wives – we were not trained social workers or anything like that. I had to go to the families day because I thought that the sooner I got back to doing things that were everyday and normal the sooner things might get better. There was no point in digging a big hole and climbing into it. Although at times I was there as a shoulder to cry on, I myself was lucky because I have always had a very supportive family. I remember sitting in Geraldine Chaundler’s sitting room after her husband, David, flew off to replace H as CO of 2 Para. He was parachuted in [see Chapter 16] and I remember sitting with Geraldine and watching the television film of H and the others who were killed at Goose Green being buried in the temporary graves at Ajax Bay.
H is still there, buried in the War Cemetery at San Carlos. We assumed that everyone who died would be buried where they fell. I have a brother-in-law in the Navy and their dead are traditionally buried at sea. It was quite a time afterwards that Maggie [Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher] decided that those who died could be repatriated. I didn’t like the idea of him being dug up and transported all that way back again. To me it seemed more dignified to have him buried where he fell. Even after all these years I sometimes have dreams that he did not die, that he was badly wounded and that he is coming home again. I suppose it is part of the inbuilt defence mechanism. I was never bitter about him being killed, but I suppose in a way I was a little angry with him at one stage for dying and leaving the boys and me.
But