Use of the L42 in the Falklands Conflict

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Here is the reply I received from Martin Pegler and include here with his permission

"An interesting question, I assume Vince is no longer here to answer for himself ? Well, allowing for the passage of 14 years all I can recall is that I was showing him the L42’s and other sniping rifles in the collection at the Royal Armouries, and musing over how effective they were, when he piped up with the story about getting so sick of his not working that he dumped it. I thought it worth including in the book because it was such an unusual tale, but I’m afraid I can’t elaborate on it. He said he used an Argentinian folding-stock SLR to good effect though it was not a long range rifle, but I never thought to ask how he explained away the loss of his L42 ! I can see that as a sniper, lugging a useless rifle around in those conditions would have been pointless, perhaps circumstances dictated he could do nothing else with it. He did after all, need a working rifle.

He had several other stories regarding Argentinian snipers that I was sworn to secrecy about and I’d have loved to have been able to tape my interview, but I could only make notes at the time. I doubt that this sheds more light on the question, but thank you for taking the trouble to contact me about it. I’m amazed that the story has caused such a debate !"

There are some other things that we may wish to consider before drawing a conclusion:

1. Vince Bramley is not without controversy in his writing. It also includes 2 other rumours that have been widely investigated but not proven. One is that American mercenaries were used as snipers by the Argentinians (this seems very unlikely). The second being that these men or perhaps others that were captured were summarily executed. This was investigated by the British Police but no proof found. However others have contended that this story is true.

2. After the Falkands conflict Bramley transferred to the Royal Army Ordnance Corp. He was convicted of possession of pyrotechnics and sentenced to 3 year's imprisonment during which he wrote Excursion to Hell.

3. It is interesting to speculate where the story originated and who may have dumped his L42. In Two Sides of Hell Bramley names 5 of the presumably 6 snipers with 3 Para and draws heavily from interviews with Jerry Phillips. Phillips was badly wounded in the arm and Richard Absolon (another sniper named) was killed by Argentinian shell fire the day after the battle of Mount Longdon. Bramley himself was a GPMG gunner and not a sniper which makes the use of "I" in the original quote from Pegler's book troublesome.

4. It is interesting to speculate when this incident happened. Access to a replacement Argentinian weapon is most likely to have occurred during/after the Battle of Mount Longdon. Though it is just possible that it happened on the march up. The battle itself occurred on the night of 11 June and the war ended shortly after.

5. Most stories get bigger in the telling. Perhaps elements of it are true. Perhaps one of the L42s did become unserviceable in the cold, wet and rugged battlefield conditions. It has been well documented that Argentinian weapons were captured and used and were also acquired as souvenirs. Perhaps this occurred and the owner wished that he was able to dump his useless L42 rather than carry 2 weapons. I have been in a similar situation myself on exercise here in Canada when one of my fellow soldiers was medically evacuated. Having to carry 2 C7 rifles and other gear was very taxing to say the least.

There is a valuable lesson here in that even fairly recent history from a well documented war contains many anomalies that will likely never be fully resolved. We should maintain a healthy discourse and research as carefully as we can from as many different sources as we can in all circumstances.