MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Falklands VC Not Shot by Own Men
A new book about paratroop Colonel H. Jones VC, rejects a claim that he may have been killed by his own men at Goose Green in the 1982 Falklands War because they were worried he was leading them into a suicide attack.
The new book, "H.Jones VC: the Life and Death of an Unusual Hero" (published by Hutchinson on March 21) has been exhaustively researched by his friend and fellow officer, General Sir John Wilsey, who retired as Commander in Chief British Land forces in 1996.
General Wilsey has produced medical and anecdotal evidence that Colonel H was killed by a single bullet fired by an Argentine soldier. General Wilsey says Colonel H "was shot only once, in the base of the neck, and from the right".
Commander Rick Jolly's vital evidenceHe quotes medical testimony of Surgeon Commander Rick Jolly, the senior medical officer of 3 Commando Brigade in charge of the Ajax Bay field hospital. "Jolly recalls that he and his men carefully and reverently examined all the bodies in the bitterly cold air, confirming each identity and recording injuries".
Commander Jolly says the injuries were consistent with the impact and passage of a single bullet. The bullet entered just below the right collar bone. Commander Jolly says: "The only explanation that fitted properly was that H was crouching, perhaps as he ran forward up a slope, and that he was hit from higher ground at close range, from his front and right".
He rejects "as completely untrue" reports that Colonel H had also been shot from behind in the buttocks.
Colonel H. Jones was awarded the Commonwealth's highest medal for valour, the Victoria Cross. He is buried with several other British soldiers in the Falklands at San Carlos.
Harold Briley, (MP) London
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