Falklands War Heroes: Extraordinary True Stories of Bravery in the South Atlantic by Michael Ashcroft

Author:Michael Ashcroft [Ashcroft, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785907159
Publisher: Biteback Publishing Ltd
Published: 2021-11-15T06:00:00+00:00

Harry Gow has enjoyed an eventful and at times brutal existence, with violence never far away in both his personal and professional life. He left school at sixteen after the toughest of childhoods and went on to serve in both the South African Special Forces and the SAS before obtaining a law degree from Leeds Metropolitan University and becoming a barrister. Although Gow ultimately played only a walk-on part in recapturing the Falklands, he has some remarkable stories to tell about the 1982 war. He also provides another fascinating insight into the secretive and controversial ‘Operation Mikado’.

Henry McCallion Gow, who was always known as ‘Harry’, was born on 26 January 1953 in a tough working-class area of Glasgow, the eldest of five children born to his mother Mary. His father, Allan, was a small-time Glasgow gangster, and domestic violence in their household was commonplace. Gow’s grandfather, Henry McCallion, served in the First World War and was awarded the MM for bravery with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at the Battle of Ypres. By the age of eleven, Gow had attended twelve different schools both in Glasgow and in cities in the north of England, where his family had briefly relocated. For part of his childhood, he was brought up by his maternal grandmother. In his own words: ‘I was dragged kicking and screaming through a time that only resembled childhood into a premature adulthood.’ He left school at sixteen – by which point he had attended some twenty schools – with no qualifications but an abundance of physical and mental scars that would remain with him for life.

Aged seventeen, he joined the army, enlisting into the Parachute Regiment after hearing that its members were ‘the toughest in the army’. After taking a train to Aldershot, Hampshire, home of the Paras, he did not see any member of his family for the next four years. He passed the brutal training course and received his ‘wings’, or coveted red beret. On 2 January 1971, still only seventeen, he joined 2 PARA and would serve with the regiment for seven years. Within four months of joining 2 PARA, he was on his first tour to Northern Ireland – it would prove to be the first of no less than seven tours to the province during The Troubles, but he found them increasingly wearing. ‘I was sick and tired of being treated as a moving target [for terrorists] in Northern Ireland, and I wanted to get some real combat experience,’ Gow told me.

On 5 May 1977, he was officially discharged from the Parachute Regiment in the rank of Corporal, having already lined himself up an interview with the South African Defence Force. He landed in Pretoria on 6 May 1977. ‘I don’t intend to die for anybody, but I am quite willing to risk my life for South Africa,’ he had said during his interview, and the job was soon his. He soon embarked on Special Forces training and served in South Africa for

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