News Digest

British Falklands veteran is hoping to return helmet of soldier he killed

British soldier Gordon Hoggan still has horrifying nightmares about killing an Argentinian marine with his bayonet during the Falklands War. But he hopes to find peace by discovering the man’s identity and giving his family back his helmet. In a fierce and bloody seven-hour battle before dawn on June 14, 1982, the Scots Guards took Mount Tumbledown, the final hill before the Falklands’ capital Stanley, which was liberated by British troops later that day. Hoggan was in the thick of the assault when he saw the Argentinian soldier.

There was two of them in a cave. We sneaked up to the cave, and when we went into the cave it sort of alerted them and they jumped up and I fired my rifle. I got a stoppage and I didn’t have time to take the magazine off and clear it, so I lunged forward with my bayonet, stabbed him in the neck and he never had a chance to fire. It was him or me.

Gordon Hoggan, Falklands war veteran

Hoggan, now 55, joined the army at 16 and left in 1993 after more than 18 years of service. On returning from the Falklands, he was part of the guard outside Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the Tower of London before he had a nervous breakdown in 2001. Through a charity for soldiers suffering mental health problems, he got off the streets and received treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Now he wants to close the circle fully at last by giving the helmet of the Argentinian soldier he killed to his family. He hopes someone in Argentina will be able to help him identify the owner.

They may not want it. They’d probably hate me. I killed their son, or brother or father. But it was a war situation; it wasn’t a fight in the street. It was him or me. I would like to explain to them why it happened.

Hoggan