The enhanced A Company group—approximately 130 troops in total—arrived in the country in several groups and joined the SAS, who had already established a base in Hastings, a village 30 miles (48 kilometres) south of Freetown, where several of the paras recognised former colleagues among the troopers from D Squadron.

He also identified the bodies of West Side Boys killed in Magbeni and Gberi Bana, which were subsequently buried in a mass grave. The SAS located the captive British soldiers from the latter's shouts of "British Army, British Army! The casualties were loaded onto the helicopter, which then picked up the Royal Irish and flew to RFA Sir Percivale where all 13 men were assessed by medics. You get this feeling of phwoar, I'm glad to be alive," he explained - though he admitted there was also a little guilt as some of his mates didn't make it. Weeks before the first regular British soldiers arrived on the Falkland Islands, four-man SAS and Special Boat Service (SBS) patrols were flown in at night to hide up and report back on enemy positions.Less than 20 minutes after the arrival of the SAS, the remaining members of the Royal Irish patrol, including Bangura, had been evacuated from the area. In his book he describes how Night Vision Goggles were used for the first time in combat and of his role in the failed mission Operation Mikado to mainland Argentina. Two days later, on 31 August, five of the eleven hostages were released in exchange for a satellite telephone and medical supplies. As they approached the base, they were surrounded by a large group of West Side Boys, who used an anti-aircraft gun mounted on a Bedford truck to block the patrol's route.

A year before, an eleven-man patrol of Royal Irish Rangers who were training government troops in Sierra Leone was captured and held prisoner by the infamously ruthless rebel forces known as the West Side Boys.As planning for a potential military operation to release the captive soldiers progressed, it became clear that, given the number of West Side Boys and their separation between two locations (Gberi Bana as well as the village of Magbeni; see below), the operation could not be conducted by special forces alone.

Another signaller radioed in a casualty report, and one of the Chinooks en route to Gberi Bana to extract the Royal Irish (who had just been freed by the SAS) landed on the track through the village. This is the point in the operation where dog sees rabbit, and dog is most definitely going to go for it.Richard Hutchings was one of a handful of flight commanders who flew patrols of SAS and SBS patrols into the Falklands. Over the coming days and weeks, there was plenty of time to reflect on events of recent weeks and months. The paras were flown to RFA Argus where they spent the night before being flown back to the United Kingdom the next day.