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Lieutenant Robert Lawrence MC, Scots Guards
Robert Alasdair Davidson Lawrence was commissioned into the Scots Guards in 1979.
2nd Battalion Scots Guards were part of the second wave of British land forces committed to liberate the Falklands Islands from the Argentinian invaders in 1982. At the Battle of Mount Tumbledown, Lieutenant Lawrence, aged 21, led his platoon in the final assault at bayonet point against the 5th Marines. In freezing conditions and a biting wind, he successfully stormed an enemy machine gun nest in the ferocious battle for this craggy outcrop of rock overlooking Port Stanley. At the moment of victory, he was almost killed when the side of his head was struck by a sniper’s bullet. He lay on the thin cover of snow on the exposed mountaintop for six hours before being airlifted off Tumbledown, and taken to a makeshift operating theatre.
Lt Lawrence lost 43% of his brain and was paralysed down one side of his body. He was awarded the Military Cross, and was discharged from the army in 1983. His account of his experiences during and after the war was later adapted into a BBC television play 'Tumbledown', and a book co-written with his father, John Lawrence, 'When the Fighting Is Over: A Personal Story of the Battle for Tumbledown Mountain and Its Aftermath.'
Thirty years later, Robert said, “It was extreme. It was like a concert cranked up to maximum volume and we were on the front row. War is a young man’s sport. We all ran up that mountain with no body armour, no helmet and no promise of any compensation if we got hurt. We never expected any of that, we never thought we needed it. But I’d do it all again tomorrow. Yes, I’d do it again tomorrow even if I knew the injury was going to happen again. My men were so brave on that night. They are the bravest I have ever known.”
Robert later established and now runs Global Adventure Plus, a project to help rehabilitate British ex-servicemen through expeditions to foreign countries.
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Printed image size(s): B3 only (approx 43 x 27 cm)
Owner: The Lawrence family
Price(s): £70
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