It is estimated that over 1,500 shells of all calibres were fired on the morning of the 23rd; the firing was extremely accurate although there was a high percentage of 'Duds'. On the morning of 23rd, Brig. Wallis ordered a counterattack which successfully recaptured Stanley Mound, but due to the lack of supplies and few troops to act as reinforcements to replace casualties, we had to fall back to our old positions. The total number of our troops trapped in and around Stanley was about 1,800, consisting mainly of Royal Artillery, Middlesex, Canadian, HKVDC, and a sprinkling of other units. The machine gun posts around Stanley peninsular were manned by the Middlesex Regiment. The Japanese at this time were estimated at about 17,000. (This was found later to be an underestimate, the enemy had five battalions available.)
Our beach defence guns were utilised for hill fighting and were doing good work, but we had lost a number of them. On more than one occasion guns had to be abandoned in the hills, after removing the firing pins. A few hours later we would recapture the guns. This gives some idea of the confusion of the fighting in the hills. We had two 2-pdr. guns operating in the Stanley village area with two 18-pdrs. There were two further 18-pdr guns at Bluff Head.