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Thirty years ago 450 men from 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment defeated 1,200 Argentines in bitter fighting at the crucial battle of Goose Green.

On Wednesday veterans of the Falklands War took an emotional journey back to the site of the brutal battle during which 17 British troops and 47 Argentine soldiers lost their lives.

The battle lasted a day and a night and was to become one of the most well documented during the 74 day conflict.

"That battle came down to bayonets and bullets," veteran Rick Cross said.

"When I looked at the battlefield again for the first time I was just like - how did we do it?

"If it had been us defending, we would have died of old age there.

"We should not have been able to capture it - if you look at how many (troops) they had, the resources they had and what we had."

Mr Cross was a 20-year-old living in Cornwall when he received his orders to go to war.

The paratrooper fought back tears as he recalled painful memories and said he was hoping to lay the ghosts of the past to rest.

"At the time we were taught if somebody goes down leave him for the people behind you, so you didn't know who had gone down, and when I came back it seemed like all my friends were dead.

"The guys that had gone were my best friends.

"I can remember just thinking 'we're being slaughtered'."

The pilgrimage to the battlefield is the first time Mr Cross has returned to the isolated islands, which lie 8,000 miles from the UK in the South Atlantic.

Mr Cross added: "People always ask 'was it was worth it?', and it's only in the past few days I think I can now truthfully, put my hand on my heart, and say 'yes, it was worth it'."

He joined fellow veterans to honour his fallen comrades on the snow-covered, wind-swept hills where they fought and died to liberate the islanders from Argentinian occupation.

Mr Cross, who was a Corporal in 1982, told how they disembarked at San Carlos Bay - the setting for the biggest British amphibious landings since D-Day - before the bombardment started.

The men from 2 Para "tabbed" - only the Royal Marines use the word "yomped" - soaking wet from San Carlos Bay across the rough and uneven ground.

Carrying 110 lb packs on their backs, the troops fought their way across the peat bogs and rivers in freezing conditions as they came under fire from air attacks.

Matt Baker, a young Private during the war, recalled the terrifying conditions as they marched forward towards Goose Green.

"We knew by this point that we weren't bullet proof, because there is a point as a young soldier when you believe that you're invincible, that you'll be all right, but you pass that point after you've been under fire a couple of times," the 52-year-old said.

"We got up with no ammunition, with no support, with nothing more than a half canteen of water, but then you weren't going to go anywhere else and you weren't going to do anything else.

"We should have died that morning. We had nothing to fight with, but we did it anyway, and that is insane."

Martin Margerison, 55, a Corporal during the war, added that, while the paratroopers were, in his view, the best trained force in the British Army, they had been just "babies" when they were sent to fight the Argentinians.

"We were all frightened, we were all terrified, we all knew at one point we were going to die, or we thought we were going to die, but the feeling was that we were going to destroy the enemy," he said.

"We were only babies when we did this, but we were well trained babies, led by the best commanders."

Mr Margerison, from North Wales, was shot in the cheek and arm after over four hours stuck in a gorse line.

He was evacuated from Goose Green, which he said left him feeling guilty about the men he left behind.

Thirty years on and the journey back to the Falklands has not been easy for any of the veterans, but some say they have a promise to keep, others that they need to draw a line under that period in their life.

Mr Baker, who lives in Llangollen, North Wales, added: "It's being reminded of things that you never forget, but that you've just sort of stored."

A total of 255 British servicemen, 655 Argentinians and three Falklanders were killed in the war which ended the 74-day occupation of the islands.

Many of the men who fought in the Falkland Islands found themselves struggling to mentally come to terms with what happened during the war.

They confide in each other about failed relationships, broken families and struggling to find work in "civvy street".

Mr Margerison, who has had two failed marriages, said he has lived for many years with the psychological trauma of the war.

"Even coming back now, there are still pieces of the jigsaw that give you a better understanding of why and the reasoning behind it," he said.

"These guys have paid the ultimate sacrifice and it's not them that has to live with it anymore - it's the people that loved them and the people that are left behind.

"My friends will always be here and they will always be remembered.

"And hopefully the lessons learned here 30 years later will be given to the guys who have this every week in Afghanistan."