A Falkland Islander’s Wartime Journal: Surviving the Siege
248 pages
Capt Andrew Welch
Graham Bound was the Founder and Editor of The Penguin News, the Falkland’s newspaper, and decided to stay on in Port Stanley when the Argentinians invaded in April 1982.[1] He is from a long-standing Falklands family and subsequent to the War, he moved to the UK where he worked for the BBC World Service and defence journalism. He has published several other books on the Falklands War. This one is his lightly edited, almost daily, diary from Tuesday 16th February – “So, here we go again. Government House has just announced that the latest round of talks with Argentina is to resume in New York on 26 and 27 February” to Tuesday 15th June – “This is the first day of peace since 2 April.”
Graham Bound says in his introduction: “Have we not seen enough Falklands War memoirs and journals? I think we cannot have enough. No single memoir will be completely accurate, as authors (and reviewers, certainly this one) write from different viewpoints and with different biases. But historians can draw on them all, attempting to build up a composite picture that is accurate and trustworthy.” I could not agree more. Bound’s book gave me a whole new perspective on the Falklands. We (I was in a 42) lived in partial ignorance of what was happening in the wider world, and I had one of my ops room watch always listening to the BBC World Service to get the political picture and to hear what claims each side were making. At least we were kept generally informed by our Northwood. Bound makes clear how vital the World Service was for the Islanders.
This book is well written and makes many thoughtful observations about specific and more general events. His narrative of day-to-day life under Argentinian occupation reinforces the tales of how badly their conscripts were treated and how ill trained and equipped most of the Argentinian army were. My only criticism would be that the narrative would have been improved with the addition of footnotes amplifying actions (such as who was on the NGS gunline that night[2]) that he reports on from the Islanders’ end.
I really enjoyed this book and would thoroughly recommend it to all those who served in the Falkland’s Task Force, but also to those who still have to be concerned with civilians who are often directly affected by our actions.
[1] ‘Stay on’ – many of the residents of Port Stanley either left by air just after the invasion or joined family and friends in ‘Camp’, as the rest of the islands are known.
[2] NGS in ’82, not NGFS.
