The Falklands: First Cut Book Reviews

Battle For The Falklands by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins

Review by Hugh Roger [71/2, p. 161]

This is by far the best book on the Falklands War yet published; though we are still too close to the event for some of the authors’ conclusions to be accepted without reservation. Max Hastings has considerable experience as a war correspondent, and he combines a knowledge of war with a gift of vivid and accurate narrative. Simon Jenkins is the political editor of the Economist. Hastings, throughout the land campaign, was in the forefront of the action, whilst Jenkins followed the diplomatic and political moves in London and Washington.

During the months after the war the authors interviewed almost every central figure of the conflict, some of them for many hours. Most of them wished, understandably, to talk ‘off the record’, though this necessarily depreciates the historical value a little. Right through the narrative, however, runs Hastings’ enormous admiration for the professionalism and gallantry of the three Services.

The account opens with the diplomatic discussions between Great Britain and Argentina from 1964 onwards, and the entry into history of the Argentine Foreign Minister, Costa Mendez: “A short perky man, cosmopolitan, fond of English clothes and pretty women.” There is mention of the Communications Agreement of 1971, with the understanding that if the British built an airstrip on the islands the Argentines would provide an air service. As funds were not available for the Overseas Development Agency, there was the extraordinary spectacle of the British Ambassador at Buenos Aires waving off from the quayside an Argentine naval transport with men and material to carry out this task.

Events accelerated after the proposal to concede Argentine sovereignty in return for a long lease of the islands to Great Britain was rejected. Then, both the announced intention of the Ministry of Defence to withdraw the Endurance and the limitations of the British Nationality Bill, as applied to the Falkland Islanders, convinced the Argentine Government of British lack of enthusiasm for the retention of the islands.

In December 1981, shortly before General Galtieri seized power, he is said to have agreed with his friend Admiral Anaya that the Falklands should be occupied within the two years of his presidential term. The date proposed for the invasion is said to have been between July and October 1982, when Endurance would have been withdrawn and any British naval response made nearly impossible by the winter weather. The advent of the scrap metal merchants on South Georgia led to the attack being launched earlier than intended.

On Sunday 28 March, say the authors, Mrs Thatcher and Lord Carrington agreed that three nuclear submarines should be sent south immediately. When the crisis developed, the Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Henry Lewin, was on a visit to New Zealand. News that the Argentine fleet was at sea and moving into a position from which an assault on the Falklands was possible in forty-eight hours, led to a meeting in Mrs Thatcher’s Commons Office that evening.

“Of those present at the start of the meeting, only Mrs Thatcher could be regarded as temporarily averse to caution. But what else was there for her to do? There now appeared a deus ex machina – and dressed for the part. The First Sea Lord and Chief of the Navy Staff, Admiral Sir Henry Leach… in full naval uniform after a day spent… in Portsmouth… Asked by the Prime Minister if he could mobilise a full task force and how soon, he replied that he could and by the weekend.”

As regards operational planning, the authors say that a blockade appealed to a number of politicians, but that the Service chiefs were adamant that the danger of attrition by weather and enemy action put a sustained blockade out of the question. The decision to retake South Georgia was primarily political, because the island would necessarily fall if the Falklands were recaptured, but “British diplomacy needed the bite of military action to sharpen its credibility.” At Chequers on 8 May the War Cabinet took the decision to send the landing force south from Ascension despite the “demonstrable lack of sea or air superiority.” Ten days later the chiefs of staff made their formal presentation of Operation SUTTON, the landing in the Falklands, to the War Cabinet. “It is interesting that the Army and RAF forecast substantially greater losses of ships than the Royal Navy; indeed Sir Edwin Bramall anticipated even more sinkings than eventually took place. But… the chiefs conveyed full confidence in their ability to do what the Government had asked of them.” The decision to send the Canberra into San Carlos Water occasioned some surprise, but the staff held that if the ship sank there, with her bottom on the sea bed, her upper decks would still be above the surface, and loss of life should be limited.

The description of the land battles is admirable, though the authors hold that Goose Green was a politicians’ battle, because “After four days of almost unbroken bad news, London needed a tangible victory.” There is a commendation of the command of the Task Force, in that, “Rear Admiral Woodward did all that could be achieved with the force at his command. He was the one man who, like Jellicoe, could have ‘lost the war in an afternoon’ by suffering disaster to his carriers.” The astounding logistics feat of the war is recognised in “the mobilising of scores of ships and 28,000 men to fight and support an operation 8,000 miles from home.”

There is a perhaps surprising, but well justified criticism of the press, with the statement that, “At home very early in the war, the British press proved itself incapable of self-censorship. There was constant speculation about future British intentions, guided by battalions of retired admirals and generals. Any scrap of interesting information, such as the failure of Argentine bombs to explode, was publicised without thought for the operational risks.”

There is an outstanding tribute to the Prime Minister. “The figure of Margaret Thatcher towers over the Falklands drama from its inception to the euphoria of the final triumph… Her singlemindedness, her belief in the futility of negotiation, even her arch phraseology at moments of crisis, all seemed to armour her against any suspicion that this might be a dangerous, even absurd adventure. ‘Defeat – I do not recognise the meaning of the word!… Each of the participants interviewed in this book made similar remarks: ‘It was Mrs Thatcher’s war. She held us to it. She never seemed to flinch from her conviction about its course. She took the risks on her shoulders and she won. She emerged as a remarkable war leader’.”

Gotcha: The Media, the Government and the Falklands Crisis by Robert Harris

Review by Guy Liardet [71/3, p. 244]

Of all the rather second-rate pulp concerning the Falklands War that is circulating, the Simon Jenkins half of the Max Hastings book is perhaps in a class above, but Gotcha! is the most interesting. Every young Commander should have a copy in his knapsack alongside his field marshal’s baton, for it is so much an unconsciously self-revealing self-exposure of how media men think that it is bound to become a required book of reference for a successful career.

If you want to make a triumph of a geewhiz, visually exciting, pundit-enhancing, Boy’s Own Paper sporting event like the Falklands War, then you should act as follows. Throw a head of department out of his cabin and give it to a reporter (p. 32); stop Sea Harrier flying and rig a portable SATCOM on the flight deck (p. 59); allow the first rescue helicopter after an Exocet hit to fill up with camera crews (p. 68); reveal your own orbat to the enemy (p. 108); tell the enemy which is your invasion beach (p. 113); never keep a reporter waiting for an hour for a helicopter (p. 33); supply them with action man kit from your own resources (p. 125); make sure they don’t have to walk anywhere (p. 126); allow them MARISAT access to call their girlfriends (p. 123); and ensure a liberal supply of alcoholic refreshment (p. 146). Such actions will ensure that the media is on your side, but might turn out rather expensive in other directions.

Gotcha! is purposely not about the war, but about the relationships between the men who did the fighting and the media. Even so, it is astonishing how often the imperatives facing the fighting men fail to receive acknowledgement. “Didn’t they realise there was a war on?” springs incredulously to one’s lips at every page. The tone is one of aggressive carping against the Ministry of Defence and the three Services, the Royal Navy in particular. Ship-board life is “secretive” and “confinement” therein produces “irrationality, hostility, almost paranoia.” (So that’s what’s wrong with us!) Great play is made of the Navy’s ignorance of the media, yet the ignorance displayed here about the Services among media men is woeful.

The title is taken from the Sun, headline which celebrated, in an excess of bad taste, the sinking of the Balgrano. By castigating the Sun this book attempts to distance the remainder of the news organisations from such behaviours, forgetting the bad taste in many BBC programmes, in almost  all newspapers, and in the harassment of naval wives and families. (‘How do you feel now that your husband/son/brother/lover is/has been down south/under air attack/posted/missing/wounded/killed?’)

Relationships between reporters at sea and servicemen appear to have started on a co-operative basis and then deteriorated. Could it have been such incidents as Michael Nicholson’s betrayal of Conqueror (p. 108), the general behaviour at the bar or in the wardroom (pp. 31, 33, 143, 146), or the drivelling standard of some of the reportage clogging up Invincible’s MSO which turned officers whom we know well as reasonable men into the stiff-necked and hidebound caricatures depicted here?

The conclusion is that one of the first casualties of a war is truth. Probably so, but when, as Max Hastings’ book says, the media early show themselves incapable of self-censorship, men’s lives and the possibility of victory may depend on not revealing the whereabouts of Superb, on not revealing that the South Georgia operation wasn’t entirely a walk-over, and on not revealing that you are about to assault San Carlos. This is not disinformation but sound military sense, only to be questioned by those who have political reasons for not being entirely sure whether they want the British to win anyway. There are a number of studies in train which deal with the relationships between the media and the Services. Until these appear we should all, I believe, bear the following principles in mind:

• freedom of information is important to the health of a democracy; – media people are rightly proud of their responsibility to maintain it;
• they are also interested in the commercial aspects;
• human nature being what it is, controversy, embarrassment, and disaster equals news equals circulation equals money;
• media people need full and comprehensive background briefing to overcome their ignorance;
• they will operate better under a preordered framework of agreed and then firmly enforced rules with a consistent arrangement for vetting and clearing copy.

After all, those providing the entertainment should at least have some say in how it is to be presented. Finally, if the Editor will allow me another 500 words, here is an unashamed plug for a real book about war in our time by an honest man who really understood. It is Michael Herr’s Dispatches; it is about reporting the Vietnam war among the grunts, the United States Marine Corps. Try this, for example:

“There wasn’t a day when someone didn’t ask me what I was doing there. Sometimes an especially smart grunt or another correspondent would even ask me what I was really doing there, as though I could say anything honest about it except ‘Blah blah blah, cover the war’ or ‘Blah blah, blah write a book’. Maybe we accepted each others’ stories about why we were there at face value; the grunts who ‘had’ to be there, the spooks and civilians whose corporate faith had led them there, the correspondents whose curiosity or ambition drew them over. But somewhere all the mythic tracks intersected, from the lowest John Wayne wet dream to the most aggravated soldier-poet fantasy, and where they did I believe that everyone knew everything about everyone else, every one of us there was a true volunteer. Not that you did not hear some overripe bullshit about it: Hearts and Minds, Peoples of the Republic, tumbling dominoes, maintaining the equilibrium of the Dingdong by containing the ever encroaching Doodah; you could also hear the other, some young soldier speaking in all bloody innocence saying, ‘All that’s just a load, man. We’re here to kill gooks. Period.’ Which wasn’t at all true of me. I was there to watch.”

Note those last five words.

The Falklands Crisis: The Rights and Wrongs by Peter Calvert

Review by Ramon [71/4, p. 334]

The Editor knows I’m an Argentinophile and told me to stand well back when I wrote this review. In the same week that he sent me the review copy I had a warm letter from the Argentine naval officer who came to my house in Buenos Aires late one night in 1977 to give me the final confirmation that something was then very much afoot. He’s a fine man and no traitor.

Any serious student of the Falklands issue and Latin America in general should buy this book. It is a valuable supplement to the available bibliography. Regrettably it is very badly edited and has so many trivial mistakes that one becomes irritated. It has no plan and certainly does not discuss the rights and wrongs, nor indeed the causes and effects.

Don’t buy it if you want to find out anything new about the war itself. The author has quite correctly tried to link general events on the ground (or water) to the politico-diplomatic thread of his story and in this he is reasonably successful, if sometimes his conclusions are a little naive. The book simply doesn’t flow. For an example one gets the impression, on page 26, that the military coup of 1976 was a brutal and unpopular affair. In reality it was welcomed by the vast majority who were sick to death of the bloody civil war which had been raging for nearly two years under the corrupt regime of Isabel Peron. There were as many atrocities committed by left and right wing extremists in those years as are alleged by Amnesty International to have occurred after Videla took power. But read on, and you will find, on page 44, that the author says very much the same as I have just written. To his credit he lets very little personal political or other bias show through in his book.

The opening chapter deals with sovereignty and gives a moderately accurate description of the Islands up to the present day. He makes the point that if Argentina has a valid claim to the Falklands then she can surely also claim Uruguay and Paraguay. Out of this chapter come two conclusions – first that the United Nations had never catered for such a situation and second that Britain had demonstrated her will to exercise sovereignty. Judge for yourself on the latter.

Chapter Two gives a fascinating and accurate description of the English invasions of 1806 to 1811, none of which appear in our school history books. (It was a shock to me to see the colours of some notable and extant British regiments hanging in a Buenos Aires museum.) Calvert describes this well. He goes on to show how the rise of Peronism and admiration of Hitler combined to change attitudes towards Britain, but perhaps overstresses it.

He lists the Argentine provocations, beginning with the decree (1957) which made the Islanders Argentines, landings by Argentine aircraft at Stanley (1964 and 1966) and points out that Britain did indeed respond to the latter by sending HMS Puma from the Beira Patrol to provide a responsive – if belated – presence. How, in 1969, the Argentines realised that they would have to woo the Islanders and made increasingly friendly gestures with the approval of HMG. They provided an air service to Comodoro Rivadavia, promised exemptions from Argentine national regulations and made available medical and educational services on the mainland. Periodically an Argentine RFA arrived to supply fuel.

Calvert shows clearly how the volatility of Argentine internal affairs caused them to shuffle the Malvinas issue rapidly between the front and back burner and though he doesn’t say so perhaps this provides some excuse for the FCO failing to get things right. He comments with superb illogicality that Britain failed to commit herself by not building a full size airport and that this alone would have saved many lives. He doesn’t seem to have considered how handy this would have been for Argentine aviators had it existed… He mentions the shelling of BAS Shackleton by ARA Almirante Storni in 1976 but omits to say what happened. No big deal – we withdrew our Ambassadors – but he might have told the reader so. Worst of all, no mention of the discovery by HMS Endurance in late 1976 of the occupation of South Thule Island (one of the Sandwiches) by Argentine Marines and scientists and the virtually zero response from the UK. Yet he says, without comment, that in 1977 the British Government became so concerned that they sent a Task Force. He doesn’t link the two. Poor reader… Why was the Government so concerned? What about the Task Force? We are not going to find out.

He moves on to a brilliant description of the role of the Services in Latin America and Argentina in particular. This is really well done and very accurate. He covers the ability of officers to function effectively in government both local and national and the acceptance of the people that this should be so; and how each service is virtually a political party and operates independently as such. He is wrong when he suggests that the civilian Cabinet members have any real power. Absolute power, of which the Junta members were terrified, lay with a semi-official Congress of officers of equivalent Colonel and Lieutenant Colonel rank.

This useful chapter ends with the landings at Stanley, but not before there are still more inaccuracies such as the assertions that we maintained a small permanent garrison in S. Georgia and that the notorious equivalent of HMS Sultan (Snipes watch out!), where all the alleged torture of political suspects took place, “lay in the shadow of the World Cup Stadium” – some shadow – it’s actually about two miles away. The next chapter makes the interesting point that if the Argentines believed that we would not respond to an attack then it was what they wished to believe. Unfortunately the author doesn’t elaborate except to refer to the planned withdrawal of HMS Endurance. He touches on a statement in the House (made in April 1982) that we had (at one time ? – my question) access to Argentine secret telegrams but again doesn’t follow it up.

Chapter Four is thin. There is an extraordinary reference to the valuable use of S. Georgia as a UK base “thanks to the preparations of the past” which is news to me and everyone else I imagine. There is also a ‘Balance of Opposing Forces’ table, put in as an afterthought, which is incorrect. The penultimate chapter deals with the hot part of the war and the description of the negotiations and political moves is excellent. This, together with the insight into the civil and military character of the Argentine, is very good. Buy the book for this alone. Like many other commentators he puts much emphasis on the Belgrano incident and describes it as being the turning point of world opinion against us. There are suggestions that it was politically motivated, but no more than that. At risk of reporting rather than reviewing, I do feel that it is high time that this one is cleared up. Surely we can say that Belgrano, though old, had a superb gunnery record (and rather a lot of guns) and, of her two Gearing Exocet escorts, at least one was well-found and well-led. The threat was there and when one considers submarine depth/speed envelopes and the Burdwood Bank there wasn’t really any alternative but to do what we did. There’s more to it than that of course but this would at least be more palatable than the official line.

The author thinks ill of our imposition of the twelve mile limit around Argentina’s coasts. Somehow this is seen to be unsporting in the eyes of the world and helped to compound the Belgrano incident against us. Much as I like my Argentine friends, if we have to go to war with them then as far as I am concerned there are no holds barred. I’m glad our Management took this view and I’m sure the world did too. Now to the final chapter and one hopes at last to hear what were the rights and wrongs – or even the causes and effects; but the reader will be disappointed. They are not there. Instead, for the first time there is a reference to the work of the Falkland Islands Lobby but no commentary on it. The dilemma of the United States and the decision of the Soviet Union not to poach is cleverly and well covered. There is a strong suggestion that the Haig Shuttle was probably a major factor in the breakdown of peace moves and that if the US had backed Britain from the start things would have gone differently. And he points out, reasonably, that the interests of even the closest allies can’t be identical. Belize is a case in point and one which I hope the FCO is watching closely at this moment.

His closing thoughts are that defence is cheaper than war, that despite our dwindling overseas responsibilities we still need the ability to exercise power at range and that we must stop ignoring Latin America. All sensible stuff. In the same chapter he theorises that since Britain didn’t consider the use of nuclear weapons in the Falklands then general conventional war is more likely; and if nuclear power doesn’t deter when there is no possibility of retaliation, can we assume that it will do so when there is? From this he concludes that we might just as well, multilaterally, phase nuclear weapons out.

And that’s roughly how the book ends. It might better have been titled ‘A background to the Falklands War’. I would like to have seen a summary covering the gradual escalation over the past twenty years, pinpricks here, diplomatic moves there, with Britain inclined always to push the problem gently aside; how the activities of the Falklands Lobby have made it virtually impossible for any British Government, whatever its colour, to survive any move towards a sensible long term solution; and that it blew up because of our increasingly feeble responses to Argentine moves and our demonstration through our published Defence Policy of what our future stance might be. And perhaps there should have been some speculation on who it was who told the Argentines that we would regard the occupation of the Islands as a fait accompli. Someone – or somebody – did. The Junta was absolutely appalled when the 1982 Task Force sailed.

I would like to have seen some speculation on the future and some of the effects. For example, absolute possession of the Islands and the Dependencies, stretching 2,000 miles across the top of Antarctica, can confirm our claim to our disputed sector and can give us access to mineral resources for the next century. Our Services are being kept on their toes – no bad thing in peace time. We have been revalued in the eyes of the world – again no bad thing. And, with all the fuss in Central America and now that the Panama Canal can no longer be relied on, will the Falklands again assume their strategic role and will the Stars and Stripes fly alongside the Union flag just as they do today in Diego Garcia… and on the same scale. I use no interrogatives.

I have been very critical. Given a re-write and a re-think this book could have been excellent. As it stands it adds yet another dimension to so far published work and with all its faults you should read it.

Air War South Atlantic by Jeffrey Ethell and Alfred Price

Review by CCHH [72/1, p. 85]

This is an easily readable book recording in great detail all the air activities in, and connected with, the Falklands campaign. The way it is written reminds me vaguely of a modern thriller – no disadvantage in that. The authors are respectively an ex-RAF officer with much electronic warfare experience and the son of a US Air Force fighter pilot who has extensive contacts in the Latin American Air Forces and speaks Spanish. As a result a great many of the combats and operations described have quoted accounts by both the British and Argentine pilots concerned. The book is presumably factually accurate but, understandably, in view of the backgrounds of the joint authors the RAF contribution is inclined to be given in greater detail than that of the Fleet Air Arm.

The authors disagree with the official White Paper figures of Argentine aircraft losses, which is not surprising since the latter were inevitably based on claims, whereas the authors’ figures were arrived at after interviewing numerous Argentine authorities and pilots. The total figures confirmed by the authors is 102 against a considerably higher figure in the Government White Paper. The biggest discrepancy is in losses from surface-to-air missiles and gun systems – 20 as opposed to 52 in the White Paper – largely caused by multiple claims for the same aircraft shot down. There is very little divergence in the air-to-air figures.

The enormous part electronic devices play in modern warfare is apparent throughout the book; missile and radar warning devices; information when one’s own missile had locked on; not to mention navigational aids, were fitted in most aircraft and of course ships had even more. But the outstanding point to my mind is that these efficient devices result in the ship or aircraft pilot’s having only a few seconds in which to take the appropriate evasive action in most cases, which is a frightening thought to a person like myself whose experience dates from World War II and a few post war years.

Many unexplained episodes reported in the Press and television coverage at the time are elucidated, which I found very gratifying: e.g. what caused the helicopter carrying a number of SAS men to come to grief with much loss of life? Its tail rotor hit a large sea bird in flight which caused it to crash. The points which will particularly interest readers may be listed as follows:

Argentine –

a) The Mirages and Daggers (Israel built copies of the attack version of the Mirage) tried to induce the Sea Harriers to attack them at great height which the Harriers would not be lured into doing. When the Mirages, Daggers and Skyhawks attacked our forces they flew close to the sea or land to be below our radar screen thus causing combats to be on the Sea Harriers’ terms.

b) Due to this low flying, bomb release was too low for the fuzes to arm before hitting their target – hence most bombs did not detonate.

c) The Argentine aviators appeared to have little idea of air combat tactics and suffered accordingly.

d) As a result of the early bombing of Port Stanley airfield the Mirages were redeployed to cover the mainland airfields, thus removing any possibility of the Argentines securing air superiority over the Falklands.

e) The sinking of the General Belgrano resulted in the Argentine Navy being withdrawn to its home ports (with the exception of one or two small units) and taking no further part in the conflict.

f) Of the two modern Argentine submarines one was attacked off South Georgia by helicopters and entered harbour in a damaged state and was deserted by her crew. The other, operating to the north of the Falklands, was hunted throughout the night of 1 May by three ASW Sea Kings backed up by homing torpedoes, depth charges and anti-submarine mortar bombs. She escaped, but took no further part in the conflict.

British –

a) Harriers (or any type of aircraft capable of vertical take-off) were ideal for operations from a carrier in the conditions of weather, ship movement and visibility experienced. Even then one Sea Harrier was lost overboard from HMS Invincible when she made a tight turn causing it to skid sideways on the wet deck and go over the side. The pilot was rescued. The fully loaded Harriers however could not lift off vertically and used the ski-jump at the fore end of the flight deck.

b) The account of landing a party of SAS men on the Fortune Glacier above the settlements of Leith and Stromness in South Georgia to observe the Argentine occupying troops in which two Wessex helicopters were lost illustrates the appalling weather changes that can be experienced in the Falklands area at short notice. The third helicopter involved, an ASW Wessex fitted with radar succeeded in rescuing the SAS party: a remarkable feat of flying.

c) Sidewinder was a most effective air-to-air missile. 19 enemy aircraft were destroyed in missile engagements for 23 Sidewinders launched – a success rate of 82%.

d) A Sea Harrier fitted with Sidewinder missiles was something the Argentine aviators could not deal with except, if they had the speed, by escaping from the area.

e) Flight refuelling on a scale not visualised previously was remarkably successful and enabled the large RAF Vulcan sorties to take place from Ascension Island.

f) One wonders what would have been done had not Ascension Island been available as a staging post and also as a base for the Victor flight refuelling aircraft. One thinks of St Helena which is further south and east; but your reviewer does not know if it has a suitable airfield.

g) Despite the cratering of one end of Port Stanley airfield by the early Vulcan sortie on 1 May the airfield, with a shorter runway, was never out of action. The Argentines flew in supplies and took off wounded making 31 Hercules landings and 28 landings by naval transport aircraft. But the Vulcan’s raid caused the Argentines to reposition many of their Mirages to protect their mainland airfields and hence the Falklands were out of their range.

h) The five Argentine Super Etendard aircraft with Exocet missiles were a serious threat. Actually one Super Etendard was unserviceable – believed cannibalised for spare parts; and of the five Exocet missiles launched only two found their targets – the other three were decoyed away by chaff or electronic air borne devices mounted in helicopters. The book has a series of appendices giving the fate of aircraft lost and other extensive information about sea and air forces of both sides. There is also a good number of photographs and a useful index. Well worth reading, particularly if you are an air enthusiast.

Merchant Ships at War: The Falklands Experience by Captain Roger Villar

Review by Benbow [72/2, p. 172]

This is the story of the Ships Taken Up From Trade (STUFT), one of the more remarkable and unexpected aspects of the Falklands conflict, and one which may well have the most important implications for the future. There is also a large section on the magnificent contribution of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. Captain Villar details 22 RFAs – tankers, fleet replenishment ships, stores support ship, LSLs and helicopter support ship – that took part. He describes the work of 47 STUFTs, from QE2, Canberra and the hospital ship Uganda, to the mooring vessel Wimpey Seahorse, the British Telecom cable ship Iris (‘Can Supply In Rain Ice Or Storm’), and the five trawlers, Pict, Farnella, Junella, Northella and Cordella which are fitted with Extra Deep Armed Team Sweep (EDATS) and commissioned under the White Ensign.

Then there were the tugs Salvageman, Irishman and Yorkshireman; the aircraft ferries, modern descendants of WWII MAC ships, Atlantic Conveyor, Atlantic Causeway, Contender Bezant and Astronomer; and the remarkable North Sea offshore support vessels Stena Seaspread and Stena Inspector, with their five propellors enabling them to steam forwards, backwards or sideways!

Captain Villar is already well-known as a contributor to defence journals. This is his first book and he has gone to the original sources, the owners, masters, and crews to get some memorable stories: Stena Seaspread using cutlery as stainless steel weld filler; Tidespring playing an absolutely vital part in the recovery of South Georgia; and British Esk, with a normal complement of 31, playing host to 262 Sheffield survivors. Every ship which took part has her appropriate section, giving a thumbnail history of her requisitioning and Falklands service, from Elk and Canberra, both taken up on 4 April and sailing south on the 9th, to the stores ship Strathewe, requisitioned whilst on passage in the Indian Ocean on 3 June. This is one of the most valuable books on the Falklands so far published.

Sea Power in the Falklands by Charles W Koburger, Jr

Review by Guy Liardet [72/3, p. 272]

The author is a retired Captain in the United States Coastguard Reserve with twenty years’ active duty behind him. He is now a Senior Research Fellow at London Polytechnic and a Companion of the British Nautical Institute, with a large number of articles in various maritime journals to his credit. The interest in this particular book about the Falklands campaign lies in the detachment of the analysis, the view from outside. It is distinctly a book written by an American national; the flyleaf says “The conclusions and opinions contained herein are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of anyone else in the whole world” – rather disarming!

There are straightforward accounts of Operations ROSARIO and CORPORATE. I have to say that there are too many errors of fact to preserve this book’s authority; a look at the bibliography shows that the author has made the mistake of believing the accounts of British newspapermen, although he has had the good taste not to use the ‘Insight’ team’s travesty. Most of the points that naval people would wish to see made are made; the Belgrano is legitimately sunk, the Nott cuts are castigated, as is the wilful run-down of the British Navy since the 1960s. Our losses are directly attributable to the unbalancing of the Fleet by the cancellation of the attack carrier programme in the days of Mr Healey. Tribute is paid to the quality of our Merchant Navy and to the efficiency of the STUFT operation.

In discussion, under the headings of ‘The Necessary Audit’ and ‘The US Interest’, an attempt is made to extrapolate some generalities from the events of this unusual war. Captain Koburger believes that we are in serious danger of finding ourselves quite soon with an incapable Navy, unable to fulfil any function that the government of the day might wish except to provide a moderately effective supplement to American ASW capability in the North Atlantic under conditions of general war – conditions which he views as rather less likely than a repeat of the Falklands. The US interest, of course, was acute. They are presently undertaking a naval renaissance, aiming at a 600 ship/15 carrier battle group fleet by 1990, and many of their concepts were battle-tested in this campaign. Capable carriers, AEW, nuclear submarines, guns, CIWS, military sealift, ARAPAHO/STUFT, were all seen as good decisions for a worldwide navy. The cost to the British of the failure of deterrence is equivalent to one medium carrier group with escort.

In conclusion, Captain Koburger is not hopeful that either London or Washington will learn the lessons of the Falkland Islands campaign. His book is stronger on hardware lessons than theological ones, yet he recognises that this classical exercise of maritime power was composed of a number of unusual or never-to-be-repeated features – the absence of third parties, the balance of shore and sea-based aviation, the homogeneity of the populace, and so on. The trick will lie in not allowing the unusualness of the features to cloud the fact of the classicism.

No Picnic: 3 Commando Brigade in the South Atlantic 1982 by Julian Thompson

Review by Hugh Roger [73/2, p. 174]

This excellent book deals with an aspect of the Falklands campaign which has not previously been described. Captain McManners belonged to 148 Commando Observation Battery Royal Artillery, the main purpose of which was to control the fire of the guns of the RN from the ground. The battery comprised a number of small forward observation teams, each led by a captain of the Royal Artillery with, under his command, a bombardier, a radio operator from the Royal Navy, a lance bombardier, and a gunner. Each team member was able to control the fire from a warship and from field artillery. All members of the team had to pass the most arduous commando physical and other tests. The very high standard that these tests demanded was fully justified in the Falklands campaign because the team had to operate under conditions which were probably even more severe than those encountered by any other body of men who took part in the South Atlantic war.

The first task undertaken by McManners and his men was typical of many that were to follow. They were ordered to prepare for a special operation lasting three days, which to McManners indicated a raid rather than a normal surveillance. The objective, indeed, was Fanning Head, a prominent feature which needed to be neutralised if ships were to enter San Carlos Water safely. At night a thermal imager reconnaissance flight in a helicopter, with McManners on board, located an enemy heavy weapons company on Fanning Head. As a result a fighting patrol, together with the Forward Observation team, took off in helicopters in the dark and landed south-east of Fanning Head. As they approached the enemy position heavy firing was being directed at our ships. McManners decided to call on HMS Antrim to silence the enemy gun positions with her twin-turreted 4.5 inch guns. As a result of his orders the first salvo was right on target. Twenty salvoes were fired and the Argentine guns silenced. By dawn the enemy-had been driven off the headland and some prisoners taken.

This was the first of many daring operations, culminating in McManners and his team directing both naval and field artillery gun fire from Beagle Ridge, north of Stanley, on to targets in and in the vicinity of the town. The book is illustrated by many excellent photographs, and the movements of the Forward Observation team are shown by  very good and clear sketch maps. The author’s narrative is made even more interesting by his vivid description of the conditions under which they lived, their clothing, their rations and preparation of food, and the peculiar difficulties of the terrain.