Off the back of some excellent IWM interviews with major participants in the British expedition to retake the Falklands, I've started reading a few books on the war. I've read the first, am two-thirds of the way through the second and have just received the third in the post (it was published late last year):
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To take them in order, Hastings is a bit unpopular in military-history reading circles for turning out underwhelming and occassionally tendentious books, but this was not always so. Hastings was there with the task force and went ashore with the troops and it shows; the writing has an immediacy born from proximity and familiarity with the men whose thoughts and actions he is relating. As a former (failed) paratrooper, the surprising freedom of movement granted him was not squandered: he has a knack for being in the vicinity of the action, cultivating the right contacts and asking the right questions. The writing is crisply 'balanced': context vs action, strategy vs tactics, group vs individual, fact vs interpretation: you get each mixed in the correct quantity. The dual authorship that so often fails here delivers brilliantly and the structure of the book is superb in the way it mirrors history: the global/domestic/political narrative dominates at first, with quick glances at the military scene; as the task force sets sail the story is equally balanced with alternating chapters that describe the simultaneous escalation on both fronts; once the Belgrano is sunk, the landings at San Carlos are successful and Goose Green has banished fear of stagnation, the weight falls decisively on the South Atlantic Front. It's a great read and the best overview of the events of 1982.
No Picnic covers many of the same events, but it's quite a different kind of book: a personal narrative, not a history, a military account, not (specifically) a historical one. Thompson, then a brigadier, commanded 3 Commando Brigade and was--until the arrival of 5 Brigade and a divisional commander in the form of Maj-Gen Jeremy Moore--the senior land forces officer in the theatre (although for a good while the Royal Navy was running the show and the inter-service command structure was regrettably unwieldy). The book starts of slightly badly with a long enuneration of the forces he was to command and their recent activities and training experiences before the balloon went up. I think it would have been far preferable to have met them in turn as they appeared on the scene, but perhaps he felt his duty was to pay tribute to each unit under his command, omitting none. What we do quickly learn is that for all the lamentable shortages and deficits the force suffered owing to political neglect they were as formidable in terms of training, toughness and
espirits de corps as any commander could hope for, and this is not merely a product of Thompson's obvious pride. The Royal Marine Commandos and the Parachute Regiment men were both elites in their fields and--mistakes and tragedies notwithstanding--possessed of an utter determination to close with and kill the enemy at close quarters in order that the British islanders be liberated and their job be done. The reader is reminded frequently that nothing remotely on this scale had been attempted since Suez and a search for precdents usually ended in Normandy 1944. Thompson is a soldier and does not indulge in much political debate. He, like his men, seemed to get little further than the observation that quite apart from any legal niceties, you can't just walk into a place governed by a different country and expect them to sigh and walk away. He specifically explains how the appetite to participate (every man and his dog was clearing his desk and asking for a berth going south) came as the men viewed it as a chance to achieve the culmination of many years of arduous training--like a fencer who has never had a duel beyond the regulated confines of the salon.
The third book I have yet to start, but I did dip into the generous preview at Amazon and was impressed. I love to read soldiers' memoirs, but the truth is that they're a very mixed bag in terms of quality. Many men who served and fought
feel and relive their experiences vividly but lack the skill to communicate it verbally let alone in written form. Although now a Lieut-Gen, Cedric Delves was in 1982 the commander of D-Squadron 22 SAS and very much at the tip of the spear for Operation Corporate. Such a large assembly of British special forces (SAS, SBS , Mountain & Arctic Warfare Cadre) probably wasn't to be seen again until the Gulf War and, Delves's writing, from what I've seen, is thoughtful, well-expressed and very poignant in places--I'm looking forward to reading more.