Books about the Falklands War

• ISBN13: 9780091908812
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Drawing on a vast range of previously classified government archives as well as interviews with key participants, this first volume of the official history of the Falklands Campaign is the most authoritative account of the origins of the 1982 war.

In the first chapters the author analyses the long history of the dispute between Argentina and Britain over the sovereignty of the Islands, the difficulties faced by successive governments in finding a way to reconcile the opposed interests of the Argentines and the islanders, and the constant struggle to keep the Islands viable. He subsequently gives a complete account of how what started as an apparently trivial incident over an illegal landing by scrap-metal merchants on the island of South Georgia turned into a major crisis. Thanks to his access to classified material, Sir Lawrence Freedman has been able to produce a detailed and authoritative analysis which extends the coverage given by the Franks Committee Report of 1983.

This volume is ultimately an extremely readable account of these events, charting the growing realisation within the British government of the seriousness of the situation, culminating in the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands at the start of April 1982.

In 1977 he was ordered to the Falkland Islands to command the Royal Marines detachment then stationed there and to restructure the defence procedures for the Islands over the following year. During this time he also conducted an exhaustive study of the coastline, carrying out the only detailed survey to be made of many of the beaches and their immediate approaches since the mid-nineteenth century. He returned to England in 1979 and when the Argentinians invaded the Islands three years later he immediately put his unquestionably unique experience and information at the disposal of the Task Force then being rapidly assembled. He added one priviso, that he be allowed to accompany the Force. Brigadier (then) Julian Thompson had no hesitation in accepting both his offer and his terms, and in very short time he was heading south once more.

Reasons in Writing tells his story largely through the medium of diaries and letters written during his peacetime tour of duty in the seventies and the war itself. As he explains, his somewhat maverick role did not always met with the approval of some of the more conventionally-minded senior officers, but although modesty restrains him from making such a claim, there can be no doubt that, without his unrivalled knowledge of the Islands, the job which the Task Force so successfully accomplished would have been immeasurably more difficult and taken considerably longer.