Publishing the Falklands

For a brief time in 1986, I worked on a partwork that at the time was notorious in the UK, The Elite. However, I had been working in the publisher's offices for about two years before that, including the time of its launch in 1985. At this stage, the first wave of books about the Falkands War had already been released. The non-official "official" history, by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins, had been out for about two years. Martin Middlebrook's book had been released after The Elite. A number of other volumes had also come out.

The mastermind of The Elite was Ashley Brown, who still runs his own publishing company; together with Adrian Gilbert, who did a lot of the commissioning of the initial issues; and a nervous wreck named Jonathan Reed, who was in direct control of the project, and threw himself into it with tremendous enthusiasm. They assembled between them an excellent set of authors for all the articles, among them Nick Vaux, a Royal Marine colonel who was writing his own account of the campaign.

At the time, we had a picture researcher working for us who had some claim to being the most attractive woman in the whole company. So, having read in the Hastings and Jenkins work that in his younger days Nick Vaux had "enthusiasm for high living and female company", I can report that in the prime of his life he still did - he always brought her a rose and treated her in a charming way that she noticed and appreciated. It was also generally agreed that he had written the best account of all the battalion commanders who wrote for The Elite.

Terrorism Database

The Global Terrorism Database, funded by the American government, is kept by the University of Maryland. I'm adding it to my resources links on the right. Something like this would have been handy when I was in charge of an encyclopedia of terrorism, although maybe not as much as one might expect. Terrorism is a loaded word, and one must always bear in mind that terrorists believe they are combatants fighting a war. How, for example, should one treat the Colombian FARC, which conducts a guerrilla war? Were Native Americans fighting against settlers on the frontier during the American Revolution terrorists avant la lettre? A straightforward list of events isn't necessarily helpful, especially if it excludes things that could be characterized as terrorism. Is dropping bombs that miss a military target and hit civilians terrorism, especially if those civilians are supporters of the military effort of the regime they live under?

Gulf Attack!

If the Iranians had to attack American warships in the Gulf, they seem likely to go about it by swarming attacks using 20 or 30 small motor boats. The article references the damaging of the USS Samuel Roberts in 1987, which is also mentioned in this analysis from 1999, although not much detail is added. The damage to the Samuel Roberts reflected the neglect of such unglamorous work as mine clearance by the US Navy at a time when operations were largely directed toward the submarine threat posed by the Soviet navy. The incident resulted in Operation Praying Mantis, of which there are some photos and a chronology here. Interestingly to me, the USS Samuel Roberts turned up in an operation mounted in 2002 against Ecuadorian shipping travelling in Ecuadorian waters. The objective seems to have been to interdict arms shipments to Colombian guerrillas, and the matter is discussed in this article in Spanish.

World War II Victory Museum

Occasionally one hears about a museum one hadn't heard of before. This one is in Indiana. It appears to have a collection of vehicles, in addition to some general exhibits, and big expansion plans.

Silence is Activity

I've been busy writing an article for a magazine these past couple of weeks, linked to my theme on "Wilson's War", which is why it mysteriously ceased appearing on this site in mid flow. Normal service is now resuming.

San Carlos Water

Another fellow I met had been a serving officer at the time of the Falklands War. I never had to ask him about his experiences, because he volunteered information from time to time when he thought it relevant.

The first thing he used to talk about was the state of the facilities available to the Army after Mrs Thatcher came to power. He was scathing at the neglect and the poor quality of housing and other structures. His basic view was that the Army was treated with absolute contempt.

However, his real eye-opening experience was when the ship he and his men were aboard sailed into San Carlos Water. He was alarmed at the absence of proper air cover. During one of the Argentinian raids a bomb fell close by and he was knocked out, I'm not sure if it was by the concussion or whether the blast knocked him into something. He was, if I recall correctly, manning a GPMG vainly firing at the jet aircraft rushing by. He basically felt he and his men were sitting ducks.

After the war, he got out of the Army as soon as he could.

Here's a sailor's memory of the sinking of HMS Antelope.

Iquique

Today is the 128th anniversary of the naval battle of Iquique, part of the War of the Pacific between Chile and the allied states of Peru and Bolivia. The battle featured the ironclad Huáscar, on the Peruvian side, which engaged in a duel with the Chilean warship Esmeralda. You can watch an animated map of the battle here. Scroll down to the button labeled "Ver animación". The animation clearly shows the tactics adopted by the Huáscar in the battle at one point, when it took advantage of its turret.

War and Marriage

While we often remember the dead of war, it's much less common to organize a celebration of the life that may have come out of war. The Halifax Daily News reports on a War Bride Train leaving for Ottawa where the Canadian War Museum is holding an exhibition to commemorate War Brides. My mother was a war bride, so it's fair to say that if it hadn't been for Herr Hitler, I wouldn't be here. Maybe I should write a book about war brides and their children. How many of the latter, like me, voluntarily came to the land of the mother's and settled down?

The Loss of HMS Sheffield, 1982

I once met a fellow in Portsmouth. We had separately intended to visit the same club meeting, only they had arranged to meet in a member's house that day. We walked together to a lovely house near the dockyard. Unfortunately for him, the club member he wanted to meet wasn't around, so while I stayed he went home. Six years later (or so), he turned up in Slough, being good friends with an acquaintance of mine. The reason he was in Portsmouth in 1976, was that he was in the Royal Navy, while I was staying with my grandparents in Fareham. The reason he was in Slough in late 1982 was that he'd left the Navy about a year earlier, having served on a ship I had visited during Navy Days in 1976 - HMS Sheffield.

Some twenty-five years later (we had met frequently over the period so by now were well acquainted) I asked him about his service in the Royal Navy. He explained to me how, as a member of the mess staff, his role in combat was to control fires and to take casualties to the sick bay. At this point, he began an unprompted reminiscence about the day HMS Sheffield was hit by the Argentinian Exocet missile. It was quite a shock for him and, characteristically for him, he didn't go to work but to the pub instead. At some later point he found a casualty list and went through checking for the names of those he had served with. Had he still been aboard, he might have been among their number. I think he was still bothered, though, that he hadn't been there to help his shipmates at their time of need.

Leftovers

When I first came to Britain, as a student, in 1978, the scars of the Second World War were still in plain view. "Bombsites" were the playgrounds of inner-city youth. Shelters still stood in people's back yards. Then, when I moved here in the mid 1980s, you'd hear every other year or so about traffic problems caused by the discovery of an unexploded bomb. I think the last one in London was in the mid 1990s. Occasionally, a note would crop up in the newspaper about a farmer uncovering some weapon of war on the Continent. However, it's worth remembering that there are other places to find relics of the war.

Jeanne d'Orléans

Today is the anniversary of Joan of Arc raising of the siege or Orléans, a key military event that has been overshadowed to some extent by subsequent accomplishments. There's an interesting summary of the context and events of the entire siege here.

Falklands Memories - Introduction

I was going to write a short note about the loss of HMS Sheffield on the 25th anniversary, but the more I poked and prodded with the text, the more I realized that it wouldn't do the subject of the Falklands justice. This little war of 1982 was the subject of a page-long review article in The Guardian this weekend. Of the four books reviewed, I have encountered three of the authors in my time in publishing. I've also met a couple of other people with links to the conflict, one as a direct participant, the other someone who had just left the service when the war came.

I wanted to call this post "The Comic Book War", but I thought it would be misunderstood. No war is a comical affair. My point was that the war played a role on the Home Front equivalent to those comic books such as the Commando series. The "Argies" were the bad guys, although perceived more like Second World War Italians than Nazis. We tuned into the TV each night to see retired officers discuss various options over a sand table, with a man named Snow. Naturally, since civilians tend to overlook logistics, and retired offices play their roles in disinformation campaigns, most of the speculations were very wrong-headed.

But what stands out most for me about the Falklands War was that it was the only truly popular war I've ever experienced in my lifetime. People of a certain age who had been through the Second World War, those who at the time of the Falklands were just under 60, couldn't see the point of the conflict. Everybody else in Britain seemed to determined to see this thing through, even welcomed it. Compare that with the Vietnam War, which divided my school and my family; the Gulf War of 1991, which I demonstrated against; the Yugoslav War of 1999, which most people I met thought a waste of money and effort; and the ongoing Iraq War, before which my wife and children took part in the March of a Million through London, and you'll see what I mean.

However, having said that, I must recount my favorite story related to the Falklands. Just after word of the Argentine invasion reached us, the man in whose house I was living came back from work. He had been expressing his unhappiness with the potential loss of many young men's lives for some scraps of turf in the South Atlantic with work colleagues. One of them, a youngish office junior who frequently featured in his stories from work, protested: "I don't see what business they have up there anyway." Puzzled, because he would have expected the circumlocution to be "down there", not up, the much older man probed further into this young lady's notions. It quickly became apparent that this young lady thought the Falklands Islands were somewhere in the vicinity of the Faeroes.

Antony Preston

I discovered that Antony Preston has been provided with a Wikipedia entry. I first saw Antony Preston in the summer of 2002, when he came into the offices of Conway Maritime Press, then part of Chrysalis Books. Eventually, I had the opportunity of editing his last book, The World's Worst Warships, which was published, very late, in 2002. The picture research was done mostly by me, although Antony found a few of the pictures in the old Conway Maritime archive, and we went through all the images before the book went into design. I also introduced a howling error in the book, which I never had the chance to apologize to Antony for making. It was a very stressful time, as the designer seemed more interested in ordering new Vans than ensuring the typography was correct and all the necessary retouching done to the photographs, and I was standing in for the entire editorial department who had gone off on vacation. Antony himself was at this time in hospital, where I visited him a couple of times. He was so bored he was grateful to accept the proofs to distract him from the tedium of a hospital stay. He's the sort of niche author whom I think deserves a Wikipedia entry. But they really ought to spell his Christian name correctly!

Duxford's DH-9

The Imperial War Museum at Duxford has unveiled a restored DeHaviland DH-9 according to the local press. What I found of especial interest was that, according to the article, the museum had to sell an Me-163 Komet in order to finance the purchase and restoration of the DH-9.

Chronicle of War

I received my author's copies yesterday. I think it looks good. I've also picked up a copy of Harry Pearson's account of growing up (and being grown up) with stories of war not just in the background but enveloping one like a mist rolling in from the sea.

More Caption Controversy

The Canadian War Museum's exhibition on the work of the RCAF in Bomber Command has come in for some complaints from veterans. Unfortunately, the article doesn't quote the offending text at any length, so one must be more circumspect in taking sides. However, in this case my sympathies lie with the museum. The grim fact of strategic bombing operations during the war is that they killed many German civilians who for one reason or another found themselves in the vicinity of legitimate war targets. (Although at some point I believe Bomber Command regarding housing as a legitimate war target.) In the same way that chemical and biological weapons have been effectively criminalized by international institutions, I personally feel that the killing of civilians by military action should also be viewed with a jaundiced eye, no matter what military (or naval, in the case of the Lusitania) logic can be seen to justify their deaths. In that sense, I'd argue that the burden of proof rests on the Bomber Command personnel, and not the museum.

Yad Vashem Caption Controversy

In the end, it seems Monsignor Antonio Franco, the Papal ambassador to Israel, will attend a memorial service for the victims of the Nazi murder of Jews at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. You can find the text of the caption quoted in this article.

Having written plenty of captions and short texts about historical subjects ranging from Scottish medieval history to the 9/11 Terror Attacks, I feel confident that I know how difficult it is to reduce a complex subject to a handful or two of words. In this case, my sympathies lie with the Vatican. The caption about Pius XII seems to use the available information to place the former pope in the worst possible light. While I wouldn't call the information in question 34 here as kind to Pius XII, it does place his conduct in the context of the Catholic Church and other Christian religions institutions as a whole. Pius XII could indeed have done more, but I'm sure that's true of plenty of other people. This caption seems either calculated to offend or a ploy in order to achieve greater access to the Vatican archives. Either way, it's not good history.

Call for Photographs

Harper Collins in New Zealand plan to publish a book of First World War photographs intended to be definitive picture history of New Zealand involvement in the war. All the Dominions began establishing a real national identity during the Boer War and the First World War, and they are fortunate that this occurred in the photographic era. They were even luckier that cameras had become as portable as rifles! I'm hoping the publishers get a good response, and that we get some fascinating, previously unknown images.

Rocket Science

For those traveling to Germany for a vacation, and willing to go off the tourists' beaten track, there's an opportunity to learn more about the Second World War V-weapons program on the island of Usedom at the Historical Technical Information Center there. The Center is opening a Memorial Landscape this summer that allows visitors to see the sites used for testing.

Broken Arrow

One of the things that I noted during my hiatus was this gloomy perspective on the future of the Army. It's another piece of evidence in the case against the Bush administration for trying to fight a major overseas war on the cheap. At the end of the day, all the talk about supporting our fighting men and women overseas is useless unless it is backed up by the necessary sacrifices on the home front. If average Americans don't want to make those sacrifices, then there is no choice but to reduce engagements abroad.