The Falklands War: Then and Now

Profusely illustrated with many illustrations in full colour. In 1982, Argentina rashly gambled that a full-scale invasion of the Falkland Islands – ownership of which had been disputed with Great Britain for over a century – would put an end to years of political wrangling. However, Britain’s response was to immediately dispatch a task force to recover the islands, by force if necessary. The ‘conflict’ which followed (a formal declaration of war was never given) lasted ten weeks from the Argentine invasion to British liberation, the white heat of battle using 20th-century technology contrasting with bitter hand-to-hand bayonet fighting in inhospitable conditions. Eyewitness accounts by the participants of both sides, and islanders, leave us in no doubt as to the ferocity of the combat on the land, sea, and in the air. Comparison photography in the colour of all the battlefields, the crash sites of the aircraft shot down, the relics and the remains, together with portraits of those who lost their lives and the battlefield memorials, serve as a graphic testimony to their endeavours, 25 years after the battle. A Roll of Honour lists the casualties of both sides and, for the first time, the graves of all the British fallen – both on the islands and in the United Kingdom – have been visited and photographed as a lasting record of all those who made the supreme sacrifice in what is most probably Britain’s last colonial war.

Author: Gordon Ramsey
Publisher: After the Battle
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN: 9781870067713 / 1870067711
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 624

Condition: Good, shelf worn with some slight fading to the covers

Inventory Number: 18B