Reviews

From the halls of Mont-e-zuuuma
To the shores of Trip-o-leee
There’s a buzz going round the haaaarbour
That the Yanks are going to sea.

With their crates of Pepsi-co-ola
And their buck-ets of ice cream
Oh they’re effing good kids in haaarbour
But f--- all use at sea!
(“Halls of Montezuma”, RN version - don’t worry, this won’t be in the Amazon edition of this review).

“Keep then the sea, which is the wall of England; then is England kept by God's hand”
- Bishop Adam de Moleyns, who managed to get this out before being murdered by unpaid sailors in Portsmouth in 1450.
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The book opens with an eerie parallel from 1770 in which a miniscule RM garrison in the Falklands succumbed to a Spanish invasion, leading to the resignation of the British Foreign Secretary. It goes on to give a fascinating account of S-T’s year in charge of NP8901, the Royal Marines piquet on the islands. S-T had the use of MV Forrest, owned by the Falklands Islands Company but on charter to the Royal Navy. As a keen yachtsman he used his trips around the islands to compile charts and sailing direction for as many of their harbours, creeks and inlets as possible. No other CO of NP8901 had done anything like that before; the driver was future recreation rather than defence but all too soon S-T’s charts, photographs and notebooks were all there was to use to plan the detail of the islands recovery. S-T also made, not just contact with, but friends of the isolated ‘kelpers‘ in the various outlying settlements. ...

‘What war?’
Anthony Williams, HM Ambassador to Argentina, 1.4.82 (allegedly)

There will be many books published and re-published to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of our victory in the Falklands. This is the one to start with.
Command of the Ice Patrol Ship must have been the most unusual Captain’s job in the Royal Navy. Besides a conventional naval presence - in an area where Defence Diplomacy presents unusual challenges, and relating to a continent where national jurisdiction is not well defined - there was support to be given to the British Antarctic Survey, the Scott Polar Institute, and other scientific bodies, and continuing hydrographic tasks for which the ship was additionally equipped. The 1980 HMS Endurance also carried an intelligence gathering suite in advance of anything in any other British warship, and its manning included fluent Spanish speakers. In 1980-2 there was also support needed for several BBC and other filming projects. There was a responsibility to the Governor of the Falkland Island Dependencies which included taking the Governor on an annual tour of his parish. The MoD, the Department of Education and Science, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office jostled for priority, and presumably back in Whitehall reams of paper poured forth contesting funding for what, although basically unarmed, was from 1975 to 1982 the only regular British warship presence in the entire southern hemisphere. Barker explains all this and, even without the war which comes upon him in the second half of the book, he provides an entertaining and comprehensive guide to this (to most of us) unfamiliar area.
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