Falkland Islander's Wartime Journal

Lingvo: English

Eldonita je 23-a de aŭgusto 2022 de Pen & Sword Books Limited.

ISBN:: 978-1-3990-8867-1

(1 recenzo)

Port Stanley was the tiny capital of a British colony known to few beyond the world of stamp collecting. But then, suddenly, in April 1982, it was the place-name on everyone's lips. The outcome of a war, for which Britain had mobilised its most powerful task force since 1945, would be decided by the flag which flew over the corrugated iron and timber cottages of Stanley.

The town became the epicentre of a ferocious conflict. Many islanders left the town following the invasion. But a few hundred remained. Among them was Graham Bound, who was then the editor of the Islands' only newspaper. This book is based on his journal, written during the occupation and siege. Such was the intensity of the fighting for the town, that the Ministry of Defence in London announced that it would be on the receiving end of the heaviest artillery bombardment since the Korean …

Port Stanley was the tiny capital of a British colony known to few beyond the world of stamp collecting. But then, suddenly, in April 1982, it was the place-name on everyone's lips. The outcome of a war, for which Britain had mobilised its most powerful task force since 1945, would be decided by the flag which flew over the corrugated iron and timber cottages of Stanley.

The town became the epicentre of a ferocious conflict. Many islanders left the town following the invasion. But a few hundred remained. Among them was Graham Bound, who was then the editor of the Islands' only newspaper. This book is based on his journal, written during the occupation and siege. Such was the intensity of the fighting for the town, that the Ministry of Defence in London announced that it would be on the receiving end of the heaviest artillery bombardment since the Korean War.

The journals were stored, untouched and unread, for 39 years, before the author rediscovered them and prepared them for publication. Among the notebooks were unprocessed photographs that he took at the time. Some of these never-before seen photos are published in this book. This is a detailed account of the Falklands war, in particular the siege of Stanley, from an islander's point of view.

1 eldono

Stephanie Jane recenzis Falkland Islander's Wartime Journal de Graham Bound

A fascinating memoir

4 steloj

I was still at primary school in 1982 and my only real memory of the Falklands War is of classmates huddled round a radio at lunchtimes in the school canteen, eagerly listening to BBC World Service news reports from the other side of the world. It was strange to realise now, through reading Graham Bound's fascinating memoir, that the Islanders themselves relied on those exact same news reports to find out what was happening just down the road. Bound's journals seem to have been minimally edited so his writing retains a compelling immediacy. I could easily envisage him lying awake on the floor behind stacks of chairs, deafened by the encroaching bombardment, or imagine the worry of not being able to contact friends on outlying farm settlements when the local radio network was outlawed. I've read a number of civilian wartime memoirs over the past few years and A Falkland …

I was still at primary school in 1982 and my only real memory of the Falklands War is of classmates huddled round a radio at lunchtimes in the school canteen, eagerly listening to BBC World Service news reports from the other side of the world. It was strange to realise now, through reading Graham Bound's fascinating memoir, that the Islanders themselves relied on those exact same news reports to find out what was happening just down the road. Bound's journals seem to have been minimally edited so his writing retains a compelling immediacy. I could easily envisage him lying awake on the floor behind stacks of chairs, deafened by the encroaching bombardment, or imagine the worry of not being able to contact friends on outlying farm settlements when the local radio network was outlawed. I've read a number of civilian wartime memoirs over the past few years and A Falkland Islander’s Wartime Journal stands out for giving an authentic, day by day, sense of what it was like to be in the midst of such chaos.

I appreciated too that the Islanders experience and expectations were very different from the belligerent, jingoistic social memory of the war that has been retained in England. Bound's journals reveal that the Falkland Islanders themselves hadn't felt particularly valued by the UK, and certainly not by Westminster, until their being invaded provided a politically expedient distraction from the Tory government's woes at the time. Exactly forty years later, I did recognise a repeat of this political tactic being employed!

A Falkland Islander’s Wartime Journal is a very readable memoir which I particularly enjoyed for its focus on ordinary people during wartime. The interactions between Islanders and Argentine troops are particularly illuminating as these moments don't fit with either nation's Governments' declarations of strength and power. Bound does also explain some of what happened militarily, but doesn't get bogged down in endless military strategy. I felt I came to know these Island people a little and it would interesting to also learn how they coped in the war's aftermath. Once all the news reporters had gone and the global spotlight faded, how normal a 'normal life' could actually be resumed.

Temoj

America, history