74 Days: An Islander's Diary of the Falklands Occupation

John Smith

I read this to coincide with the current anniversary of the Falklands War. It's probably long out of print now; my copy came from the library.

John Smith isn't a writer of great flair, as he'd probably be the first to admit himself. And you soon get the impression that normal life on the Falklands would earn maximum rating on Bonnie's fidget scale. When John Smith isn't writing about the military situation in 1982 the material is deadly dull, mostly dog-walking and church-going.

But it's still an important historical document. Smith was an ordinary Falklander running a bed & breakfast in Port Stanley when the Argentinian invasion took place. And he and his family stayed in Stanley for the entire 74 days of the Argentinian occupation.

The result is a diary which focuses on the war as viewed from Stanley, both by the local population and, to a certain extent, by the occupying force of Argentinian soldiers. It's the character and behaviour of the Argentinians that is most interesting of all. Apart from the odd crass diktat (such as forcing drivers to switch to driving on the right) their treatment of the local population was nearly universally decent. Sometimes their attitude was almost one of embarrassment. The only persistent nuisance that Smith reports were the petty thefts (mostly by soldiers looking for food) from sheds and gardens. Which brings me onto the aspect of the book which hits home with most force. And that is the criminal responsibility of a bankrupt Argentinian leadership for initiating a military adventure which caused so much suffering to its own armed forces. 10,000 badly led, badly trained, badly clothed and often starving troops were dumped on the Falklands. Smith records pitiful scenes of Argentinians begging for food and shelter. On one occasion he reports an odd soldier meandering around Stanley, trailing his weapon and weeping. Mostly the Argentinian soldiers just appear bewildered and cold. He also reports, and this was news to me, dozens of Argentinian fatalities merely from hypothermia, even before British soldiers and submarines had got anywhere near the islands.

It might not be very diplomatic to say this on an international mailing list but I don't have any sympathy for the Argentinian claim to the Falklands (as you might have guessed). At a time like this, when there are complex technical sovereignty disputes, like the ones in Israel and Northern Ireland, dismissing the Argentinian claim looks like one of the easiest calls in diplomatic history. There is no displaced aboriginal population. There is no oppressed minority group. Argentina has no external enemy making use of the islands to attack her. John Smith and the rest of the world can only hope that Argentina's "strange covetousness" (as it was described in one of the weekend papers) will one day fade.