The problem, however, is that these descriptions are evidently so close to the author's heart that the details are just off true, and key elements of the story are missing. The account of John Kiszeley seizing the summit of Tumbledown and the heroics of 2nd Lieutenant Estevez at Darwin are told almost blow by blow.

The most detailed passages of the book are those dealing with the land battles. The secret orders drafted by MoD lawyers were less than resolute, however: if the boat was challenged by Argentine forces, the captain was told to 'surface or withdraw at speed submerged'. Under Callaghan the nuclear submarine Dreadnought was dispatched after the Argentines plonked a flag on a guano-encrusted rock called Southern Thule. The game of intelligence and diplomatic bluff is explained in piquant detail. The Foreign Office was keen on the leaseback solution to the Falklands problem at the point at which Galtieri, Anaya and co began planning the attack. Bicheno explains that the Callaghan and Thatcher governments knew much of this, but chose to ignore it. As head of the Argentine navy, in 1981 he joined the junta of Leopoldo Galtieri, and his price for joining the military triumvirate was agreement to grab and occupy Las Malvinas.įor many in the military it would be a noble mission, an act of redemption for national pride and a way of salving the guilt of many officers at the dreadful deeds done in their name against thousands of innocents in the Dirty War. One of those on the receiving end of the Arthur Daley sales pitch for obsolete frigates was Jorge Anaya, naval attaché in London.

Relations with Argentina meant two things for the men in King Charles Street - flogging secondhand defence kit and dumping the Falklands problem with minimum fuss. He is fascinating about how much the British government, and the Foreign Office in particular, knew - and chose to ignore - of the Dirty War. He was working for intelligence in the British embassy in Buenos Aires when the military dictators took over and began the Dirty War, bringing disappearance, torture and death to thousands and misery to millions. Born in Cuba, fluent in Spanish and English, and a Cambridge-educated historian, Bicheno is steeped in the whole sorry story of Argentina's military juntas which ended with the Malvinas debacle.

Age of wonders 3 fog of war