The Falklands: Watching Maggie's War
Patrick Bishop’s first assignment as a foreign correspondent was to accompany the British task force sent to the South Atlantic to reclaim the Falkland Islands in April 1982. Thirty years on, he recalls his experience.
For me, a young reporter attached to 3 Commando Brigade aboard the requisitioned cruise ship Canberra, covering ‘Maggie’s war’ was a process of constant revelation. The soldiers, the sea and landscapes, the actuality of combat – everything was surprising and collided with expectations.
I arrived in the war, like Britain itself, bemused at the suddenness of events. One minute I was a home news hack on the Observer, the next I was an official war correspondent, with a red cloth-covered Second World War-issue booklet of regulations and the rank of honorary captain.
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