From the television footage shown in all its stark reality and the daily
coverage and subsequent memoirs, the impression delivered from the air
battles in the Falklands Conflict was that of heroic Argentine pilots
who relentlessly pressed home their attacks against the British. While,
by contrast, there is a counter-narrative that portrayed the Sea Harrier
force as being utterly dominant over its Argentine enemies. But what was
the reality of the air war over the Falkland Islands?
While books on the air operations have published since that time, they
have, in the main, been personal accounts, re-told by those who were
there, fighting at a tactical level, or back in their nation's capital
running the strategic implications of the outcome. But a detailed
analysis of the operational level of the air war has not been
undertaken - until now. At the same time, some analysts have inferred
that this Cold War sideshow offers little insight into lessons for the
operating environment of future conflicts. As the author demonstrates in
this book, there are lessons from 1982 that do have important and
continued relevance today.
Using recently released primary source material, the author, a serving
RAF officer who spent two-and-a-half years in the Falklands as an air
defence navigator, has taken an impartial look at the air campaign at
the operational level. This has enabled him to develop a considered view
of what should have occurred, comparing it with what actually happened.
In so doing, John Shields has produced a comprehensive account of the
air campaign that has demolished many of the enduring myths.
This is the story of not why, but how the air war was fought over the
skies of the South Atlantic.
