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.

2 Para guarding Argentine POWs, Port Stanley, 1982For 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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