The Falklands War: A British Veteran's Perspective
Warfare
History Hit
4.5 • 943 Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2022
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The role of successful and strategic intelligence operations is a vital part of determining the outcomes of battles and wars. But with every decision having the potential of catastrophic repercussions, how do you even begin to gather intelligence on a new foe? In this third installment of a new miniseries from Warfare focusing on the Falklands War, James is joined by Nick van der Bijl - Nick served 24 years as a Regular in the British Army in armour, military intelligence, and security, and finally as an infantry officer in the Territorial Army. Seeing active service with the 3rd Commando Brigade during the Falkland conflict, Nick takes us back through the period, with extraordinary first-hand accounts.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When the Falklands crisis broke out 40 years ago this month, there was virtually no British intelligence about the threat the Argentine military posed. |
| 0:11.0 | Basic threat assessments from the Ministry of Defence were almost non-existent. |
| 0:16.0 | This meant that so much of the intelligence work had to be compiled on the job |
| 0:21.0 | on that 8,000-mile journey from Britain to the Falklands. |
| 0:25.0 | I'm your host James Rogers. This is the Warfare Podcast, and joining us today is Nick Van der Bil. |
| 0:31.0 | Nick is a British veteran of the Falklands War, who was one of the first |
| 0:35.0 | intelligence officers to land when Britain retook the islands. His first-hand account is fascinating, |
| 0:41.8 | providing us with all the in-depth details we need to understand |
| 0:45.7 | the pivotal importance of that intelligence work that was undertaken. |
| 0:50.8 | Enjoy. today. I'm very well, thank you very much indeed. Good, where are you in the world? We live in in |
| 1:06.0 | summer sets, not far from the coast, in UK. A wonderful part of the world, but somewhere that's been |
| 1:12.0 | pretty windswept recently. How did you do in the storms? |
| 1:15.2 | Are we battened down and then managed any problems were going to come down the road? |
| 1:19.2 | But we were expecting it so therefore if you're expecting, then you just got to deal with it. |
| 1:23.4 | It's as simple as that. |
| 1:24.4 | Others have got worse off than our son, |
| 1:26.0 | instead of now. |
| 1:27.0 | Yes, well, you're prepared. |
| 1:28.0 | That's the key thing there. |
| 1:29.6 | Perfect. |
| 1:30.7 | Well, it's in this month in April 2022 when this podcast goes out that we are marking 40 years since the start of the Falklands War. |
| 1:39.6 | That moment in 1982, when Argentine troops invaded the Falklands, rapidly overcoming the small |
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