Three books about the Falklands War: review It was because it all happened so suddenly - we only intercepted the Argentine naval signal on the Wednesday - that Whitehall was disabled. If we'd had received greater warning of an invasion, the slow-grinding wheels of government, with the Civil Service's predilection for belt and braces, and for interdepartmental committees, might well have stifled us with bureaucracy from the outset. As it was Whitehall was bypassed in the early days and only recovered its balance as time went by. Napoleon once said: "Nothing is so important in war as an individual command." That command was represented by Margaret Thatcher and Terry Lewin, the key players, who showed a different kind of courage to the men and women of the task force. Another former opponent of the British, Erwin Rommel, once said that "before battle is fought, it is decided by the quartermaster," and it was true on this occasion. Things went wrong, as they always do, but the logistics worked. We lost the Atlantic Conveyor with all but one of the Chinook troop-carrying helicopters on board, and after 10 whole years of designing a new army boot, it was a disaster. Modern technology must design a waterproof boot that breathes, probably something beyond it! I am always surprised that historians and commentators regard the Falklands War as an isolated episode, whereas it was, in fact, inseparable from the Cold War. Half the operational fleet was on a Nato exercise off Gibraltar; the Royal Navy with necessary rearming and supply was ready for war against the Warsaw Pact. Two nuclear submarines, which had been on secret missions in the Arctic, were re-equipped and sent to the Falklands. At the time my own preoccupation was for the introduction of Trident. While the scrap merchants were landed on South Georgia, I attended a nuclear planning group meeting in Colorado some 10 days before the invasion. I had to get the agreement of our doubting allies to its deployment - and agreement in the House of Commons. I regard Trident as our ultimate protection against aggression - much the most important of all our defence commitments. I could never support a coalition that down-graded our nuclear protection. So I come to the three books. First the battle on the ground: told most starkly and emotionally by Tony Banks in Storming the Falklands. Banks was a Dundee boy and, like most Scottish lads in those days, he was interested in drinking, fighting and women - in that order. I had commanded a platoon of Glaswegian Jocks in the Royal Scots and I recognised him immediately. This macho instinct was fortified when he joined the Paras, who have a culture of violence and aggression which many other Army regiments find quite disturbing. Banks went through a terrible experience at Goose Green, seeing the Welsh Guards come ashore from the stricken Sir Galahad and as part of a night attack with bayonets on Wireless Ridge. He suffered from trauma but came through it to do great charity work for Combat Stress and join with other veterans on return visits to the islands. I saw the hills around Port Stanley when I flew out, on a Hercules with seven in-flight refuellings, to the Falklands shortly after the war to inaugurate the cemetery at San Carlos; those hills taken by the Paras, Marines, Scots Guards and SAS in night attacks looked near impregnable to me. It was a triumph. How could I, as a politician, have asked young men to go through such an experience? Maybe I can excuse it in the case of the Falklands by saying that all the members of the War Cabinet had been to war themselves. Whitelaw and Pym had won the Military Cross and Lewin had won the DSC on the Arctic convoys. I had been on rather tame active service with Gurkhas in Malaya. It has all changed today. Virtually no senior politician has any experience of military service. It tells, and it is worrying. The two other excellent books - Scram! by Harry Benson and Down South by Chris Parry - the latter written in the form of a fascinating war diary, are about the Navy's helicopter war, especially by the vital supply-and-troop-carrying Wessex and Sea King helicopters. The naval pilots and observers had a perilous role carrying ammunition and supplies to the front line, often blind at night, and bringing wounded soldiers back to the field hospitals and the Uganda. The Wessex helicopters were known as "junglies" and I had benefited personally from the bravery of the naval pilots when they had evacuated wounded Gurkha soldiers from narrow jungle clearings in Malaya in the Fifties. I remembered them. Interesting for me is that both these books begin their story with the assault on South Georgia by the SAS and SBS. Admiral Lewin had written, "there is no such thing as a purely military operation - all operations are politico-military." It was the case with the assault on South Georgia. We had to fill a news vacuum as the task force moved south. In London, we were under tremendous pressure internationally, initially from the Americans and other allies, to arrive at a compromise deal with the Argentinians. The House of Commons and the media generally wanted "news, news, news" - sometimes it seemed as if we were fighting a war for the benefit of the press. The BBC took to reporting Argentinian propaganda to fill their schedules, in a strong desire to remain neutral between Great Britain and her enemy. Admiral Lewin came to tell me that two Wessex helicopters with their SAS team had crashed on the glacier in South Georgia. It was the first military incident of the war and it had gone wrong. We went over to Number 10 to report the bad news to the Prime Minister when a further message came to say that a third helicopter had lifted the SAS off the glacier in terrible flying conditions. Margaret Thatcher, Terry Lewin and I all agreed that it was almost the worst incident of the war for us, saved by the bravery of the "junglie" pilots and observers. It was the occasion when Margaret Thatcher and I braved the world's press on the steps of Number 10, and I was asked, "What happens next, Mr Nott? Are we going to declare war on Argentina, Mrs Thatcher? She replied in a high-pitched voice: Just rejoice at that news and congratulate our forces... rejoice. The Falklands War had been a triumph for the country, thanks to our brilliant forces, so well described in these books. But it involved many personal tragedies, disablement and continuing trauma for some individuals over the coming years. Retired service people find it hard to adapt to civilian life. Today's defence policy has not been assisted by the Falklands experience as it is still designed to prepare the Royal Navy for another Falklands, a maritime assault with carriers when technology, particularly air power, has moved us into a new era. One day a new generation of young naval officers will appreciate that the Royal Navy's future lies in a substantial number of well-armed modern frigates and destroyers, not in two carriers which are proving far too expensive to build, service and protect. John Nott's memoir Haven't We Been Here Before? gives his account of the war Chris Parry is appearing at the Hay Festival. For details go to hayfestival.com Storming the Falklands: My War and After by Tony Banks 320pp, Little, Brown t £18 (PLUS £1.25 p&p) (RRP £20, EBOOK £9.49) ***** Scram!: The Gripping First-Hand Account of the Helicopter War in the Falklands by Harry Benson Down South: A Falklands War Diary by Chris Parry