It is important to remember that our collection of films have been cultivated in a non-bias fashion, so there may very well be films featured that express opinions you disagree with or perhaps don’t necessarily condone. We currently have thousands of free thought-provoking documentaries for you to choose from which fall into a wide range of categories. It is to learn lessons for the future, so they do not happen in the same way again.Documentary Heaven has been around since 2009, we are an educational website dedicated solely to bringing you the very best documentary films sourced from all over the internet. But when they talk about mistakes, one says, it is not to apportion blame. The other is the focus on trauma, which dominates the final few minutes, as a medic and a private recall the fighting, and speak eloquently about the post-traumatic stress disorder they were left with. As his old self transmits one last crackling “over”, the present-day Rose holds a finger up and says, “End of the war.” It is powerful. The first is when Rose listens, for the first time, to a recording of negotiations with Argentina, transmitted via satellite back to the UK, and hears his voice from 40 years ago. There are participants from across the ranks, with two particular standout moments. This is a British film, so naturally leans towards British personnel, but there are interviews with Argentinian combatants too, and accounts of what they were fighting for, and why.
The candour and scope is impressive and decisions are examined from all sides. Some of the military figures compare it to their time in Northern Ireland, pointing out that to the public, by contrast, this looked like “a real war, against an enemy in uniform”.
He recalls flag-waving and jingoism as the ships sailed from Southampton, people united behind the idea that the servicemen and women were “off to fight Johnny foreigner”. The then foreign correspondent Max Hastings, who reported from the Falklands, paints a picture of Britain in the late 1970s and early 80s as fiercely divided, the manufacturing industry in the doldrums, riots in the cities. The tiny, crucial twists and turns when it comes to planning and chance are fascinating.įor all of the strategic detail, though, there are welcome touches of cultural analysis. The arrival of the British supply ship, the Atlantic Conveyor, on Argentina’s independence day, which was attacked in daylight by Argentinian forces resulting in the deaths of 12 sailors, is called “the biggest logistical disaster of the war”. There are stories in which 10 minutes made all the difference to the outcome.
One officer describes an evacuation in appalling weather, the loss of two helicopters, and the notion that had men been killed at this very early stage, on day 20 – as they very nearly were – the war might not have progressed. There are many “should have” and “could have” and “maybe if” moments, and at least two scenarios which, had they played out even slightly differently, might have ended in victory for Argentina. One key brigadier is indecisive by reputation, and the decisions he did make continue to baffle other senior commanders. Other senior figures describe the pitfalls of the British plan or, more crucially, the lack of a cohesive one. The only orders he was given, he claims, were: “Please do the best you can.” Rose calls the conflict “a command and control muddle from the start” and paints a picture of a fractured chain of command, ill-suited to the distance, conditions and demands of the South Atlantic terrain. Several contributors are speaking publicly about their roles for the first time, most notably Lt Col Michael Rose, the head of the SAS in the Falklands, whose steady tone belies a frankness about the operation and speaks candidly of its flaws. This was a British victory, but the film does not gloss over the cost of that, nor does it back away from the seemingly numerous occasions when that win was far from certain. However, the story that this documentary aims to tell is not necessarily one that has been told before, and that allows for a gripping narrative to unravel.