Get that Sinking feeling (Sink the "Belgrano" - Mike Rossiter)

Member Name: scuba_angel

Product:	Sink the "Belgrano" - Mike Rossiter
Date:	07/07/08 (68 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good account of the events

Disadvantages: hard to get settled in to

Everyone knows all about the Falklands War don't they? The Argentines decided that enough was enough and it was time for them to take back their Malvinas Islands from the British. Leading to a conflict which was over half way around the world and yet affected people far more than mere words in a newspaper.

The Belgrano though not the Argentine flagship was the ship that many Argentines saw as the pride of their fleet, a fleet which due to the location of the Falklands was able to get to the Islands and disembark troops far quicker than any British force could arrive to reinforce the Port Stanley Garrison. The Royal Navy sent south several of its nuclear submarines, one of which HMS Conqueror left Faslane on March 30th 1982.

These events culminated in the first torpedoed warship since the end of World War 2, that ship was the Belgrano, the ship which launched the torpedo HMS Conqueror.

The book clearly is not a work of fiction, the information used in it being drawn from the memories of those men involved on both sides and accounts written in the intervening 20 odd years. Personally I picked this up as a friend recommended it to me due to my current interest in all things military and a more general interest in shipwrecks and how they got there.

I found the writing style quite difficult to get in to, switching between a tone of fiction and a drier more factual style fairly frequently, also the switching from the Conqueror to the events ashore in both countries wasn't flagged clearly enough for me on several occasions I found myself trying to work out how a politician had got aboard a submarine in the middle of the ocean. I also felt that there was too much padding to the main events of the book and the event which should have been the climax - the sinking seem to simply happen then be over with. As the book was written to explain the events leading up the sinking it didn't feel well put together and for me it has been and is defiantly a very forgettable read which is disappointing given the glowing recommendation I followed when I bought it.

Though it is only 384 pages long it feels a much longer read. The author Mike Rossiter also wrote Ark Royal, and has had input in to the BBC series War at Sea, knowing this I wonder if the book would have worked better as a televised documentary?

Summary: Wait for it to hit the tellybox