Argentine dead?

[Paddysprat]

I bought Simon Westons books - "Walking Tall" and "Going Back" more than 10 years ago and thought I would revisit them.

Anyway, reading "Going Back", Mr Weston mentions a few times that the people he met on his trip back down south, have stated that many more Argentines died than officially stated. These statements come from both Argentine combatants and Falkland Islanders.

I never took much notice of this when reading the book the first time round, however, after years of reading many more books on the conflict this claim has jumped out at me. I have never seen this claim in print in any other publication, including Martin Middlebrooks book "The Argentine Fight for the Falklands" a rare look at the Argentines view of the war.

My question is this, are there other publications out there that suggest or even have proof of these claims?

[Greenronnie]

Yep, Spearhead Assault mentions it, plus about people going missing before the war.

[lowland heavy]

I think as in all conflicts what you will find is that most govenments will cover up the "real" cost to their combatants. It does not look go on any governments cvto state that they have killed and maimed hundreds or thousands of it own combatants.

[Paddysprat]

Greenronnie, I have to admit that I actually read Spearhead assault only a few months back. To be honest I don't remember this being mentioned so will have to look again. However, I do tend to remember the very blunt points made about 'H' Jones's role in the battle.

Lowland, I understand that govenments will cover up the deaths of combatants to save face. However, in this case we are looking at a very small conflict that was instigated by a dictatorship. As Argentina is now a democracy and has been for many years, I would expect to see more claims coming out, especially as the numbers of dead being mentioned is more than double the offical numbers.

I will now start exploring the net to see if there is anything mentioned there. After all I guess any real claims will be made by those Argentine families affected and sadley Argentine accounts are not in abundance in Britain.

Any points in the right direction would be appreciated.

[Alfa]

Don't quote me on this but I think Ken Lukowiak mentions there were more Argentine casualties than were officially acknowledged in his book "A Soldier's Song."

To be honest though, like all memories, those from combat or the after effects of combat are likely to be effected by the emotions of the person at the time the events were witnessed. Therefore if someone is in a state of shock over seeing lots of people killed this could intensify that memory. For example, the sheer horror of an event could cause the memory to be distorted so that instead of seeing 2 or 3 people gunned down the brain interprets that as seeing a dozen.

That of course is just a supposition on my part but could be an explanation for the varying body counts. It's commonly stated in books etc.. that no two soldiers see the same battle, everyone remembers slightly different things or interprets the battle in a different way so it's not hard to see how these things can happen.