FOR REFERENCE ONLY Stuart Bingham
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ITflVI NO: 1917952 / Q / ROUND BY ABBEYBOOKBINDING & PRINTING I E.ST. I-376 Unit 3, Gabalfa Workshops, Excelsior Ind. Est. CardiffCF14 3AYTel: (029) 2062 3290 Email: [email protected] FOR REFERENCE ONLY Stuart Bingham Photography and the Falklands Conflict Homeric Heroism in Modern Warfare Submitted for: PhD University of Wales Newport (2010) This thesis was submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wales for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Contents Preface 2 Notes on Translations/Text 4 Introduction 6 Chapter One 24 War and the Western Tradition Chapter Two 46 Photography and the Warriors' Honour Chapter Three 63 Kudos - Images Transmitted from the Fleet Chapter Four 90 Time - The work of Paul Haley and Soldier Magazine Chapter Five 121 Kleos - Post-War Representation and Construction of Stereotype Chapter Six 160 Nostos - Art and the Falklands War Conclusion 190 Annex A 205 Operation Corporate Chronology Annex B 207 Political and Military Personalities of the Falklands Crisis Annex C 209 Operation Corporate Task Force Press Party AnnexD 211 Hugh Bicheno Razor's Edge Picture Captions Annex E 213 David Cobb - The Falklands Paintings Catalogue AnnexF 216 Lieutenant Colonel Herbert 'H1 Jones - Victoria Cross citation. Bibliography 219 Preface The Falklands Conflict has always loomed large throughout my adult life. As a young man of 19 years old, I watched the television and read the newspapers with the same degree of excitement and fascination as most of the British population. In the following year, as a direct result of the passion and glory that surrounded the war I joined the British Army as a Royal Military Policeman. It quickly became apparent to myself, if not the military, that this was a poor career choice and that I was never cut out to be a soldier. After a military career lasting no more than a few weeks I went to college and started life as a photographer, joining the Ministry of Defence in the late 1980s. Since then, I have made numerous visits to the Falkland Islands to publicise the work of the soldiers who now defend the islands from any threat of re-invasion. Looking back, it seems that the war was over remarkably quickly, and by modern standards, where the war in Afghanistan is projected to last anything between 10 and 20 years, it was. It has often been described as Britain's last colonial war, the last in a long line of small conflicts that expanded and defended the British Empire. Attitudes to war in the South Atlantic developed in a bubble of patriotism and jingoism that has not been seen since and such attitudes now seem to be forged in imperialism, in a time long past and no longer available to representatives of British culture. However, on a wider stage, the representation of all wars and the men who fight in them has a long history. Each culture has its own way of coming to terms with conflict and death, but in the western world, the origins of the representation of the warrior can be traced back to the Ancient Greeks in general, and Homer in particular. Dr. Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist with the United States Department of Veteran Affairs has made a compelling argument that breaking the Greek covenant has had lasting implications for the veterans of the Vietnam War. (Shay 1995) This psychoanalytical work has helped provide a model of representation that explains why soldiers are portrayed in the way they are. Without the work of Dr. Shay, I am sure that this thesis would not have taken the course that it has. In pursuing this thesis I have had to accept that there may be implications, perceived or real, for my ongoing work as photographer with the Ministry of Defence. The MoD has in various measures supported this research and to date has made no attempt to direct its course or influence the findings; in fact, at the point of submission, they are unaware of its contents. It is clear, that in this type of research, not all the findings will reflect well on the MoD's past or current working practices, but I believe it is possible for it to learn from the results. My position as an MoD photographer has on the other hand had a positive benefit on the research: I have been able to gain access to archives that have remained closed to others. Hilary Roberts, Head of Photography Collections at the Imperial War Museum, has been very influential in this work and has given me more co-operation and trust than I could have hoped for. She has also allowed me more time to present this work than I could have dared asked for given the nature of the images found in the IWM archive, and that the research spanned the 25th anniversary celebrations. I remain grateful to Hilary for her unstinting support. Finally, I would like to thank Dr lan Walker for his support and supervisor expertise over far too may years. He has read and re-read this work more times than I care to remember and has remained perennially patient with my inabilities to either type or spell, a problem that has made his job all the more difficult. The research and the writing faltered on several occasion, some more serious than others, but without his skill in getting me to do things that, quite frankly, I really did not want to do, this project would never have been completed. It is to lan that I hold the deepest debt of gratitude. Notes on the Text Translations. A number of different versions of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey have been used in the writing of this thesis. Both books have been translated many times in both verse and prose, but a number of texts stand out as authoritative, though not singularly so. Where Homer has been quoted I have done so using the verse translation of Richmond Lattimore, Professor Emeritus of Greek at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. His translations of the Iliad in 1951 and the Odyssey in 1967 have not yet been bettered as complete works. However the prose translations by Robert Fagles provide valuable and easy to read versions. The derivation of kudos, time and kleos have been extracted from a number of texts. An excellent single source is available from Bartolo Natoli (2006). Ranks. Wherever possible I have used the military ranks held by individual soldiers during the conflict. A number of later texts quoted as part of this study use the ranks held by service personnel at the time of interview or publication. For the sake of clarity I have avoided using these later ranks and apologise if any have been used. War or Conflict? The events that took place in the South Atlantic in the first half of 1982 have variously been referred to as a crisis, a conflict and a war. I have avoided using the term Falklands War purely for technical reasons, as war was never actually declared between the two nations. For this reason, I have used Falklands Conflict to refer to the events that took place on and around the Falkland Islands. Falklands Crisis has been used to describe the political and diplomatic events surrounding the conflict. The Greek Meme Kudos Victory on the battlefield measured in terms of glory. A warrior who fights unworthy enemies, those with considerably less skill than his own is not likely to obtain kudos. The Ancient Greeks believed that victory in battle was a gift of the gods, and therefore, whether a warrior obtained kudos or not was a matter for the gods. Time Warriors who obtained sufficient kudos could gain time (pronounced tee-may). This was individual fame based on the degree to which victories were talked about by others and is closely aligned to the modern ideas of respect and honour. There was a finite amount of time and it was a facet of a warrior's existence that it was in permanent flux; as one warrior gained time another would lose it. Kleos The ultimate aim of a warrior was to gain kleos aphthiton. This was similar to time, but was greater by an order or magnitude. To gain kleos a warrior must be remembered after his death. The first sign of a warrior's kleos was to be mentioned in poetry: this could have been a simple inclusion in the works of local story tellers, or in the work of epic poets, such as Homer. Kleos, unlike time, would outlive a warrior, giving him everlasting glory and remembrance down the generations, which in the Greek mind was the basis of immortality. Nostos Homecoming, or nostos, was not linked to kudos, time and kleos, other than to say that the more glory, honour and respect a warrior obtained, the better his homecoming would be. However, unlike modern ideas of homecoming as an event, for the Greeks nostos was a process, the successful outcome of which was reliant upon the favour of the gods. Nostos is mentioned in the Iliad, but the Odyssey is dedicated to the nostos of Odysseus. Introduction. The Falkland Conflict stands as a high point in British nationalism that now seems rather embarrassing in a nation not given to such emotional outbursts. The steady stream of media outbursts in favour of the war quickly built into a frenzy that often drifted into jingoism and xenophobia. These reports were tempered with anti-war campaigning by left-wing and liberal politicians and by a very small minority of news papers, but this did nothing to temper the national mood.