TFC Bibliography

A demonstration that Phillips misquoted Argentine books to assert that VAO #17 was part of the Landing formation, when in reality that vehicle was left in the barracks due to lack of spares.



Phillips’ bibliography is also worth discussing:
Click on pictures to enlarge




If Phillips would like to say the name and rank of that “repair shop manager”, I’ll be glad to corroborate that story. Anyway, I have to say that Phillips’ reliance on Fogliani’s book, Blindados Argentinos de Uruguay y Paraguay (1997), is quite odd, the book is a history of armored vehicles used in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay from the 1920's to 1997, it’s 200 pages long, but only 8 of them are dedicated to talk about the Argentine landing (most of it taken from Busser’s book), on which I counted at least 11 typos or redaction errors. It wasn't revised enough, sadly. All the books mentioned by Phillips are available in the Argentine Navy Library, so I checked:

The paragraph he uses to demonstrate that #17 went to the islands is this one, in page 160:


Translation: “On Saturday 27th, at 8 in the morning, the march towards Puerto Belgrano started, with two complete sections of LVPT-7 of 8 vehicles each, plus the command group comprised by the VAOC (command vehicle) and the Support Vehicle. At the Unit remained three LVTP-7, which were VAO 14, and the VAO 17, which lacked a spare and couldn’t be put into service. By dawn, all VAO (including the two stalled at the Unit) were embarked on the BDT ARA San Antonio, ready for the journey.”

This is one of the redaction errors I mentioned, at first says there were three (tres) vehicles delayed, but only enumerates two, #14 and #17. Then he says that that both vehicles joined the rest of the formation, contradicting the part about the lacking spare for #17. It’s confusing, and Phillips uses this information to put that vehicle on the San Antonio’s deck. To complicate things, in his book, he mistranslated that paragraph and inadvertently substituted “three” for “two”:
Not to mention that he left out the part where Fogliani said that VAO #17 couldn't be put back in service, choosing to say that "could not be with the main group".
But then, I found this paragraph in Admiral Busser’s book, Operación Rosario (1984), page 334:


It’s really similar, almost word by word to the one in Fogliani’s book, here’s the translation:

“On Saturday March 27th  at 8:00 we started the march towards Puerto Belgrano, two complete sections of VAO (8 vehicles each), plus the command group, comprised by the VAOC (command vehicle) and the Support Vehicle; remaining in the Unit the VAO #14, whose repair was being completed, the Recovery VAO, since the maintenance crew that manned it was working on #14, and VAO #17, that due to temporary lack of a spare part could not be put into service.”

There it is, the Recovery VAO (R1) was the third vehicle, and the one that reached the ARA San Antonio together with VAO #14, while #17 couldn’t be repaired.

In page 335, continues:



“At last by Saturday nightfall all VAO were on board the BDT, already lashed and ready for the journey.”

But remember, Busser’s book is from 1984, Fogliani’s book is from 1997.

Another goof in Fogliani’s book is the formation diagram, page 162:


Again it’s almost identical to the one in Busser’s book, but he puts a non-existent VAO #20 instead of the command vehicle, VAO C. Note that VAO #17 is not present on either book, and the presence of VAR #15, a LARC-5 wheeled vehicle at the end of the formation. I will discuss about it later on this article.


Other miscellaneous errors in Fogliani’s book include saying that there were 123 vehicles in the previous exercise, page 159:


Or writing “the VAO” two times in a row, page 164:

There are a few more minor typos involving spacing and punctuation that would be tedious to enumerate, but it’s evident that it lacks proofreading.

Returning to the vehicles already at the San Antonio’s tank deck:



Yes, it’s true, there were 21 vehicles in San Antonio’s tank deck, because the formation was comprised of 20 LVPT-7s (VAO) and one LARC-5 (VAR) vehicle. You can check again the formation diagrams above, they show 20 Amtracs and one LARC-5. It says so in Rear Admiral Horacio Mayorga’s book No Vencidos (1998), page 61:


Translation:

“Her tank deck was crowded with 20 armored amphibian vehicles (VAOs) and a wheeled amphibian vehicle (VAR)”

Fogliani mentioned the same number in page 160:


Translation:

 “In the San Antonio’s tank deck were embarked 20 VAO (LVTP-7) and a VAR (LARC-5). In the helicopter flight deck there were other 4 VAR and about 30 Army and Marine Infantry vehicles”

Blue underline translation:

“The journey went without trouble, except for VAR #2, when in the dawn of [March] 31st, and because of the storm, its restraining lashes snapped”

In page 159, at the beginning of the chapter about the Landing, also mentions 20 Amtracs and 5 LARCs:


That would confirm that 5 LARC-5 vehicles in total went to the Falklands; here you can see 4 LARC-5s in the flight deck, note VAR #2 loose from its moorings, as stated above: 


And here you can see the 5 VARs waiting to be reembarked in a Stanley street:





And again, this is the VAR #15 after the cease fire:


All this time Phillips counted that no one could check on an abandoned boat in a very remote island, an Amtrac sitting in a small town square in Argentina, and a few obscure Argentine books about a war 38 years ago; and even better for him, serious historians won’t waste their time dealing with an amateur book, they have better projects to do.

But I’m very curious (and a bit obsessive with mysteries, I confess), I have been connected to Argentine veterans all my life, and Navy’s library is 15 minutes away from my home. So, I decided to do something about it in my free time. I took all of this effort because there were times when I was almost convinced that he might be right, and many families could have been lied by the military government. But what I found instead is that when you scratch deeper, lots of inconsistencies appear, to put it mildly. I have to admit that his tangle of “evidence” was beautifully crafted and a real pain to disassemble. I won’t comment on his witnesses’ assertions about an “Auschwitz oven” inside the VAO 17, helicopters loaded with corpses to toss them on Tussac islet, the cremation stench reaching the town from there, or hospital records he never showed; I think this evidence makes it unnecessary. What remains are the supposed casualties around Governor’s House, but fine, let’s say that 5 Argentine soldiers died there, let’s make it 10 if you want. That wouldn’t be a problem, just more martyrs for the cause and streets, parks and schools to name after. As it wasn’t a problem to admit 3 dead, 9 injured, a damaged A69 corvette, and a Puma helicopter damaged beyond repair on April 3rd, the very next day, during the combat in Grytviken, Georgias Islands, against only 22 Royal Marines.

Well, that’s the end of the road for me, it’s been a wild ride, and I don’t care if Ricky comes up with a new twisted tale to accommodate to these pictures, I think there’s not much room to escape for him; I don’t know, maybe take advantage of my profession and call “PHOTOSHOP, DEEP FAKE, LIES, DECEPTION!!”, I can’t wait. If you still choose to believe him and that super-duper Black-Hawk-Down-esque story, well, it’s your right. I’m not trying to imply that the Royal Marines from NP8901 were cowards, liars, or lousy soldiers; they fought like hell, against a much bigger force, and only stopped at request from the Governor, to avoid civilian casualties. But in the heat of combat, when you’re fighting for your life and people are shooting at you, there’s a great deal of stress that clouds your perception and memory. I’ve seen it happen in many Argentine veterans too, like in the Invincible attack (alright, it wasn’t hit!) or the Tumbledown combat. It’s common in every war, I guess.