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Storming the Falklands: My War and After
The fascinating true story of a man who spent his best years fighting in the Falklands and who was later diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Thirty years after the Falklands War, "Secret Millionaire" Tony Banks is still haunted by his experiences in the South Atlantic. As a member of the crack Parachute Regiment his unit was the first to land on the Falklands and he fought in the bloody first and last battles of the war before liberating Port Stanley. In this memoir Tony vividly recalls the fighting in the Falklands. He relives the bombing raids in San Carlos bay, the Battle of Goose Green, the Argentinian attack on the Sir Galahad, and the Battle of Wireless Ridge. But he also tells of his own battles with Combat Stress and of how three decades on the war is still claiming victims. He tells the stories of British and Argentine veterans and travels to Argentina to return a war trophy—a trumpet he had taken from a prisoner—to its rightful owner. The return of the trumpet brings closure to both men. And finally Tony returns to the Falklands to lay the ghosts that have haunted him to rest.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2012
5 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
About the author
Tony Banks
1 book1 followerTony Banks was a Falklands veteran and entrepreneur.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Ba...
Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Ba...
Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 7, 2013
An interesting read. The book can be cut-up into sections: 1) Falklands War, 2) Banks after-war (PTSD), 3) Banks business success, 4) going to Argentina, 5)back to Falklands. The book does flag a little in the middle but for me I found parts 1, 4 and 5 the most interesting. I know Tony Banks was trying to bring home the ever growing issue of PTSD so I do not want to diminish that (part 3) in the slightest as it is so important and thank the author for bringing it to light. I have read books on Afghanistan especially of ones where soldiers have been in very intensive situations like disabling IEDs. What will happen to these guys in 14 years time? They do need to be looked after.
January 5, 2026
The book is a memoir of a Scottish lad from a poor, typically lower-class background, sent by a former empire to fight a risky mission at the very end of the world – a bleak little island on the edge of the enormous Atlantic, a place he didn’t even know existed before.
I bought the book mainly for the first-hand account of the Falklands War, which I knew very little about. What surprised me was how intense and brutal the conflict actually was, despite being relatively small in terms of numbers. There are bloody bayonet attacks (!), mass graves, and executions of surrendering soldiers – yes, by the British as well.
It’s written with the arrogance of a soldier from an elite unit, but at the same time author remains a simple, slightly naïve (not stupid!) boy from a Scottish suburb. Apart from jumping out of planes, he likes football, beer and women. And when he suddenly see a friend dying for the first time, in a war he didn’t even really understand or know what it was being fought for, it changed his life completely:
“I heard a cry and saw that Steve Dixon, a good mate of mine, had been shot. I ran over to him but the colour was already draining from his face and he was turning a bluish grey. His breathing was shallow. He was done in. I didn’t want to see this, but I was wide-eyed. Every detail of Steve’s last moments was seared into my consciousness. The young Essex boy who had been my mate all through training sighed his last word: ‘Mum.’ Then a single tear rolled down his face. It was a devastating moment and that vivid image has stayed with me ever since.“
Kudos to the author for managing to come to terms with this trauma and becoming a hugely successful businessman. In fact, his extreme work ethic and success were also just a reaction to PTSD – a way not to drown in memories. Otherwise he might have ended up in prison, in alcoholism, or dead by suicide, like many of his fellow soldiers.
Besides the raw reality of war, I also took away two extremely interesting themes from the book:
1. PTSD:
Roughly half the book is devoted to post-traumatic stress disorder. The numbers on veterans are downright alarming:
“I was appalled to learn that over three hundred British and five hundred Argentinian veterans – men whose minds and emotions had been mangled during the war – had taken their own lives over the past thirty years. In other words, almost as many ex-combatants have committed suicide as died in the land fighting itself. And that truly shocking statistic does not even include those veterans who died slow, lonely deaths from drink, drugs or poverty in run-down flats, gutters or police cells.“
What also surprised me was learning that PTSD often doesn’t fully develop until an average of 14 years(!) after the events that caused it. And while the Falklands involved a relatively small number of veterans, just imagine how many tens of thousands of traumatised people we (and our children) will have to learn to live and work with 14 years after the war in Ukraine ends…
2. Great Britain outside the war
I also found the passages outside the Falklands extremely interesting: the author’s childhood in Dundee, Scotland, and the shockingly poor living conditions in Britain in the 1970s. As well as his first jobs after the war and the journey from a pub brawler to a successful entrepreneur.
You can strongly feel the division into upper, working and lower class throughout the book, along with a heavy dose of tribalism – but also the fact that even in such an environment, a person can fulfil their life ambitions and succeed.
Storming The Falklands won’t be an easy read for many – partly because of the brutal, heavy scenes, and partly because Tony Banks doesn’t write like a professional author. But if you want to learn about a piece of fascinating history and about PTSD through the eyes of someone who actually lived it – not from an academic textbook – it’s definitely worth picking up.
I’m giving the book a very solid 3 stars.
A few quotes that stood out to me:
On the author’s motivation:
“The Queen and Country thing didn’t really work on us Scots, and it was the same for the Taffs and Paddies. We did it for ourselves, our own countries, esprit de corps, our mates. That is basically how the British Army, and every other army, operates. Tribalism is everything.“
A funny “very British moment” during the combat landing:
“As the landing craft finally sidled alongside, there was a very British moment. The tannoy crackled into life and the tinny voice of the Norland’s captain thanked us for travelling with him and his crew and wished us a safe stay in the Falkland Islands. Talk about stiff upper lip! You would have thought he was dropping us off at Oostende for the weekend.“
On the lousy equipment of elite(!) British units:
“As usual, the British Army had provided us with useless supplies. Our long-johns were made of cotton, so once they were wet, they were freezing. Most of us had brought along women’s tights, which were light and did the job much better.“
On the horrific conditions – cold and damp – on the Falklands:
“Your boots were frozen on to your feet because they were so wet. I took off my socks and stuck them up in my groin, then Rocky and I faced each other and stuck our feet under each other’s armpits. You would do anything to get warm. Big, tough men cuddled into each other. Others screamed out or whimpered because of the pain in their feet. Our cardboard boots were claiming more casualties than any enemy action.“
On how young the soldiers were:
“I was one of the older blokes in the platoon, even though I was only twenty. Amazingly, we had some seventeen-year-olds with us. They were too young to be sent to the streets of Northern Ireland, they couldn’t even vote or drink legally, but they were old enough to get their bollocks blown off in the South Atlantic.“
On total exhaustion after the fighting:
“We were physically shattered after the Falklands and on that first night back aboard the Norland we all conked out and slept for eighteen hours. When we woke up, we were greeted with more bizarre evidence of the extreme exhaustion we were suffering – the whole floor was covered in crap! Guys had got up in the middle of the night with no idea where they were and had taken a dump on the floor. It was disgusting, but it said a lot about the state we were in.“
On coping with PTSD through work:
“My coping mechanism was to focus totally on the business and throw myself into it 100 per cent. I blocked out everything else. That allowed me to get through a very depressing period, at least to some extent. I thought I could shut down my emotions and escape the ghosts of the Falklands by keeping myself busy. I suppose it was a very male reaction. I did not realise that I was not dealing with things – I was simply postponing having to deal with them.“
On the fact that even elite soldiers aren’t trained to fight PTSD later:
“These were big, hard, tough men, but they had been trained to kill, not to cope with death, destruction, disability and distress. British soldiers look after each other. We all look after somebody who can’t keep up, somebody who can’t take as much as we can. But when you leave the services, you are more or less on your own. That’s what a lot of guys can’t handle. There is nobody to pick them up and look after them; nobody to steer them in the right direction.“
On horrific memories that keep coming back:
“As they moved forward to evacuate the casualties, Les saw a soldier waving his arms for help. The man had been disembowelled and his leg had been partially amputated and Les knew he was beyond help. ‘I had to make a decision and I left him,’ Les said. ‘I’ve felt guilt and regret for twenty-five years that I didn’t even say anything to him.’ As Les came to the bottom of a stairwell he saw two young Welsh Guardsmen who were also in a bad way. ‘They shook each other’s hands, pointed their rifles to each other’s head and pulled their triggers … When I thought back to this incident I just felt so disgusted with myself – that I had felt no sympathy, remorse or other emotion.’“
I bought the book mainly for the first-hand account of the Falklands War, which I knew very little about. What surprised me was how intense and brutal the conflict actually was, despite being relatively small in terms of numbers. There are bloody bayonet attacks (!), mass graves, and executions of surrendering soldiers – yes, by the British as well.
It’s written with the arrogance of a soldier from an elite unit, but at the same time author remains a simple, slightly naïve (not stupid!) boy from a Scottish suburb. Apart from jumping out of planes, he likes football, beer and women. And when he suddenly see a friend dying for the first time, in a war he didn’t even really understand or know what it was being fought for, it changed his life completely:
“I heard a cry and saw that Steve Dixon, a good mate of mine, had been shot. I ran over to him but the colour was already draining from his face and he was turning a bluish grey. His breathing was shallow. He was done in. I didn’t want to see this, but I was wide-eyed. Every detail of Steve’s last moments was seared into my consciousness. The young Essex boy who had been my mate all through training sighed his last word: ‘Mum.’ Then a single tear rolled down his face. It was a devastating moment and that vivid image has stayed with me ever since.“
Kudos to the author for managing to come to terms with this trauma and becoming a hugely successful businessman. In fact, his extreme work ethic and success were also just a reaction to PTSD – a way not to drown in memories. Otherwise he might have ended up in prison, in alcoholism, or dead by suicide, like many of his fellow soldiers.
Besides the raw reality of war, I also took away two extremely interesting themes from the book:
1. PTSD:
Roughly half the book is devoted to post-traumatic stress disorder. The numbers on veterans are downright alarming:
“I was appalled to learn that over three hundred British and five hundred Argentinian veterans – men whose minds and emotions had been mangled during the war – had taken their own lives over the past thirty years. In other words, almost as many ex-combatants have committed suicide as died in the land fighting itself. And that truly shocking statistic does not even include those veterans who died slow, lonely deaths from drink, drugs or poverty in run-down flats, gutters or police cells.“
What also surprised me was learning that PTSD often doesn’t fully develop until an average of 14 years(!) after the events that caused it. And while the Falklands involved a relatively small number of veterans, just imagine how many tens of thousands of traumatised people we (and our children) will have to learn to live and work with 14 years after the war in Ukraine ends…
2. Great Britain outside the war
I also found the passages outside the Falklands extremely interesting: the author’s childhood in Dundee, Scotland, and the shockingly poor living conditions in Britain in the 1970s. As well as his first jobs after the war and the journey from a pub brawler to a successful entrepreneur.
You can strongly feel the division into upper, working and lower class throughout the book, along with a heavy dose of tribalism – but also the fact that even in such an environment, a person can fulfil their life ambitions and succeed.
Storming The Falklands won’t be an easy read for many – partly because of the brutal, heavy scenes, and partly because Tony Banks doesn’t write like a professional author. But if you want to learn about a piece of fascinating history and about PTSD through the eyes of someone who actually lived it – not from an academic textbook – it’s definitely worth picking up.
I’m giving the book a very solid 3 stars.
A few quotes that stood out to me:
On the author’s motivation:
“The Queen and Country thing didn’t really work on us Scots, and it was the same for the Taffs and Paddies. We did it for ourselves, our own countries, esprit de corps, our mates. That is basically how the British Army, and every other army, operates. Tribalism is everything.“
A funny “very British moment” during the combat landing:
“As the landing craft finally sidled alongside, there was a very British moment. The tannoy crackled into life and the tinny voice of the Norland’s captain thanked us for travelling with him and his crew and wished us a safe stay in the Falkland Islands. Talk about stiff upper lip! You would have thought he was dropping us off at Oostende for the weekend.“
On the lousy equipment of elite(!) British units:
“As usual, the British Army had provided us with useless supplies. Our long-johns were made of cotton, so once they were wet, they were freezing. Most of us had brought along women’s tights, which were light and did the job much better.“
On the horrific conditions – cold and damp – on the Falklands:
“Your boots were frozen on to your feet because they were so wet. I took off my socks and stuck them up in my groin, then Rocky and I faced each other and stuck our feet under each other’s armpits. You would do anything to get warm. Big, tough men cuddled into each other. Others screamed out or whimpered because of the pain in their feet. Our cardboard boots were claiming more casualties than any enemy action.“
On how young the soldiers were:
“I was one of the older blokes in the platoon, even though I was only twenty. Amazingly, we had some seventeen-year-olds with us. They were too young to be sent to the streets of Northern Ireland, they couldn’t even vote or drink legally, but they were old enough to get their bollocks blown off in the South Atlantic.“
On total exhaustion after the fighting:
“We were physically shattered after the Falklands and on that first night back aboard the Norland we all conked out and slept for eighteen hours. When we woke up, we were greeted with more bizarre evidence of the extreme exhaustion we were suffering – the whole floor was covered in crap! Guys had got up in the middle of the night with no idea where they were and had taken a dump on the floor. It was disgusting, but it said a lot about the state we were in.“
On coping with PTSD through work:
“My coping mechanism was to focus totally on the business and throw myself into it 100 per cent. I blocked out everything else. That allowed me to get through a very depressing period, at least to some extent. I thought I could shut down my emotions and escape the ghosts of the Falklands by keeping myself busy. I suppose it was a very male reaction. I did not realise that I was not dealing with things – I was simply postponing having to deal with them.“
On the fact that even elite soldiers aren’t trained to fight PTSD later:
“These were big, hard, tough men, but they had been trained to kill, not to cope with death, destruction, disability and distress. British soldiers look after each other. We all look after somebody who can’t keep up, somebody who can’t take as much as we can. But when you leave the services, you are more or less on your own. That’s what a lot of guys can’t handle. There is nobody to pick them up and look after them; nobody to steer them in the right direction.“
On horrific memories that keep coming back:
“As they moved forward to evacuate the casualties, Les saw a soldier waving his arms for help. The man had been disembowelled and his leg had been partially amputated and Les knew he was beyond help. ‘I had to make a decision and I left him,’ Les said. ‘I’ve felt guilt and regret for twenty-five years that I didn’t even say anything to him.’ As Les came to the bottom of a stairwell he saw two young Welsh Guardsmen who were also in a bad way. ‘They shook each other’s hands, pointed their rifles to each other’s head and pulled their triggers … When I thought back to this incident I just felt so disgusted with myself – that I had felt no sympathy, remorse or other emotion.’“
March 17, 2013
Good, solid first-person memoir of a Falklands vet. I know the author is a bit of a TV and business personality in the UK, and there is a smattering of celebrity bio treatment, but overall it's good stuff. There are interesting insights and a good mix of interviews/POVs from both Falkland Islanders and former Argentine soldiers. It's a good, easy-to-read intro into this conflict. Definitely recommend.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews