دوستان من، دشمن: زندگی در اطلاعات نظامی در طول جنگ فالکلند

'On the beach the Lieutenant asked if he could say a prayer before being shot. "Don't be so bloody silly," I replied, "get into the boat."'My Friends, The Enemy recounts the Falklands War from the viewpoint of the only Intelligence Corps in HQ 3 Commando Brigade and serving with its Intelligence Section of Royal Marines, It is a personal account supported by intelligence assembled since 1982.Nick van der Bijl was a Staff Sergeant and his role meant that he was expected to provide accurate intelligence to Brigade Headquarters and deploy specialist skills. Little was known about the Argentine threat and so the Intelligence Section was very heavily involved in collecting, collating and distributing intelligence from a variety of sources, initially from the UK and after landing at San Carlos Water, also from documents, prisoners of war, and a counter-intelligence operation. While the intelligence proved to be accurate throughout the campaign, some has been controversial, particularly relating to the Battle of Goose Green. Van der Bijl was one of the first into Stanley after the Argentinian surrender and was part of an intelligence operation that searched enemy HQs for documents and selected several hundred officers for further interrogation.My Friends, The Enemy is the first time that the story of intelligence operations has been told by a witness to events in the Falklands from the start of the campaign to the finish. My Friends, The Enemy recounts the Falklands War from the viewpoint of the only Intelligence Corps serving with Intelligence Section, HQ 3 Commando Brigade. It is a personal account supported by intelligence comment assembled since 1982. Although Nick van der Bijl was a Staff Sergeant, his role, as part of the Intelligence Corps, meant that he was expected to provide expert intelligence to Brigade Headquarters about the Argentines. The fact that initially he knew nothing about them meant that he was very heavily involved in collecting and collating that intelligence from a variety of sources, including information from UK and after landing documents, prisoners of war and local people. The intelligence proved to be very accurate throughout the campaign. Controversially, the intelligence provided to 2nd Parachute Battalion at Goose Green was largely rejected in favor of less accurate information supplied by the SAS. Van der Bijl was one of the first into Port Stanley after the Argentine surrender and was part of an intelligence operation to search enemy HQs for documents, select several hundred Argentine officers for further interrogation before repatriation and interview several civilians as part of a counter-intelligence operation. My Friends, The Enemy is the first time that intelligence operations has been told by a prime witness to events from the start of the campaign to the finish. My Friends, The Enemy is the only first-hand account of the Falklands War written by somebody involved in the military intelligence operation. It tells the inside story of the huge efforts made behind the scenes as Britain sought to complete its most ambitious campaign of the post-Second World War era.