That's fine. I was just letting the current discussion know that it was not only Keith who dismissed inconvenient first hand accounts as lies."

I have dismissed one anonymous GUEST's story as a fabrication and gave my reasons for believing it to be so.

"The context was a first hand account supplemented by information from a '50 years on' documentary."

A 50 years on documentary still considered to be the best documentary on the Great War ever made and littered throughout with interviews with men who had participated in the various actions who gave their first hand accounts - first hand accounts that were at total variance to the feelings expressed by anonymous GUEST's relative. He asked what the people who took part in the Great War thought - I directed him to the documentary.

"Ask the people who would have said "where is the RAF" while on the beaches what they would say after seeing an account of the full story.

And when do you think that they would have got that story? How long after the event? My take on it would be quite a long time after as the british Government in June 1940 would not be too keen on advertising how many fighter aircraft and pilots they had lost to the enemy.

"Ask the soldiers interviewed by 'embedded' reporters during the Falkland's conflict who complained about the lack of air support when being bombed what they would say afterwards they knew how the Harriers were being used."

In the Falklands the ground troops exposure to aerial attack was extremely slight, Argentine air attacks concentrated more on anti-shipping strikes. The most serious incident being the attacks on the Sir Galahad and Sir Tristrum - Had the Officers commanding the Household Troops embarked on those vessels followed the advice given them by their Royal Marine Amphibious Warfare Liaison Officer then there would have been no losses at all in Bluff Cove. All through the Falklands War the troops on the ground knew that if they called in for ground support (Fast Jet or NGS) they got it. Over half of the Argentine ground attack aircraft were taken out on the ground and they played little or no part in the battle.