AMPHIBIOUS WARFARE POST WWII
by Ewen Southby-Tailyour
(Pen & Sword Military; £29.99; ISBN 978-1-03614-544-6)

Consisting of 27 chapters, this is a collection of essays and articles written by the prolific OP
author Lt Col. Ewen Southby-Tailyour (55-59) during the writer’s 32 years’ service in the
Royal Marines, when he specialised in amphibious operations, and subsequently in retirement
when he edited or contributed to various military publications.

Described on the cover as a “Royal Marine’s Anthology,” lay readers should not be deterred.
Subjects range far and wide, beginning in 1961 with excerpts from Ewen’s training journal as
a young Second Lieutenant in HMS Wizard, to his time as a company commander in the
Dhofar wars in the 1960s, to his celebrated involvement in the 1982 Falklands War, to his
role as a European Monitor during the Balkan wars in the 1990s and to such contemporary
issues as global maritime terrorism. He ends with a brief bow in the direction of Anton – a
famous dog owned by his OP Royal Marines father that was killed on active service in World
War 2 and buried in a small war cemetery in France.

In other hands, this might not be a palatable mixture. And chapters such as one of 24 pages
on amphibious warfare written in 1998 for a specialist publication are unlikely to grab the
general reader. But, as anyone who knows Ewen or has read any of his previous 15 books
will attest, he is a most unusual military and quasi-military voice – a man of forthright
opinions, often outspoken and always unafraid of controversy. The result is a lively, engaging
collection that is both a fascinating insight into some of the technical aspects of modern
warfare and also a revealing portrait of the contemporary British military mind.

Over the years Ewen also has been involved in several public and not so public controversies.
Chapter 9, about post-war arguments over the success or otherwise of RAF bombing of
Stanley airfield runway during the Falklands conflict, is typical. Asked in 2020 to research
and write a paper about this, to be signed by 27 of those involved on both sides (including
four OPs), Ewen concluded after four months research that the “bombing raids were at best
ineffectual, and at worst, expensive failures.” Clear and to the point.

Another controversy Ewen played a leading role in – a five-year campaign by those with
battlefield experience to have a sentence for murder imposed on an RM Commando for
killing a dying Taliban terrorist overturned – is also covered in the book. It was that campaign
which led Ewen to reveal that he had been involved in a similar life-or-death incident in the
Dhofar mountains involving one of his own men when he injected phials of morphine into the
dying man’s thigh to hasten his end during the middle of an attack by the enemy. “My prime
objective had been to fight and destroy the enemy with minimal cost to ourselves…and to
make the sergeant major’s passing as swift and painless as possible… Speed was essential.”
Ambiguity is not Ewen Southby-Tailyour’s style. Honesty, clarity and candour are. This
anthology may be the final shot in his substantial authorial locker. If it is, it is a splendid,
characteristic and fitting last word.

ROBIN KNIGHT (56-61)