MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

How Falkland Islanders went to war.

How the Falkland Islanders went to war in 1982 to rid their country of the Argentine invaders with courage, ingenuity and vital practical help to the advancing British forces has been told for the first time.

They braved danger, deportation and imprisonment as they also spied on and carried out sabotage against the Argentines, carried out psychological propaganda, transmitted intelligence by radio, ferried ammunition and the wounded, guided the advance paratroop patrols and fought in the front line. Women as well as men were in the forefront of "the fighting farmers". Their astonishing story of resistance during occupation is outlined in a book, "Falkland Islanders at War", by one of their own, Graham Bound, a journalist and founder editor of the Penguin News newspaper. It is a riveting, well-written narrative, recounting in dramatic, graphic, and factual detail, tales of daring-do, based on eye-witness accounts hitherto surprisingly unknown to the world at large. It fills a big gap in the lexicon of more than 200 books about the Falklands War. Two men who carried and used arms in the ferocious close combat battle for Mount Longdon -- former police chief Terry Peck and air service engineer Vernon Steen -- were awarded medals for their bravery, and a woman who organised the ammunition supply chain and evacuation of the wounded, Trudi Morrison, was praised by tough paratroop officers and won a military commendation from the Task Force Commander in Chief. Heroes all, it is surprising that many more were not awarded medals. Here are their remarkable stories.

Front line fighter -- code name "Rubber Duck"

Some of most daring adventures were by Terry Peck, described as "a tough, gutsy maverick in his early forties...Terry Peck had the strength, determination and sheer guts to carry his mission through". He became a legend accepted by the paratroops as "a man of calibre". In the initial stages, he walked about with a telephoto camera concealed in a length of drainpipe taking pictures of military targets which were smuggled out to British intelligence officers to study. "Locals thought it odd and Argentines must have assumed that Islanders often wandered the streets clutching a large piece of plumbing". Tipped off he was about to be arrested by Argentine military intelligence, he fled Stanley on a motorcycle. He avoided capture at different times by sitting in a locked toilet or pretending t