We will never forget those who fought for Falklands

For the generation lucky enough never to have experienced war it was absolutely unthinkable – that a Portsmouth-based warship would sail away never to return, sunk in a conflict 8,000 miles away.

Of course, for those living here, or who served, in the Second World War the regular loss of Royal Navy ships was an agonising but regular occurrence.

The mass outpouring of grief for men lost from this city or from a ship which called Portsmouth home was something we all hoped had been consigned to black and white history. Then, in 1982, it happened again, in colour this time.

Those of us who lived through the Falklands war (‘war’ was never declared so officially it was a ‘conflict’, but ask those who fought in it if it felt like war…) shall never forget the night news emerged that another of our own, the destroyer

HMS Sheffield, had been badly damaged.

She was hit by an Exocet missile from an Argentine aircraft on May 4, 1982. She foundered while under tow on May 10, the first Royal Navy vessel sunk in action since the Second World War.

Losing a ship was shocking but what of the human cost? Twenty men died, with another 26 injured, mostly from burns, breathing smoke or shock.

In four months we shall remember that moment as part of the 40th anniversary commemorations of the Falklands conflict.

The men who survived, many still in these parts, must wonder if what they went through is still remembered or even cared about.

It is – as we prove today with our story of the £12,000 raised in three days for the HMS Sheffield Association to pay for a new memorial honouring the ship.

What a comfort that must be for those who did come home yet still have nightmares about the attack that sank their ship.