Falklands remembered with a look to the future
School that raised 51 of the soldiers who liberated the islands plays host to stirring 40th anniversary service
The service at Pangbourne College yesterday was not your average school reunion. Its chapel played host to more than 1,000 people who gathered to commemorate 40 years since the end of the Falklands War, at a school that supplied 51 members of the British task force that liberated the islands.
The college is home to the Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel and holds a service each year for the 255 British personnel, 649 Argentines and three civilian islanders killed during nearly three months of fighting in the South Atlantic in 1982.
Founded in 1917 as the Nautical College, Pangbourne, it was set up to train boys to become Merchant Navy officers. It changed its name in 1969 and became co-educational in 1996. Of the 51 former pupils of Pangbourne College deployed to the Falklands, 13 were decorated for bravery.
Maj Gen Julian Thompson, who led 3 Commando Brigade throughout the operation, said the service had provided “a mood of reflection, gladness of seeing old comrades still alive, remembering the ones who have died and being grateful we are still alive and here to take part in the service”.
He added: “We are all old, as it happened 40 years ago, but some people left Britain as 16-year-olds and people always say ‘poor young Argentines, bad luck facing us old soldiers,’ but actually many of my people were younger than the Argentine soldiers.
“I think it is important to remember the dead and the families who suffer to this day, as well as the people who are not dead but suffer still from PTSD and traumatic stress.”
Maj Gen Thompson, 87, was on the board of trustees for the chapel at Pangbourne College, near Reading in Berkshire. “We decided to put it here as it would be used on a daily basis by the school, as well as for weddings, funerals and christenings,” he said.
“They should know why we’re here and the sacrifices they made.
We’re very keen on bringing family here as the young are the future.”
The chapel, opened in March 2000 by the Queen, holds a service each year on the Sunday nearest to June 14, the liberation date of the Falkland Islands. Organisers had expected up to 1,000 people at the college and the remembrance service to mark this year’s 40th anniversary of the war.
The chapel was extended with a temporary marquee to accommodate the extra numbers.
Veterans of Operation Corporate – the mission to reclaim the islands after Argentina invaded them – their families and the next of kin of those who died, joined the Duke of Kent at the service.
The Duke attended in his capacity as Colonel of the Scots Guards. The regiment’s 2nd Battalion was part of the task force that liberated the islands.
The service began with the sound of eight bells from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Sir Galahad, rung by Captain Philip Roberts, the ship’s commander in 1982. The logistics vessel was hit by three 250kg bombs launched from Argentine Skyhawk jets while attempting to disembark troops in Fitzroy for the final assault on Port Stanley during the war.
Five Galahad crew members and 55 Welsh Guards died in the attack.
Maj Gen Thompson said: “I am here to commemorate the chaps in my brigade and some other people such as Colonel H Jones, who lost his life because I sent him there. He was my responsibility. That is something I will carry with me for the rest of my days and it’s the same for every commanding officer. It’s having the responsibility [for] the people that you order to do things that cost them their lives. That is why I’m here.”
The Right Rev Hugh Nelson, Anglican Bishop to the Armed Forces, said it was vital to remember the fallen and to “try to understand backwards, so that we can live well forwards”.
“Memory is a strange thing,” he said. “It is partial, it can be dangerous, but it is utterly essential.
“We will remember honestly and truthfully. We will look to the past in order to live wisely into the future.
“We will remember them.”