A MAKESHIFT wooden cross erected to honour 32 Welsh Guardsmen killed in the biggest single loss of life during the Falklands War, in 1982, has been installed in the garrison church of their new base in Windsor.
As part of the Guards’ St David’s Day service on Sunday of last week, the cross was carried into Holy Trinity Church by Brigadier Johnny Rickett, the Guards’ commanding officer during the Falklands War, and Captain Jim Everett, then a platoon commander. It was blessed and rededicated and then placed into the church’s newly named Household Division Chapel.
The six-foot-tall cross, quickly fashioned from fence posts bolted together, originally stood beside a stone cairn close to the site in Bluff Cove where Argentinian bombers attacked the fleet auxiliary Sir Galahad as the Welsh Guards were disembarking. After the war ended, it was brought back to the Guards’ chapel in Pirbright, Surrey, but has been moved, as the regiment is now quartered in Combermere Barracks, Windsor.
MINISTRY OF DEFENCEThe cross in its original location in the Falklands
A spokesman for the Guards, Captain William Clarke, said: “The loss of our men in the Falklands is a terrible moment in our history. . . We are bringing our dead with us to our new home.”
The Guards’ Commanding Officer, Lieut. Col. Henry Llewellyn-Usher, said: “St David’s Day is of the greatest importance to the Welsh Guards, and represents the central attribute of our ethos and fighting spirit. . . This year is of particular significance as we rededicate our commemorative cross.”