Deputy Presiding Officer to lay wreath at Bluff Cove to mark 30th anniversary of the Falklands War
6 June 2012
The National Assembly for Wales Deputy Presiding Officer, David Melding AM, will represent Wales in the Falkland Islands, as they commemorate the 30th anniversary of the liberation of Port Stanley from Argentine occupation.
Mr Melding is making the 8,000-mile visit to the South Atlantic as an official guest of the Falkland Island Government.
He will take part in the official celebrations in Port Stanley on 14 June, but the first thing he will do when he lands in the Falklands on 11 June, will be to lay a wreath at the Welsh Guards Memorial at Fitzroy.
Thirty-two Welsh Guards lost their lives on 8 June, 1982, when an Argentine missile hit the Sir Galahad Troop Carrier.
“In 1982 I was a student at Cardiff University and remember vividly the impact that the Falklands conflict had on me and my fellow students. It was the first major overseas conflict that Britain had been involved in during our lifetimes,” he said.
“It had a deep impact on me, afterall many of the soldiers were the same age, and we soon found out that some of them would be called upon to make the supreme sacrifice in defence of the Falklands.
“That sacrifice included the 32 Welsh Guards who lost their lives at Bluff Cove. That’s why the first thing I will do when I get off the plane in the Falklands, is to make my way to Fitzroy, overlooking Bluff Cove, to lay a wreath at the memorial to those Welsh Guards who lost their lives that fearful day.
“The Argentine Junta inflicted appalling misery on the Argentine people and would have done so to the people of the Falklands.
“The British Task Force dealt a swift and significant blow for freedom and democracy, and we should never forget those who made the supreme sacrifice in defence of freedom.”