A fascinating account of his 1986 visit to the Falklands and how what he saw there influenced his later life was given to the recent meeting of Largs Probus by military historian and former naval armaments specialist Tom Ward. In his talk, entitled In the Footsteps of the Task Force & Learning in Later Life, Tom first explained how he came to visit the remote South Atlantic islands as a member of the crew of the Greenock-built Royal Navy support ship Resource four years after the 1982 conflict ended. Tom had not been part of the Falklands Task Force
Referring to the task force which sailed to the South Atlantic he noted that some forty-two Royal Navy warships, twenty-four Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels like the Resource, and no less than forty-one UK Merchant Navy ships participated in the operation to regain sovereignty over the islands. Six of these ships were sunk by Argentinian aircraft, one, the Sir Galahad, with considerable loss of life. This link to NavalPost gives ann interesting insight.
During trips ashore Tom inspected the damage caused to the island airport during the conflict and with his professional interest in munitions he described how he managed to find and then bring home to Scotland part of the metal casing from one of the many bombs dropped on the islands.
This fragment was circulated and was surprisingly much heavier than it looked. After his retirement the casing fragment stimulated an interest in history and caused him to go to university and study for a postgraduate degree. This involved much research into the structure of the bombs, how they were dropped and the form of damage they caused on exploding, all of which Tom illustrated by photos from his Falklands collection.
Also during his time on land Tom visited the various memorials to the 260 British servicemen and civilians who lost their lives during the conflict. Again his retirement interest was stimulated, leading to research into war memorials generally.
Through carefully collected statistics about the number of memorials commemorating wars British forces have participated in over the years, and the number of servicemen who were killed in each, he demonstrated the trend for large public memorials to be replaced by more private family ones.
John Riddell thanked Tom for a thought-provoking talk about events from forty years ago and certainly the first one to be given to the members by a speaker with a Masters degree in War Studies!
Largs Probus Club will next meet in the Willowbank Hotel on Wednesday 28th August at 10am when three Members will give ten-minute talks on subjects of their choice.
Men over the age of 50 who are retired, or nearing retirement, can attend three meetings as a guest before deciding whether to become a Club member. Please use our Contact Form if you wish to attend as a guest, or to enquire about joining.