York knuckles down to Falklands mission - finally

FRESH from an “eventful” – and unscheduled – start to her South Atlantic deployment (she was called upon to evacuate civilians from Benghazi at the height of the growing crisis in Libya) HMS York has belatedly begun her patrol of the Falklands.

Britain’s fastest destroyer (34kts – quicker than Daring, Dauntless and Diamond which are more than 20 years younger...) had just one day alongside at East Cove Military Port (perhaps a blessing given its bleakness) before beginning her South Atlantic duties in earnest.

HMS Clyde honours the men of '82

SALUTING their fallen forebears, four sailors from HMS Clyde honour the crew of HMS Coventry after restoring their memorial.

The ship’s company of today’s Falklands guardian have spent the past few weeks tidying up monuments and memorials peppered around the archipelago as their vessel patrolled the islands.

Either Clyde or the RN’s South Atlantic Patrol Ship regularly maintain some of the outlying memorials – most recently HMS Portland’s sailors smartened up the Coventry on Pebble Island monument last summer.

Just a few months later, however, the ferocity of the South Atlantic weather meant a return to Pebble Island was in order, so the men of Clyde duly obliged.

The sailors have also tackled three other memorials during their recent patrols of the Falklands: 2 Para’s monument at Goose Green, 42 Commando’s on Mount Harriet, half a dozen miles outside Stanley – and the scene of bitter fighting in the final days of the 1982 conflict – and the HMS Sheffield cenotaph.