On Saturday, June 6, in a short Service led by Canon Freda Davies, Cllr Sarah Freer, the Town Mayor and Members of the Ross-on-Wye Branch of the Royal British Legion honoured the 82nd Anniversary of D-Day.

In her first official engagement since being elected as Mayor, Cllr Sarah Freer, resplendent in her Mayoral Robes and Chain of Office gave a moving introduction to the history of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe.

On Sunday, June 14 at the Market House at 10am the town together with the Ross-on-Wye Branch of the Royal British Legion will honour Private Timothy Jenkins, together with Guardsmen Gareth Griffiths and Colin Parsons of The Welsh Guards, who perished on June 8 1982 on board RFA Sir Galahad in Fitzroy together with all other casualties of the Falklands Conflict.

During the 1982 Falklands War, the RFA Sir Galahad, a Round Table-class landing ship logistics vessel, became the site of the British task force’s single greatest loss of life.

On June 8, 1982, while anchored in Port Pleasant near Fitzroy to support the final advance on Stanley, the vessel was caught defenseless. Striking in broad daylight, Argentine A-4 Skyhawk fighters hit the ship with several 500-pound bombs. The resulting explosions ripped through the galley and engine room, tearing into the lower tank deck where hundreds of troops were waiting.

A massive fireball trapped dozens inside. The strike killed 48 people—including 38 members of the Welsh Guards and five Royal Fleet Auxiliary crew. Images of Royal Navy helicopters braving dense smoke to winch survivors from the blazing deck became the defining visuals of the war.

Later, the burned-out hull was towed to sea and torpedoed by a British submarine with the site remaining an official war grave.