The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection

A pair of South Atlantic Medals awarded to Sapper Mark Edwin Richards, 9 Para Squadron Royal Engineers, who was badly burned when the R.F.A. Sir Galahad was attacked by Argentinian aircraft in Bluff Cove, 8 June 1982
South Atlantic 1982, with (loose) rosette (24584353 Spr. M. E. Richard, R.E.) in named card box of issue; together with an identically named replacement issue medal, but with the ‘R’ for ‘Replacement’ neatly erased, this too in card box of issue, good very fine and better (2) £3200-3500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection.

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Mark Edwin Richard served with 9 Para Squadron, Royal Engineers. He was severely injured, suffering burns to 38% of his body when the Sir Galahad was hit by three bombs dropped by planes of the Argentine Air Force on 8 June 1982. Whilst being treated for his wounds aboard the S.S. Uganda he was positioned in the next bed to the severely injured Simon Weston and is mentioned by name in Simon Weston’s book Walking Tall, with whom he formed a ‘great friendship’.

Mark Edwin ‘Sparko’ Richard was born on 13 September 1962. He enlisted in the Royal Engineers at Birmingham on 20 October 1980, aged 18 years.He finished his training as Combat Engineer on 16 April 1981, qualifying as a Specialist Combat Tractor Driver, and was posted to No. 2 Troop, 9th Para. Sqn. RE, the only airborne Sapper unit currently in existence. The unit was based in Aldershot as part of 36 Engineer Regiment which supported the 5th Airborne Brigade. The all-volunteer squadron was fully parachute trained, and consisted of a squadron headquarters, three troops and a support troop.

On 19 March 1982 a small party of Argentinean scrap metal merchants landed illegally at Leith, South Georgia to dismantle an old whaling station. Thus began a series of events which led to the Argentine occupation of the Falkland Islands by 2 April and invasion of South Georgia on the 3 April. Reaction from the United Kingdom was swift, and a task force (Operation “Corporate”) was soon on its way to wrest the Falklands back from the Argentineans. No 2 Troop, 9th Para. Sqn. RE was attached to 2nd Parachute Regt., and departed the UK on 27 April on-board the Hull based Ferry, MV Norland, now a far cry from her usual nightly crossing of the North Sea to Rotterdam. The remainder of the squadron were to go South with 5 Brigade, onboard the Queen Elizabeth II (QE2) on 12 May. At 4:30 am on 2t May the 4,000 men of 3 Commando Brigade, including the 2nd and 3rd battalions of the Parachute Regiment and the Sappers of 2 Troop 9th Sqn. RE, were put ashore as follows: 2 Para (with the sappers) and 40 Commando were landed at San Carlos Beach, 45 Commando at Ajax Bay, and 3 Para at Port San Carlos. By dawn the next day, they had established a secure beachhead from which to conduct offensive operations.

The Sappers now began their work. On each beach there were command posts to be built, and soon afterwards local buildings to be checked for booby traps. On May 26, 2 Para set off to the south to mount a surprise attack on Darwin and Goose Green, and the next day 3 Para and 45 Commando headed east towards Port Stanley. During the campaign, the engineer Squadron was to be involved in the thick of the action, from clearing minefields and leading patrols through, out of, and around the minefields, more often than not under direct and indirect fire. They were also regularly involved in checking buildings for booby traps.

On the 7 June 1982 the Squadron was aboard HMS Fearless to take part in the assault on Port Stanley. This mission was aborted due to bad weather, so the squadron was dropped off at Bluff Cove. A few men decided to rest on board Sir Galahad which was lying off shore in Fitzroy Bay. On the 8 June the Sir Galahad was bombed by Argentine Skyhawk aircraft. Three Argentine Skyhawks attacked Sir Galahad and two attacked Sir Tristram. The air defences were ill prepared for this strike; the two Sea Harriers that had formed the Combat Air Patrol to the south were now in pursuit of the Dagger formation, and the majority of the operational Rapier sites were mainly covering 5 Brigade Headquarters and the new Bluff Cove supply base. Unfortunately the Rapier site which was covering the anchorage to the east, the direction from which the Skyhawk’s attacked, had been damaged in transit and a spare part was just being landed by Sea King as the attack came in.

This tragic combination of circumstance was to cause the single largest British loss of life of the campaign. Two bombs hit Sir Tristram, one passing straight through the ship without exploding, the other exploding in a small compartment killing two Chinese crewmen. Sir Galahad suffered far, far worse. Three bombs hit the ship, one passing through a hatch hitting the tank deck, one hitting the engine room and galley and the last burst in the officer's quarters. The bombs did not all actually explode, they deflagrated, the casings smashing open on impact, with the contents spraying out and burning fiercely rather than detonating. The bomb that hit the tank deck caused most of the casualties, for that was where most of the troops were concentrated, along with twenty tons of ammunition and a large amount of petrol. It soon became an inferno. A least 45 men died on that tank deck, and 150 were injured and burned, many of them very seriously.

Almost immediately helicopters began arriving and started to take the injured off the ship. Foxtrot One was already alongside, protected by the bulk of Sir Galahad from the explosions and began taking wounded aboard. The Mexeflote pontoon also moved in, and some of the survivors got away on it. Although no-one was controlling the rescue, the Sea Kings of 846 and 825 Squadrons, the Wessex from 847 and a Gazelle from 656 Squadrons all co-operated with the surface vessels in perfect harmony.

The wounded were taken at first to the Fitzroy landing site at Bluff Cove, before a shuttle of helicopters started taking them to Ajax Bay and then on to the hospital ship Uganda, who received 159 casualties this day.

To quote from p117 in Walking Tall by Simon Weston while at the Ajax Bay field hospital……..

‘Then an injured man right next to me started calling desperately for help. ‘Nurse, nurse, fetch me a bowl’ he pleaded, ‘I’m going to be sick’

I joined in, but nothing happened. The staff just weren’t quick enough, unfortunately. “Forget it nurse”, I shouted a few seconds later. ‘He’s been sick – all over me.’

It was the start of a great friendship. The Royal Engineer in question was called Mark Richard. When the bomb exploded, he had been sound asleep in his sleeping bag on the tank deck. Unbelievably, he had slept right through the whole episode, only waking up when he felt hotter than usual – to discover that his bag had been burned to a cinder. He was the soldier that I had passed earlier on the tank deck’.

Captain Philip Roberts was the last man to leave the ship some forty five minutes after the attack, which due to the heat of the inferno, was left to burn itself out. Forty-eight men died in the ship, thirty-two of whom were Welsh Guardsmen. At the field hospital at Ajax bay Richard underwent the first of his almost 70 surgical operations: he was the most seriously burned soldier after Simon Weston to have survived. Richard was sent back to the UK on the hospital ship SS Uganda, where he was hospitalised on the 25 June 1982.

To further quote from p121 in Walking Tall:

‘The Uganda was well known as a school-cruise ship ……… I was lying in bed in the official hospital bay……… Most of us in the room were walking wounded; only a few had broken legs or other injuries that made them totally bed-bound. One chap was suffering from bad depression; all the others – Hugh Trigg, Graham Broad, Mark Richard and myself – had been injured on the Galahad……... We had scabs, we stank of burned flesh and sweaty bodies. How the nurses put up with it I’ll never know’.

Richards was finally discharged from the army on 13 June 1984, with an exemplary conduct assessment rating, with no reserve liability on account of his wounds. His South Atlantic Medal - with rosette was issued on 27 October 1982. A replacement was issued on 27 July 1992. Richard’s suffering continued, both physically and psychologically, for the remainder of is life – with little help from the army once he was discharged from hospital. He died of heart disease caused by smoke inhalation on 13 November 2006 - a ‘Falklands’ casualty - 24 years after he was so terribly wounded.

Sold with copy of his Certificate of Service as well as copies of various news cuttings which relate that after Simon Weston, he was the second most serious casualty and underwent 18 serious operations. These news cuttings further relate his later struggles and misfortunes, including his subsequent imprisonment for theft in 1990. Mark Richard died in 2006, aged 44 from the effects of smoke inhalation, as a result of his Falklands injuries. Also with the book, Walking Tall, an Autobiography, by Simon Weston.