‘We can’t let their deaths mean nothing’: Falklands veteran breaks down on LBC as Argentina ramps up threat to British islands
A former soldier who served in the Falklands broke down live on LBC as he remembered the 19-year-old friend killed there, and delivered an emotional plea for Britain never to abandon the islands.
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Shaun, from Matfield, became overwhelmed as he told Nick Ferrari at Breakfast about Sapper Christopher Jones, a close friend who was killed during the Falklands War in 1982.
“We have to defend them to defend my friend’s memory,” he said.
“We can’t lose 250 men down there and not think of their lives we lost, who never came back.”
Sapper Jones was just 19 when he was killed on June 12, 1982, while serving with 59 Independent Commando Squadron Royal Engineers, attached to 45 Commando Royal Marines, during the bloody battle for Two Sisters.
His death came just two days before Argentine forces surrendered and the 74-day conflict came to an end.
Shaun’s voice cracked as he urged Nick to look up a photograph of his friend.
“If you Google image Sapper Chris Jones Falklands, look at it,” he said. “He’s 19. Fresh-faced.”
Read more: Would a Falklands invasion constitute an attack on Nato?
But for Shaun, the memories of the islands, and of the men who did not return, remain vivid.
He recalled the Falklands as a strikingly British place thousands of miles from home, with its treeless landscape, the smell of peat fires and communities which reminded him of Scotland.
“Beautiful landscape, no trees – it’s too cold for trees. The smell of peat. They use peat to fuel their ovens,” he said.
“It was like a crofting community in Scotland, really. It was very British.
“And West Falkland was beautiful. Penguin colonies everywhere.”
The emotional exchange came as the Falklands once again found themselves at the centre of an escalating diplomatic row, with Argentine President Javier Milei stepping up his country’s claim to the British overseas territory.
Milei has promised sanctions against firms involved in oil exploration around the islands and declared in a televised address: “The Falklands are our future. We need to recover these islands which are nationally relevant. There is no other path forward.”
Argentina has since announced plans to bring criminal proceedings against oil company Navitas Petroleum and executives connected with drilling around the islands. (Reuters)
But Shaun told LBC the islands were worth defending not just because of those who died in 1982, but because of their strategic importance today.
“It’s worth protecting for strategic reasons,” he said.
Asked by Nick whether Britain still had the personnel and military capability to defend the territory if the unthinkable happened again, Shaun pointed to the major RAF base at Mount Pleasant.
“We can,” he said. “The airport can take a lot of aircraft, fighter aircraft. We can get down there very quick from Ascension Island.
“We’ve been pre-planning for that.”
Shaun also recalled the minefields which remained on the islands after the war and the work to clear them in the years which followed. The final declared minefields were eventually cleared in 2020, almost four decades after the fighting ended.
But he was furious that the latest row had been fuelled by Donald Trump, after the US President suggested Washington could reconsider its position on the islands and declined to guarantee American help should Britain face another conflict with Argentina.
“It shouldn’t be fuelled by Donald Trump in the first place,” Shaun said.
And his message about what Britain should do if the islands were ever threatened again was unequivocal.
“We’ll take them down again.”
Shaun recalled how Britain went to war in 1982 after Argentine troops invaded the Falklands on April 2, with the task force dispatched thousands of miles across the South Atlantic to retake them.
He singled out former US defence secretary Caspar Weinberger for his support for Britain during the conflict, contrasting it with the position of Ronald Reagan.
“He got a knighthood by Thatcher because his loyalty still showed us when Reagan didn’t,” he said.
The 1982 conflict cost the lives of 255 British military personnel, 649 Argentine personnel and three Falkland Islanders.
More than four decades later, the Government has insisted there can be no negotiation over the islands’ future against the wishes of the people who live there.
Foreign Office minister Baroness Winterton of Doncaster told peers on Monday: “Let me be clear, the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands is non-negotiable as far as the UK Government is concerned. It always has been, and it always will be.”
She added that Britain maintains “a variety of military capabilities there for defensive purposes”, while warning against speculation about possible military scenarios.
Shadow foreign minister Lord Callanan told the House of Lords the Falklands were British and warned that Argentina had been “emboldened by our weakness”.
“The Falkland Islands are British, we fought to defend them in 1982 and there should be no doubt of our national resolve,” he said.
The Government’s position has been backed by the overwhelming view of the islanders themselves.
When they were asked in a referendum in 2013 whether they wanted the Falklands to retain their status as a British overseas territory, 1,513 people voted Yes.
Just three voted No.
That amounted to 99.8 per cent support for remaining British. But, for Shaun, however, the argument is also much more personal.
“We have to defend them,” he told Nick, “to defend my friend’s memory.”