Killyleagh remembers brave sailor who died in attack four decades ago

Killyleagh remembers brave sailor who died in attack four decades ago

1 June 2022

JANET Redmonds-Hughes still finds it difficult to talk about her Falklands hero brother because it feels as if she lost him only yesterday.

But it was 40 years ago this month that James Hughes lost his life, aged 47, when Argentinian forces launched a Exocet missile attack at the supply ship he was aboard during the Falklands War in 1982.

However difficult it is though, Janet (83) says she thinks about big brother James every single day.

She said something invariably crops up during the day to remind her of him, to make her smile as she recalls his mischievousness and to also shed a tear about his devastating loss.

And many tears were shed last Wednesday when she was joined by family members – including her only surviving brother, Joe – and old friends of James to pay tribute to him in a service of remembrance at Killyleagh’s war memorial.

James, a father of five daughters, is believed to be the only person from the Falklands conflict to be commemorated on a war memorial in Northern Ireland.

The poignant ceremony featured a poem, read by Joe, together with former padre Hector Wanliss who also took part, plus the laying of wreaths. 

The event was followed later in the day by a special tree planting service in James’ memory at Brownlow House in Lurgan.

James, who was born in Killyleagh, had attended primary school in the town, leaving at 14, as was the norm in those days. He joined the Royal Navy four years later and spent 18 years in the service before joining the Merchant Navy.

Janet, a mother-of-three, said she last spoke to James the night before he went off to travel the 8,000 miles to the Falklands aboard the Atlantic Conveyor.

“James and I were always on the phone to each other and he rang me the night before he left and told me not to tell mum because he didn’t want her to worry, as we had already lost a brother,” she said.

“That was maybe the wrong thing to do because it was a great shock to her,” she recalled about her late mother, Ena, who passed away in 2002 at the age of 89.

Forty years ago, her mother spoke to the Down Recorder, following the tragic news of her son’s death.

“When they told me he was missing I wouldn’t believe it. I just kept saying he isn’t dead, he can’t be dead,” Mrs Hughes said from her Shrigley home in June 1982. 

“I wasn’t expecting this. I may have been prepared if I had known that Jim was out there. His family kept it from me because they knew i would worry about him.

“I couldn’t believe it was true he was missing until I dead his name among the missing, those presumed dead in the newspapers.

“He didn’t have to go. He volunteered because, I suppose, he thought he was safe on a civilian ship. The missile which hit the ship wasn’t even meant for the Atlantic Conveyor. The Argentinians thought it was an aircraft carrier, not a supply ship.

“His wife phoned to give me the news he was dead. She has taken it very bad.’’

The archive report states “her nightmare starts all over again” in reference to the fact that James’ death marked the second tragedy in the family.

Janet and James’ brother, Karl, died in a tragic drowning incident in the 1960s, when he was one of three Killyleagh people to die after the car he was travelling in plunged off a Belfast wharf.

“So mum lost two sons to the sea,” Janet lamented.

Janet, who has seven grandchildren, said the last family member to have seen James was her son Shane, who had been living in England and had driven him to the ship just before it embarked for the South Atlantic Ocean.

And though four decades have passed, the pain of losing her brother is still acute.

“It really is still painful to talk about him because it really does just feel like it was yesterday.”

But there are plenty of times each day when some memory will creep up on her to make her smile about her older brother.

She said James loved to pull pranks. “If I got a letter from a boyfriend he would have read it before I got home,” she laughed.

“I can still see him sitting on the wall laughing about what a boy had written in the letter, about how much they loved me, or something like that,” she said recalling his mischievous nature.

Turning to last Wednesday’s tribute in Killyleagh, which was conducted by the Rev Colin Darling, rector of St John’s Parish Church, she paid tribute to the organisers.

Also taking part were Ann Fee, of the Sloane History Group, and members of Killyleagh Royal British Legion, including branch member Jimmy Heaney and president Bob Pirie.

Binyon’s Lines were recited by Kevin Kelly before the gathering observed a two-minute silence.