A school friend of the Princess of Wales is campaigning to clear her late father’s name after decades of blaming him for Britain’s worst Falklands War disaster.
Emma Sayle said her father, Colonel Guy Sayle, died last year aged 76 ‘haunted and penniless’ after being made a ‘scapegoat’ for the deaths of 32 Welsh Guards on the support ship Sir Galahad when it was bombed by Argentine combat aircraft.
Now a book by historian Crispin Black, who survived the attack as a young officer of the Welsh Guards, backs Mrs. Sayle by claiming recently declassified military records exonerate her father.
The Welsh Guards under Sayle were among the 56 men killed in the attack on Sir Galahad and his sister ship Sir Tristram on 8 June 1982.
The family of the late Colonel Guy Sayle is campaigning to clear his name after decades of the blame for the loss of life aboard RFA Sir Galahad in the Falklands War. Pictured: Colonel Guy Sayle and his daughters Emma and Georgie
More than 100 troops were wounded, and some burned almost beyond recognition, including Welsh Guard Simon Weston, who was 20 years old at the time.
For decades, Sayle was accused of endangering his troops after he refused to disembark for fear his men would be dropped without vital equipment 15 miles from Bluff Cove, where the rest of the battalion had landed the previous night.
But Black’s book Too Thin for A Shroud reveals that the Task Force’s Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, reported at the time that Sayle’s actions were “justified and prudent.”
Ms Sayle, 44, said last night: ‘This is our Hillsborough moment.’ She called for a full independent investigation and a public apology.
Ms Sayle, a rowing partner of Kate Middleton, whom she met at Downe House school in Berkshire, said: ‘Dad had to live with this for 40 years, it haunted him.
“I don’t want to forget that, especially since he died penniless in a church building last year.”
Sayle’s ex-wife Malvin, 71, accused naval officers of accusing him in books and interviews.
She said, “I started getting calls like ‘How can you stay married to a murderer?’, ‘Why don’t you just fuck off and die?”.
“I was spat on, people crossed the street when they saw me.”
