In Memory of Flight Lieutenant Garth Hawkins

16/12/2022  -  10.07

Steve Jinman

For the research I conducted earlier this year for my previous article that wholly focused on links between Maidenhead United and World War One, I also stumbled across the story of Garth Hawkins, a former player who died in the Falklands Conflict in 1982. 

Source: RAF News

The fortieth anniversary of his death prompted former reserve team manager John Henesy to write to the Maidenhead Advertiser to commemorate his teammate, so it seems appropriate to provide a coda to my First World War article with a tribute to Hawkins.

Garth was born in Maidenhead in 1942 but grew up in Binfield attending Ranelagh School in Bracknell. He played for the Moles whilst still at school and joined the RAF aged 22. Following a spell in the Far East, he returned to the Thames Valley in 1969, stationed at Abingdon. He joined the Magpies and was selected for the Reserves impressing in a match at Slough, where the Maidenhead Advertiser described him as a 6 foot 3 inches’ goalkeeper who “…handled competently” and saved a penalty. After two appearances for the Reserves, he was given his senior debut in March 1969, at St. Albans City in a Wycombe Floodlit Cup replay. He went on to make two more first team appearances that season: a Premier Midweek Floodlit league match against Crawley Town at York Road, and an Athenian League match at Wembley FC.

Reserve team player manager John Henesy described Hawkins as: “…an excellent goalkeeper”, whose “…opportunities for first team football were blocked by the excellent Peter Spittle”. He “…excelled at saving penalties and saved more than he conceded”. Above all he was “…an outstanding team man” and “…a tower of strength in his support [for Henesy]”.

Hawkins also played for Oxford City and was a local cricketer of some renown. A fast bowler he played for Binfield and Littlewick Green.

Known as ‘Gunner’ he started to work with the SAS in 1979 and was still attached to them three years later when the British taskforce headed south to recover the Falkland Islands. On May 19th 1982, he was onboard a Sea King helicopter transferring troops from HMS Hermes to HMS Intrepid, when it lost power after a freak collision with an albatross. This caused it to plunge into the icy waters of the South Atlantic leading to twenty of those on board losing their lives, including Hawkins.

He is commemorated on the Binfield War Memorial, the SAS memorial at St Martin’s Church in Hereford, and all the Falklands Memorials.

You can read more about his untimely demise in Sea King Down, a book published in 2021, about the fatal crash, written by survivor Mark Aston and Stuart Tootal.

Sources:

One for Sorrow, Two for Joy, Mark Smith, 2011
Maidenhead Advertiser 
https://www.memorialatpeninsula.org/?p=15225 
https://sama82.org.uk/hawkinsgw/ 
https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/village-honours-pilot-killed-falklands-4200589 
https://www.roll-of-honour.com/cgi-bin/falklands.cgi 
https://falklands35blog.wordpress.com/2021/01/12/falklands-35garth-walter-hawkins/ 
https://www.raf.mod.uk/news/articles/raf-remembers-flight-lieutenant-garth-hawkin 

Biography

Born in 1972, Steve Jinman lives in Hammersmith. Steve has taught in inner city London for 25 years, currently working in Stepney teaching A-Level Economics and managing a small provision for students aged 14-16 unable to access mainstream education. He has an M.A. in Modern History, with a particular interest in the social impact of sport. Watching his first football match at York Road in 1979, he has been a director of his hometown football club Maidenhead United for over 15 years. He is a trustee of their Community Trust and historic York Road ground, having previously edited the match programme for ten seasons and manned the PA for eight. However, cricket is his favourite sport, playing and organising fixtures for Pinkneys Green.