The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

A FLAMINGO survivor who pulled his shipmates from the water as Cuban jets fired on them said King Charles III told him yesterday that they were “family”, after the two men discovered they had trained at the same naval college in England.

Retired Captain Whitfield Neely met the King at the Royal Bahamas Defence Force’s Coral Harbour Base, where the monarch laid a wreath for the four marines killed when HMBS Flamingo was sunk in 1980.

Captain Neely, who holds the MBE, said the King asked about his service and what rank he held aboard Flamingo when it was attacked.

He was a junior recruit at the time. On May 10, 1980, two Cuban fighter jets attacked the RBDF patrol vessel after its crew intercepted two Cuban fishing boats suspected of fishing illegally in Bahamian waters. The ship sank, killing four of its 19 crew: Able Seaman Fenrick Sturrup and Marine Seamen Austin Smith, David Tucker and Edward Williams. Their bodies were never recovered. After the attack, Captain Neely helped rescue marines who were in the water under fire.

He told the King that in his early years in the force he had cleaned buckets and bathrooms. He said the King laughed and replied: “I fully comprehend that because I was there one time ago also.”

Captain Neely then told him he had also attended Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, where the King trained in 1971, and that his room had not been far from the King’s former quarters. He said the King told him that their shared experience at the college made them “family”.

At the Flamingo Monument, the King laid a wreath for the fallen four. A handwritten card signed “Charles R” carried the message “in everlasting remembrance”. He spoke with relatives of each of the four marines about their loved ones.

Officers in crisp white uniforms stood at attention as the royal convoy arrived. The King, wearing military medals, was welcomed by Commodore Floyd Moxey, Commander of the Defence Force, and greeted by National Security Minister Myles LaRoda and Owen Wells, Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Wellness.

He inspected officers in formation, stopping to speak with several, and later toured HMBS Lawrence Major, a vessel used mainly for disaster relief and named after the force’s first commander.

He also met members of the RBDF, the Bahamas National Youth Guard and other officials involved in protecting the country’s borders.