Peter
Richard Faulks was born in Kent on the 21st of February 1939. He started his
military service in the British Army, being commissioned into the Royal West
Kent Regiment on the 10th of September 1960, as a Second Lieutenant.
While
serving with the Buffs in 1961, he was posted to the Sierra Leone Military
Forces. For his service with them, he was awarded the Sierra Leone Independence
Medal.
He
transferred to the Royal Navy and qualified as a helicopter pilot, serving on
848 Naval Air Squadron operating Wessex Helicopters.
He saw
active service in Borneo in 1966; one of his tasks was supplying a small unit
of British soldiers who were stationed on top of an 8000-foot mountain in
Sarawak on the Malaysian and Borneo border. Due to weather conditions, there
was only a one-hour window per day to resupply the troops.
Faulks was
tragically killed in March 1975. He was giving a flying lesson to Mrs April
Sopwith, the daughter-in-law of Sir Thomas Sopwith. Witnesses reported the helicopter seemed to have an issue with the rotors, became inverted and
exploded on impact with the ground.
Peter was 37
years old, and his brother Michael, a Lt Commander, died in 1973.
