Remembering the Fallen: On this day in 1993, Lance Corporal Wayne John “Eddie” Edwards, Royal Welch Fusiliers, was the first British serviceman to be killed in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was attached to 1st Battalion, The Cheshire Regiment, as part of the United Nations Protection Force. On the day of his death he had been driving across a bridge in Gornji Vakuf, as part of an ambulance escort team in an humanitarian aid convoy, when he was shot killed by a sniper. Efforts were made to save him, but he had been hit by a single shot to the head and died almost instantly. It was believed that the sniper, who was never caught nor identified, had been acting alone and not under orders. The bridge was later named after him - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ0k8RnYArs

His father had served in the Welsh Guards, and Eddie himself had joined the Army Cadet Force at the age of thirteen. After leaving school he worked as a trainee mechanic for two years before joining the army, something he had wanted to do since he was a small child. He served in two tours of Northern Ireland, and arrived in Bosnia-Herzegovina in late 1992.

Eddie, from Cefn Mawr in Wales, was 26 years old.

(“Welch” is the correct spelling here; the RWF was one of the oldest infantry regiments in the British Army, and the old spelling was restored officially in 1920, although “Welsh” had been commonly used during the Boer War and the Great War. In 2006, the regiment was amalgamated with the Royal Regiment of Wales to become the 1st Battalion, Royal Welsh.)