Remembering the Fallen: on this day in 1973, Marine Graham Dennis Cox, 42 Commando Royal Marines, was killed in North Belfast. He had been travelling in one of two Land Rovers patrolling on the New Lodge Road – they slowed down to pass over security ramps when an IRA gunman opened fire from an empty house. Marine Cox was hit in the chest and died almost instantly, while two of his comrades were injured but survived. A man was charged with his murder but charges were later dropped.

In a letter to the Lord Mayor of Belfast in which they thanked him and the people of Belfast for ther condolences, his parents wrote: "We feel there is enough hatred in Northern Ireland without adding to it. My faith in mankind is such as to believe that there are very few who, if they really thought about the consequences of their actions in terms of human and innocent suffering, would persist in their activities." His name graces the war memorial in Havant in Hampshire, along with that of Marine David O’Connor, killed in Afghanistan in 2012.

Graham, from Emsworth in Hampshire, was 19 years old.