Prince William Returns Home From Falklands Tour
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Ben Stansall/ WPA Pool/Getty Image(LONDON) — Prince William is back home in Great Britain on Wednesday after spending nearly seven weeks away on a deployment to the Falkland Islands.
St. James’s Palace confirmed that William, 29, landed safely Wednesday morning at the Brize Norton Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Oxfordshire, England. He will travel to his home in London at Kensington Palace where he will be reunited with his wife, Kate Middleton, Wednesday afternoon.
Middleton, 30, was not on hand to meet her prince as he stepped off the aircraft, in line with RAF routine followed by William’s fellow soldiers, the palace said.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, as the couple are formally known, will enjoy a few days of rest before William returns to his duties as a Royal Air Force helicopter rescue pilot in Anglesey, Wales, where the couple has a home.
Prince William departed for the Falklands on Feb. 1. He was said by islanders to have kept a low profile, reportedly visiting the local hospital and making a trip to a remote island home to penguins, sea lions and elephant seals, but his tour of duty did spark controversy.
The presence of William, deployed as part of a four-man team on call for search and rescue missions, and other British soldiers stirred tensions with Argentina, which claims the islands nearly 300 miles off its coast. The Duke was branded “William the conqueror” by Argentina’s Foreign Ministry in the run-up to the 30th anniversary of the nation’s April 1982 invasion of the islands.
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