HMS Veteran after conversion to Short Range Escort (SRE) at King George V Dock, London, 23 February 1942 Photographed by Lt F.G. Roper RN (Crown Copyright, IWM)
HMS Veteran (D72, later I72)
was an Admiralty modified W-class destroyer ordered from John Brown and
Company, Clydebank, in January 1918, and laid down on 30th August. She
was launched on 26th August 1919, and on commissioning the following
November she was assigned to the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla of the Atlantic
Fleet. The Flotilla was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1923,
and to the China Station in 1926. She was involved in the Nanking
incident in March 1927 when the city was bombarded to counter rioting
and looting during its capture by the Chinese National Revolutionary
Army (Kuomintang).
In 1939 the Veteran
was in dockyard hands for a major refit, in which the after bank of
torpedo tubes was removed to make room for a 12 pounder quick firing
gun. Y Gun was also removed to make additional space for depth charge
gear and stowage. She was re-commissioned in November 1939, under the
command of Lt Cdr J E Broome, who was later to achieve celebrity as an
Escort Group Commander (including the escort of PQ17).
The Veteran
was involved in a number of collisions, some of which required dockyard
repair – with HM Submarine H46 in February 1940, with the SS Horn Shell in March 1940, with the Merchant ship Ngkoa in May 1940, and HMS Verity in January 1941.
In April 1940 her Flotilla was
attached to the Home Fleet in support of the Norwegian Campaign.
This included escorting HMS Devonshire conveying King Haakon and entourage to the UK. In June she rescued the sole survivors from the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious.
From July to September 1940 she was based at Harwich and employed on
anti invasion patrols, until she was damaged by an acoustic mine. In
October 1940 she became an Atlantic escort based at Liverpool but
transferred later to Londonderry. Jack Stokes describes the rescue of
survivers from torpedoed ships in his description of time as a gunner
in Veteran.In September 1941, with HMS Leamington, she sank U 207 in the Denmark Strait south east of Angmassalik, Greenland with depth charges.
Following a successful Warship Week
campaign in December 1941 she was adopted by the civil community of
Wrexham, north Wales. She was converted to a Short Range
Escort in Jan - Feb 1942 and on completion detached for service on the
East coast of the US and Canada. In July 1942 she took over the attack on U 215 from the ASW Trawler HMT le Tiger with depth charges and Hedgehog. U215 was sunk but credited to Le Tiger.
In 26 Sep 1942 HMS Veteran was torpedoed and sunk by U 404
in position 54 deg 34 N, 25 deg 44 W while escorting convoy RB-1 (Convoy Maniac), which
had been attacked by three wolf packs totalling 17 U-Boats. When
torpedoed she was engaged in rescuing survivors of the American
passenger ship New York. All hands were lost, together with those rescued from the New York and the American passenger ship Boston.
U 404 was sunk with all hands by two US and one RAF Liberator aircraft
in July 1943, as victory was finally being won in the Battle of the
Atlantic.
Battle Honours: MARTINIQUE 1794 – CAMPERDOWN 1797 – COPENHAGEN 1801 – ATLANTIC 1939-1942 – NORWAY 1940 – NORTH SEA 1940 Heraldic Data: On a Field Green an old warrior’s head, helmeted proper Motto: Laudator temporis acti Proud of former deeds
Commanding Officers
Lt Cdr H.G. Fallowfield RN (Nov 1919 - June 1921)
Cdr C.H.H. Sams RN (June 1921 - Jan 1922)
Cdr William J. Whitworth RN (Jan 1922 - May 1922)
Lt Cdr Charles F. Bush RN (April 1922 - May 1923)
Lt Cdr Thomas C.H. Ouchterlong RN (June 1923 - Oct 1924)
Lt Cdr Charles F. Bush RN (Oct 1924 - April 1925)
Lt Cdr Clanchy RN (April 1925 - May 1927)
Cdr C.V.S.J. Marsden RN (May 1927 - June 1929)
Cdr H.T.W. Pawsey RN (June 1929 - July 1931)
Lr Cdr J. Drinkwater RN (July - Nov 1931)
Lt Robert "Smokey" M.W. McFarlane (7 Oct 1939 -
Lt J.D. Needham (1 March 1940 -
Sub Lt John "Black Jack" P.H. Oakley (15 Nov 1939 -
Lt Charles L. Proctor RN (Nov 1919 -
Sub Lt Richard E. Roe / Rowe (12 Oct 1939 -
Gunner (T) L.G.C. Wellman (23 Jan 1940 -
Surg Lt John C. Wyatt (27 March 1940 - S Lt Reginald Seymour "Rex" Young RN (6 July - Aug 1923)
Former Full Members of the V & W Destroyer Assoociation
P. Goodrich (Worcester), Jack Stokes (Westgate on Sea, Kent)
The Training Ship of the Sea Cadet Unit at New Romney is TS Veteran
When the V & W Destroyer Association was dissolved in April 2017
its funds were distributed to the eight Sea Cadet Units with Training
Ships named after a V & W Class destroyer
Please get in touch if a family member served in HMS Veteran
My War - by Jack Stokes
Jack Stokes left school in 1933 at the age of 14 to work for a milkman, earning 12/- for working seven days a week. As soon as he was 16 he joined the Navy. He began his "life at sea" as a boy sailor at HMS Ganges, the shore base at Shotley on the opposite side of the River Stour from Harwich. His first real ship was HMS Ramilies and he recalled scrubbing decks in bare feet in December, not a happy memory! He then joined HMS Galatea, the flag ship of the Mediterranean Fleet. He joined HMS Veteran in February 1940 and soon found himself in the thick of the Norwegian campaign. This story of his time in Veteran was first published in Hard Lying,
the magazine of the V & W Destroyer Association and republished in
2005 in the book of the same name which is
now out of print. It is reproduced here by kind permission of
Clifford Fairweather and his publisher, Avalon Associates, but copyright
remains with the author.
****************
When war was declared, I was serving on the battleship Resolution
in Portland having arrived there the previous day after a two day
exercise in the Atlantic. At that time I had been in the Navy
just under four years and was an A.B. but waiting to be rated Leading
Seaman, which happened just one month later.
The declaration of war was in many ways a relief as we had had the
continual threat of war hovering over us for several years. I served a
further four months on Resolution
during which time we made two trips to Halifax in Canada escorting
convoys and the only excitement was chasing what we thought was a
German Pocket Battleship, but turned out to be a British armed cruiser.
One other interesting fact was that our cargo consisted of the gold
reserves of the country being taken to Canada. We did not at first know
that these small and very heavy boxes contained the gold and our cargo
must have been worth millions of pounds. I spent the first Christmas of
the war on Resolution at Halifax. I left the ship in February 1940 and soon after that joined the destroyer HMS Veteran, rightly named as she had been built in 1918.
The mess deck where we were to live was a nightmare
I was a bit disgusted because I would have preferred to have joined one
of the many destroyers recently built and which carried far more modern
and efficient weapons. It took me some time to find Veteran
as at each port we went to she had just left. We went first to
Plymouth, then to Chatham, on to Rosyth and finally Scapa Flow in the
Scottish Islands. There were six of us, all regular Navy (later three
of those six lost their lives in Veteran).
Our arrival on board was not very encouraging. We joined the ship at
0200 and with us came the ship's mail and so the ship's company were
more interested in the mail than us. The mess deck where we were to
live was a nightmare, it was overpopulated and contained the steam
capstan that operated the anchor, consequently the crammed space with
hammocks slung and the steam capstan hissing away, we can hardly say
that it was a welcoming arrival. There were no spare hammock billets
and so I laid out my hammock on the mess table, fortunately the man I
was relieving was leaving the next morning and then I took his space.
Having been accustomed to the strict routine of a peace time battleship
I was horrified the next morning to see the hands fall in for the day's
duties. They were dressed in nothing like the conventional uniform and
I and my colleagues were the only ones dressed in the correct naval
uniform. It transpired that the ship had only been recently
commissioned and that many of the crew were pensioners or reservists
who had just recently been called up and many had only one uniform and
did not wear that for every day duties. I won't go into details but
suffice it to say that the general standard of discipline was totally
different to my peacetime experience. In fact I was
horrified.
The Norwegian Campaign
Our first trip was to Norway, where we were engaged against the
Germans. We were escorting a troop convoy and, as far as I can
remember, nothing happened on the trip across. Our main duty once we
arrived in Norway was to patrol the fjords and carry out bombardments
on possible troop emplacements. Surprisingly this brought little
response other than some high level bombings, which were not very
accurate. We did have one near miss. It happened one afternoon when I
was on watch on my gun. Throughout the watch a British Swordfish
biplane kept zooming around us, rather showing off we thought but this
one, we realized too late, had black crosses on its wings and was
attacking us. I looked up to see what appeared to be a large number of
small black balls hurtling towards me and I well remember saying to
myself "You've had it Jack". I really thought that the bombs could not
possibly miss, but they did and landed right along our port side, doing
some damage but luckily no casualties. We blazed away at it as it flew
away from us and we last saw it emitting smoke and we assumed that we
had hit the plane, but we will never know for we did not actually see
it crash.
The next scare was when as coxswain of the motor boat I was ordered to
take an officer ashore and await his return. I was horrified whilst
waiting to see the ship up anchor and disappear round the bend. I began
to visualise being taken as a Prisoner of War and felt very isolated
moored alongside the jetty. However after what seemed an interminable
wait the ship reappeared. Then came the order to withdraw and evacuate
the troops. This took four nights and three days, during which time we
had very little sleep as we were closed up at action stations. All our
meals were taken standing at our guns and consisted of corn beef
sandwiches and soup. Our routine was to embark the troops during the
day and go at full speed through the fjords and take the troops out to
the waiting transports. On the last night we embarked a large number of
French Foreign Legionnaires who were in a bad way having been fighting
a rear guard action. They were dirty and unkempt, many with untreated
wounds, all very hungry but they also had a large number of grenades
which they were busily throwing in the water and exploding them, they
also had a lot of brandy which they were happily imbibing. With the
ship bursting at the seams we set off on our last journey to the
troopships, and to my delight the Captain decided that we could fall
out of action stations and break into two watches. It was just midnight
and I realised that I could turn in my hammock for four hours, sadly
when I got to my hammock I found it occupied by a Legionnaire, what
could I do? I hadn't the heart to turn him out so I found an odd space
somewhere and tried to sleep, but after so long sleep just would not
come. We eventually disembarked them to the transports and then formed
up with the other destroyers to escort them back to
Britain.
The sinking of the aircraft carrier, HMS Glorious "Late in the afternoon of June 8th,
1940, the Royal Navy suffered one of its most devastating defeats of
the Second World War. HMS Glorious, one of Britain's largest and fastest aircraft carriers, was sunk along with her escorting destroyers HMS Ardent and HMS Acasta. The three British warships were taking part in Operation Alphabet,
the evacuation of Allied forces from Norway that had been taking place
simultaneously with the rather better known and remembered evacuation
at Dunkirk."
Our trip home was interrupted by a very sad event. We were ordered to
leave the convoy and proceed at full speed to the Faeroe Islands where
we picked up 33 survivors from HMS Glorious
which had been sunk by a German Battleship. Of the crew of 1500 these
33 were the only survivors. It seemed that 800 got away from the
sinking ship but four days in Arctic water meant that most died from
the sheer ferocity of the cold sea. The 33 were in a bad way and all
had suffered from frostbite and were in agony as their bodies came to
life again. They were crying with pain, but we had no doctor on board
so there was little that we could do. I should have mentioned that with
the carrier were two destroyers which made heroic efforts to close the
battleships and sink them with torpedoes, one did register a hit, but
they were both blown out of the water and only one man (he was one of
the 33) survived. The survivors told us some terrible stories of the
way some men died. Beside the cold thirst was a big problem, some drank
sea water and that was fatal one man remembered what the Bible said
"You can drink your own piss and eat your own dung" and some of them
did the former, again with fatal results. Sad for me though was that a
friend who joined the Navy when I did, was not a survivor. It was good
to get back to Rosyth where a load of ambulances were waiting. I have
often wondered how many of them survived.
Preparing for invasion
From Rosyth we were ordered to Harwich to act as an anti invasion
force as with the fall of France everybody expected that Britain
would be invaded. On arrival at Harwich we were given 48 hours leave
and on that leave I married Edie (a marriage that has lasted 58 years).
We used to go out on patrol in the Channel practically every night
looking for the expected invasion but it never came.
HMS Veteran on the Thames while stationed at Harwich in 1940 Courtesy of Paul Smith
We had a few skirmishes with E-boats, they were very fast boats and it
was all over very quickly, we were lucky if we got two rounds away. We
did have one hectic excursion when we were ordered to Boulogne with
four other destroyers to destroy the invasion barges that were mustered
there. We went right inside the harbour blazing away with all our guns
but the Germans did not realise it was ships bombarding, thinking the
attacks were coming from the air and to start with nothing came our way
but once they realised it was ships things got a bit hot. Having gone
round the harbor once I got somewhat scared when we were ordered to go
round again. Only one of our ships was hit and it was quite a relief
when we headed for open water again. We were led to believe that we had
caused a lot of damage to the invasion barges. We spent the whole
summer doing that sort of patrol.
However we were sent to Chatham for our routine boiler clean and this
meant four days leave. I left home after my four days and later in the
day we steamed out of Chatham heading for Harwich again, but a short
time after leaving there was a terrific bang, which did some
considerable damage to our stern and we had to return to Chatham for
repairs. We had detonated one of the new magnetic mines. This meant a
few more days leave.
Atlantic Escort Jack
Stokes' vivid descriptions of the rescue of survivors from torpedoed
merchant ships does not record the names of the ships but we do know that in April 1941 HMS Veteran picked up 25 survivors from the British merchant ship Harbledon
which had been torpedoed and sunk by U 94 south west of
Iceland. In May 1941 she rescued 91 survivors from the British
passenger ship Nerissa which
had been torpedoed and sunk by U 552 south east of Rockall. In 10
June 1941 she picked up 29 survivors from the British merchant ship Ainderby
that had been torpedoed and sunk by U 552 west of Bloody Foreland. Jack
Stockes may not have known the names of the ships but they are the most
likely cndidates.
By the October of 1940 the invasion scare was off and we were ordered
to go to Liverpool to join the Atlantic convoy escort groups but
instead of going through the English Channel we took the longer and
safer route going northwards round the coast of Scotland. In all my
experiences at sea it was one of the roughest trips that I have known.
The Veteran had been in
reserve for many years and we found that in very rough weather she
leaked like a sieve, consequently our mess deck was flooded with up to
about a foot of sea water. The worst storms were when we were passing
through the Minches, the waves and winds were just unbelievable and we
sometimes wondered if the old ship would master the elements, but she
did and on many Atlantic convoys we were to experience equally rough
storms.
After our very rough trip we arrived at Liverpool, topped up with
stores and that same afternoon set sail for our first Atlantic convoy.
In the next eighteen months we were to do many such trips. I never kept
a diary during that period. I only wish that I had for so much happened
and it was by no means a success story. We just did not have enough
escorts, we had no air support, no radar. The U-boats outnumbered us
and they would gather in packs and make concerted attacks on the
convoy. At that time we had received on lease lend 50 old U.S
destroyers, but at first they were of little use because they kept
breaking down. Our only weapon against the U-boats was depth charges,
which in those early days were not very effective. The Germans used
Focke Wolf planes to shadow our convoys and radioed our position,
course and speed to the U-boats. The aircraft would fly over very low
and out of gun range and there was little that we could do about it.
Later we too had air cover and they were a match for the Focke Wolfs,
our aircraft would also attack the U-boats on the surface as well as
passing on information to the convoy escorts.
Those early months in the Atlantic were pretty disastrous, we lost a
lot of merchant ships and had little success against the U-boats.
Veteran fired many depth charges but scored no direct hits, we did pick
up an awful lot of survivors. One I shall never forget was when coming
across a ship’s boat loaded with survivors. We had established a
routine for picking them up, and my job was to hang on a scrambling net
hung over the side and then to assist the survivors to get aboard. On
this particular day it was quite rough, and one moment when the boat
was in the trough of the wave I would be looking down at them and then
when it was on the crest I would be looking up at them. I therefore
instructed them to jump for the scrambling net when I said so. One
young lad (I was told afterwards that he was only 14) jumped too soon,
missed the scrambling net and fell into the ocean and, as he did so, a
gigantic wave bashed the boat and his head against the ship’s side. We
never saw him again. On another occasion we came across a boatload all
dead.
One humorous incident, we came across a single survivor sitting cross
legged on a raft which was just about big enough to seat him. It was
windy and very rough and because of the heavy seas we could not get
close enough to him to drag him aboard, We tried throwing lines to him
but the wind made it almost impossible, and after many attempts this
chap (he was a Canadian) called out "Say you guys, you’re not very good
throwers, I wouldn't have you in my ball team". It transpired that he
had sat on that raft for forty-eight hours. When we finally got him
aboard he was in agony as he tried to straighten his legs, having sat
cross legged for all that time. On another occasion as cox'n of the sea
boat I was ordered away to pick up two survivors who were obviously in
no condition to help themselves. They were Chinese and the only
survivors of an oil tanker sunk by aircraft bombs. They had both been
badly burnt and picking them up was not a very pleasant job. The tanker
was one of our own convoy and had been sunk by an aircraft which flew
in just as it was getting dark and despite all the weapons blazing away
at him he made straight for the centre of the convoy and scored a
direct hit. There was a terrific explosion and when it all cleared all
we could see was oil, some wreckage and these two
survivors.
In those early days before we had radar, the U-boats would surface at
night almost sink ships ad lib, with so few escorts we were
helpless.
Admiral Sir Percy Noble Admiral Sir Percy Noble was
Commander-in-Chief for Western Approaches Command at Derby House
Liverpool from 17 February 1941 to 19 November 1942 when he succeeded
Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham as Head of the British Naval Delegation
to Washington DC before retiring from active naval service in 1945. He
was succeeded as CiC Western Approaches by Admiral Sir Max Horton.
Towards the end of 1940 a new CinC was appointed. Admiral Sir Percy
Noble and he decided that before taking office he would do one convoy
trip in one of the escorts and we were chosen. On one occasion he
came into our mess and sat and had a meal with us. I cannot remember,
but it is possible that we had no plates or other utensils because, due
to the extreme rough weather all our crockery would get broken. We used
to escort the convoy for about five days, then due to shortage of fuel
we had to leave them and return to Liverpool, picking up another convoy
on its home trip.
On Boxing Day 1940 we were due in Liverpool, incidentally after a very
rough trip Christmas Day was wonderful, flat calm, no wind and the sun
shone. I remember it being so warm that while on my gun on the
afternoon watch I was able to take my great coat off. We heard on
the radio that Liverpool had been subjected to air raids and as we
neared the Mersey we could see heavy clouds of smoke from obvious bomb
damage. It was worrying for me because Edie had come up to live there
and naturally I was concerned as to what might have happened to her. I
was even more concerned when we were ordered not to enter but to go to
Londonderry instead. We soon went out on another convoy, but this time
on our return we were allowed to enter.
I went ashore to try and contact Edie, it was Wednesday when Edie
usually did voluntary work at the Y.M.C.A. But no luck, I was informed
that they had not seen her since Christmas. That was a very worrying
thought and then I made my way to the place where we lodged, and I
feared the worst when I found the road closed off and there was a lot
of damage. The Warden could not tell me anything about casualties other
than the fact that there had been some deaths and many injuries. I
began to fear the worst, however he directed me to where I could get
more information. Off I went, and then to my great relief I saw Edie
walking along the road towards me! The house had been flattened by land
mines, but as she was in an air raid shelter she had not suffered in
any way. This was on Christmas Day evening, and she had spent Christmas
day in the local parish hall eating Lancashire hot pot for her
Christmas dinner. Soon after this we obtained a three bedroomed
house quite near the docks for thirty shilling a week. We shared with
another chap from the ship, which meant that his wife and Edie had
company when we were away. However the ship was transferred to
Londonderry and Edie went back to her home in Wembley. Being based at
Londonderry meant that we could escort the convoys a little longer and
we did not have the problem of air raids when we were in
harbour.
Hitting back!
By this time we were getting escorts and air cover by a rather ugly
looking aircraft called the Catalina. It was very economical on fuel
and could remain with us for most of the daylight hours. They could
also give us information about the U-boats on the surface. By now we
also had radar and learnt with amazement that our radar had picked up a
U-boat at 6,000 yards, we thought this incredible. This was in the
latter part of 1941 and two incidents stick in my mind. One evening
during the last dog watch (6-8pm) we were suddenly attacked by an
aircraft, but I received no order to open fire, despite bombs being
dropped. The next morning just as it was getting light, another
aircraft zoomed in on us. I did not wait for any order this time and
opened fire, at which an angry and stentorian voice from the bridge
called "Captain of the gun report to the bridge". You see the aircraft
was one of ours, a Sunderland flying boat. The Captain gave me a
roasting, including saying "It is grinning apes like you that are
losing us this war". However when I mentioned what had happened the
night before he withdrew his reprimand and congratulated me on my
initiative. The story goes that the aircraft signalled to us "Good
shooting Navy, but you definitely spoilt my breakfast."
The time when a certain kill of a U-boat was not a
kill, we got a definite echo and dropped depth charges only to see a
whale surface and make off at high speed. Our first kill did come in
the latter part of '41 by which time we had a new skipper, Commander
Eames. We received a report that a submarine had been sighted on the
surface just off Iceland, and Veteran and an ex American destroyer Leamington
were despatched to investigate, we soon found her and attacked with
depth charges and were pretty certain that we had hit her, this was
confirmed when oil and other debris appeared on the surface, later we
were told that it was U207. In sixteen months of convoy escorting and
attacking numerous U-boats that was our only kill. How different it all
was when I next went to sea. I left my beloved Veteran
in February 1942, by that time I was Petty Officer and went back to
gunnery school at Chatham to qualify as gunnery
instructor.
In September of 1943 I was drafted to another destroyer HMS Duncan
based in Londonderry and once again on Atlantic convoys, but how
different it was, plenty of escorts, better weapons, far more efficient
Radar and improved Asdic's, in addition we had air cover almost
continuously.
The tragic loss of HMS Veteran with all hands Veteran and her sister ship HMS Vanoc
were escorting Convoy Maniac (RB.1) from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to St
Johns, Newfoundland, on the first leg of the Atlantic crossing to
Britain. The German High Command believed RB.1 to be a convoy of fast
troop carriers and sent a heavy force of U-boats to intercept. It is
widely believed that RB.1 was a decoy convoy of Great Lake steamers to
lure the German wolf pack away from a more important convoy which got
through. A list of those who died can be seen on Uboat.net
When I received the news that my old ship was lost at sea, I was
shattered. I could hardly believe that the ship in which I had served
for almost two years was no more. I was even more shattered when I
learnt that there were no survivors. I had left the Veteran in March 1942, when I was drafted to the gunnery school at Royal Naval Barracks Chatham to qualify as G.I.
Shortly after I heard of her loss, I received a letter from the wife of one of my Veteran
shipmates, asking if I could find out whether her husband, Yeoman of
signals Berie Wiltshire was on board and therefore one of the
casualties. She told me that she had received a letter from him saying
that he was in hospital in Halifax (where the ship was based) and that
he had heard that the ship was returning to the U.K. shortly and that
he would do his damnedest to get aboard again before she sailed.
Regrettably my enquiries revealed that he did.
It was then that I learnt that there were no survivors and that in
addition to the ship's company there was a large number of Merchant
Navy survivors on board. Veteran
had been engaged in picking up survivors when she was torpedoed.
Something we had done countless times during my time on
her.
You will realise that I had a number of friends on the ship, but my
thoughts went out to two in particular, Jock Falconer and Jimmy Mavir,
both A.B's, my gunlayer and trainer on 'A' gun. The former was a three
badged AB. Jimmy Mavir was from Carlisle and joined the ship when I
did, he was a one badge AB, but unlike Jock, not interested in further
advancement. His main ambition in life was women, and according to his
own stories, he was very successful.
So ended the story of a ship that I did not want to join, horrified at
what I found when I first went aboard, but which will forever be
remembered by me. On Remembrance Sunday, the old ship Veteran is always foremost in my thoughts.
You may be interested to hear something about the convoy, now known as
RB1. On 21st September 1942 when I was in command of U-404 she
and six other U-boats received orders to dispose in line north to south
to intercept an east going convoy. News of this convoy may have come
from secret channels and the observation of British and American
wireless traffic.
On the 13th September first contact
was made by one of the U-boats in a position north of the line, but
because of weather conditions and skilful manoeuvring of the convoy
contact was frequently lost. No attacks could be launched before the
25th when during that day and night the British steamers Boston and New York were torpedoed and sunk by two U-boats, while U-404 was handicapped with temporary breakdown of one of the diesel engines.
The two big steamers I attacked on the 26th were probably stragglers from the convoy shepherded by this HMS Veteran.
I fired three torpedoes but as I did so Veteran ran across my sight.
Having fired I immediately submerged and heard two explosions and noise
indicating the breaking up of a ship. I did not know it was the
destroyer. I only learnt this later and was not aware until recently
that there were no survivors.
You might also like to hear
of an incident at daybreak on the 1st June, some 300 miles off the
coast of Bermuda, when U-404 attacked the American freighter West Notus
with gunfire. The risk of meeting an adversary with superior artillery
had to be taken because shortage of fuel prevented us from taking up a
position ahead. Opening fire we had the good fortune to obtain a hit on
the bridge with one of the fist shells and the flames spread quickly.
Very effective fire by their 5inch calibre gun was returned with some
near misses and splinters which caused some damage to us, as we were
running away and zig zagging. Then suddenly the ship was abandoned and
the boats were lowered. Two of the boats got away in good order, the
third filled with water and was motionless.
One of thes men in this boat was
ordered to come aboard (he was the chief mate). I welcomed him with a
handshake and the words "I am sorry but this is war. I hope it will
soon be over and I am sure we will be very good friends". We had
a long conversation about the ship, the cargo and the gunfight whilst
we were towing the damaged lifeboat to the other boats that were now
under sail. Returning to the burning ship we found another man in a
life jacket, picked him up and took care of his wounded leg and
delivered him to the other life boats.
The enclosed copies of cuttings
from Ohio newspaper dated about the end of July 1942 was sent to me by
a Mr Ritzenthaler who later with a Mr Sherlock visited me in Germany.
This rescue work was a matter of course and simple humanity, but it may
be of interest in the light of propaganda against the Germans during
the war years. I have never heard a 'Hurrah' from the crew when a ship
had been torpedoed and sunk.
You should also read the account of the sinking of HMS Veteran by James Reed on the website of HMS Vanoc. but the book on HMS Veteran written and self published in 2006 by John Lawton contains the most detailed description of her loss The Proudest of Her Line; by John Lawton.
Veteran was launched on the 26th August 1919 There were no survivors when she sank on 26 September 1942 Photograph courtesy of Greg Jepp
If
you want to find out more about the wartime service of a member of your
family who served on HMS Veteran
you should first obtain a copy of their service record To
find out how follow this link:
http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/servicerecords.html
If
you have stories or photographs of HMS Veteran you would like to
contribute to the web site please contact Bill Forster
Return
to the Home
Page of the V & W Destroyer Association Return to the Index Page for the 69 V
& W Class Destroyers
