Brothers killed Serving in the Royal Artillery at Dunkirk 1940

Discussion in '1940' started by graeme, Jun 30, 2015.

  1. graeme

    graeme Senior Member

    Morning,

    For Andy, I fear, 2 questions in 1 for which I apologise, however you may be interested as it regards 2 brothers killed (according to CWGC) within days of each other.

    The 2 brothers are on the Walsall RoH


    Joseph William WOOD
    Gunner 779822
    2nd Medium Regiment, Royal Artillery
    'Died' on Wednesday 29 May 1940

    Alfred WOOD
    Gunner 847925
    15th Battery, 6th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery
    'Died' on Saturday 1 June 1940

    Sorry to burden you but can you shed any light on their demise.

    Regards,

    Graeme
     
  2. Buteman

    Buteman 336/102 LAA Regiment (7 Lincolns), RA

    I've checked the 2nd edition of the book written by Forum Member Patrick Walker about 6 HAA Regiment published in 2013, but there is no specific mention about the death of Gunner Alfred WOOD. We are meeting next week, so I'll ask him if anything more has come to light in the last two years.

    The war diary for May to June 1940 is missing, but the book mentions that 15 Battery were spread out in multiple positions around La Panne and Bray Dunes, before retreating back to "the racecourse" at Dunkirk itself. This information comes from other members of the Battery.
     
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  3. graeme

    graeme Senior Member

  4. Guy Hudson

    Guy Hudson Looker-upper

    Graeme,
    I have attached the RA casualty cards for the Wood Brother's.
    Guy
     

    Attached Files:

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  5. CommanderChuff

    CommanderChuff Senior Member

    Hallo Greame,

    As it happens I have recently researched the period of 29May1940 for a RHA soldier who was sunk at sea off Dunkirk. Here is the summary which was oirginal posted which was focussed on incidents where the survivors of one sinking ship were rescued by another so there may be other single ships which sunk as well.

    With the data to hand I decided that my search window would be 27th to 30th May. The Evacuation of Dunkirk by Gardner is the official Royal Naval Staff History of the operation and is a document of record. This was used as the basis of a diary to track the sailings and sinking of all ships. The date, time and position were plotted of each ship where the survivors of a sinking were picked up by another ship. It was a surprise, and most welcome one, to find that there were just four instances of this combination of events.



    On the 28 May the first recorded sinking of this day was of the Queen of the Channel which had embarked 150 troops from the beaches and a further 700 from Dunkirk port. Shortly after leaving Dunkirk on the 28 May 1940 at about 04:15hrs she was attacked by aircraft and was sunk. The troops were transferred to the Dorrien Rose at about 08:00hrs. The Dorrien Rose was an elderly tramp steamer built in 1922. The Rose left the scene at 05:25hrs and arrived in Dover at 14:30hrs. On the 30th of May the Rose made a return trip returning a further 637 troops to Folkestone whereupon she was taken out of service due to worn out engines.



    In the early afternoon the SS Abukir was returning to England from Ostend with troops and was torpedoed by an E-boat. Her troops were transferred to HMS Grenade (H86 – G class destroyer) in company with sister ships Codrington, Anthony, and Javelin. The Grenade returned to Dover with 671 troops but upon her return to Dunkirk the following day was hit by aircraft bombs whilst alongside the East Pier. The resulting fires eventually reached the magazine and blew the ship up.



    On the 29th May 1940 there were two events where troops were rescued from a sinking ship. HMS Bideford (L43 – Shoreham class Sloop) was laying off Bray beach and was hit by aircraft bombs. The tug St Clears came alongside and transferred 300 troops. The Bideford was abandoned and she drifted to go aground onto the beach. The next day, 30th May, the ship was boarded by 300 French and 50 British troops. The ship was towed off the beach at high tide by the Locust, a small motorboat, and towed to Dover at 2 and half knots. The ships carried 620 troops and arrived in Dover at 11:30 on 31th May after thirty-two hours at sea.



    The evening of the 28th May saw HMS Wakeful (H88 – V&W class destroyer) off the beach at Bray embarking 640 soldiers. In the early hours of the next day, at about 00:45hrs, on passage to Dover and close to the Kwint Whistle buoy north of Nieuport, she was attacked by S-Boat S-30 and was hit by one of two torpedoes in the forward boiler room. The ship split into two parts and both sank immediately within 15 seconds. The sections remained standing up on the seabed with the tops above water. ‘Unfortunately all of the troops were asleep inside the Wakeful and with the exception of just one soldier, they all went down with the ship,’ [Ref 1]. After about 30 minutes the danlayers Nautilus and Comfort arrived on scene and recovered 22 survivors including the captain of the Wakeful, Cmdr RL Fisher. Nautilus takes her 6 survivors onwards to the La Panne beach but is lost later in the afternoon to air attack, whilst the Comfort is engaged in further rescue attempts at the scene of the sinking of the Wakeful. The minesweeper Lydd arrives at 02:20 having taken on 300 troops and picks up 10 survivors. Meanwhile the minesweeper Gossamer has picked up 15 survivors and with the arrival of the destroyer Grafton departs the scene for Dover.



    The Grafton had embarked 800 troops from the Bray beach and proceeded to pick the single soldier and 25 survivors of the ships company from the Wakeful. As the rescue was being completed at about 04:00 the destroyer Grafton, with the smaller Comfort alongside, was hit by a torpedo from the U-62. The back of the ship was broken but remained afloat long enough for the troops to be rescued. The captain of the Wakeful, Commander Fisher, was thrown off the Comfort into the water by the force of the explosion. At 03:07hrs the personnel vessel Malines is on her way back to Dover after dropping off supplies at Dunkirk and assists in the rescue. The captain brought the Malines alongside the Grafton by placing her port bow to the starboard bow of the sinking destroyer. The troops jump across in an orderly file and the transfer of 800 soldiers was completed in just 35 minutes. The darkness of night and confusion in the rescue fleet meant that the small danlayer Comfort was mistaken for an E-boat and was fired upon by the other ships. It was eventually rammed by the Lydd and sank. Cmdr Fisher (captain of the Wakeful) had managed to get back on to the Comfort before having to swim away from the sinking vessel. He was picked up a few hours later.



    With the sunrise at 04:30 the sinking Grafton was spotted by a destroyer flotilla containing the destroyer Ivanhoe (D16 - I class) on passage to Dunkirk. The seriously wounded survivors of the Wakeful were to be transferred to yet another destroyer, the Ivanhoe and taken to Dunkirk where 930 troops were embarked from the East pier. The Ivanhoe returned back to Dover arriving at 16:10 on the 29th of May.



    In the course of 5 hours in the early morning of the 29th May, a soldier was in the water when his ship HMS Wakeful was torpedoed. He was picked up by HMS Grafton and torpedoed again, and then picked up by a third destroyer, HMS Ivanhoe. Eventually the soldier arrived in Dover.



    The events of Dunkirk will never be fully known but the name of this soldier is probably Herbert Brown.
    As I shared this information with the family it was a moment from ‘Who do you think are?’ From being a name and number, Herbert ‘Badge‘ Brown, father and husband, has become a person with a history. And a very lucky history as well.



    Sources:
    1. The Evacuation of Dunkirk: Gardner: Naval Staff History 1949; pages 36-39.
    2. Naval-History; ‘http://www.naval-his...history.net/;�� records and copies of the logbooks of Royal Navy warships, including the destroyers Wakeful, Grafton, Ivanhoe.
    3. WW2Talk: open forum with many references and content contributed by military historians and researchers from primary sources.
    4. BEF Ships – before at and after Dunkirk: John de S. Winser, 1999: gives details of shipping used in the evacuation of the BEF from France and times of arrival into British ports, with notes of activities during the operations.
     
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  6. graeme

    graeme Senior Member

    Morning

    Many thanks Guy and CC, its all building up a picture, appreciate your time and trouble,


    Regards,

    Graeme
     
  7. Guy Hudson

    Guy Hudson Looker-upper

    Graeme,
    Some additional information about Joseph William Wood

    779822 WOOD Joseph William joined RA 22/3/28 signed on for 6/6 at Wolverhampton
    Born : 21/9/1908 Walsall Staffs
    Passed to the Reserve : 15/9/1934

    Guy
     
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  8. graeme

    graeme Senior Member

    Hi Guy,

    Cheers, thanks for the information, appreciate it,

    Regards,

    Graeme
     
  9. Simon A

    Simon A Active Member

    Apologies for bringing up a question not really connected with the original but I wanted to ask CommanderChuff the following

    I would be really interested if you could explain your belief that the only surviving soldier of the Wakeful was Herbert Brown. The reason I ask is because another source has claimed it was a Jim Kane. This was written by his son on another forum.

    “My father was also at Dunkirk and had a terrible experience. Being a strong swimmer he swam off the beach and reached the destroyer HMS Wakeful on May 29th. This ship was almost full, with 640 soldiers aboard. Dad was asleep, exhausted at 11.30pm as the ship slipped out of the bay under cover of darkness. Unfortunately a German E-boat was waiting for them around and hit with 2 torpedoes at point blank range. The Wakeful sank within 15 seconds. Somehow Dad escaped, after initially being trapped by one leg, as he climbed the ladder out of the hold one of the soldiers stood on his face, he said “sorry mate”, Dad bore a red boot mark on his face for a very long time. Of the 640 soldiers in the hold it was reported that only one survived, Jim Kane. 25 Ships crew did survive this sinking, including the captain, they were lucky enough to have lifejackets. By a terrible coincidence my Dad's childhood friend was a stoker on board and went down in the ship.

    After many hours in the sea Dad got picked up by another Destroyer, this was HMS Grafton. It was firing its guns and he could see it was lowering a whaler boat over the side, which eventually picked him up. Before they could get back to the Grafton, it too was hit by torpedoes and had to be abandoned, in the confusion our ships fired on each other, and killed many of our own men in a whaler next to Dad's. My Dad eventually made it to home on a requisitioned Channel Ferry.”


    Most reports claim only one survivor but Commander Fisher of the Wakeful in his book “Salt Horse” reported 10 survivors.

    Simon
     
  10. CommanderChuff

    CommanderChuff Senior Member

    Graeme,

    Here are the ships recorded as sunk on the 29 May.

    Landing Craft Assualt LCA-16 29/05/1940
    Landing Craft Assualt LCA-18 29/05/1940
    Landing Craft Assualt LCA-4 29/05/1940
    Auxillary AntiAircraft Vessel Eagle 29/05/1940
    Drifter Comfort 29/05/1940
    Drifter Giri Pamela 29/05/1940
    Drifter Nautilus 29/05/1940
    Mine Sweeping Trawler Calvi 29/05/1940
    Destroyer Grenade 29/05/1940
    Destroyer Grafton 29/05/1940
    Destroyer Wakeful 29/05/1940
     
  11. CommanderChuff

    CommanderChuff Senior Member

    Hallo Simon,

    Thanks for your comments and it seem like the passage of time has created something of a muddle for the historian. I have heard of the Jim Kane story which was told to a local newspaper, but have no more information (unit, locations, timings) to put his claim into context.

    My story is here and I have recorded the family story and research as best as I can: http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/56452-soldier-survives-two-dunkirk-sinkings/

    In the movements of the 5RHA (for Herbert Brown) I am confident that the timings and locations are perfectly sensible to place him on the Wakeful. The family has been very clear on the information from their father which has been consistent over the years, namely strong swimmer and heavy smoker. I can only say that I have researched unit war diaries, his military record, and offical histories to get the story in pretty good shape. All the information is in the link with sources so I would welcome your thoughts on what is written.

    There are many accounts which give differing numbers of survivors for the crew and the soldiers. It may be that the sole soldier story was untrue but if you trace through the numbers picked up by the various ships at the scene in my data I hope that you will see that I have traced between 1-4 soldiers who were picked up.

    David

    David
     
  12. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Do you have photo's of their names on the Dunkirk Memorial? I have all 4,500 so if you want these two let me know.

    2 Medium Regiment Royal Artillery Diary only has one line on the 29th May 'Unit evacuated by small craft from beach at La Panne to England'

    From 6 Heavy Anti-Aircraft War Diary. I'm wondering who the 12 were that were left behind? Wounded? There's nothing of note in the June diary. It starts with them in Wales.
    [​IMG]
     
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  13. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Do you have their service records? I may be wrong here but my sources state that 15 HAA Battery was indeed part of 6 HAA Regiment at the start of the war but by the end of January 1940 they became part of 1 HAA Regiment.

    From 15 HAA Battery war diary
    [​IMG]
     
  14. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    15 HAA Bty rejoined 6 HAA Regt in June 1940 back in the UK. The 64,000 dollar Q now is was he with 15 Bty or 6 Regt at the time of his death-He couldn't have been with both.

    From 15 Bty war diary. Annoyingly there are no appendices at the end of this report.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  15. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    For completeness here's the diary entries for 1 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, just in case.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  16. Patwalker

    Patwalker Junior Member

    Dear Graeme, My friend Ramcal pointed me in the direction of your post on the two brothers.
    i have had a book published last year which is the only one ever published on the full wartime story of 6th HAA Regt. I also have Alfred Wood down in the index of RoH as being killed some time between 1/June and 2/June 1940. In the confused state at the time and with much paper work being lost you would be very fortunate to find more details on him.
    I would suggest that at the time of 1/June he would have been attached to 1 HAA.
    I do not know when he enlisted but if before the war then my book sheds light on where the Regiment and its batteries went and what they did and in fact their whole unfortunate story till captured in the Far East. They lost a number of men during their time in France/ Belgium in the chaotic withdrawl.
    I am not sure from what part of the UK you are from but I live close to the west of Wolverhampton and close to a gun site the Regiment used later in the war for a year.
    Patrick Walker email Patwalker37srpen@aol.com
     
  17. graeme

    graeme Senior Member

    Hi Andy and Pat,

    Many thanks for the above contributions.

    The War Diary make harrowing reading, one can only visualise the chaos, however the men found time to have horse races in the dune. Madness.

    As you say Andy, shame about the appendix.

    Many thanks for the time and trouble put in, appreciate it.

    Terrible, 2 brothers never to return, lost within days.

    Regards,

    Graeme
     
  18. Patwalker

    Patwalker Junior Member

    Dear Graeme, i agree about the missing Appendix `A` from the file but I have in my book a complete list of all casualties for the whole war amounting to 495 names and where they died. Compiled with the help of Ramcal over a long period.
    If Drew is reading the last line of the document called skeleton `Appx` A I read it as Majors Coke (CO) and Pinney (recently promoted) & sec (of)12 (Bty) remained.
    You can almost feel the chaos all around with people not knowing what the hell was happening but desperate to get away to the UK. Although 6th HAA did escape relatively intact they lost all their transport, guns, ammunition and basic radar apparatus.
    Pat Walker
     
  19. graeme

    graeme Senior Member

    Hi Pat

    Just updating my research and come across another 6HAA man on the Walsall RoH

    691668 Geoffrey Alan Stephens

    Just for your info

    Regards,

    Graeme
     
  20. Patwalker

    Patwalker Junior Member

    Dear Graeme,
    Yes i have him down too but he survived Dunkirk and finally died in a POW camp in Borneo on 17/May/ 1945.
    Sad to see but if he could have held out a couple more months he might have come back.
    He was a gunner in 12 Battery 6 HAA
    The cause of death in most was overwork, under fed and sickness.
    Patrick
     

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