Lest We Forget

Seventy years ago, on the 22^nd October 1941, R.F.A. Darkdale was torpedoed by the German submarine U.68 while at anchor off Jamestown Harbour, Island of St. Helena, South Atlantic Ocean.

The ship exploded, turned over and sank within five minutes taking forty one members of her crew down with her. This was the single greatest loss of life on any RFA which has been sunk during the 106 years of the Service's existence.

Those who were lost are remembered with pride on the Cenotaph at Jamestown and on the Tower Hill Memorial, London

RFA Darkdale was the first British ship sunk south of the Equator during World War 2.

Today in Jamestown the Bishop of St. Helena will lead a prayer service with the Islanders remembering those who were killed.

The full story of the loss of RFA Darkdale and the Jamestown Cenotaph Memorial can be found here, here and here

Allen Mardon Baggott was born in London on 13 April 1884 and went to sea as a Steward on various ships. His home was in Itchen, Southampton

He signed on the RMS Titanic at Southampton on 4 April 1912 as a first class steward for which his monthly salary was £3 15sh 0d. Previously he had served on the Oceanic.

He boarded the Titanic at Southampton at 6am on 10 April 1912 shortly before she sailed with her first port of call being at Cherbourg, France and then at Queenstown, Ireland on 11 April 1912 before the ship commenced the crossing of the Atlantic with 2,240 people onboard.

The story of the RMS Titanic’s sinking on 14 April 1912 is well documented and also the women and children first policy enforced by the crew as she sank. This women and children policy first policy wasn’t 100% successful – as detailed below.

The Allied naval bombardment of the Dardanelles forts in February 1915 had disclosed the fact that the Turks had concealed their batteries on the peninsula very cleverly, and that airplanes and seaplanes had their limitations as directors of gunfire. Apart from troubles with their engines, there was always the self-evident axiom that an observer moving rapidly through the air cannot spot as accurately as an observer sitting in the basket of a stationary balloon. The Naval Commanders at the Dardanelles sent out an urgent signal for observation balloons, urging that they should be dispatched from England at once, so as to arrive in time for the landing on the Gallipoli peninsula.

News Flash

It has been confirmed that RFA Fort Victoria was involved along with the USS De Wert in rescuing an Italian ship held by Pirates.

Zombies are roaming the planet, cities are falling and mankind faces extinction if we don’t fight back.  In Cornwall a hive of activity is centred on the small port of Falmouth where USS Madison makes ready for sea, her decks a fevered scene, on her flight deck a small Dauphin helicopter sits poised ready for action.

© Captain Paul Kehoe RFA

MV Sagar Ratan

During 1963, the RFA HQ in London began to appreciate that simple communication to RFA personnel afloat about current events in the RFA service was not being covered adequately in the “Naval Store Journal”. This was a two monthly glossy magazine produced for shore store establishments in which the RFA was given ½ page covering mainly Captain and Chief Engineer appointments.

To overcome this lack of internal publicity and communication section 2A of the Naval Store Department then located at the Empress State Building in London produced and distributed a RFA News Letter to ships at sea. This was a 20 to 24 page newsletter “Duplicated” onto softish paper then in vogue with government departments, the heading from news letter number 6 appears below.

and the Admiralty Cover-Up

In 1900, Bucknall Steamship Lines Ltd  embarked on a new-building programme which added a further 21 new ships to their Fleet and the first of these was launched from the Deptford Yard of the Sunderland shipbuilders Sir James Laing & Sons Ltd on 25 September that year named MANICA. She was the first of two exact sisters built there and was delivered to her owners in December that year. Her sister was named BAROTSE. Both vessels were around 4000 grt with dimensions of 360’06” x 47’00” x 25’03” with triple expansion 3 cyl steam engines supplied by T. Richardson & Sons Ltd of West Hartlepool ( although by the time BAROTSE was delivered at the end of March 1901, the firm had changed its name to Richardsons, Westgarth and Co Ltd ). The contract was for 5 similar vessels in total and the remaining three were built by Armstrong, Whitworth & Co Ltd at their Low Walker Yard on the River Tyne, being engined by the Wallsend Slipway Co. These were named BANTU, BARALONG (which were exact sisters) and the slightly larger SWAZI.  BARALONG was launched on 12 September 1901 and was completed in the November of that year. The vessels’ owners became Ellerman & Bucknall Steamship Co Ltd of London in January 1914. The remainder of this article concerns just MANICA and BARALONG.

On the 6 June 1944 the Allies landed on the north west coast of France, in what was the largest amphibious operation ever mounted.  The planning behind this operation was truly monumental and began two years before the first soldier set foot on French soil.  The allies plan was audacious, in that it exploited their maritime power to allow them to place men and equipment in large numbers on the defended shores of France in Operation Overlord.

In 1918 British Naval Forces were sent to the Baltic to keep the sea lanes open to the newly independent states of Estonia, Latvia and the Free City of Danzig enabling them to secure their freedom. Danzig had been created on 10 January 1920 in accordance with the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.

To support the Royal Navy, Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships were deployed and these included the 2000 ton Belgol class tanker RFA Prestol.

RFA Diligence receives a Mayday call

RFA Diligence

On 16 May 2011 RFA Diligence (A132), the Service's Forward Repair Ship received a Mayday call from the German owned, Panamanian flagged 158,000 ton MV Artemis Glory, saying that their ship was under attack by pirates in the Gulf of Oman. The tanker was on passage from Juaymah Terminal in Saudi Arabia to China with a cargo of crude oil.

60th Anniversary of the explosion of RFA Bedenham at Gun Wharf, Gibraltar

On 27 April 1951 the naval armaments vessel RFA Bedenham, while unloading at Gun Wharf, Gibraltar was sunk when a lighter alongside of her exploded. This caused the ship to explode and sink.  There was heavy loss of life and vast damage through out the City.

the story of the RFA Upnor incident

A remarkable incident took place off the south coast of Ireland during the closing phase of direct British influence in the island of Ireland. Remarkable in that it was an act of piracy.

I joined the Merchant Navy in 1943 as a 15 year old cabin boy and spent two weeks at T.S Triton, a catering training school in the West India Docks in East London.  While I was there I also did one day’s training on aircraft recognition, how to load gun magazines and how to fire an Oerlikon gun, this was done on a double decker bus to enable me to become a D.E.M.S gunner, and yes, it was all done in a day, heaven help us.

When Britain maintained overseas bases the RFA supplied a regular 12 passenger cargo shipping service to supply and maintain these outposts of the British Empire. Commercial companies – Orient/P&O had 99.99% of the traffic.

Darkdale remembered

Ten years after writing about the sinking of the British oil tanker Darkdale and tragic deaths of the majority of its crew in Jamestown harbour, St Helena during World War II, my hope that some mark of remembrance of their sacrifice would be established reached a heartfelt satisfactory conclusion.

In Hong Kong’s Marine Court on the 28 October 1921, the Magistrate, Lieutenant Conway Hake RNR gave his judgement in the case in which John Walter Edward Drake, Junior Engineer Officer of RFA Pearleaf was charged at the instance of the Master, Alfred S Leech RFA with absenting himself without leave from his duty in the engine room or stokehold at 1am on 16 October 1921 under the Transport Discipline Regulations

SS Louise Moller Sweeps Past

Nationalist Warship claiming to be the RFA Black Ranger

as a RN Frigate Stands By

On 28 October 1949 the British tanker Louise Moller (previously RFA Rapidol) swept past in defiance of a Nationalist gunboat at the Yangtse Estuary in international waters to run through the Shanghai sea blockade successfully and delivered half a million gallons of diesel oil for Caltex.

When the Armistice to end World War 1 was signed on the 11 November 1918, a group of RFA vessels were operating with the British Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow, amongst these was the ‘Belgol’ class oiler RFA Fortol which had only been completed at the shipyard of Archibald McMillan and Son, Dumbarton in May 1917.

On an October night almost sixty nine years ago, the small island of St Helena, in the South Atlantic, was shaken by a series of explosions.  Some residents in the lower part of Jamestown, the island’s only town and port, were literally lifted from their beds by a series of explosions to find, with others living in surrounding areas that had also been rudely awakened, the night sky filled with an orange glow.

The ‘Fresh’ class of water tank vessels were launched during World War 2 and during their early years 12 of the 14 ships in the class were manned by the RFA.  These vessels would have been a familiar sight around the naval dockyards and anchorages, taking fresh water and boiler feed water to warships and auxiliaries.

Written by Lt Cmdr Chris Howat, Royal Navy (Retd) and Commodore Barry Rutterford, RFA (Retd)

Most people will probably never heard of Rockall, so what and where is it?  Rockall is a small, uninhabited granite islet in the North Atlantic around 300 miles west of the island of St Kilda, Scotland.  The size of the islet is surprising at 102 feet long by 83 feet wide and about 70 feet high.  Rockall has an interesting history considering its isolation, but over the years it has been claimed by Ireland, Denmark, Iceland and of course the United Kingdom.

Two British seamen from RFA Wave Regent were charged before Mr W H Latimer in a Hong Kong Court on 29 January 1946.

Leslie Bush, Chief Cook and Alfred C Howard, Cook each admitted the theft of 50 pounds of flour.

The RFA Service having passed through the Wave, Old Tide and New Tide classes of steam ship from 1945 to 1963 saved the best to the end before all RFA steam ship construction ceased in favour of motor ships. The three ships built in 1965 were easily the best steam RFA’s and possibly some of the best British steam ships ever built. I cannot comment or Resource or Regent as I never went onboard them but I do know they were a totally different animal, Foster Wheeler boilers and English Electric turbines – one wonders why the change from reliable B & W boilers and PAMETRADA turbines successfully used in the New tides and all the additional training necessary for two distinct classes of ship.