The Sea Is My Grave

By John L.D. Barnett

How would posterity and the youth of Britain remember my men who had died in such a desperate battle? UNLESS they were told the story, they would have nothing to remember, states Rear Admiral G.W.G. Simpson CB, CBE Captain of the Fighting Tenth Flotilla Malta, G.C. 1941-1943. With this in mind, author John L.D. Barnett pens a tribute to the men of the sea in his newly published book through Xlibris, The Sea is My Grave.

Rich with mementos and photographs, this book is a tribute to Bill Barnett and all the wartime officers and men of the Royal Navy Submarine Service, who through their courage and determination, often suffered under atrocious conditions, fought against evil and for the freedom of Great Britain. It tells the story of Bills life and all that hed seen, sailing the seas, on a British submarine. Readers will follow him as he cast his fate to the wind, and let his spirit roam free, fighting for freedom on the open sea.

Appealing to family and friends of wartime naval officers, The Sea is My Grave is a tale of battles fought hard, and brave shipmates lost, all through World War II.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Sep 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462890415

John L.D. Barnett

John L. D. Barnett is a retired 64 year old, and the son of William George Barnett DSM. This is his second book, the first of which was a biography of his own life called No Pain, No Gain. Having spent many years in the forces himself, he decided to tell the true story of his father’s exploits in the Royal Navy, spanning from 1929 until his discharge in 1951. The story tells of his father’s early naval service in the Gunboats on the Yangtze River in China and all through the Second World War, serving with the fighting 10th submarine flotilla in Malta in 1942 until his father’s death in 1984. He finally retired from his own career as a petroleum HGV1 tanker driver in 2002 due to ill health.

Book preview

The Sea is My Grave

John L.D. Barnett

Copyright © 2011 by John L.D. Barnett.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011910148

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4628-9040-8

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4628-9039-2

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-9041-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

0-800-644-6988

www.XlibrisPublishing.co.uk

[e-mail]

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Chapter 1 The Early Days

Chapter 2 Royal Navy Training

Chapter 3 HMS Antelope (H36)

Chapter 4 HMS Curacoa (D41)

Chapter 5 China and the Yangtze River British Gunboats

Chapter 6 Transfer to the Royal Navy Submarine Service

Chapter 7 The Start of World War II

Chapter 8 HMS Snapper (39S)

Chapter 9 HMS Prince of Wales and the Battle of the Denmark Strait

Chapter 10 HMS Clyde (N12) and the Gibraltar War Patrols

Chapter 11 HMS Cutty Sark, Royal Naval Training Clipper

Chapter 12 HMS Unison (P43)

Chapter 13 The George Cross Island of Malta and The Fighting Tenth Flotilla

Chapter 14 The Distinguished Service Medal

Chapter 15 The Russian Lend-Lease Program

Chapter 16 HMS Saga (P257)

Chapter 17 VE Day, the End of the War in Europe

Chapter 18 Sheffield During the 1940s/1950s

Chapter 19 VJ day, 1945 and the Russian Cold War

Chapter 20 Return to Malta, the George Cross Island

Chapter 21 Return to Civilian Life

Chapter 22 Christmas in London 1953

Chapter 23 The Family Moves to Shiregreen

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John L.D. Barnett

Author

Acknowledgements

Royal Navy Submarine Museum

Mrs Debbie Corner, director of photographs, Royal Navy Submarine Museum.

Mr George Malcolmson, archivist, Royal Naval Submarine Museum.

The family of the late Mr Fredrick T. J. Hedgecock, DSM Photography.

The late Mr Robert Gould, VC.

The late Mr W. G. Barnett, DSM—Information and Photographs.

The late Mr Gus Britton, MBE.

Former Yorkshire (Sheffield) branch of the Submarine Old Comrades Association.

The archives of the British War Museum.

Mrs Rene Cook, Information and Photographs.

The Imperial War Museum, Information and Photographs.

The National Museum of the Royal Navy Hms Victory Portsmouth for Documented Information with reference to the shore base HMS Talbot Malta and photographs.

Mr Matthew Sheldon. Head of the Curatorial Department National Museum of the Royal Navy, HMS Victory, Portsmouth

Miss Tracy Barnett: Editing

The Malta War Museum information and photograph of the Malta George Cross.

Bibliography

Original submarine patrol reports held by the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Gosport.

Seedie’s Honours List of Submarine Awards for World War II.

Supplement of the London Gazette, 28 September 1943.

Sheffield Evening Star newspaper.

The Fighting Tenth by John Wingate, DSC, RN, Rtd.

The History of the British ‘U’ Class Submarine by Derek Walters.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. For world war II Royal Naval information.

Of all the branches of men in the forces there is none which shows more devotion and faces grimmer perils than the submariner.

(Sir Winston Churchill)

The Fighting Tenth

How would posterity and the youth of Britain remember my men who had died in such a desperate battle? UNLESS they were told the story, they would have nothing to remember.

(Rear Admiral G. W. G. Simpson, CB, CBE captain of the Tenth Submarine Flotilla, Malta, GC, 1941-1943)

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Chapter 1

The Early Days

This story tells of Bill’s life and all that he’d seen, sailing the seas, on a British submarine. He cast his fate to the wind, and let his spirit roam free, FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM on the open sea. It tells of battles fought hard and brave shipmates lost, all through World War II, at such a great cost. The sea is Bill’s grave now, the last post his tune, a brave hero sadly missed, but most especially in June.

(John L. D. Barnett)

William George Barnett was born at 33 Redcar Road in the city of Coventry, in the county of Warwickshire, England, on 20 June 1911. His father Arthur, at the age of twenty-nine, was a fully qualified cycle machinist and had worked his way up from the shop floor at the local bicycle factory, and his mother Maryanne (Pollyanna), formerly Foster, had taken a local cleaning job at a house nearby to help out with the family’s weekly income through the cold winter months. It was a hard, gruelling life in the 1900s, but the people somehow managed to carve a living out of the poor wages that were paid by the factory owners, for the long hours they worked.

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Bill’s mother Pollyanna       Bill’s father Arthur

Bill had an elder brother Arthur, who was six years his senior, and a brother Fred, who was four years elder. His sister Ethel was the eldest, and another sister Winifred, who was the youngest, was born shortly afterwards.

Sadly, Bill’s mother Pollyanna contracted tuberculosis and passed away shortly after Bill’s second Birthday. His father Arthur struggled on looking after the family by himself for a further two years, until he met and married Bill’s stepmother Agnes, who had also lost her husband a few years before.

Agnes already had four children of her own from her previous marriage—Evelyn, Arnold, Albert, and Ronald—which made a total of nine children altogether. As you can imagine, this was quite a struggle in the 1900s as the family received no extra income or help from the government of the day for the children’s upbringing.

During the winter months of 1913, major unrest had occurred in Europe, which was to inevitably lead to the Great War. Austria and Hungary declared war on Serbia at the end of July 1914. Russia during this period was bound by a treaty to Serbia, and due to this, it mobilised its army, which came to Serbia’s defence, although it was slow to react.

The Germans, who were allies of Austria and Hungary by the same treaty, saw this aggression as an act of war and after a stern warning, declared war on Russia on 1 August 1914. The French, however, who were also bound by a treaty to Russia, now found themselves at war with Germany. The German Army immediately invaded neutral Belgium, which enabled them to reach Paris by the shortest route.

Great Britain was allied to France, which placed a moral obligation on her to defend France, and also the Belgian king had appealed to Britain for assistance, which we were obliged to give due to the terms of a seventy-five-year-old treaty we had signed with Belgium. Germany’s invasion of Belgium took place on 4 August 1914, and Britain immediately came to her defence, declaring war on Germany later that day. Like France, Britain was inevitably now at war with Austria and Hungary. The day the war broke out, the British Army was just 730,000 strong; however, people’s patriotism drove millions to enlist in the forces, and as the war progressed, so did the numbers of recruits. By the end of 1918, more than seven million men had served in the British Army.

Bill’s father Arthur, a few years before, had joined the Royal Horse Artillery, Territorial Army in Coventry, and, due to the impending Great War, had received a letter from the War Office, posting him to the Royal Horse Artillery barracks situated on Clough Street in the city of Sheffield. The whole family were required to move lock, stock, and barrel from Coventry to a house on Sheffield Road, Tinsley in the industrial district of Sheffield, in South Yorkshire.

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Arthur and Agnes

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Agnes Agnes at the age of 21

Bill’s father and stepmother

Sergeant Arthur Barnett was now training soldiers to fight on the front line, and during the first week, he had procured a civilian job working at Hadfields Ltd., East Hecla Works, in the foundry at Tinsley in Sheffield, which was turning out armaments for our troops fighting the Great War in France.

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Sgt Arthur Barnett Royal Horse Artillery Territorial Army 1914/1918

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Somme Barracks Sheffield Yorkshire

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The old Royal Artillery barracks in Clough Street Sheffield Yorkshire

The family moved into a large terraced house which suited the family needs in the steel industrial part of the Tinsley district of Sheffield, and Bill was enrolled at the Plumpers Road infant and junior school, alongside his brothers and sisters. Bill’s father continued to train new conscripts to fight on the front line during the Great War, whilst in between working shifts in the Sheffield steel foundry, until eventually the Great War came to an end in 1918. Bill’s family had managed to move into a large terraced house in Barnsley Road, Tinsley district, where his half-sister Joyce was born in 1923 and his baby sister Irene Isabella in 1930. By this time, the family had grown to eleven—seven brothers and four sisters; the family’s lifestyle improved greatly due to his father Arthur’s promotion to foundry foreman, and his brother Fred had opened a small fruit shop in the city.

Bill loved to play football with his mates at every opportunity and earned extra pocket money to buy his football kit, selling the local Sheffield Star newspaper on a street corner stand on the Tinsley Road in Sheffield, but he yearned for the day when he would become of age and could eventually leave home and travel the world. At the age of seventeen, he was selling newspapers from his own newspaper stand, which was situated in a prime position outside the main steelworks on Tinsley Road in Sheffield, and whilst reading a paper one day, he saw an advert for recruitment into the Royal Navy. Things were strained at home, and his brother Fred and Arthur had now moved out to set up home for themselves in the Sheffield area, which put more pressure on Bill to provide extra income for the rest of the family.

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Bill standing left of the picture at age seventeen, and friends

Chapter 2

Royal Navy Training

His longing for freedom and his ambition to travel the world was now eating away at Bill, and over the following weeks, it eventually drove him