ions was one of Neptune's Court. We all made our costumes
out of rope etc and we looked pretty good when we took charge of the
ship but by the time we had initiated a few of the novices with soap,
pills and medicine (cascara and quinine) & ducked them in the bath
we were beginning to get a bit bedraggled for I went into the bath
myself about every five or ten minutes, about every other bloke
initiated tried to take me in with him, however they were all well and
truly dealt with you may depend, the more they struggled the better we
liked it & the more the spectators who had been through enjoyed the
Brown, SBCPO (reported as "missing presumed killed", on 11-12 November
1942) in a letter to his brother dated 10 May 1942.
Crossing the Line Certificate drawn by Donald A. Preece Leading Supply Assistant, "missing presumed killed" on 11-12 November 1942 Signed by Neptunus (Chief Petty Officer Goddard, bosun of the Hecla)
and his consort, Amphitrite (Johnny Harber, the Master of Arms, one of the survivors rescued by HMS Venomous when Hecla was torpedoed) Courtesy of Fred Lemberg
On the 15 May Heclarounded
the Cape and as it crossed the Aghulhas Bank just east of False Bay struck a mine at 15.59 hours killing 21 of the crew (with 3 missing and 116 injured).
Had Edward Coleman not left his lonely workshop below the
armoured deck five minutes early to go to the heads he would have been
amongst those killed:
were staggering up from below, most of them blackened and dazed ... one
of the leading rescuers was Harry Holcomb ... I well remember him going
down over and over again to the decks not actually flooded to get men
out. He was later decorated for his bravery. Regretfully, his award was
made posthumourosly, he was killed in a later accident."
would normally have been standing by my locker at that time getting my
washing gear but had stayed and finish a job. My locker was squashed to
half its size and had I been there I would most certainly have been
'killed in action' as were the fellows I normally saw at that
Bill Clayton and his fellow shipwrights were busy shoring up the
distorted bulkheads and George Male was assisting in the operating
theatre trying to save the wounded:
operated on into the night with bodies on the floor around us. One
sailor had part of his brain protruding and was laid on the floor as it
appeared our efforts would be better on those with more chance to
survive. After a while he raised himself with one arm and asked for a
drink. We got him on the table, did what we could for him. He was still
alive next day, transferred to RNH Simonstown and survived."
Despite a 125 ft tear in its starboard side Hecla made
its way under its own power to the South African naval base of
Simonstown. Les Proctor described how:
following morning, Cyril Hardware and I were sent down to the torpedo
flat to find the bodies of two people we knew to be down there, "Tubby"
Hoare was one and the other was Griffiths. Both had received news at
Freetown that they had become fathers. As the hull plates had been
folded back and were covered with several inches of fuel oil and water,
we were unable to locate the bodies at that time. Our selection for the
job was that we each had sea boots! They They were all
recovered in dry dock, stitched into their hammocks and piled on the
superstructure to await burial. A rather gruesome happening was that I
rushed up a ladder, threw back the curtain that screened the bodies to
find I was looking at the open end of the shrouds (the head end was
left open for identification at burial and to place in a four-inch
The dead were buried at sea by HMS Gambia. Captain E.F.B. Law's Report of Damage to HMS Hecla by underwater explosion and casualties to personnel can be seen in the National Archives, Kew, Ref ADM 199/802
Burial at sea from HMS Gambia
Courtesy of Simon Skelhorne, grandson of Jabez Skelhorne who was killed when HM Hecla sank on 12 November 1942
The mine was laid by the German minelayer, Doggerbank, which was converted from a captured British tramp steamer, the Speybank. On the 3 March 1943 the Dogger