2nd Clarinet
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In Memory - HMS Barham25th November 1941.
On the 25th November 1941, the following members of the Royal marines Band Service gave their lives while serving onboard HMS Barham.
Bandmaster R.H. Chard.
Musicians F. Leonard, R.C. Jerrard, K.J. Gardner, T.A. Bonthron, W.R. Arscott, S.C. Moir, J.F. Bootle, C.S. Chapman, R.F. Stone, J.R. Paine, J.W. Slater and R.B. Wyatt.
I have posted below, the circumstances of that day.
HMS Barham was a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship of the Royal Navy named after Admiral Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham, built at the John Brown shipyards in Clydebank, Scotland, and launched in 1914.
History
In World War I, she collided with her sister-ship Warspite in 1915.
In 1916, she was Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas's flagship of the 5th Battle Squadron temporarily attached to Admiral David Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet at the battle of Jutland, where she received five hits and fired 337 shells.
During the 1926 general strike she and Ramillies was sent to the River Mersey to land food supplies.
She was less extensively modified between the wars than her sisters. Among her captains was Percy Noble.
In World War II she operated in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
She was damaged by a German submarine torpedo in December 1939, while at sea north of the British Isles.
In September 1940, she took part in Operation Menace, a British naval attack on Dakar, Senegal prior to a landing by the Free French.
Barham engaged the French battleship Richelieu.
On 25 September, the Richelieu hit Barham with a 380 mm shell.
The French submarine Bévéziers hit the battleship HMS Resolution with a torpedo the same day.
Operation Menace was abandoned.
Barham then joined Force H at Gibraltar, taking part in several Malta Convoys.
At the end of 1940, Barham joined the Mediterranean Fleet, taking part in the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 and receiving bomb damage off Crete in May.
On 21 April, 1941, under the command of Admiral Cunningham, Barham along with battleships Warspite and Valiant as well as the cruiser Gloucester and various destroyers, attacked Tripoli harbour.
On 25 November 1941, while steaming to cover an attack on Italian convoys, Barham was hit by three torpedoes from the German submarine U-331, commanded by Lieutenant Hans-Dietrich von Tiesenhausen.
The torpedoes were fired from a range of only 750 yards providing no time for evasive action, and stuck so closely together as to throw up a single massive water column.
Tiesenhausen fired a spread of 4 torpedoes towards the group, 3 of which hit HMS Barham's port side causing it to list heavily and spread fire towards the ammunition storages.
As she rolled over to port, her magazines exploded and the ship quickly sank with the loss of over two thirds of her crew.
Only 2 and a half minutes passed from the torpedo impact until the ship rolled onto its side and the aft magazine exploded killing 861 out of its roughly 1260 man complement.
U-331 took a terrible beating from Barham's defending destroyers but managed to slip away and return safely on 21th of February 1942 to Salamis, Greece.
Aftermath
The British Admiralty was immediately notified of the sinking on 25 November 1941.
However, within a few hours they also learned that the German High Command did not know the Barham had been sunk.
Realizing an opportunity to mislead the Germans, and to protect British morale, the Admiralty censored all news of Barham’s sinking and the loss of 861 British seamen.
After a delay of several weeks, the War Office decided to notify the next of kin of Barham’s dead, but they added a special request for secrecy. The notification letters included a warning not to discuss the loss of the ship with anyone but close relatives, stating it was "most essential that information of the event which led to the loss of your husband's life should not find its way to the enemy until such time as it is announced officially..."
At a seance in Portsmouth in late November 1941, Helen Duncan, a Spiritualist medium from Callander, Scotland, announced that she had contacted a dead sailor who had told her that his ship, HMS Barham, had recently been sunk.
Duncan was not arrested in the aftermath of the Barham incident, but in 1944 was arrested during a seance and convicted under the British Witchcraft Act of 1735 and sentenced to 9 months in prison.
By late January 1942, the German High Command had realized Barham had been lost.
The British Admiralty informed the press on 27 January 1942 and explained the rationale for withholding the news.
Although devastating, a subsequent Royal Navy Court of Enquiry ascribed the ship's final magazine explosion to the detonation en masse of 4-inch anti-aircraft ammunition stored in wing passages adjacent to the main magazines, rather than the main magazines themselves.
Experience of prolonged air attacks in earlier operations had shown that the stowage capacity of the AA magazines was inadequate, hence extra ammunition was shipped in any convenient void spaces.
To those named above and the ship crew who also died.....R.I.P.
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Hornblower
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bootybandy
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Well done again Bob. Do you happen to know what happened with HMS Gloucester and HMS Neptune, obviously the name of the other Houses in the Wing?
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2nd Clarinet
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Thanks Botty.
Nice to know your keeping watch.
Barham, Neptune, Gloucester........Funny how so many years later, these things make sense.
Why were we not told about this when we were in the Wing?
Was it because, the Training Wing (M Wing) was run by Booties and they didn't know the Band history?
I can't remember ever being told about theses losses and the reasons for the 'House' names.
I was only ever a 'short term passenger' with the Grey Funnel Line, whereas you did serious sea time on the 'Ark'.
It must have been difficult for ALL these poor souls (including the ships crew), and I think we should be reminded of the circumstances of their demise, once in a while.
In reply to your question, I will post the articles on the loss of HMS Neptune and HMS Gloucester on 19 Dec and 22 May, respectively.
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Hornblower
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| 2nd Clarinet wrote: |
Barham, Neptune, Gloucester........Funny how so many years later, these things make sense.
Why were we not told about this when we were in the Wing? We were!
I can't remember ever being told about theses losses and the reasons for the 'House' names. I can!!
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eastney hooker
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I agree with Hornblower.
Our D.L. Sgt Barry Heal R.M. made sure we could recite the Corps recipients of the VC and also the history behind the house names.
I take it from the above that this practice has ceased!
WHY? 
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2nd Clarinet
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I joined along with HB!
VC recipients, Corps history dates, Yes, all of those.
I just can't remember our DI (Cpl Baker) mentioning it or anyone else.....
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Hornblower
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Well, it's no surprise at your age Bob!
There are lots of things I forget and am constantly amazed when someone like Botty reels off names and dates that have long since passed from my mind, sometimes I get the story right - until I need a name, like for example the night that a certain bandy fell asleep with their face in a curry and woke up in the morning with the reddest face you ever did see (on one side only  )
I always thought it was Botty, but he put me right - it was actually Goldy RIP .
So anyway, who was I talking to? Oh yes Bob! We were told about the house names and that is one thing I do remember - you were probably switched off for a while... 
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euphless
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Doesn't anyone remember Eagle house, yellow flashes on the eupaulettes? Maybe I'm getting old.
Lofty.
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2nd Clarinet
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| Hornblower wrote: | Well, it's no surprise at your age Bob!
There are lots of things I forget and am constantly amazed when someone like Botty reels off names and dates that have long since passed from my mind, sometimes I get the story right - until I need a name, like for example the night that a certain bandy fell asleep with their face in a curry and woke up in the morning with the reddest face you ever did see (on one side only )
I always thought it was Botty, but he put me right - it was actually Goldy RIP .
So anyway, who was I talking to? Oh yes Bob! We were told about the house names and that is one thing I do remember - you were probably switched off for a while... |
I probably was................
15 yrs old, and too bloody tired from drill input, music input, aural input, physical training input, room cleaning input, ironing input, dhoby input, picquet duties input, beer input and Players No 6 input = 
How come you weren't........?
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