2nd Clarinet
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In Memory - HMS Fiji23rd May 1941.
On the 23rd May 1941, the following members of the Royal Marines Band Service gave their lives while serving onboard HMS Fiji.
Bandmaster R.W. Wenham
Band Corporal W.T. White
Musicians C.f. Blackburn, J. Whittaker, S.S. Pratt, W.J. Greenfield, J.A.P. Smith and T.A. Norris
I have posted below, the circumstances of that day.
HMS Fiji (pennant number 58) was a Crown Colony-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy, named after the island group, and at that time, the Crown colony of Fiji.
She has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name.
Early career
Fiji was built by John Brown and launched on 31 May 1939.
She was the first of the Crown Colony class to enter service, and the class is sometimes known as the Fiji class as a consequence.
She was commissioned on 5 May 1940, and initially joined the Home Fleet.
On 31 August 1940 she sailed for the African Atlantic coast to take part in Operation Menace, the attack on Dakar.
Before she could join the taskforce, at 18.00 hours on 1 Sep, 1940, U-32 attacked the Dakar Task Force (Operation Menace) about 40 miles north-northeast of Rockall and reported a hit with its last torpedo on the troop transport Scythia, but in fact HMS Fiji (58) (Capt W.G. Benn, RN) was damaged and managed to return under own power to the Clyde, arriving on the evening of 3 September.
Five ratings were killed.
The cruiser was repaired at Greenock for six months.
She was fitted with radar and her Anti-Aircraft armament was also marginally increased.
She returned to service in March 1941 and was assigned to patrol the Denmark Strait for German raiders.
She missed the homeward bound German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer, and in April she was reassigned to Force H to blockade the German heavy ships then stationed at Brest.
With Force H, she sailed into the Mediterranean to support operations to relieve the island of Malta.
Sinking
On completion of these duties she participated in the Battle of Crete.
On 22 May 1941 she was acting in company with the destroyers HMS Kandahar and HMS Kingston shortly after the loss of HMS Gloucester.
These ships fought on and shot down one attacker and damaged two others. She finally expended all of her AA ammunition fighting off numerous air attacks that persisted for two hours.
She was attacked and hit by several bombs from Messerschmitt Bf 109s before an aircraft of Jagdgeschwader 77 dropped a bomb close alongside to port.
This blew in Fiji’s bottom plates and caused a list to port.
Fiji lost power and came to a standstill.
She was now largely defenceless, having practically exhausted her 4 inch ammunition.
She was then hit by three bombs dropped by a Junkers Ju 87.
Captain William-Powlett gave the order to abandon ship and at 2015 Fiji rolled over and sank.
The destroyers dropped floats and withdrew to the south.
They returned after dark to pick up 523 survivors. 241 men had gone down with the ship.
On 30 May 1941, in a letter to the First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound, Admiral Cunningham wrote, "The sending back of Gloucester and Fiji to the Greyhound was another grave error and cost us those two ships. They were practically out of ammunition but even had they been full up I think they would have gone. The Commanding Officer of Fiji told me that the air over Gloucester was black with planes." (see HMS Gloucester The Untold Story. ISBN 0-9522194-2-5)
To those named above and the ships company who also died…..R.I.P.
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StickyBlue
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We owe them a debt we can never repay, least we forget.
Where do you get your info from Bob ?
If you go to the HMS Fiji website it gives more info on RMB causualties and deaths not least
Royal Marine Boy Buglers:-
Peter John Henry AVANT PO/X4689 Boy Bugler Royal Marine Aged 14 years. Son of Lily Ruth Avant of Colwyn Bay, Denbighshire.
Kenneth Philip William FRENCH PO/X4138 Boy Bugler Royal Marine Aged 16 years. Son of Victoria and Robert French of Portsmouth, Hampshire.
The following may also be of interest:
Note from Web Admin: Following is a message received today [25.01.01]
I am aware of a very sad story concerning Peter Avant, the 14 year old Boy Bugler. A few months ago I spoke to a Royal Marine survivor who had known Peter Avant. He told me that whilst on the Fiji he had had several conversations with Peter, apparently the boy came from a very disturbed family background, his mother having deserted him.
After this survivor had abandoned the Fiji he saw Peter in the water and spoke to him. An hour or so later he saw the boy again and Peter said to him - 'this is no good Corporal, we are never going to get out of this' - with that he deliberately let the air out of his life-belt and sank beneath the waves. I asked the survivor why he thought that the boy should have done this. He replied that he thought his morale had reached a point where you crack and he thought that he had nothing to live for. This strikes me as a very sad and tragic story.
I believe that Peter Avant was the youngest serviceman to die during the Second World War.
Ronald Bennett
What a really sad story !!!!!!!!!!!
Also:-
Dec 17, 2003 Update
The following regarding Boy Buglers may be of interest:
At the time that the two Royal Marine Buglers were killed on the Fiji, a lot of other Buglers were also being killed in action. There were two in the Royal Oak, two in Hood, one in Bonaventure (off Crete again) and the two in Fiji to name but a few. So, in view of the bad image, Portsmouth Division decided to ask for volunteers from the H.O. marines to train as Buglers but not as drummers. However only eight volunteered and, with a mounting backlog of buglers to be relieved (one guy on a cruiser in the Indian Ocean had gone to pension !) and with new ships coming along, the outcry was ignored and just about three months after HMS Fiji was sunk boys were recruited again.
The above information was supplied by Robin Rowe, Editor of the Royal Marines Buglers Association in an e-mail which he sent me about two years ago.
Ronald Bennett
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2nd Clarinet
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StickyBlue
Thanks for the addition of the Boy Buglers also lost on this ship.
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