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HMS Barham sunk this day in 1941
On this day in 1944, the battleship HMS Barham sank in the Mediterranean whilst taking part in an operation against an Italian convoy to Lybia. 4 men from Belfast, Larne, Lisburn, and Portadown were lost.
In World War II she operated in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. At the end of 1940, Barham joined the
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Mediterranean Fleet, taking part in the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 and receiving bomb damage off Crete in May. On 25/11/1941, while steaming to cover an attack on Italian convoys, HMS Barham was hit by three torpedoes from the German submarine U–331, commanded by Lieutenant Hans–Dietrich von Tiesenhausen. As she rolled over to port, her magazines exploded and the ship quickly sank with the loss of over two–thirds of her crew. In order to protect morale at home the Admiralty did not immediately notify the families. The Admiralty censored all news of Barham’s sinking and the loss of 841 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. A notification letter was received by James and Sarah Smylie of Magheragall, Lisburn (See Roll of Honour), and as with all the letters it included a warning not to discuss the loss of the ship with anyone but close relatives, stating it was essential that information of the event which led to the loss of life should not find its way to the enemy until such time as it is announced officially. The Admiralty informed the press on 27/01/1942.
Coleraine contact with Barham at Jutland WW1
HMS Barham was a Queen Elizabeth–class battleship of the Royal Navy built on Clydebank, Scotland, and launched in 1914. It was one of the great Dreadnoughts built just prior to World War One.
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Barham fought at Jutland when she fired 337 shells and was hit six times. She suffered severely from two hits but continued in action.
“The Witness”, a Presbyterian Church weekly paper reported (16/06/1916) that, “Seaman Gunner David Murphy is at present spending a few days at the home of his aunt, Dundarg, Coleraine. He is a son of the late Mr. D. Murphy, Fermoyle.
“On the occasion of the recent great battle his ship, the Barham, entered into the conflict before five o’clock. They engaged a German cruiser, which went to the bottom, a victim of the splendid marksmanship of the British gunners.
“That was the first scalp to us,” said Gunner Murphy, “and we immediately set about another vessel, which we set on fire after about five shots. We then came between Beatty’s squadron and the enemy, and the Barham was attacked by submarine and torpedo craft, and had her work cut out to elude them. Five shells were landed, but did little damage. Gunner Murphy said it puzzled him to know how the enemy could persuade themselves that they had gained a “victory.”
He said a correct estimate of the German losses would be about thirty vessels.
On this Day - November 25 1917
The French attack the Samogneux district, north of Verdun and take 800 German prisoners.
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1918
Five German battleships leave the Firth of Forth for internment at Scapa Flow (Orkney Isles).
1939
Germany reports four British ships sunk in the North Sea, but London denies the claim.
1940
Zionist group Irgun blows up British liner Patria at Haifa to prevent removal of Eastern European Jewish refugees from Palestine to Mauritius (213/1771 refugees killed, 50/130 crew).
First flight of British De Havilland Mosquito bomber.
First flight of US Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber.
1941
Battleship HMS Barham struck by 3 torpedos from U-331 in the Mediterranean.She capsizes to port and sinks within 4 mins after a massive explosion. 862 men were killed from a ships company of over 1200. Try to imagine the terror of those 4 minutes.
The Duke of Kent made a Royal visit to Northern Ireland between 24th November 1941 and 29th November 1941. He inspected troops and met locals on his trip.
Hitler takes time out from monitoring the assault on Moscow to meet with Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in Berlin. While the Fuhrer refrains from giving an unqualified endorsement of Arab nationalist aims in the
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Middle East (he did not wish to upset Vichy France), the two agree on the need for the “destruction” of the “Jewish element.”
The Germans continue their advance against Moscow, throwing all their available strength in to the attack in a final attempt to capture the Russian capital.
Rommel continues his attacks at the rear of the Eighth Army.
U-331 (Kplt. Tiesenhausen) sinks the British battleship Barham in the Mediterranean.
1943
The US Navy Department announces that very few Japanese are left alive in the Gilbert Islands. On Tarawa, 1,090 Marines were killed and 2,193 wounded, with only 100 Japanese out of garrison of 4,836 being taken prisoner, with only 17 of them being soldiers. Sattelberg in New Guinea falls to the 9th Australian Division.
A Destroyer action off Cape St. George results in the Japanese being routed to the north west of Bougainville and losing three destroyers out of five in the process.
1944
The French take Belfort.
Himmler orders the destruction of the crematories at Auschwitz.
The last Japanese resistance in Peleliu ends. 14,000 Japanese are killed or captured for 9,300 U.S. casualties.
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German V-2 rocket hits Woolworth department store in London, killing 168. It is the single deadliest Nazi rocket attack of World War Two.
Nazis demolish crematoria and gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Gen. Mark Clark named to command 15th Army Group (Allied Armies in Italy); Gen. Lucian Truscott to replace him over US Fifth Army.
1945
RAF commence Operation Deadlight, the sinking of captured German U-boats off the Hebrides and NW Ireland. Coastal Command oversaw the operation in an area which had been crucial to the war in the Atlantic. The first eight German U-boats to surrender did so at Lisahally, Co. Londonderry. They sailed past Culmore point, each U-boat flying a White Ensign of the Royal Navy, overseen by Admiral Sir Max Horton, Commander in Chief of the Western Approaches.
Roll of Honour - November 25 1914
+McCRANK, JamesFireman. HMS Atlanta. Died 25/11/1914. Aged 28. Drowning
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accident in Glasgow Harbour. Son of James and Annie McCrank, Tervillin, Fair Head, Ballycastle. Ballycastle WM
1915
+DICKSON, Robert
Royal Irish Rifles. 10th Btn. Rifleman. 10/14369. Died 25/11/1915. Born in 1896, Sandy Row, Belfast. Son of Robert and Sarah J. Dickson, of 92 and 94, Sandy Row, Belfast. Sucrerie Military Cemetery, Colincamps, Somme, France
1916
+KING, W G
Commonwealth War Grave of Gunner W G King 5th African Heavy Artillery in Ballydown Presbyterian Graveyard Banbridge. Was he a local man and did he die whilst recovering from wounds? 25 November 1916
+McFADDEN, WilliamRoyal Irish Rifles, 11th Btn. Lance Corporal. 2250. Died 25/11/1916. Aged 20. Son of James and Margaret McFadden, of Moylena Banks, Muckamore, Co. Antrim. Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension, Nord, France. LOL 1422 WM, Muckamore Orange Hall
1918
+ALLEN, George RMLI. 14462. Plymouth Division. Died 25/11/1918 of disease. Enrolled 24/05/1891. War service in Plymouth Division, Gloucester and Leviathan. Born Comber
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05/01/1891. Son of John Allen, Carlton St., Belfast. Ford Park Cemetery, Plymouth. Megain Memorial - PCI RH. ADM 159/155/14462
1919
+WOODS, James Middlesex Regiment, (Duke of Cambridge), formerly Labour Corps, 144th Company. Private. 1784. Died 25/11/1919. Aged 36. Son of Henry and Sarah Woods of Derryganard, Lissan, Cookstown. aged 36. Les Baracques Military Cemetery, Calais, Pas-de-Calais, France 1941
+McSTAY, John Dominic Royal Army Ordnance Corps, 4 Base Ordnance Depot. Lance Serjeant. 7010863. Died 25/10/1941. Aged 31. Son of Peter McStay, and of Elizabeth McStay, of Lisburn. Alamein Memorial, Egypt.
HMS BARHAM
+BERRY, JosephRM. Marine. PO/X 4370. HMS Barham. Died 25/11/1941. Age 22. Of the crew of 1,312 there were only 452 survivors. Joseph Berry was among the survivors who later died. Son of Mr. and Mrs. George Berry, Tullylish. Portadown. Portsmouth Naval Memorial, Panel 58. Gilford WM. Lurgan WM
+JOYCELYNN, John CharltonRN. Midshipman. Died 25/11/1941. Age:17. HMS Barham. The Hon John Charlton Jocelyn, Son of Captain Robert
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Soame Jocelyn, 8th Earl of Roden, and the Countess of Roden, Merchiston, Larne. Portsmouth Naval Memorial, Panel 45
+SMYLIE, John FinlayRM. Marine. PO/X 4563. H.M.S. Barham. Date of Death: 25/11/1941. Age: 19. Born 8/4/1922. Born at North Street, Ballinderry, John was the eldest of the six children of James and Sarah Smylie. There was John, William, Yvonne, Josephine, Andrew, Francis and Lawrence, the family was raised on the Causeway End Road, Lisburn and Moneybroom Road Magheragall. John took his first job on Springfield Farm, the farm situated just behind Magheragall Parish Church. When war broke out John joined up, and on October 31 1939 John left home to join the Royal Marines aged 17 years and after basic training he served on the HMS Barham. Not long after receiving the official notification of John’s death his father James was taken ill and he died in February 1942. Son of James and Sarah A. Smylie, Lisburn. Portsmouth Naval Memorial, Panel 59. Magheragall Parish Church, near Lisburn, WM
1945
+HARRIGAN, Mark
Royal Army Service Corps, 279 Gen. Transport Coy. Lance Corporal. T/6982538. Died 25/11/1945. Age 31. Son of William Harrigan and of Bridget Harrigan (nee McCourt), of Londonderry; husband to Mary Harrigan (nee Martin), of Londonderry. Hamburg Cemetery, Germany
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VETERANS
CRAWFORD, James EricRN. (Special Entry), 1936. 1939 - 46. Born 25/11/1918. Son of James F. Crawford, Wandsworth Road, Belfast. Campbell College 2445
DALY, George
Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. 2nd Btn. Lance Corporal. 3388. Born 1889 in the Augher area. Served from 28/12/1908 to 27/12/1915. He was with the Expeditionary Forces in France from 30/05/1915 to 16/12/1915. George and his wife Barbara lived 108 My Lady's Road, Belfast where George died, aged 79, on 25/11/1968
SINCLAIR, Thomas
First President of QUB Services Club 1918, 1919, 1920
Colonel. AMS. CB 1917; MRCS 1882; FRCS1886; LM MCh MD RUI 1881; MP. Thomas Sinclair was educated privately and intended to go into business. In 1877 he entered Queen's College, then a constituent college of the Royal University of Ireland, in which he graduated with first-class honours in 1881, winning the Malcolm exhibition in 1880 and a gold medal in 1881. He then worked at the London Hospital, in Vienna, and in Berlin, acted for a time as demonstrator of anatomy at Queen's College, Belfast, and took the Membership of the RCS in 1882 and the Fellowship in 1886. His first hospital appointment in Belfast was on the surgical staff of the Ulster Hospital for Children
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and Women, where he was ultimately consulting surgeon; in 1885 he was elected assistant surgeon to the Royal (afterwards Royal Victoria) Hospital, becoming surgeon in 1898 and consulting surgeon in 1923. He was also consulting surgeon to the Forster Green Hospital, the Co Antrim Infirmary, and the Lisburn and Coleraine Cottage Hospitals. In 1886, at the age of 29; he succeeded Alexander Gordon as professor of surgery at Queen's College. He held the chair for thirty-seven years, retiring at the age limit in 1923, and is said to have taught more than 2,000 students.
During the war he was consulting surgeon to the 4th Army, under Rawlinson in France and later under Allenby in Egypt, with the rank of colonel, AMS, having been commissioned on 15 November 1915. He received the CB in 1917. While in France he examined the body of Richtofen, the German air "ace", who was brought down behind the British lines and was thought by some to have been shot from the ground as he fell. Sinclair established that he had been shot in combat in the air by Captain A R Brown, an Australian pilot.
After the war Sinclair returned to Belfast and occupied himself particularly with the affairs of the Queen's University, as Queen's College had become in 1908. He was registrar from 1919 to 1931, an ex officio member of the University Senate from 1919 as registrar and from 1931 as one of the pro-chancellors, his colleague in this office being the Rt Hon James Andrews, Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. He was a generous contributor to the University, as well as to the hospitals with which he was connected, and in 1926 founded the Sinclair medal, to be
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competed for each year by the members of the surgical class in the University. He represented the University on the General Medical Council from 1919 till 1927, when he became a Crown nominee upon it, and was also a member of the Dental Board. He was for many years a senator of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and in 1923 he was elected unopposed as MP for the University in the Imperial Parliament, in succession to Sir William Whitla, MD. He held the seat for seventeen years, retiring only two months before his death, and was returned unopposed at four general elections. He died at Belfast after several months' illness on 25/11/1940. Born in Belfast on 17/12/1857, the third child and second son of Samuel Sinclair, flax-merchant, and Isabella McMorran, his wife. He was unmarried. A great teacher and a wise administrator, he held a unique place in the professional and academic life of Belfast for more than a quarter of a century. A portrait, presented in his honour in 1931, hangs in the Great Hall of the University.
Every day is a Remembrance Day
We will remember them
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