Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry
H.M.S. Hermes and a Hawker Osprey in 1939 (courtesy Richard Taylor)
When war was declared in September 1939 Hermes was immediately put into service on Atlantic patrols searching for U-boats. She was also involved, together with ships of the French fleet, in searching for the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. In late October Hermes and her accompanying French destroyers captured the German supply ship Santa Fe which her crew attempted to scuttle by opening the sea cocks before taking to their boats. Hermes returned to port at Dakar, Senegal, with her prize following at reduced speed. After a refit at Plymouth in early 1940 Hermes returned to the Dakar station and was for a period transferred from there to the east coast of Africa where she captured several Italian ships, including the Leonardo Da Vinci, which were leaving the port of Mogadishu with valuables. Captain Richard Onslow took over the command of Hermes from Captain Fitzroy E. P. Hutton on 25 May 1940.
When France fell in June 1940 the governor of Senegal declared that the colony was pro the French Vichy government and Hermes was ordered to leave Dakar at only a few hours’ notice and take up a position to blockade the port since former allies were now regarded as enemies. The French battleship Richelieu, one of the most modern and powerful warships in the world, had sailed into Dakar a few days earlier and there was some on-board speculation that she might follow and try to sink Hermes.
Captain Onslow was appointed acting rear admiral for the period 7 to 11 July 1940, making Hermes the temporary flagship of the small British squadron now on patrol off Dakar. On 3 July a British fleet had carried out a pre-emptive attack on units of the French navy at Mers-el-Kebir in Algeria, and four days later Hermes issued an ultimatum to the French admiral at Dakar. When no reply was received by the specified deadline, a plan to attack Richelieu inside Dakar harbour with depth charges was put into action.
Shortly before midnight Hermes’s 25-foot motor boat, which had been painted black, loaded with four depth charges and manned by a volunteer crew of ten men, slipped away from Hermes, passed over the harbour boom and with some difficulty in the dark found their target. The depth charges were dropped under Richelieu’s stern where, despite being triggered, they failed to explode. The motor boat, pursued by a French vessel which became caught up in the boom nets, eventually returned safely to Hermes. Shortly before dawn on 8 July six Swordfish aircraft from Hermes launched an attack and one of their torpedoes is thought to have detonated the depth charges, making a 60ft hole in Richelieu that resulted in some flooding and caused her stern to sink to the bottom; she was pumped out after a few days and made seaworthy for emergency service. In the London Gazette of 6 September 1940 the following awards for ‘bravery and skill in operations off Dakar’ were announced to men who crewed the motor boat: Distinguished Service Order to Lieutenant Commander Robert H. Bristowe; Distinguished Service Cross to Commissioned Gunner Frederick W. Grant; Distinguished Service Medals to E.R.A. 2nd Class Cyril Ford and Acting Leading Seaman Patrick J. Kearns; Mentions in Despatches to leading Telegraphist Ronald E. Tuffnell, Able Seaman Albert Cookson and Able Seaman John Quinn.
Two days after the attack on the Richelieu, in the early hours of the morning during a tropical storm, Hermes inadvertently crossed the path of a convoy and collided almost head on with the armed merchant cruiser Corfu, sustaining extensive damage to her bows but fortunately mostly above the waterline. Temporary repairs were carried out at Freetown in Sierra Leone, West Africa and she was then able to proceed to Simonstown for a new bow to be fabricated and welded in place.
After three months of repairs and refitting in South Africa, Hermes continued her patrols in the South Atlantic searching for German commerce raiders, including the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer which was not located. In 1941 she was transferred to the Indian Ocean to look for Vichy French blockade runners in and out of Madagascar and in February helped to blockade the port of Kismayu in Italian Somaliland. From April until mid-June Hermes was deployed to the Persian Gulf to support British operations in Basra following pro-German unrest in Iraq, a task which the 20-year-old ship’s crew found very uncomfortable in the heat of the Gulf. Later in the year she escorted the battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse from Mombasa to the Seychelles, en route to join Force ‘Z’ at Singapore, but engine problems forced Hermes to return to South Africa for repairs and a refit.
On completion of her refit Hermes was assigned to the Eastern Fleet when it was formed at Ceylon and on 19 February 1942, she received the Swordfish of 814 Squadron and rendezvoused with the destroyer H.M.A.S. Vampire to carry out an anti-submarine patrol. In mid-March the two ships were assigned to Force ‘B’ of the Eastern Fleet based at Trincomalee, part of the defences of Ceylon against Japanese Admiral Nagumo’s carrier fleet. Intelligence had indicated that the Japanese would attack Ceylon on 1 April, but when no attack materialised, Admiral Somerville withdrew his fleet to Addu Atoll, in the Maldive Islands, to refuel and sent Hermes and Vampire to Trincomalee to prepare for the planned Allied invasion of Madagascar. The aircraft of 814 Squadron were disembarked.
Two days later the Japanese fleet was sighted steaming towards Ceylon, but by then the British fleet was too far away to intercept it. On 5 April the Japanese attacked Colombo using their carrier-based fighter bombers; 19 of the 42 aircraft defending Colombo were shot down by the escorting Japanese fighters. Hermes and Vampire were ordered on 8 April to leave Trincomalee for safety and sail south down the coast, Hermes now without her aircraft.
The expected attack on Trincomalee by more than 100 aircraft from Nagumo’s fleet began at 7am on 9 April and resulted in extensive damage to the airfield and dockyard. Aircraft were destroyed on the ground and 11 of the 23 defending fighters were shot down. At 8.55am a reconnaissance aeroplane from Haruna sighted Hermes and Vampire and reported their position to the Japanese fleet. The signal was intercepted at Colombo and the two ships were ordered to reverse course and return to Trincomalee from where air cover could be provided. At 9.45am Admiral Nagumo launched his force of 85 dive bombers which found their targets off Batticaloa and sank both in short order. Some 40 bombs hit Hermes in the space of ten minutes. The guns of the ships managed to shoot down four enemy aircraft between them, but the token force of British fighters arrived on the scene too late. The hospital ship Vita which was fortuitously in the vicinity picked up most of the survivors. One survivor who was on the bridge with Captain Onslow after the ‘abandon ship’ command had been broadcast recalls offering him a lifebelt which was refused and then saw him go down the ladder towards his cabin; the captain was not seen again.
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