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Created: 25 July 2001 - Updated: 6 June 2008
HMS Kite 2nd Support Group.
Captain Walker, whilst in command of HMS Kite, flew from her
mast his famous
signal
"General Chase" last flown By Mike Kemble (c) From information provided by Ray Holden, Clem Bray, Christine Chaplin, Lionel Irish, Mary Davies, Adrian Raven & Others |
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Introduction Picture the scene, you are walking past some church or other, not really taking much notice but you see some men walking slowly out of the church, wearing berets or some other military regalia, some with their ladies and you think, as you pass, that its some soldiers, sailors or airmen remembering dead comrades and suchlike. At 1500 hrs on Sunday August 20th 1989 such a Choral Evensong Memorial Service was held in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. This particular service was dedicated to the crew of HMS Kite. Now these "Memorial Services" are fairly commonplace - but let's stop and look behind the scenes of this one and remember the crew of HMS Kite - in a little more detail. Those of you who know your Naval WW2 history will know that HMS Kite was one of Walker's ships! That will make your ears prick up no doubt. After all, Johnnie Walker was the foremost U Boat hunter - ever! At the bottom of the dedication book to this memorial service something more sombre greets the eye - "torpedoed by U344 on 21 August 1944 in the Barents Sea - loss of 217 lives. Just for the record, U344 did not get away with sinking the Kite; recorded fate of U344 is that it was sunk with all hands, at 0830 hrs 22 Aug 1944, the next day, in the Barents Sea, northeast of North Cape, in position 72.49N, 30.41E, by a Fairey Swordfish from HMS Vindex, piloted by Gordon Bennett. These pages are intended as a memorial to those 217 brave souls who lost their lives aboard HMS Kite in the Arctic. It was also intended as a companion to my page Walker RN and not as a duplicate of that page but I seem to have outgrown the Walker pages by some distance! HMS Kite, built at Cammell Laird, Birkenhead, was launched on 13 October 1942. Commissioned on 20th February and completed on 1 March 1943. Armament: 3 x 4" guns; 2 x 2 pounders; 4 barrelled pom poms; 2 x 20mm Oerlikon; 2 x 3" twin machine guns; 4 rail throwers for depth charges and carried 110 depth charges. 9 April 1943 a founder member of 2nd Escort Group. To put you in mind, I rank Capt Walker alongside Drake & Raleigh and Nelson. He was there when the country needed him. HMS KITE (Aug. 21, 1944) Royal Navy sloop of 1,250 tons, was escorting the aircraft carriers Vindex and Striker, which in turn were escorting a large convoy to Northern Russia when the convoy was sighted by German aircraft. Soon a pack of U-boats attacked the convoy and one U-boat was sunk by Swordfish aircraft from one of the carriers. Two more were sunk by other destroyers. Sometime shortly after the action, the Kite was hit by two torpedoes and sank with the loss of ten officers and 207 ratings. What really happened can now be found on my Board of Enquiry Pages, link on introduction page. If the whole truth was, in fact, told!
A painting of HMS Kite; commissioned by Ray Holden, it shows HMS Kite flying the General Chase pennant when commanded by Capt Johnnie Walker. Bryan Phillips' website is linked at the base of the page - please visit his site. Depicted in the Bay of Biscay under the command of Captain "Johnnie Walker, DSO and three bars, flying his famous signal, General Chase. This painting is intended as a lasting memorial to all the 217 members of her crew who lost their lives on 21st August 1944. This is HMS Kite in all her former glory unforgettably captured by Bryan Phillips. A limited edition of art prints, signed by the artist were available from his studio. I believe that these have long since run out. Some of the images below have been "thumbnailed" to preserve space. Click on the relevant image to see full size.
Back in the UK, the survivors come ashore. Only 8 in the photo. PO Payne refused to take part in the propaganda, he wasn't going to smile whilst his shipmates had gone. The ship is HMS Keppel, on which Tom had died and had been buried at sea. Left to Right: Charlie Bonsall; Brannigan; Lionel Irish; Frank Webb; Reg Holmes; Johnson; Sharples; Bradley. Only Lionel Irish and Reg Holmes are left alive today.
HMS Kite (hidden behind and under the water) detonating an homing acoustic torpedo (gnat) with a depth charge. She had not even seen the incoming torpedo, her attack had detonated it. Starling can be seen behind her. Kite vanished completely from view for seconds! Image taken from HMS Magpie or Wren.
From the
Maritime Museum, Liverpool. Another copy of an image further up this page. The
ship in the image is actually Starling and Kite is hidden behind the water
A very poor photo, it is very significant because it shows Kite picking up U-Boat
survivors, this was in July 1943 when Johnnie Walker was
in Command and had flown General Chase,
Taken in a mess deck on Kite with the lads making their own enjoyment. This one is, I believe, the mess of Ray's brother Tom Holden, it really speaks for itself. This confined space is where they all lived eat and slept, hammock bars on the deck head can be clearly seen. The Leading Seaman playing the accordion is L/S Darby Kelly, a Liverpudlian, last seen by Lionel trying to launch the sea boat. Apparently, according to Lionel Irish, one of the U Boat prisoners was a dab hand with an accordion and the lads had him in the mess deck to play for them. Lionel also remembers that the Mess decks were forever dripping with condensation. Image: Ray Holden. The one standing behind the newspaper reader is George Lunt. His page can be accessed from the main Kite page.
Vice Admiral FHG Dalrymple-Hamilton commanded convoy JW59 and had chosen for his flag ship HMS Vindex, since she had better command facilities than the cruiser. The convoy had had an uneventful passage, continuous daylight allowed aircraft to be airborne throughout the 24 hour period. The convoy was east of Jan Meyer Island when she was spotted by a Ju88 and early
on Aug 21st 1944 the convoy reached a patrol line set up by U Boats of the "Trutz" Group. The U344, U668, U394, U363 and the U997 were deployed across its path. The U344, ahead of the convoy attacked the 22nd Escort Group with a T5 salvo and then sank HMS Kite (Lt Comdr WFR Seagrave, DSC, RN) (Incorrect: Seagrave was in hospital, temp commander on
board) with heavy loss of life, only 9 of her crew being rescued. The Commander of
the U344 (KapitanLeutnant Ulrich Pietsch) sent off a sighting report which resulted in a fresh line being established from U703, U354, U365 and U711, but these were successfully kept down by air patrols and a Catalina from the 118 Reconnaissance Regiment, Soviet Air Force. The book also intimates that it was at least a couple of days before the U344 got its "comeuppance", on the 23rd August. It was in fact the following day when Gordon Bennett, flew his swordfish out of the cloud and found the U344 below him, running on the surface. He attacked and sank the U344 with all hands. Gordon was based on board the "flag ship" of the convoy, HMS Vindex. Another ship in the convoy was a Royal Sovereign Class Battleship being transferred to the Red Army, and was renamed Murmansk, a "juicy" target for any U Boat. Able Seaman Tom Holden is still officially posted as "Missing presumed dead"; the Admiralty have never informed his wife/relatives officially of his death, although he died on board the destroyer HMS Keppel. I now have a copy of a signal from Keppel to the Admiralty regarding the burial at sea of Tom. See my page on "The Sinking of HMS Kite". The narratives provided By Ray Holden are reprinted and are linked below. On a visit to Liverpool in February 2002, to take pictures of Walkers statue, I purchased a copy of a video "Battle of the Atlantic" on it is footage of Walker and his "chicks" taking on a U Boat - successfully, with the commentary "When Walker found a U Boat, it's chances of survival were nil". Also on the film is footage of their return to Liverpool following the Six in One Trip voyage and the Address by the Viscount Alexander Hillsborough on the quayside. Sadly, also on the video is footage of Walker's funeral, procession through Liverpool, placing the coffin onboard HMS Hesperus and subsequent burial at sea. It also includes interviews with sailors including some from HMS Starling and Wild Goose. Battle of the Atlantic is available from Mersey Ferries shops at the Pier Head and Woodside £13.99. Produced by Luther Pendragon and narrated by Julia Somerville. RGI 3037 is the tape code. Updated items from those who sailed on the convoy etc can be found on page 3, The Sinking of HMS Kite. Thank you to all those people who have sent emails to me regarding HMS Kite. Most from relatives and neighbours of crew members, and some from other sailors from that fateful convoy. It is very pleasing to me to see that all the work put into these pages (and others) have been so well received. Many to say that finally a "ghost" had been laid to rest as they did not know what had happened - till now. Thank You - all. Updates are becoming rare
A photograph of the Air
Crew of HMS Vindex - Lieutenant (A) RNVR Gordon Bennett, the pilot who sank the
U344 is in
This picture of HMS Keppel, the destroyer on which Tom died, was almost certainly taken on the River Mersey. The tower just off Keppel's bow is that of the Mariners Home in Wallasey. Footnote: 18/03/02: The picture of Keppel in the Mersey must have been taken very early in the war, perhaps even before 1939. When Mermaid operated with her, her for'ard funnel had been removed, as well as one of her boilers, to make room for another fuel tank. It reduced her top speed, of course, but as a lowly escort she didn´t need those extra knots. The loss of that funnel detracted from her appearance, though! I believe her main armament had also been reduced. In fact whenever we saw her, she always looked really down-at-heel, like the rest of us, in fact. After a boiler clean and a lick of paint and maybe a few patches of corticene decking renewed, it only took a week at sea to bring back the rust stains again. Our first Lieutenant, St John-Benn, RN, who was hardly more than twenty three, always wore the scruffiest of uniforms at sea - verdigris cap badge hanging by a couple of threads, greyish submariner´s white sweater, a grease -smeared, shiny jacket and sea boots. Of course, we all followed his example, and started coming back off leave with warm civvy clothing of every description, as well as a fantastic assortment of headgear - hardly a sign of pusser clothing amongst the lot! He did put his foot down finally, however, when someone fell in on the quarterdeck all ready for another days work, wearing a bowler hat. Jimmy merely said quietly, "Able Seaman Smith, go for'ard and find your issue cap if you don't want appear before me on a charge!" For all his youth, Benn was an excellent seaman and was popular with all the lower deck. We were sorry to see him drafted to another ship, especially when his replacement proved himself an utter *##"&!!, to say nothing of the guy who took over command at the same time from Lt-Commander John Mosse, who was also a good officer and seaman. John Murray HMS Mermaid. Ray: 19/03/02. The destroyer Flotilla Leader, HMS Keppel, launched in 1920, modified as a short range escort but retaining her full torpedo armament, was no stranger to Russian convoys, and had been the flagship of Jackie Broom, commander of the close escort with PQ17." Although she had been modified she was still classed as a destroyer, if she still had a torpedo armament how would she deliver them without the speed to do so? Torpedoes are for use against surface ships, there had been no German surface ships capable of carrying out an attack for some considerable time, therefore this would suggest that she was modified when this threat did exist. Joe Bennett was a Stoker on HMS Keppel when Kite was sunk. He has been in touch with Ray Holden who passed this on to me: 24/07/02 Is the date on the email. An eye witness account from the decks of the Keppel. At the time of the Kite sinking Joe had been sent on deck to get a container of drinking water. He took the opportunity to grab a bit of fresh air. Kite was on his starboard quarter. Just after he returned to the boiler room he heard two large explosions. He explained that the sound of explosions within the confines of the engine room were magnified. There is no way to tell if it is your ship that is the target or that it is your ship doing the attacking; you just wait and see. Orders came down to increase speed and a change of course was evident. The P/O Stoker told Joe to nip up and have a look. He could not believe his eyes - the only way Joe could explain what he saw was "A complete mess". Other men stood around the guard rails in disbelief, only wreckage and oil remained where Kite once was. There follows some historical information on the Keppel which, for the sake of history, I shall reprint here. When Keppel was launched she had 4 boilers rooms, these exhausted through two boilers to each of her two funnels which were flat sided funnels. Capable of a top speed of 36 knots, normal for destroyers. Keppel retained her two funnels until the day she was broken up. The old V and W destroyers had two funnels flat sided and one round - these were the destroyers which had the forward flat sided funnels removed. The after round funnel became known as "woodbine" funnels. A woodbine was a brand name and a byword for cigarettes; a "woody". Joe (and Harry Busby) were most indignant when a brand new ship with only one funnel wanted to pinch one of theirs; Joe - "what the hell do they want another funnel for; they only have two boilers!!". This account comes in another email from Ray from a man called Harry Busby also on 24/07/02. He met up with Ray Holden and this is Harry's account. He was an A/B Torpedoman on HMS Keppel. He was closed up on the after torpedo tubes, leaning against them and he and his mate were looking across towards HMS Kite on Keppel's starboard quarter. They were discussing what nice lines these sloops had. Suddenly two huge balls of fire blotted out HMS Kite and when it cleared she was nowhere to be seen. Keppel immediately turned towards Kite and circled around her position but could find no ASDIC contact. She wasn't allowed to pick up survivors until HMS Peacock and HMS Mermaid arrived from the port side of the convoy. Harry relates that it seemed like hours but later found out it had only been 40 minutes during which all that time those poor devils had been in the freezing water. Eventually Keppel cut engines and gently nosed her way alongside a group of survivors, some of them drifting along the side down stern, we could not make out faces only blobs of thick stinking fuel oil. Men were hanging through the guardrails trying to clutch hold of them but could not get a grip because of the slime. About 15 men drifted around the stern end and the No 1 ordered the launching of the whaler. At first the disengaging gear would not slip which lost a few minutes but eventually the whaler was dropped into the water. The whaler collected all the 14 men who were brought back to Keppel. No 1 came down to the stern where men were throwing grappling hooks and using boat hooks but all the men in the water appeared to be naked or semi naked and there was nothing to "hook onto". The Skipper sent a message to No 1 to say that he would have to turn the screws because the Foxer gear (the cause of Kites demise in the first place!) was sinking down towards the screws. No 1 asked him to belay that order but the screws started to turn and all the survivors at the stern were sucked under. The bodies of the five men who died were laid out against the torpedo tubes. A three badgeman, A/B Pritchard was given additional rum and he sewed the bodies up in canvas, the last stitch going through the nose in traditional Royal Naval fashion, and the bodies weighted. A small funeral service was held and the bodies confined to the deep, again, in Royal Naval fashion - all received a true Royal Navy burial at sea.
September 27th 2005: The War Illustrated Vol 10 No 236 published on July 5th 1946 has the following image of HMS Kite. The magazine cost me £15 on eBay to buy which makes this a rather expensive image! The caption reads: Motto: "Kite Flies To The Stars" and continues "A war built sloop of 1375 tons, HMS Kite was senior officer's ship of the celebrated Second Escort Group, commanded by Captain F J Walker, CB, DSO, RN during part of 1943 and early 1944. In June 1943 the Kite, in company with four other sloops, sank two enemy submarines. During August, the Group, acting in conjunction with aircraft, was responsible for the destruction of seven U Boats in the Bay of Biscay. It was in the course of these actions that Captain Walker made to the ships under his command the time honoured signal "General Chase" (see illus in page 263 vol 7). Two more enemy submarines were sunk by the Kite and her consorts off the Azores in December; and on March 19 1944, it was announced that in operations covering twenty days the Second Escort Group had accounted for six U Boats in the Atlantic, 300 miles south west of Ireland. (See pages 710-711 vol 7) This brought the Group's total bag up to 17. Captain Walker died on July 10th 1944 (see illus in page 233, Vol 8) and his ship did not long survive him. Three months later she was lost while escorting a convoy to North Russia; though it is satisfactory to know that other ships of the escorts she was concerned in the sinking of three more U Boats.
Christine Chaplin, who was the source of the Board of Inquiry information has now provided me with an image of HMS Kite that she found at her Uncle's who sadly died recently. He obtained it in Plymouth just after the war. The image also contains a list of all those who perished and, in a lot of cases, their jobs on board. Here is that image. The sailor in the image is the late Steven Mills. Ray has noticed that the image is actually Wild Goose! It did cross my mind when I saw it but didn't follow it up.
Thanks, again to Christine, for a close up of the above. This is a large file could take some time to download. It also makes the same mistake I have made on a few occasions, calling it a member of the 2nd Escort Group instead of the 2nd Support Group.
Click on the thumb nail to see full image
From Ray Holden. 28 Nov 04. Shortly before my mother died she gave to my sister Shirley her writing case a valuable mahogany one with a compartment for writing paper, envelopes, pens and a heavy cut glass ink pot with a lid. She has never used it but had it as a keepsake. Also a tiny drawer for stamps etc. The other day she opened it but for some reason or other the drawer was very stiff and she had to get a knife to ease it. She left the drawer out to see if the warm air would ease it and it wasn't for two days when she was cleaning it that she found a few things at the bottom of it in a recess. There was a cutting from the local press obviously printed in September 1944 a small locket which contained the head and shoulders of Tom taken when he was aged 16 in the Home Guard. Also there was three of mothers favourite brooches which Tom had bought her, also a poem which obviously had been written by one of the family to be printed in the press but none of us seem to know who it was who wrote it.
February 17th 2006: Ray Holden provided me with the following item of information. On the first day of June 1943 the Second Support Group made contact with U202 in mid Atlantic and sank her with gunfire when she surfaced the following day. On the fifth of June the group turned for home arriving at Liverpool four days later but this was not without incident. On the sixth of June HMS Kite was approaching a tanker from astern at close quarters to the tanker for oiling purposes and as heading into a running sea and also the wake of the tanker. Kite was hit with a sudden huge wave which swamped her fo’csle, knocking several men off their feet and washing them across the deck, most hung on but O/S James Crompton was washed overboard. Kite immediately circled back over her course and soon spotted James in the water but when she was within yards of making a rescue he suddenly went down and never re-appeared. O/S Crompton was the first man lost from Kite while on active service. June 29th 2007: Email from John Pascalides. I stumbled across your site, and imagine my surprise when I saw reference to my grandfather on it. As you have a scanned image of his ship card. My Grandfather is Roy Curry who is alive and very well. And living in Bristol which is the place he was born. Imagine his shock when I mentioned to him that I had seen his card on your site. He did serve on the HMS Kite Circa 1943, but left it before its fateful demise. You should have seen his face light up when I showed him a photocopy of his card. He was curious as to how the card came into your possession. And was wondering if it was possible to have it returned as It would mean a great deal to him. If you do choose to reply can you please reply to john_pascalides at hotmail.com. Replace at with @ to email him directly. Albert Ball emailed me in November 2007: I just wanted to say thank you for the information about HMS Kite and in particular the information about my cousin Aubrey Williscroft. I have only recently started using the internet (with some assistance from my son) and had managed to find the record of Aubrey's death, but am astonished to find a photo of him together with information about what happened to him. Of course, if you have any more information I would be delighted to receive it. Would it also be possible for you to email me the photo on the web page of Aubrey. Many thanks in anticipation. ball.albert -at- googlemail.com for any replies.
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http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-hobart/success-may-not.htm Copyright © Mike Kemble
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