Hi All, For those of you who are interested just been reading in my Royal Navy boy's training school HMS St.Vincent association magazine about two ex members who have just died.

One was a Swordfish pilot who took part in the sinking of the German battleship "Bismarck" and the other one was a survivor of "HMS Royal Oak" which was sunk in the harbour of Scapa Flow in the Orkney islands by a German U Boat that had managed to slip in, he was only 17 at the time and one of the lucky survivors as over eight hundred crew members were lost in the attack.

Both these guys were in their nineties and are the last survivors of these two incidents. Mauri

Hi Mauri
My uncle Billy was on one the ships that sunk the Bismark, however before this he had been on his ship which had been sunk by the Bismark.

Hi Ron, What ship was your uncle on,? I also had an uncle involved in the Bismarck action, he was on the destroyer HMS Zulu which done a torpedo night attack on the Bismarck and was badly wounded by shrapnel as he was out in the open on the torpedo tubes. The "Zulu" broke off the attack and headed for Londonderry.

He was put ashore into the Military hospital there but died a week later, my Grandparents borrowed a taxi from Cambell Thompson and we drove up to Derry and were able to see him, I always remember him saying "What a ship" referring to the "Bismarck"

The Navy wanted to give him a military funeral in Derry and bury him there but my Grandparents had a family grave in Belfast City Cemetary so they wanted to bury him there.

They had to pay to have him brought to Lisburn would you believe?? and through various contacts he received a full Military funeral in Lisburn and on to Belfast. Mauri

Hi Ron, I forgot to mention there was another Lisburn man in the "Bismarck" action and that was Jimmy McCourt from the Longstone he was on the destroyer "HMS Maouri" a sister ship of the "Zulu", Jimmy survived the war and as far as I know returned to civilian life at the end of the war. Mauri

Hi Mauri
They didn't boast, so what i learned was secondhand.
I think he was on the Hood, and finished on the Rodney.
I can only really remember my grandfather another Billy, that his son my uncle had medals for sinking the Bismark. As he then produced a medal case and showed me his Military Medal,which even-my father didn't know about until i told him after Grandads death.

Hi Ron, The "Hood" was blown up by the "Bismarck" s lucky hit unlucky for the "Hood" must have penetrated a weak spot in the ships armour into a ammunition magazine. The "Rodney" along with another battleship "King George V" finished off the "Bismarck"

As a kid I visited the "Rodney" when she was in Bangor before the war and after the war in Portsmouth 1946 when I was at the boy's training school HMS St.Vincent. Mauri