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HM Cruiser Arethusa

by Grimsby

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Contributed by听: Grimsby
People in story:听: Mr William Brown
Location of story:听: The Mediterranean
Article ID:听: A3599139
Contributed on:听: 31 January 2005

This story has been submitted on behalf of Mr William Brown of Cleethorpes. William had three brothers, all of whom survived the Second World War, and their father fought in the First World War.
William joined the Navy in 1937 at the age of sixteen and a half. By 1942 he was on HM Cruiser Arethusa escorting convoys between Alexandria and Malta. He recalls that sometime during the early evening of 18th November 1942 the Arethusa was torpedoed. The ship started to go over, then steadied but with the propellors out of the water. William was unhurt but remembers that over a third of the crew lost their lives.
The crippled British cruiser steamed 400 miles towards port with the crew fighting to prevent the flames from reaching the forward magazine and the stokers working in complete darkness. For the last 150 miles a destroyer towed them in, stern first, so they made the journey into port backwards.
A newspaper report of the time ran the headline "Hell's Heroes of the Navy saved ship". William Brown was amongst them.

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Message 1 - H.M.S.Arethusa

Posted on: 31 January 2005 by Robert Nicklin

MR.William Brown.
Hi WILLIAM. Iwas in the convoy to Malta on the 17th November 1942 aboard
the Destroyer Javelin and in that Convoy was just four big Merchant ships and I can give you afull account
of that action from start to finish but just for now I will give you a brief account of how the Arethusa was
torpedoed it happened on the 18th
we had been dive bombed during the
morning and had driven them off but they returned after dinner but due to the heavy fire power of the escort they did'nt get through,but just before sunset in they came but this time there were Torpedo bombers as well as the dive bombers, a torpedo was sighted off our port beam coming straight at us and we started to slew
out of the way and it was seen to pass our stern by only a few yards and struck Arethusa almost amidship and there was a big explosion and straight away being close to her we went in to see if there was anything that we could do'we could see that she was on fire.
H.M.S.Petard was ordered to take her in tow and so with H.M.S.Jervis and my ship H.M.S.Javelin we all turned round and headed back to Alexandria.
casualties in Arethusa was 155 officers and men. The four ships arrived in MALTA unscathed to a tumultiest reception.

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