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Auction: 22003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 386

MAY-JUNE 1940: OPERATION "DYNAMO"

'The buoy was brightly flashing once a second and, when it was about a quarter of a mile on our starboard bow, I saw two tracks like white swords coming towards us from that direction. We avoided one but the other torpedo hit us on the forward boiler room with, I remember, a brilliant white flash. It transpired after the war that these torpedoes were fired by Lieutenant Zimmerman from E-boat S-30, hiding behind the brightly flashing buoy. A well-planned attack and a good shot. Wakeful was cut in two and the halves sank immediately until their broken ends grounded on the bottom, the forepart rolled over to starboard and it cannot have been more than 15 seconds before I found myself swimming off the bridge …'

The rapid fate of H.M.S. Wakeful off Dunkirk, as recounted by Lieutenant-Commander Ralph Fisher, R.N., her skipper.

A poignant Great War and Second World War campaign group of seven awarded to Leading Signalman W. Woodroffe, Royal Navy, who was killed in action whilst serving in H.M.S. Wakeful off Dunkirk on 28 May 1940

In harrowing scenes reminiscent of those depicted in Christopher Nolan's award winning film 'Dunkirk', Wakeful was taken out by an E-Boat torpedo strike, broke in two, and went down within a minute, taking with her some 640 embarked Allied troops and most of her crew

1914-15 Star (J.13386 W. Woodroffe, Sig., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (J.13386 W. Woodroffe, Sig., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45; Royal Fleet Reserve L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 2nd issue (J.13386 (Ch. B.19290) W. Woodroffe, L. Sig., R.F.R.), generally very fine (7)

Walter Woodroffe was born in London on 5 November 1895 and entered the Royal Navy as Boy 2nd Class in August 1912.

His first wartime seagoing appointment was aboard the cruiser H.M.S. Astraea, in which ship he served from April 1915 to July 1916. He was consequently present in operations on the Africa Station, including the blockading of S.M.S. Königsberg in the Rufiji Delta.

In May 1915 Astraea provided a support role during the invasion of Kamerun, Woodroffe's service record noting he participated in land operations as a Bluejacket.

He subsequently served in the cruiser Conquest from October 1916 until October 1917 and in the torpedo gunboat Halcyon from the latter month until March 1919. Having then been advanced to Leading Signalman, he was discharged to shore, time expired, in November 1925, when he joined the Royal Fleet Reserve.

Journey's End: H.M.S. Wakeful - Dunkirk

Recalled on the renewal of hostilities, he joined the ship's company of the destroyer Wakeful and it was in this capacity that he participated in Operation "Dynamo", the evacuation of Dunkirk.

On 27 May 1940, Wakeful embarked 631 Allied troops, but on returning to Dover she came under air attack and received minor damage below the waterline. Despite this near miss, she returned to Dunkirk to continue the evacuation, embarking 640 Allied troops on the 28th. Tragically, however, on returning from the latter pick-up, she was torpedoed - with devastating results - by the E-Boat S-30: just two of her embarked 640 Allied troops survived, in addition to 25 of Wakeful's crew, including her C.O., Lieutenant-Commander Ralph Fisher, R.N.

Fisher, who retired as a Rear-Admiral, later wrote about Wakeful's loss in his autobiography, Salt Horse, A Naval Life:

'We anchored off Braye Sanatorium, unable to get nearer than about a quarter of a mile from the beach on which long queues of soldiers were waiting. It was comforting to be in company with plenty of friendly vessels including, next door to us, the new destroyer Jaguar with much better ant-aircraft armaments than Wakeful. However, there was low cloud and rain that afternoon and bombing attacks were few and ineffective but getting the troops onboard was painfully slow. Our boat would row into the beach only to be swamped by eager troops and immovably grounded. There were other boats about but they tended to be abandoned by soldiers who had finished with them and let them drift away. During some eight hours we got about 640 troops onboard and sailed after dark.

Wisely - or perhaps unwisely as it turned out - I had insisted that all troops should be stowed as low as possible so as to preserve stability in case we should have to manoeuvre at high speed to avoid bombs. At fifteen men to the ton 600 men constituted a serious top weight consideration in a ship the size of Wakeful. Accordingly, they were stuffed into engine room, boiler rooms and storerooms. The route this time was by Zuydcootte Pass, where I felt our propellers hitting the sand and then up to Kwinte Buoy where one would turn west for Dover. So as not to reveal ourselves to aircraft by a bright wake we went at only 12 knots until we neared the Kwinte Buoy, where any enemy might be lurking, and then increased to 20 knots with a wide zigzag. Phosphorescence was very bright.

The buoy was brightly flashing once a second and, when it was about a quarter of a mile on our starboard bow, I saw two tracks like white swords coming towards us from that direction. We avoided one but the other torpedo hit us on the forward boiler room with, I remember, a brilliant white flash. It transpired after the war that these torpedoes were fired by Lieutenant Zimmerman from E-boat S-30, hiding behind the brightly flashing buoy. A well-planned attack and a good shot. Wakeful was cut in two and the halves sank immediately until their broken ends grounded on the bottom, the forepart rolled over to starboard and it cannot have been more than 15 seconds before I found myself swimming off the bridge.

There were perhaps fifty of my men, probably gun crews, in a group in the water with me. All my engine room people had been killed and all except ten of the soldiers trapped inside the ship and tragically drowned. The tide was quickly sweeping our group away from the grounded wreck and we must have been a mile or two down-tide when two Scottish wooden fishing boats on their way to Dunkirk came amongst us. The Nautilus picked up six, including my first lieutenant, and the Comfort sixteen, including myself. We tried for about half an hour to pick up others we could hear shouting in the dark but it was terribly slow work hauling out sodden half-drowned men. Eventually the shouting stopped.

The Nautilus went on to Dunkirk and I directed the skipper of the Comfort to go up-tide to the wreck, where I had last seen men sitting on the stern portion some forty feet above the water. When we got there we found the destroyer Grafton lying stopped with her boat over at the wreck. The Grafton's deck was solid with soldiers and I went alongside her starboard quarter to tell her captain to get out of it as there were enemy about. At that moment some sort of grenade exploded on her bridge and he was killed. Nobody seems to know what this was. At the same time there was a large explosion as a torpedo hit the Grafton on the opposite side from where Comfort was lying.

Wakeful had survived twenty-seven bombing attacks before 26-year-old Overlieutenant zur See Willem Zimmerman's S-30 had caught her with a single torpedo. Casualties had been heavy: a hundred of the crew were lost and 640 soldiers … '

Woodroffe, who was among those casualties, is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial.

Postscript

The following report appeared on the 'Culture 24' website on 7 July 2004:

'Two of the last known survivors of the sinking of H.M.S. Wakeful in 1940 were re-united with the only remnants of the ship on dry land at Portsmouth Naval Base on July 6.

Jim Kane, 84, and Geoffrey Kester, 83, came to view Wakeful's footplate and crest, which were recovered from the wreck of the ship off the Belgian coast last year and are now on display at the Royal Naval Museum.

The veterans were greeted on board one of the Royal Navy's modern destroyers, H.M.S. Southampton, by Naval Assistant Commodore Angus Menzies and Dr. Campbell McMurray, museum director.

Speaking to the 24-Hour Museum, Richard Noyce, curator of artefacts explained how meeting the survivors brought home the human side of the tragedy.

"They were quite emotional and enjoyed touching the objects," said Richard. "They are their link back to the ship itself."

"The personal accounts give the human side to the objects, so people can relate to them a lot more," he added. "We hold very little on Dunkirk anyway so to have these objects brought up from the ship is quite rare."

H.M.S. Wakeful was sunk during the heroic mass evacuation of the Dunkirk beaches in the early hours of May 29 1940.

She was on her way back to Dover for a second time with around 640 rescued troops on board when she was hit by a German torpedo. Apart from an estimated 25 crew members and a handful of army evacuees, all on board died when the ship broke in two and sank in 15 seconds.

All the troops on board were resting below decks when the torpedo hit and Jim Kane, now 84, was one of the few who managed to escape.

"It was while we were sleeping that we were hit by a torpedo," said Jim. "There was a terrible explosion, which lifted the ship up, put out the light and smashed everything around us. Then all I could hear were cries and shouts for help."

Mr. Kane, who lives in East Yorkshire, was picked up by a whaler from H.M.S. Grafton, before being transferred to a cross-channel ferry.

Geoffrey Kester, 83, from Southampton, was an ordinary seaman on H.M.S. Wakeful at the time she was hit and was picked up by the trawler Comfort. But, as he explained, disaster struck again in under an hour when the vessel was shelled.

"We were all on the verge of sleep when there was a terrific crash," said Geoffrey, "the lights went out and water came pouring in on us."

"We were all thrown out of our bunks and landed in a heap on the deck, which was already under water. I think we felt there was no chance of getting up to the deck above, but one of Comfort's crew smashed open a hatch in the deckhead and we quickly scrambled through to the upper deck; all of us naked."

But once aboard H.M.S. Grafton and after being treated by her medics, the Grafton was torpedoed and the decision was taken to transfer off the majority of personnel.

Mr. Kester was taken on board the destroyer H.M.S. Ivanhoe, which returned to Dunkirk for more troops before safely returning them to English shores.

H.M.S. Wakeful has remained on the seabed 17 metres (57 feet) under the surface, 13 miles off the Belgian ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge, ever since.

Her footplate and crest were recovered in November last year when work was carried out to make the wreck safe for passing ships and handed over to the Royal Naval Museum in January.

Although some elements of the ship's superstructure, including her funnels and navigation equipment had to be removed, they were secured to her side and the wreck remains a military grave.

A wreath-laying ceremony over the site was carried out by H.M.S. Ark Royal shortly after the work was completed as a mark of respect to those who lost their lives.'

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