Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Palestine 1936-39 (K. 58306 W. H. Findlay, S.P.O., R.N.) nearly extremely fine £180-220

William Henry Findlay was lost aboard the destroyer H.M.S. Boadicea when she was hit by a “glider bomb” delivered by a Ju. 88 off Portland on 13 June 1944. Nine Officers, including the Captain, Lieutenant-Commander F. W. Hawkins, R.N., and 166 ratings were killed. In fact, such was the speed of Boadicea’s demise - a mere five or six seconds - that just one Officer and 11 ratings were picked up. The Officer, Lieutenant A. K. Mackay, R.N.V.R., afterwards stated to an Admiralty Board of Enquiry:

‘I, at the time of the incident, sir, was sleeping in the after lobby of Boadicea which at the time was at defence stations, all lower mess decks having been closed and battened down, and, as a result, all Officers and ratings were sleeping in spaces above the upper deck. At about 0500 I was wakened by a series of explosions which at first I thought was the ship going aground. The lights in the after lobby were extinguished, and I wakened several other people, including the Engineer Officer, and we made for the door leading on to the Quarter Deck.

About two or possibly three seconds later after the first series of explosions, there was another series of heavier explosions, and the ship lurched to starboard and the stern rose out of the water at an angle of some 45 degrees. We tried to open the door on to the Quarter Deck, and at this stage the ship sank under us, depth charges broke loose from their securings on the Quarter Deck and the traps, and together with the force of gravity forced the door back again and threw us in confusion into the after lobby.

By this time the ship had tilted up to a greater angle, and water ran in, presumably from the lower spaces. I went down I should think about 15 feet with the ship, and together with the force of air and water inside the lobby, the door was thrown open, and I managed to be thrown clear and came to the surface. On reaching the surface I observed that only a very small part of the stern was sticking upright at an angle of 90 degrees to the water, and two or three seconds later the ship sank completely, leaving a small number of survivors in the water, and a considerable amount of wreckage. I should think, sir, from the first warning we had until the ship actually sank was only a matter of five seconds, possibly six seconds. That was my personal experience. I cannot say that I either saw or heard the aircraft which was alleged to have dropped torpedoes. I didn’t see this aircraft later. I do not know what action, if any, was taken by the Officer-of-the-Watch, who at the time was the First Lieutenant, and the only indication that the ship had been destroyed by enemy action was that a large amount of tracer shells from Oerlikons were being fired by ships of the convoy.’

The Boadicea had earlier won Battle Honours for “North Africa 1942”, “Arctic 1942-44” and “Normandy 1944”, the latter for services off Omaha beach at the time of D-Day; for further witness accounts of the Boadicea’s loss see the recently published Destroyer, An Anthology of First-Hand Accounts of the War at Sea 1939-45, edited by Ian Hawkins (Conway Maritime Press, 2003), whose father was her last captain; royalties from the sale of this book are being donated to the H.M.S. Cavalier (Chatham) Trust.

Findlay, who was born in Rotherhithe in December 1901, had entered the Royal Navy in as a Stoker 2nd Class in March 1919. Among other seagoing appointments between the Wars, he served in the battleship Royal Oak, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and the flotilla leader Bruce, aboard which latter ship he gained advancement to Leading Stoker in February 1927. He was awarded the L.S. & G.C. Medal in January 1935.

He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial, Kent (Panel 77).