Click on the links within this brief outline for first hand accounts by
the men who served on HMS Worcester and for a more detailed chronolgy see www.naval-history.net
The modified W class destroyer Worcester
was built by J. Samuel White at Cowes, launched on October 24th. 1919
and then towed across to Portsmouth Dockyard for completion. She
was commissioned on September 20th. 1922, the last but one of the class
to be put into service. In 1924 she was part of the 4th.
Destroyer Flotilla, Mediterranean Fleet and apart from a brief spell in
China she spent most of the interwar years in the Med. She was
extensively refitted from 1938 onwards before recommissioning in 1940
in time to take part in the evacuation from Dunkirk during which she was damaged. After repairs she went to Harwich and served most of the war escorting East Coast convoys with the odd trip north covering Arctic convoys.
She was severely damaged during the Channel Dash action against Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen
on 12 February 1942 and after a lengthy period in dockyard hands returned to the North Sea
and convoy escort duties. In December 1943 she struck a mine but
refused to sink, was towed round to Sheerness but was not considered
worth repairing so was taken to London as an accommodation ship and
source of spares for her sisters. She was renamed Yeoman in June 1945 probably to release the name Worcester for use on a new destroyer and finally scrapped at Grays in February 1947.
This photograph of the officers of HMS Worcester was taken in Poplar Dock, London, while she was undergoing repairs after the Dunkirk evacuation Back row left to right: Sub. Lt. Dennis Williams RNVR,
Sub.Lt. Ronald Hardman RNR, C.Eng. Hugh Griffiths RN, Lt. F.W.L.
Winterbottom RN, Gunner (T) L.G. Wellman
Seated left to right: Lt. F.G. Woods RN, Lt.Cdr. E.C. Coats RN, Lt. Morgan RNVR Courtesy of Vic Green
This
short list of officers known to have served on HMS Worcester during World War II, further names will be added later. The links are to entries on the unithistories.com web site.
Gunner (T) L.G. Wellman Lt Dennis Williams RNVR (July 1940 - Dec 1941)
Lt. F.W.L.
Winterbottom RN
Lt. F.G. Woods RN
This photograph of the Ship's Company of HMS Worcester was taken in Poplar Dock, London, while she was undergoing repairs after the Dunkirk evacuation Courtesy of Vic Green
This web site about HMS Worcester
is researched and edited by Vic Green.
Vic's father, who had the same
name as his son, was a wireman in the torpedo branch on HMS Worcester
from 1940-2 and this inspired his son to spend several years researching her history. Vic Green is
the Secretary of the V & W Destroyer Association and organiser of
the annual reunions of the V & W Destroyer Association.
In the beginning ...
The name "Worcester" was first
carried by a 48 gun warship as part of Cromwell’s Navy of the
Commonwealth in 1650; the name was continued in 1698, 1735, 1769, 1820,
1876 and finally 1918. The third Worcester
had the distinction of having a certain Horatio Nelson as Acting Fourth
Lieutenant; he joined on October 1st. 1776 and spent 6 months aboard
before leaving having passed the examination for Lieutenant and no
doubt looking for greater glory!
The fifth and sixth Worcesters
give rise to confusion since they were both training ships established
to train boys for a career in the Merchant Navy. The Admiralty granted
permission for them to use the HMS prefix but they did not fly the
white ensign, they carried the defaced blue ensign to show their
honorary Royal Naval Reserve status, all very well for them but sadly
Google can’t tell the difference so an internet search will throw up
thousands of irrelevant sites.
The V & W Worcester was
ordered from J. Samuel White shipbuilders on March 20th 1918 as one of
44 Torpedo Boat Destroyers and Leaders most of which were cancelled
when the Armistice of November 11th. 1918 was declared. Worcester, however, survived this
first hurdle and in August 1919 J. Samuel White were instructed, “Work
of dismantling Wrangler &
Werewolf may be proceeded with
at once, also work necessary to launch Worcester”,
which finally took place on October 24th 1919 after which she was to be
towed to Portsmouth Dockyard for completion. Fairfield Shipyard in
Glasgow were instructed to send the machinery they had made for HMS Wave to Portsmouth to be fitted
aboard Worcester.
It must have fitted because in September 1922 the full power trials
took place and presumably the engines were satisfactory since the
report is mostly concerned with excessive vibration of the cupboards in
the galley. Gunnery trials took place later in the month and the
ship was formally commissioned on 16 November 16 1922 with the crew
from HMS Vampire.
Her first commission was with the 1st. Destroyer Flotilla, Home Fleet,
when she was sent to Ireland to support the Irish Free State Government
though it was never clear what support a destroyer could give. This was
followed by a period at Gallipoli to curtail the activities of Mustapha
Kummel though again how this was to be achieved was a mystery to the
crew (and remains a mystery to researchers.)
Worcester spent most of the
interwar years as part of the Mediterranean Fleet. This was a time of
cutbacks when most orders were prefaced by W.U.E (With Utmost Economy)
and destroyers went in and out of reserve on a rotation basis which at
least meant that they all received a certain amount of maintainance.
1936 saw the hard up Admiralty swopping some destroyers for a liner to
be used as a training ship, with her customary talent for survival Worcester avoided that fate.
As the war clouds began to loom training became ever more important and
on 16 February 1937 some of the destroyers were at sea off Malta
practising torpedo attacks with the cruiser Galatea as their target. The
log entries are a masterpiece of brevity:
HMS
Active
11.18 collided with Worcester
11.19 collided with Antelope HMS Antelope
11.21 in collision with Active HMS Worcester
11.20 in collision with Active
11.21 Active in collision
with Antelope
And by 7 o’clock that night Worcester
and Active had discharged
fuel and ammunition and were tucked up in No. 3 dock at Malta.
By the end of 1937 Worcester
was back in U.K. waters as part of the Portsmouth Local Flotilla for
Gunnery School duties before paying off into dockyard control at
Chatham for a lengthy refit. She recommissioned as part of the 11th.
Destroyer Flotilla, Western Approaches on May 9th. 1940 with Cdr. J.H.
Allinson in command and Lt. F.G. Woods as First Lt. Lt. Woods was
one of the four who escaped from the submarine Thetis
when she went down in Liverpool Bay in June 1939. Many people
blamed him (unjustly in my view) for the catastrophe which cost
99 lives and as a result the other officers sent him to Coventry so
orders had to be passed to him via a signalman, not a pleasant position
to be in.
May 25th. 1940 saw Worcester
some 120 miles north of Lands End when she received orders to proceed
to Dover, the evacuation from Dunkirk was about to begin.
HARD LYING
Conditions on V & W Class
destroyers were so bad in rough weather that the men who served on them
were paid hard-lying money. These stories by veterans who served on
HMS Woolston were published in Hard Lying,
the magazine of the V & W Destroyer Association and republished in
2005 by the Chairman of the Association,
Clifford ("Stormy") Fairweather, in the book of the same name which is
now out of print. They are reproduced here by kind permission of
Clifford Fairweather. Copyright remains with the authors and
photographers who are credited where known.
With the Home Fleet in Iceland and escorting QP.14 from Arctic Russia in September 1942 H.L.T. Davis, Sick Berth Attendant
(SBA)
HMS Worcester
was in East India Dock, Poplar, London where she had been repaired
after the 'Channel Dash'. On leaving Poplar Docks she headed for Scapa
Flow for trials, etc. In August Worcester
received orders to rendezvous with HM Ships Ashanti, Victorious and Rodney
and escort them back to Scapa. During this voyage to rendezvous with
them we sailed through the Minches in a howling gale, pitching,
rolling, corkscrewing and hitting a milestone every inch of the way.
Off the North West coast of Ireland, the sea was so rough that a member
of the crew was washed overboard. Lifeboats were manned, but we were
unable to rescue our shipmate.
Worcester soon rendezvoused
with her charges, it was then that the Victorious
decided to do flying exercises. 'Curses!' - Worcester was detailed
as 'Crash Boat'. Back to Scapa from where we carried out U-boat sweeps
and
patrols and then headed for Iceland with a passenger on board, a
regulating P.O. (Crusher) bound for HMS Norfolk.
Our crew were at day defence stations and this 'crusher' went round the
ship shouting "Put that cigarette out". It was not long before he was
missing. On the mess deck with his head over a bucket.
On arrival at Hafnarfjordhur while lying alongside the Duke of York, No. 2 Boiler flashed
up and a pall of black smoke blew across her uperstructure. Worcester received a signal from
the Admiral stating that if there was a repeat performance, the Worcester crew would have to scrub
down the superstructure. A large number of the Home Fleet were also in
the fjord, King George the Fifth,
Norfolk, Cumberland, plus a number of destroyers.
The Norfolk challenged the Worcester to a game of darts. Three
legs of 1001. A team was hurriedly recruited and went aboard the Norfolk.
Our team beat them! Liberty men had a few hours in Reykjavik, made a
few purchases and drunk a few bottles of beer. One per cent alcohol.
Iceland was a prohibition country. Worcester
left
the fjord and dropped anchor in Seydhisfjordhur on the East Coast, to
take on fresh food. All that came aboard were crates of tinned potatoes
- two crates per mess. The contents of quite a number were rancid and
there must have been a trail of tins from Seydhisfjordhur to
Spitzbergen.
Worcester rendevoused with two
oil tankers and joined the 'Home Fleet' escorting the Russian Convoy
QP14. This convoy was bringing home survivors of that disastrous convoy
PQ17 and had sailed from Murmansk on 13 September. On the 20th the
minesweeper Leda was
torpedoed and sunk, later that day HMS Somali was also torpedoed, however,
she did not sink immediately, and was taken in tow by HMS Ashanti but she broke
in two during rough weather and sunk four days later. The Worcester was
ordered to sink a merchantman whose bows and stern had been blown off,
this vessel was carrying a cargo of timber which was preventing her
from sinking, thus the Worcester
had to sink her by gunfire. This ship
was the Grey Ranger which had
been torpedoed by U-435 which had penetrated the screen and sank two
other ships on the 22nd September. On the 23rd a Liberator of Coastal
Command found and sank the U-253. The convoy arrived at Loch Ewe on the
26th.
Next a signal was received saying that the enemy, in the shape of the Von Hipper
was out from her Norwegian fjord. I thought 'Here we go again, if it is
not the Scharnhorst and Co;
It's the Von Hipper. December
1942 Worcester, was in action
again in the English Channel against two
German supply ships, plus escorts. This was to be my last spell of
action in the Worcester.
I left her in Pompey harbour. I was on a stretcher. A
fine
S.B.A. I turned out to be, knocked out in the first round. There was a
rating who lived in the city of Worcester, he was severely
wounded in, I believe, the right arm.
If
you want to find out more about the wartime service of a member of your
family who served on HMS Worcester
you should first obtain a copy of their service record To
find out how follow this link:
http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/servicerecords.html
If
you have stories or photographs of HMS Worcester you would like to
contribute to the web site please contact Vic Green
Find out how you can help us research this ship and build this web site
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