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ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: m10bob

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Captain Robert Sherbrooke RN

Captain Sherbrooke, was the Senior Officer in command of the destroyers escorting an important convoy bound for North Russia. On the morning of 31st December, off the North Cape, he made contact with a greatly superior enemy force which was attempting to destroy the convoy. Captain Sherbrooke led his destroyers into attack and closed the Enemy. Four times the Enemy tried to attack the convoy, but was forced each time to withdraw behind a smoke screen to avoid the threat of torpedoes, and each time Captain Sherbrooke pursued him and drove him outside gun range of the convoy and towards our covering forces. These engagements lasted about two hours, but after the first forty minutes H.M.S. Onslow was hit, and Captain Sherbrooke was seriously wounded in the face and temporarily lost the use of one eye. Nevertheless he continued to direct the ships under his command until further hits on his own ship compelled him disengage, but not until he was satisfied that the next Senior Officer had assumed control. It was only then that he agreed to leave the bridge for medical attention, and until the convoy was out of danger he insisted on receiving all reports of the action.

His courage, his fortitude and his cool and prompt decisions inspired all around him. By his leadership and example the convoy was saved from damage and was brought safely to its destination.

Sherbrooke (with eye injury received at the Barents Sea) with his wife in 1943 collecting his VC at Buckingham Palace.

If memory serves me right, I believe that "enemy force" included the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gniesenau.

warspite1

Sorry no, it was Hipper and Lutzow [:)]

Scharnhorst was in the Baltic working up after repair works, and Gneisenau's career was effectively over (see Most missused and waste of resources....WW2 ships thread).

Bad enough!

This is a great idea for a thread - come on guys there must be loads out there. A picture and a brief description of what they did is all that is required.

LtCol John J. Toffey, III.

edit: I am referring to J J Toffey, III, and the medals below went to his father, I got them confused. His grandfather was an officer in WWI, his great grandfather got a Medal of Honor for his action at Missionary Ridge, and was recuperating from wounds when he attended Ford's theatre and witnessed Lincoln's assassination. I'll try and get his (the IIIs) story together tomorrow.

I don't have time to elaborate on him right now but he was a straight up stud.


The "citation unavailable" is possibly another result of the fire back in the '70s at the US Government Record Center here in St. Louis.

I'm going to have to borrow my Atkinson vol. 2 back from a friend to give the story on him, but I know his father was a soldier as was his son. His son was also killed in '44.

edit: refer to the edit in the previous post.

Lieutenant Robert Hampton VC Fleet Air Arm

This brave Canadian won the last Victoria Cross of WWII, and only the second Fleet Air Arm VC of the war (Eugene Esmonde (above) being the recipient of the other).

No sailor or Royal Marine has been awarded Britain’s – and the Commonwealth’s – highest military decoration since the deeds of Lieutenant Robert Hampton ‘Hammy’ Gray on the morning of Thursday, August 9 1945.

Exactly 100 minutes before the attack on Nagasaki, Gray – known as ‘Hammy’ by friends – was leading a flight of eight Corsair fighter-bombers from carrier HMS Formidable, 750 miles to the northeast.

Twenty-seven-year-old Gray was already a veteran of Formidable’s raid on the Tirpitz in Norway and numerous fighter-bomber strikes in the Pacific theatre when he attended the pilots’ briefing on the carrier that fateful Thursday.

Formidable’s Commanding Officer, Captain Ruck-Keene, urged his fliers “not to take unnecessary risks” with Japan teetering on surrender. But war was war and strikes this day were planned against airfields around Onagawa Wan, 250 miles north of Tokyo, to keep the kamikazes grounded.

Formidable knew all too well the threat posed by the Japanese suicide bombers. She had been hit off Okinawa in early May – the aftermath has provided us with some of the iconic imagery of a kamikaze attack – before being hurriedly repaired in Australia and sent back to Japan, where her aircraft struck at shipping and land-based targets.

On the morning of August 9, Gray’s flight noticed flak guns belching on well-camouflaged shipping in the harbour. They continued on to the airfields – were they found few pickings – but on the run for home, the senior pilot of 1841 Naval Air Squadron was determined to knock out the enemy warships.

Racing low over the Honshu hills, Gray led his flight towards the defiant destroyer, intent on sinking his two 500lb bombs into it. His posthumous citation described him running a gauntlet of concentrated fire, ignoring the steel hail, and heading directly for his target, the destroyer Amakusa. Flying at mast height, Gray released the warheads which tumbled into the destroyer, then began to make his break for safety. Still at barely 30 or 40ft ‘Hammy’ Gray’s port wing burst into flames, the aircraft flipped over on to its back and plunged into the bay, disappearing in an instant. Amakusa at least was crippled and sank in an instant, but Gray’s loss was mourned by all on Formidable. “He was liked and respected by all,” fellow flier Sub Lieutenant A Hughes recalled. “His death cast a shadow not only on the pilots, but on the whole ship.”

To Gray’s parents, Sub Lieutenant John Blade wrote: “I would have done more for Hammy than any other pilot I served under. He had an unfailing joviality and a sense of proportion which gave me the greatest confidence in his judgement.”

In the rush of events which typified the Japanese empire’s collapse, the exploits of Robert Hampton Gray have largely been overlooked by history.

A former medical student from British Columbia, the Canadian volunteered to join the Royal Navy in 1940, earning his wings in the autumn of 1941. He served extensively in North Africa before joining Formidable in the European theatre of operations, twice receiving a mention in dispatches for his heroism.

News of his death reached the family home in the appropriately named Canadian town of Nelson, as Emperor Hirohito declared “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage” – ushering in peace in the Far East.

It would be another three months before the Canadian was gazetted for his deed. He was, it said, “one of the gallant company of Naval airmen who fought and beat the Japanese from Palembang to Tokyo.”

www.royalnavy.mod.uk

Thanks for posting that warspite1. I have mixed feelings about this action, unnecessary as it turned out to be - but I guess there was a lot of unnecessary action going on around Japan as the atomic bombs were being assembled.

While clearly he deserved the honours for his valour, I lament the loss of a man who would have been a fine doctor, and the many Japanese sailors who likely had no chance to get off their rapidly sinking destroyer.

I also hesitated to post because I did not want it seen as a Canadian touting a Canadian just because of nationality. It carries more weight when someone outside your group has taken notice.

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy
I have mixed feelings about this action, unnecessary as it turned out to be - but I guess there was a lot of unnecessary action going on around Japan as the atomic bombs were being assembled.

While clearly he deserved the honours for his valour, I lament the loss of a man who would have been a fine doctor, and the many Japanese sailors who likely had no chance to get off their rapidly sinking destroyer.

Common story throughout the war...and all wars. I'm reminded of the "friend who wanted to be a brain surgeon" from Sledge's With the Old Breed, killed on the first day of action at Peleliu. A battle many contend was unnecessary. Nonetheless, the bravery of these men should be honored; and death, whether in a necessary or unnecessary campaign, is always lamentable.

I find there have been brave men, of every nation and race, throughout history. I wish to whatever God that listens we would find some endeavor besides war for them to apply themselves.

.

Just a Gyrene.

Once believed to have fired a 60mm mortar projectile into the stack of a Japanese DD while stationed on Tulagi, Lou Diamond was rotated to CONUS due to his age and became a mortar instructor.

http://semperfiparents.com/tag/master-g ... u-diamond/

Roy Boehm. Maybe not a flashy hero, but one iron clad tough SOB.