Fight to save Dunkirk ship from going under
Trust must raise £150,000 for essential repairs or historic HMS Wellington is bound for the scrapyard
‘Ships like the Wellington were crucial to winning the Battle of the Atlantic’
FROM patrolling the far-flung reaches of the Empire to escorting vital merchant convoys and evacuating British forces from Dunkirk, HMS Wellington has more than a few tales to tell.
But unless the trust which runs the veteran ship can raise £150,000 for essential repairs, she faces being scrapped.
It would be an undignified and sad ending to the life of Britain’s last surviving escort ship, a veteran of the Battle of the Atlantic whose service spanned eight decades and saw her involved in some of the most significant episodes of Britain’s wartime history.
During her time on active duty, she saved the lives of dozens of sailors and passengers in her role as an escort to the country’s merchant ships.
A Grimsby-class sloop launched from Devonport in 1934, HMS Wellington spent the pre-war years patrolling the British Protectorates in the south Pacific as part of a small naval fleet.
In the words of the Wellington Trust set up to maintain her in later years, the white-painted warship – fitted with two 4.7in guns, one 3in gun and anti-submarine depth charges – was “a small but potent symbol of British authority over an Empire which was thought that the sun would never set [on]”.
During a cruise lasting around 10 weeks, the 1,200-ton Wellington could visit around 15 islands then still owing allegiance to the Crown, scattered over some several million square miles of ocean.
The late Prof Eric Grove, of Salford University, told the documentary film about HMS Wellington, The Good Shepherd: “In these far-flung reaches the only way you could get around really was by sea, and to maintain any kind of imperial presence you needed a ship looking very smart, white hull, yellow formal, that could come along with his smart crew, perhaps with some dignitary or other to make the point that these islands were part of this great global British Empire.
“Without ships like this maintaining presence, it would have been much more difficult for these islands to have been maintained, and somebody else might have thought, well, perhaps we can maintain order better.”
During these tours it was customary for the commander and his officers to entertain local dignitaries aboard Wellington, with the ship’s crew taking part with the islanders in games of cricket or football.
Schoolchildren from the islands were often welcomed on board for educational purposes and given the chance to experience day-to-day life on board a British warship.
The patrols came to an end on August 21, 1939, when the ship was ordered to return to Auckland “with despatch” as war clouds were gathering across Europe.
Soon she was recalled for active duty and ordered home via the Suez Canal. Having reached Aden, Wellington – which had a cruising speed of 10 knots and a maximum speed of 16 knots – was redirected to Freetown in Sierra Leone to undertake convoy duties, escorting 10 merchant ships back to the UK.
It was a vital role that she was to play almost uninterruptedly for the next five and a half years and on three occasions her crew were instrumental in saving the lives of many of the passengers and crews of merchant ships that had been torpedoed by U-boats.
“Ships like Wellington were the best escorts in many ways that the Royal Navy had, and they were crucial to winning the Battle of the Atlantic. There were many merchant ships I think that survived World War 2 because of the escort of this sloop,” said Prof Grove.
“Wellington was typical of the unspectacular way in which the escort forces of the Royal Navy carried out their function, and their primary function was the safe and timely arrival of the convoy. If you could sink U-boats well and good, fine, but the main task was to get the ships through,” added Prof Grove.
“What we tend to forget is that most convoys in the Second World War were not attacked. They were routed around known threats. The numbers of ships lost by convoys escorted by Wellington was very, very small, and that was a great success, but a success that tends to be unsung because it’s not spectacular.”
Griff Williams, who served on the Wellington, later told of the drama and fear her crew experienced on those protective voyages.
“If she was being pushed forward fast enough in bad weather, she could drop over a big wave fast enough to leave the propellers out of the water, and the wind of the turbines would rise to a scream as her screws freewheeled. Then she shuddered as if she was laughing as they bit into the sea again.”
In a recent speech for the 90th anniversary of the launch of the ship, Prof Dominic Tweddle, trustee at The Wellington Trust, urged that it must be saved, saying: “Most people say it is a question of cost, but it is no more difficult to maintain, no more cost to maintain that say, York Minster.
“Very few of us these days are around or in ships, nor will not perhaps appreciate their importance. They are. They are our lifeline to the world. So I think it is a question of what we are familiar with and value.”