CHAPTER FOUR Off to War 26 September 1938 - 2 May 1939
HMS Venomous
was laid up at Chatham and Rosyth from 1929 but brought back to
operational condition in September 1938 when the Reserve Fleet was
mobilised during the Munich crisis. After the declaration of war on the
3 September 1939 Venomous and
her sister ships escorted the requisitioned ferries taking the troops
of the BEF to France. In January 1940 Lt Cdr John McBeath
succeeded Lt Cdr Donald McLean RN as CO. A collision with a tug in
Portsmouth harbour on 5 March led to her spending two months under
repair in the dockyard and missing the Norwegian campaign.
Illustrations
The Farrell Twins: AB John Farrell MDX 2025 and AB Charles Farrell MDX 2026 Courtesy of Alan Farrell
The Telegraphist, Eric Pountney, poses in front of A-Gun. Courtesy of Erica and Angie Pountney
HMS Venomous on sea trials at Rosyth with the 16th Destroyer Flotilla, August 1939 Courtesy of Erica and Angie Pountney
English Channel theatre of operations, 1939-40 Map graphic Kelly Erlinger. Map source Gordon Smith www.naval-history.net
The LNER passenger ferry SS Archangel at Portsmouth with troops on bow before setting off on a night crossing to France Courtesy of Erica and Angie Pountney
The LNER passenger ferry SS Archangel at an unidentified port in northern France after a night crossing from Portsmouth Photographed by Lt Peter Kershaw RNVR
Hole in hull following collision with the tug Swarthey on 6 March 1940 Photographed by Lt Peter Kershaw RNVR
Notes
1. “Winston is back” was the signal
sent by the Admiralty to its ships and stations in response to the news
that Winston Churchill had been selected by Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain to become the First Lord of the Admiralty on 3 September
1939. HMS Venomous’ return to active service coincided with Churchill’s return.
3. The Royal Navy had three main
manning ports: “Guz” was the Navy's name for Devonport, with “Pompey”
for Portsmouth men and “Chats” for Chatham men.
4. Admiral Sir Max Kennedy Horton (1883-1951) was a British submariner
during the First World War and commander-in-chief of the Western
Approaches in the latter half of the Second World War, responsible for
British participation in the Battle of the Atlantic. See: http://www.unithistories.com/officers/RN_officersH6.html#Horton_MK
5. Correlli Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), p. 592. Horton would command the Western Approaches and Venomous would fall under his exacting leadership.
6. The Historic Naval Ship’s Association website has a copy of the US
Navy’s Bureau of Ships Operational Manual for the Main Propulsion Plant
for the DD 445 and 692 Classes. In it, there is a concise discussion of
the closed feed system. Refer to www.hnsa.org/doc/destroyer/steam/index.htm
7. Capt Donald G.F.W. McIntyre RN (1904-81) wrote the following books on the war at sea: U-boat Killer (London: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1956); The Battle of the Atlantic (London: William Clowes and Sons, Ltd., 1961); The Naval War Against Hitler (London: B.T. Batsford, Ltd.,1971). The quotations in this chapter are from his autobiography, U-boat Killer. See also: http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/commandingofficers.html
8. Cdr Daniel Alexander [Wyatt] Rawson Duff RN (1912-2012)
was the eldest son of Adm. Sir Arthur Allan Morison Duff (1874-1952)
and married Barbara Diana Pound, only daughter of Adm. of the Fleet Sir
Dudley Pound (1877-1943) in June 1940.
9. Eric Arnold Pountney (1918-73) was the Wireless Telegraphy Operator on HMS Venomous
from 1939-43. In addition to his fine photographs he kept copies of
many of the signals received during operations at Calais, Boulogne and
Dunkirk. His daughters, Erica and Angie Pountney, and his son Andrew
Pountney helped me tell his story here: http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/Pountney.html
10. Admiral Darlan commanded all of France’s maritime forces. He was
convinced that Nazi Germany would win the war and supported the
appointment of Pétain in June 1940 as head of the Vichy government. He
was made CiC of French armed forces in North Africa in January 1942 and
to the dismay of the Free French made military Chief of French North
Africa by Eisenhower after the success of Operation Torch. He was
assassinated on 24 December 1942. See: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/military-commanders-of-world-war-two/admiral-darlan/
11. Capt Stephen W. Roskill RN, Naval Policy Between the Wars, Vol. II, The Period of Reluctant Rearmament (Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 1976), p. 483.
12. The ship’s Log of HMS Venomous for September 1939 can be seen in the National Archives, ADM 53/110948.
13. Preston, V & W Class Destroyers,
p. 59. The appendix contains the organisational breakdown of the
destroyer flotillas and individual ships assigned to the Channel Force.
14. The wartime Ship’s Logs of HMS Venomous
from August to December 1939 are in the National Archives at Kew (ADM
53/110947, 110949-50 and 110959) but after that date the Ships’ Logs of
smaller warships including destroyers were not retained.
15. The Archangel
was built in 1910 and had also carried troops to France in World War 1.
She was an LNER passenger ferry on the Harwich to Hook of Holland
crossing between the wars and in 1939 was requisitioned to take the BEF
to France and to bring them back again. She was bombed on 16 May 1941,
beached near Aberdeen and abandoned as a total loss. For a general
account of the transport of troops to France and their subsequent
evacuation see BEF Ships before, at and after Dunkirk by J. de S. Winser (World Ship Society, 1999).
16. After leaving Venomous Duff RN served in HMS Manchester,
was torpedoed twice and was imprisoned by the Vichy French in North
Africa until the Allied landings. He was Staff Gunnery officer for the
naval force at the D Day landings and directed naval gunfire support.
He was Gunnery Officer on the carrier HMS Formidable,
sent to the Far Eastern theatre to assist the Americans and later
carried released POWs back to UK. Cdr Duff was invalided out in the
mid-1950s as a result of gunfire-induced deafness. His son, Simon Duff,
extracted the details given here from his unpublished memoir: http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/DARDuff.html
17. John Edward Home McBeath (1907-82) fell out with his parents whilst
in his teens and went to live in Massachusetts, USA, before joining the
navy as a 16-year-old cadet in 1923. During his twenty years as
Honorary Commodore of the Sea Cadets he gave the McBeath Trophy which
is awarded annually to the best Sea Cadet Unit in the country. For
further details of his naval career see http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/commandingofficers.html and his obituary in The Times on the 2 April 1982.
18. The photographs taken by Lt Peter Kershaw RNVR (1915-2000) on his
Leica camera while serving on HMS Venomous from 26 February 1940 to
Christmas 1941 make a valuable contribution to this book. His two
brothers joined the RAF and were killed. He was an expert player of
real tennis and after the war ran the family business, the Manchester
brewery Joseph Holt, which is now run by his son, Richard Kershaw who
lent his father’s photograph album for scanning. See: http://www.unithistories.com/officers/RNVR_officersK.html#Kershaw_P
19. The passengers on MV Domala
were mainly lascar seamen who had been serving on German ships before
the war. Churchill had to answer a question in the Commons about the
failure of the escorting destroyer to provide an adequate defence.
20. For more about this young sailor see: http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/Compston.html
21. Barnett, Engage the Enemy, p. 103.
22. Ibid, p. 139.
23. For a detailed account of this officer’s life see http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/Mackenzie.html
