Francis Carlton Fry
Royal Navy HMS Foxtrot
from:5 Fern Villas, Flinton Street, Hull
Frank Fry was my grandfather. He served on HMS Foxtrot for most of, perhaps throughout, WW2 on minesweeping duties sailing mainly from Hull. His brother, my great uncle Tom, served similarly but out of Lowestoft. Married to Beatrice (Beet) they had four children, my mother being the eldest, Beatrice (Betty), Frank the oldest son, then Ron and, youngest, Tom.
He spoke little of his time at sea, though I have just a couple of memories from my boyhood days with him. His ship (I believe it was HMS Foxtrot) hit a mine, causing damage above and below the waterline. He and others worked without sleep for two or three days on repairs, enabling it to make port. My grandfather's health was very severely compromised with emphysema after, he told me, being blown up on the deck of a ship carrying cordite explosives which had been attacked by a JU-88. Much of his time was spent supporting the Arctic convoys to Russia. I recall him telling me how spray often caused risk of capsize through ice accretion on the ship's gunwales and rigging. The crew used to chip it off with steam hoses and axes. He also recounted how a nearby ship ran into a mine, which exploded with not much noise but with a large puff of smoke.
My grandfather died in Hull aged 64 in 1968. I have a photograph of him in uniform during WW2, which shows him (I think but not certain) as a CPO Stoker, certainly he was an engineer. Also a photo of HMS Foxtrot, believed to have been taken at Hull.
