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Those known to have sailed in HMS Orion during the Second World War 1939-1945. The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
please
Add a Name to this List
Records of HMS Orion from other sources.
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The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.
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Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the War? Our
Library contains an ever growing number diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text. |
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Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to WW2. We would like to obtain digital copies of any documents or photographs relating to WW2 you may have at home. If you have any unwanted
photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them.
The Wartime Memories Project will give them a good home and ensure that they are used for educational purposes. Please get in touch for the postal address, do not sent them to our PO Box as packages are not accepted.
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Did you know? We also have a section on The Great War. and a
Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations.
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Want to know more about HMS Orion? There are:19 items tagged HMS Orion available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. |
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Able Sea. William Mullaney HMNB Portsmouth My dad, William Mullaney served two tours at HMNB Portsmouth, Oct-Dec 1940 and March-May 1942. In between times, he served on HMS Nile and HMS Orion and was involved in the action off Crete in 1942. His final posting was HMS Eagle, May-Aug 1942.
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Pte. Alfred Francis East Yorkshire Regiment   This story is by Alfred Francis: On 10th of July 1943, we set off from a port in Egypt and landed at Syracuse in Sicily under heavy bombardment from the Germans. The ship we sailed on was HMS Orion. Our platoon had been sent out to mop up some Germans. On 15th July 1943, en route from Carlentina to Lentina, I was taken prisoner after crawling on a road that ran in a wooded valley. We came to a bend in the road and could go no further when a German officer came up with his pistol and captured us! From there he took us to a farm in the vicinity where he put us in a barn full of hay. After a day or so nothing had happened, but we thought they would fire the barn and burn us. Eventually the Italian farmer came to let us out and then took us to the valley where we'd been captured. We found the British army there with injured Germans. Somehow we found our way back to our battalion, where we found out our ambulance driver had been killed by the same Germans who had captured us. I was a stretcher-bearer during the Sicilian campaign, which lasted just 30 days.
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PO. Frederick William Northmore HMS Repulse My father, Frederick Northmore, served in the Royal Navy in WW2. Born 1921, he joined the Navy as a boy in 1937.
Dad served on HMS Repulse; MV Ulster Queen. HMS Orion, HMS Nile, HMS Dulverton, HMS Nile (Sphinx), HMS Birmingham and HMS Forth until his discharge in 1962. Unfortunately for me any medals he may have been presented with have been lost. Dad died in 1985.
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Gnr. John Braithwaite 18th Field Regiment Royal Artillery   In 1939, John Braithwaite went to France with the British Expeditionary Force, serving in the Royal Artillery.
In June 1940 s the Germans pushed the BEF back to the coast, he was one who offered to hold the beachhead during the Dunkirk evacuation. When the last troops had been withdrawn, he dived into the surf and being a strong swimmer, struck out towards England. He was rescued by one of the small boats several miles off the French coast, and landed in Margate in the early hours of his 21st birthday.
In July 1940 John was then accepted for 'hazardous duties' and was posted to 23rd Heavy Training Battalion (later renamed No.3 Special Service Battalion). After 6 months tough training, these men became some of the first Commando.
John was posted to No.7 Commando in January 1941 (which merged with 4th Special Service Battalion en route to the Lofoten Islands for the Operation Claymore raid in March 1941, to become No.4 Commando).
No.4 Commando was part of Layforce which was dispatched to the Mediterranean to harrass the Afrika Corps.
John recalled being offloaded from a submarine for the disastrous raid on Bardia in April 1941.
Soon after, the Commandos were sent to defend Crete. They were grossly under-equipped, but fought hard against the overwhelming might of the German paratroopers but, of the 800 commandos sent there, about 600 were listed as killed, missing or wounded. Only 23 officers and 156 ORs escaped.
On the 29th of May 1941 John was evacuated aboard HMS Orion, the cruiser was struck by Stuka bombs, with 260 deaths and 280 wounded. After reaching Alexandria, his Commando unit was broken up, and he returned to the guns.
On the 21st of January 1942, he was injured and captured in Tobruk.
In late 1942, after recovering in a POW hospital in southern Italy, POW No.258058 John Braithwaite was transferred to the Italian-run Campo 52 near Genoa. Conditions were bad and, as supplies grew shorter, the men caught rats and cats to supplement their food. John and several others made an escape from Campo 52 but were recaptured and sent to Campo 70 Monturano (near Parma) and later to Stalag 339 Trieste in northern Italy. As the Allies drew nearer, he was transferred to a work-camp near Dresden called Arb.Komm.855. Later he was moved to Stalag IVB, 30 miles north of Dresden. From here, he escaped with a New Zealander called Arnold Franklin but was caught near the Czech border.
Upon recapture in April 1944, he was put in Stalag IVA at Hohnstein, where he worked in jobs associated with a nearby lignite coalmine.
John stayed in this camp until liberation.
He later emigrated to New Zealand, and served for two years with the RNZ Artillery in Korea, but that's another story.
I would happy to hear from anyone with more details about any of the above. Feel free to contact me.
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Gnr. David Simpson Royal Artillery My dad David Simpson seldom spoke to me about the war, preferring to tell my brother man to man. He was rescued from the water, I think from HMS Orion. He told no one of this at home, however his cousin was the skipper of the boat which rescued him. After this incident, we believe that he was posted to the Faroe Islands, perhaps for rest and recuperation it is thought. He did speak often of that posting which he found bleak.
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George Victor Mann HMS Renown My father, George Victor Mann, served in the Royal Navy from the 13th of February 1939 until 1945. He served on HMS Renown from the 13th of February 1939 as Stoker 2nd Class, he was promoted
on the 31st of January 1940 Stoker 1st Class, and on the
17th of October 1942 to Leading Stocker.
In 1943 he transferred to HMS Bellwort and was promoted again on the 17th of June 1944 to Stoker Petty Officer. In 1944 and 1945 he was onboard HMS Orion.
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