An unfinished letter to a loved one, a sentimental postcard, some yellowed newspaper clippings and an eclectic mix of photographs were rediscovered by sailors on minehunter HMS Chiddingfold on the eve of the ship’s 40th birthday on operations in the Gulf.
The ship’s wartime namesake, a Hunt-class destroyer, served extensively in home waters and the Mediterranean throughout the second half of World War 2, escorting convoys – especially those at the beginning or end of their journeys to/from the UK – supporting daring raids and grappling with German fast boats in the Channel.
As wartime destroyers go, Chiddingfold lived a charmed life – there’s little in her history to suggest she was badly damaged or suffered heavy casualties in action, despite escorting at least 15 convoys.
One of her crew – it’s not known who – kept a comprehensive scrapbook of her activities and actions, and continued to follow the ship’s progress after the war when she was transferred to the newly-independent Indian Navy, before the vessel was finally broken up in the late 1970s.
When a namesake ship – today’s minehunter – joined the Fleet in the 1980s, some of that scrapbook was donated to the new vessel… and then accidentally forgotten.
The envelope containing a mix of ephemera from the 1940s and 50s – most, but not all, of it relating to the wartime destroyer – resurfaced as the present-day HMS Chiddingfold was gearing up for 40th birthday celebrations in Bahrain.
Sadly there are no accompanying notes and a few spidery captions, so the crew of the ‘cheery Chid’, as the minehunter is known, are keen to learn the back story – if anyone can help.
The file includes:
• a barely-started letter home to a certain Joan on notepaper from HMS Collingwood, the training base in Fareham
• photographs of refit in Middlesbrough
• several photographs of crew on the open bridge in the Mediterranean in 1943, including her then Commanding Officer Lieutenant Thomas Dorrien Smith
• possibly the surrender of an Italian submarine in the Mediterranean in 1943
• escorting the aircraft carrier HMS Avenger in the North Atlantic in 1942
• newspaper cuttings relating to the transfer to the Indian Navy in the 1950s
The crew of today’s Chiddingfold intend to hand the material to the Royal Navy’s official historians at the Naval Historical Branch in Portsmouth for safekeeping,.
Navigator Lieutenant Max Renouf said the collection was a poignant reminder – particular during the period of remembrance – of past sacrifices and deeds, and the ties which today’s sailors with their wartime forebears.