Post by Administrator on Jun 22, 2016 2:03:41 GMT
18 April 2016 8:31AM
Brave paddle steamers in two world wars
TWO Barrow-based paddle steamers went off together to fight in two world wars and sank days apart in the dramatic Dunkirk troop evacuations of 1940.
Lady Moyra and Lady Evelyn were regulars on pleasure trips between Barrow and Fleetwood but with the start of the First World War the tourists were replaced with Royal Naval Reservists.
The new base for the ships was Larne in Northern Ireland and the task was minesweeping to keep the vital shipping routes open.
The 562-ton Lady Moyra started life as Gwalia and was bought by the Barrow-based Furness Railway company for £22,750 in May 1910.
It seems most likely to have been renamed after Lady Moyra de vere Cavendish.
She was born in 1876 to the Beauclerk family, a daughter of the 10th Duke of St Albans and married Lord Richard Cavendish. She died in 1942.
The boat was built in 1905 by John Brown and Company at Clydebank for the Barry Railway.
Lady Moyra was requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1914 and was fitted with a pair of six-pounder anti-aircraft guns.
It was in naval service from November 21 in 1915 to July 9 in 1919.
After the war Lady Moyra became Brighton Queen joined Lady Evelyn in the P and A Campbell fleet.
The Brighton Queen arrived at Dunkirk at 10.35am on June 1 in 1940 after an hour under continuous air attack which was countered by the boats 12-pounder and Lewis guns.
It took just 30 minutes to load 700 French Moroccan troops and sailed for Margate.
Almost immediately a formation of dive bombers came out of a cloud and peeled off to attack.
One 200lb bomb exploded on the ship, causing an explosion and severe damage which saw the ship sink in five minutes in 30ft of water.
The crew got life rafts over the side and the minesweeper Saltash picked up the survivors.
Around 300 were killed by the explosion or drowned.
Lady Evelyn was bought by the Furness Railway to start the Barrow to Fleetwood service in 1900.
The boat was built by Scotts of Kinghorn, Fife, and proved so popular that Vickers of Barrow added 30ft in 1904 to increase the number of passengers it could carry.
It was requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1914, fitted with a six-pounder gun and put under the command of Lt F. S. Duncan of the Royal Naval Reserve.
The boat was in naval service from April 25 in 1917 to June 6 in 1919.
Among those to serve on Evelyn as a lowly deckhand was Herbrand Edward Dundonald Brassey-Sackville, the 9th Earl de la Warr.
He inherited the title at the age of 15 in 1915 when his father was killed in action.
After the war, the boat became the Brighton Belle and operated on the Bristol Channel service.
With another world war to fight, the boat was requisitioned again in 1939 and completed one successful rescue mission to Dunkirk before sinking off the East Kent coast.
It had struck a submerged ship which had hit a mine a few hours earlier.
All 800 soldiers on the former Barrow pleasure vessel were rescued – along with the crew and the captain’s dog.
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