h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It always amazes me how much information lurks on the internet. You have to be aware that some of it is less than sound in its provenance, but a healthy scepticism and a pinch of corroborative evidence will keep you safe.

On the 11th of November, I remembered the various members of the family who had died whilst serving their country. I pointed out then that most seemed to have died from disease rather than enemy action, and today’s story is about my Uncle Tommy, for whom that also was the case.

Uncle Tommy was an Able Seaman serving in the Royal Navy. He had joined well before war broke out but did not survive the war. I knew very little about him, or his brother Harry, who also died. My father said very little about them, and what he did pass on was taken with a pinch of salt. The one useful piece of information was that Tommy was buried in East Africa.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains all the war graves scattered about the world, and also maintains a web site that will tell you where your relative was buried and when he died. Often there are extra pieces of information such as regiment or ship served with.

From this we learned that Tommy was buried in Mombasa and had died of an undisclosed illness, whatever that may mean. The ship he had been serving on was HMS Wayland.

A search of the internet brought up some information about this vessel. As always with the internet, some of the information is contradictory, but not in any sense that affects this story. In October 1940 the passenger ship RMS Antonia of the Cunard White Star Ltd, Liverpool was requisitioned by the Admiralty with the intention of converting it to an armed merchant cruiser. She never served in this role. On 24 March 1942 she was converted to a repair ship and renamed HMS Wayland.

If this was interesting, the next find was surprising, although experience should tell us that there is no limit to the detail that can be found on the web. Searching for HMS Wayland, I found a site that had details of some of the WWII convoys. And the Wayland made up part of WS 26 in 1943.

On 23 January 1943, Convoy WS 26 left the Clyde en route for Bombay, India.
HMS Wayland was a part of the convoy which arrived at Freetown, Sierra Leone in West Africa on 6 February 1943 and continued on to Cape Town, arriving on 22 February 1943. After leaving Cape Town, the convoy arrived at Durban on 25 February 1943, after which the convoy regrouped and departed on 1 March 1943 leaving HMS Wayland in Durban.

On 23 March HMS Canton, HMS Wayland, and HMS Chitral left Durban escorting convoy CM 40. Anti submarine escort was provided by the destroyers HMS Napier, HMS Catterick, and HMS Quality. On reaching the Mozambique channel, HMS Chitral and the destroyers returned to Durban. The convoy continued north. HMS Wayland arrived in Mombasa, Kenya, on 31 March 1943.

It is not known what the ship did next; whether it remained in port or operated out of it, between 1 April and 14 May 1943, but on that date, HMS Wayland and HMS Burnie left Mombasa for Aden, arriving on 18th May 1943, and then travelled onward towards the Mediterranean via Suez. Tommy was no longer aboard, having died in April.

It is possible that HMS Wayland remained in the Mediterranean until April 1944 when she returned to the Indian Ocean, being at some time at Trincomalee in Sri Lanka. By the end of the war, HMS Wayland was back in the UK and decommissioned soon afterwards, being scrapped at Troon, Scotland in 1948.

Thirty years ago, finding that information would have taken weeks, and a lot of travelling. Now it can take no more than an hour or two, sitting at home with a nice hot mug of

I wish you much success in researching about your family history. My mother told me her uncle (I only know very vague details as it did not want to ask her anymore as it upset her a lot) who died from a gunshot wound from cleaning his rifle. I do not know his first name or surname as I am not sure if she was talking about her father's brothers. I do not know how to go researching, as I think I am the only one who knows this story.

Hi Thinky, if it happened in wartime then the record will be on the Commonwealth war graves site. Using either your father's or mother's surname may give you some clues. Unless they were called Smith, Brown or Robinson, of course.

[Amy P]

Deb

Thank you for your kind helpful advice. I have narrowed the search down to regiments The Princess Louse's Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the Northumberland Fusiliers. My late grandfather fought in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and it is a high chance that my great uncle would have joined the same regiment.