"IN THE WAKE OF HMS DRAGON" CAPT (SAN) IV OR C. LITTLE Much has recently been written about With a resurgence in interest, spear- the South African Navy in World War 2 headed by Cdr Mac Bisset of the Naval but comparatively little has been men- Museum in Simonstown, in South Afri- tioned about South Africans serving in cans seconded to the Royal Navy in the Royal Navy over the same period. World War 2 she has become noted. Various articles have appeared in Large drafts of Royal Naval Volunteer "Navy News" and other publications Reserve personnel were called up at concerning veterans who served in the outbreak of the war to augment her, so let us consider the ship in detail. the peacetime crews of British warships and bring them up to their wartime DRAGON was a DANAE class light manning scale. One of these groups cruiser ordered in September 1916 as was dispatched to West Africa to join an "Improved CERESclass" and in re- HMS DRAGON, reputedly in her time sponse to an intelligence report, later the luckiest ship in the Royal Navy. Dur- proved false, that the Germans were ing her career she was comparatively planning a powerful new light cruiser obscure - never doing anything of note class. She was one of three, her sisters and her fame rested entirely on her being DANAE and DAUNTLESS, and ability to never be in the wrong place these three were later followed by a at any time. She was in fact a maritime second group of nine ships, making a dodger, malingerer and skiver and her class of 12 in all. Their design was ef- crew, especially the South Africans fective but unbalanced and as com- aboard, loved her for it. After her luck pleted with a large aircraft hanger un- finally ran out and she was sunk, she der the bridge behind B gun they were became a popular ship in literature (at well armed but ungainly looking ships. least three books have been written based on adventures in her) and has The DRAGON was laid down by Scott since emerged in reference books as a and Co in January 1917 and launched bit of a curiosity because of her origi- on the 29th of December 1917. When nal strange design. completed in August 1918 she had a 14 Militaria 23/3 7993 length of 142,6m, a beam of 13,9m and on station by the armed merchantman draught of 5,Om. When fully loaded her RAWALPINDI. Eight hours after the tonnage was 5870 tons and this weight handover RAWALPINDI encountered was pushed along by twin Brown-Curtis the German pocket battleships turbines which generated 40 000 shp SCHARNHORST and GNEISENAU. The and gave her a designed speed of 29 RAWALPINDI,an ex P and 0 passenger knots. Although lightly armoured she liner was commanded by Captain E.C. was by the standards of the time well Kennedy and manned by a crew of armed with a main armament of six x 6 reservists. She was armed with eight six- inch guns. She had a wartime comple- inch guns and was no match for the ment of 450 men. two 2600 ton German battleships and their eleven inch guns. On completion of her trials DRAGON was posted to the 5th Light Cruiser Kennedy had stumbled upon a brace Squadron (LCS), Harwich Force, start- of tigers and immediately laid down a ing her career by arriving just in time smoke screen and attempted to es- for the end of the war. Early in 1919 she cape into a fog bank. The was transferred to the Baltic where SCHARNHORSTcut him off, signalled once again she got in on the end of him to stop and put a shot across his the trouble and in time to move back bows. When the RAWALPINDI ignored to the Atlantic. There she joined the this the SCHARNHORSTfired a salvo at peacetime navy as part of the 1st Light her. Kennedy immediately replied with Cruiser Squadron, Atlantic Fleet. Her a salvo of his own. The GNEISENAUnow main duty here was to form part of the entered the action and a one- sided escort for the Prince of Wales' visit to battle ensued where the RAWALPINDI the West Indies in August 1919. was battered into a smoking wreck in 40 minutes. Kennedy refused to surren- She was a happy ship and remained in der and his ship sunk slowly so that 39 the Atlantic for all of her peacetime officers and 226 ratings went down career, changing her appearance for fighting with the ship. Only 37 seamen the better and being mainly employed survived, picked up by the Germans on the West Indies station. During this and the armed merchant cruiser period a young Boy Seaman by the CHITRAL. Kennedy was awarded a name of Joe Almond served in her. He posthumous VC. later emigrated to South Africa after the war and became chief instructor DRAGON was then switched to the at the "General Botha" where, affec- Mediterranean and assigned to con- tionately known as "Nuts", he was voy escort duties, particularly off the mentor to generations of South African Italian coast and Greek Islands. These seafarers. easy assignments proved the war to be a pleasant jolly from which a ship such Towards the end of the '30s there fol- as DRAGON could well be spared and lowed a period in reserve and then in she was sent to the Indian Ocean. A September 1939 she was few weeks later Italy entered the war recommissioned at Chatham for war on the side of the Axis - too late to up- service. By this time the DRAGON was set the DRAGON's Mediterranean cruis- no longer quite as modern as she ing but in time to enable her at long could be nor could she breathe the last after more than 20 years to get. amount of fire really required, but with into action. Together with the aircraft the motto- "We yield, but only to St carrier HERMES she bombarded George! "proudly displayed on the Mogadishu in Italian Somaliland - crest on her bridge-front she went off hardly a difficult assignment. This com- to war. pleted she went back around the Cape to West Africa to take her place Her first posting was back to her old in a task force occupying Dakar. Here station in the Atlantic. Thistime not the she lived up to her fire-eating name by sunny climes of the West Indies but the taking part in the sinking of a subma- harsh conditions of the Greenland Gap rine and capturing the French mer- and the Northern Atlantic. After one chant ship MENDOZA which she then patrol of this nature she was relieved escorted to Freetown in Sierra Leone. Militaria 23/3 7993 15 ing. At Simonstown a further group of There she was joined by 11 South Afri- South Africans joined the ship as part cans, amongst them Eric Little, John of her engineering complement. The van der Byl, now a leading resident of refit dragged on into mid-winter (al- Irene in the Transvaal, Norman though no one was complaining) until Macdonald of Johannesburg, S.A. finally the elderly ship was ready for Swinney of Port Elizabeth and L.R. her next bout of action which came Reader of Gilletts in Natal. After being about sooner than expected. called up they had been kitted out and transported to Freetown in the A rough passage to Port Elizabeth to troopship STRATHMORE. There they "show the flag" was cut short when the were transferred to the depot ship ED- DRAGON was abruptly sailed from PE INBURGH CASTLEto await assignment. leaving 15 of her crew ashore. The As the weeks dragged on some of Court Line freighter HANNINGTON them were appointed to the Flower- COURT had been mined and was class corvette CLEMATIS (which had ablaze from stem to stern whilst the Ad- just been engaged in a highly success- miralty tug ST DOGMAEL attempted to ful action against a surface raider) for tow her to safety. The weather was a spell before being returned to the atrocious and although the tug got the EDINBURGHCASTLEand ultimately put crew off, the ship was unsalvageable aboard the DRAGON. and was eventually sunk by 13 shells from the DRAGON's 6 inch guns. This The elderly DRAGON, with her happy done the DRAGON escorted the ST complement recently augmented by DOGMAEL to Simonstown and then re- her Springbok contingent, then sailed turned to Durban to escort a convoy for Takoradi. Her crew were supremely to Mauritius. One of the ships in the confident. Their successes in Dakar had convoy was the Bank Liner resulted in them taking the full brunt of TEVIOTBANKwith a full cargo of mines. the French shore batteries fire which This ship and DRAGON ploughed along had accomplished no more than 37 side by side to Port Louis, the only ex- shrapnel holes, a few slightly burned citement of the trip being the intercep- seamen and one dead canary in the tion of a Vichy French convoy by the seamens' mess. A short and uneventful RN in the same vicinity. Together they stop in Takoradi as a convoy escort pushed on to Colombo and then on to was followed by a short run on to La- Singapore where the twosome split up. gos, Nigeria. Whilst entering the har- DRAGON had a new home port, in fact bour there in dense fog the DRAGON she was now part of the Eastern Fleet, narrowly escaped collision with a de- a grand title for herself and HMS MAU- parting ship.