HMS Sir Bevois

[Dave Fagan]

My father , Percival "Pat" J. Fagan spent almost all his working life as a merchant seaman starting as an apprentice in 1927 on the Korean Prince.
In 1931 he joined Southampton, Isle of Wight and South of England Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. (aka Red Funnel) at Southampton and served on PS Queen,Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Island Enterprise, PS Solent Queen, PS Princess Elizabeth, PS Lorna Doone,(on her when war broke out) PS Princess Helena(requisitioned)....and then the one that is the purpose of this post.


On 27 Aug 1940 he joined (HMS) Sir Bevois ,Tug(Built 1916 by Day Summers & Co,338GRT,Launched 6 Mar 1914 , ) .Requisitioned from RMSP Co(Red Funnel) and with civilian crew in spite of officially being "HMS".Commissioned Aug 1939.2/1/40-20/3/41 on Port Duties, Sunk by enemy action(Direct hit H.E.bomb) whilst tied up in Plymouth Dockyard at approx 2045 GMT in the evening of March 20th. 14 Crew - 9 killed, 3 injured , 2 not on board at time. PJF badly burned on face and hands - transferred to the RN Auxiliary Hospital at Newton Abbott for treatment.

I have been unable to find a picture of the Sir Bevois. There have since been at least two with the name. I would love to obtain a picture of this Sir Bevois .

After recovering from his injuries he continued with Red Funnel on the Canute (tug), then transferred to the Min of War Transport and commanded ML Gay Lady, SS Exe, ML Grey Dane, ML Kestrel, (all target towers),Keverne (tug).
Postwar he continued but with the RASC Fleet as civilian after obtaining his foreign-going tickets.....
He was 2nd mate on the RASCV Spalake/A260,
RASCV Reginald Kerr LST3009,
RASCV Evan Gibb (LST). All foreign-going.
Then as First mate on RASCV Malplaquet...to Singapore for the Malayan emergency....then finally back to command RASCV Spalake ......in Med for Suez- later dumping ammo and other stuff from Cairn Ryan.

I have pictures of all the above except the Sir Bevois, SS EXE and the various MLs.
If anyone can help I would be most grateful.

[Captain Kong]

Bevois Mount History Southampton

24 April 2014 ·
..
One of the boats built at Day, Summers & Co. was the Sir Bevois tug built in 1914. It became H.M.S. Sir Bevois in 1939 when the navy utilised it during the Second World War. This link gives an oral and written account of its journey to Plymouth where ultimately it was bombed on the 23rd March 1941 with the loss of eight crew.
Bevois tug during WW2 - PortCities Southampton . The image is of Tower Hill Memorial, London copyright Tower Hill Home Page
this is on google
cheers
Brian
ALSO SEVERAL PHOTOS ON GOOGLE, BUT THERE WAS MORE THAN ONE .
Transcription

from the link above,......................
Just before the first crisis, which was the twelvemonth before war broke out, I eventually got made up to ordinary seaman, and we also had a tug by the name of Sir Bevois, the old Sir Bevois, the original. So I had to join the Sir Bevois as ordinary seaman and we had to go to Pompey - Portsmouth then - for orders. We eventually were then told to tow - she was a battle cruiser called the Frobisher - from Portsmouth to Plymouth, or at least the system out there was two other government tugs, one was the Marauder - and there was three of us to tow this thing from Portsmouth to Plymouth. That was done we had...took about two days, two nights and two days to get her there, a very slow long drawn out job, you know, everything was done...I mean it was quite new, it was new to everyone really, working in the blackout we were towing down channel looking for something although we didn't know what we were looking for, we...you kept a lookout. Everything was sort of in...in an uncertain mode because you had to do something which was perhaps ridiculous now but then look over the side as you were going through the dark, towing and looking out to see if you can see any mines...well (laughing) we know now if you'd seen a mine it was too late to check - you were gone. Things like that, you know, but I can remember that as a young lad. But anyhow we arrived in Plymouth with this ship and we waited for two or three days for orders just standing by, not knowing what was going on, and … we were all then ordered to return to Southampton, but the crew would be returning to Plymouth after the naval authorities decided what duties they wanted the Sir Bevois for. Well fortunate for me, I requested to go back, being a young daredevil wanting to go away from home and all that sort of thing to get experience mainly, and they said no I was required back in Southampton and I returned to me stamping ground, which was the old Vulcan. The Sir Bevois had got reorganised at Plymouth with extra crew etc and some of the originals did return and she.. eventually she was bombed, she had a bomb on her forward boiler. There were two or three that were actually...were ashore at the time that were lucky to be saved and there was about two or three picked up in the water but I'm afraid the rest were, were killed, you know, and it was a really sad for us...a lot of our friends and that went, good old shipmates and that was that. That was my fate, I missed that lot which I would have probably caught a packet if I'd gone back and joined the Sir Bevois, you know.