The lucky few who survived the sinking of HMS Hollyhock
A.B Alexander Huskie 212166. Photo’s courtesy of Stewart Fraser 2023., who say’s: mum recalls vague tales of him being sunk off the coast of Ceylon, making it to shore and trekking through the jungle through leech infested swamps with his fellow survivors to relative safety
Mr Frederick Lawrence Harris
Henry Whitehall (Stoker C/KX 91913) See certificates below (with thanks to Martin Cole).
Mr 'Tugboat' Wilson
Andrew Stephen Ferreira (know as BIll) Gunner ( South Africa )
Thanks to Andrews daughter Bunny, who say’s: What I do know is that he told me that he will never forget my daughters date of birth being the 9 th APRIL and that it was a sunny day as when he went down there were bodies everywhere and the sun was shinning through the water which helped him get to the surface of the water.( I also knew that there were 13 or 14 survivors).
Ernest Lundie Able Seaman(?)
Mr V.A. (Tommo) Thompson (Wireless Operator)
A.B. Leonard Bert Rollinson (SSX 29736)
Albert Henry Chambers (ASDIC operator)
Sub Lt G.B Humby (mentioned in Despatches for his actions)
Telegraphist 'Jock' Campbell
Sub Lt Dudley Ian Caithness Knott (Ian’s War Diary for that time is below)
Leading Seaman Townsend (mentioned in Despatches for his actions)
Eric Norman Danby, Sick Berth Attendant C/MX 80424 . He was pulled out of the sea unconscious. He came to back in hospital in Tricomalee with severe concussion, including memory loss. He did regain much of his lost memory, but not about the sinking. Also served on HMS Bluebell & HMS Pursuer. He was also on the beach at Dunkirk as part of a small RN medical contingent landed to assist in the evacuation. "Mentioned in Dispatches" in 1946 ( info curtesy of Malcom Perks 2019 ).
Leading Seaman Brian Fawcett (mentioned in Despatches for his actions—below)
DUDLEY I. C. KNOTT DIARY ACCOUNT OF WARTIME EXPERIENCE
(1942-1945) HMS HOLLYHOCK – SUNK OFF COAST OF SRI LANKA
(Kindly Supplied by Ian’s Grandson, Charles Windisch-Graetz)
Unearthed in a ledger from 1765 we found an extraordinary poignant description written by Dudley Knott of his wartime experience 1942/5 - found by his daughters Caroline and Amanda in a leather bound accounts ledger titled “cash received and paid in 1765” from cousin Lucy of Stratton Park and the Barnett estate.
“Having survived by the neariest good fortune a singularly unpleasant incident in the Bay of Bengal where on, April 9th, 1942, the flower class Corvette in which I was serving was completely destroyed by Japanese dive bombers. It was with considerable despondency, almost despair, that I learnt of my appointment as First Lieutenant to a trawler bound for the Persian Gulf Station, to date from April 19th. The ten days interval had been fully occupied first in sailing a lifeboat belonging to the oil tanker British Sergeant (actually this was the Athelstane) - also a Japanese victim - which had picked up myself and my fellow ten survivors to a deserted and jungle fringed beach just south of Batticolea, and then in trekking inland to a medical missionary who tended our sick and wounded and helped us to remove most of the oil fuel with which we were contaminated.
News of the disaster, for there were six ships involved altogether including an Aircraft Carrier, percolated through the local planter population who arrived with clothes and comforts. The sarong in which the good missionary had covered my almost complete nakedness – a sarong carrying the unfortunate label "Made in Japan" was reinforced by a very beautiful silk shirt only a few sizes too big for me (and labelled "Made in Italy"), and a pair of large brown shoes with no laces and a vacant stare about the toecaps. An ambulance train was ordered and from Batticolea we steamed across country to Colombo. Arriving at about 2.0am, a fellow Corvette officer and myself were hurried to St. Mary’s. Unfortunately the driver assumed, quite naturally, that the military hospital of that name was our destination, but being accused of being drunk and disorderly by a startled night sister on our arrival, it occurred to us that perhaps St.Mary's the Officer's mess was more the order of the day:.
However, hospital routine being what it is, we couldn't leave until we had been officially discharged by the MD next morning. Eventually, still in Sarong and shirt and brown shoes I made my report to the Naval Offices and was given £10 to kit myself up! And a fortnights leave in the hills as soon as the paper work, checking lists of survivors, claims for kit and so on had been completed. Incidentally, starting from scratch to clothe oneself from top to toe including vital accessories such as tooth brushes and razors is a most hopeless task - and £10 a pretty hopeless sum. My journey to Diatalawa was by an extraordinary and quite self-chosen route. I flew in a Swordfish piloted by a friend in the Naval Air Arm from Colombo racecourse Trincomaleo.
Morbid curiosity inspired me for we had left Trinco the evening before the sinking, to escape, ironically enough the air raid withwhich the harbour was threatened and which as it turned out was very severe. After a night in the R.A.F. mess I entrained for Diatalawa, a most complex journey of the kind that Bradshaw enthusiasts might enjoy but few others. Arrived, after a day and a half during which I had found myself entertained at dinner by the Colonel of a regiment stationed at Bandarawella who was full of plans for evacuation, at the Hill Camp I found my summons to return to Colombo to join H.M.S. Atmosphere awaiting me. Knowing nothing either of the ship nor of her destination, my feelings were despondent but not yet despairing. Back in Colombo next day I discovered the worst - a converted Norwegian whaler fitted out as a L.L. Minesweeping trawler bound for the Persian Gulf. I tried, in vain, to have the appointment reconsidered but tiffin and siestas and such uninterruptable events came between me and the Atmospheres sailing which was virtually immediate and involved a small convoy as far as Bombay. With, I am afraid, a very ill grace, I took over from my predecessor, an Australian Lieutenant bound for home who had quite enough of the P.G.[Persian Gulf]- for the Atmosphere was only about to rejoin her station and was not a newcomer to it. And so we sailed, I as First Lieutenant and
Jack Falwasser, a Lieutenant RNR as Captain: it was six months since I had left Greenock in the Hollyhock, it was to be over two years more before a Dakota landed me at Hendon almost on the event of D. Day. The Atmosphere was a converted Norwegian Whaler originally named, somewhat cryptically, COS XI. Designed for harpooning and towing whales she used to work in the Åntarctic with a group of similar boats operating with a whale factory ship. It is very cold in the Antarctic. Oil burning with a cigarette funnel she drew about 12 feet and looked for all the world as if she was mounted on rockers: her freeboard at its worst was barely 2 ft: and her attitude to bad weather was simply to take it all on board and rock it off as she re-appeared. She was steel throughout with no wooden decks and her accommodation was negligible. The Captain had a cabin abaft and on the level of the bridge on the Port side - about a 6 foot cube - there was a wardroom below the bridge and on the upper deck which accounted for the starboard half of the bridge structure while the galley accounted for the port half. The Wireless cabin occupied the opposite position to the Captain's cabin.”