Ivor Johns

 

Ivor Johns
Portsmouth Naval Memorial
credit - findagrave

The Portsmouth Naval Memorial honours 9,667 sailors from the First World War and 14,918 sailors from the Second World War who were lost at sea and have no known grave. Among those commemorated is Ivor Johns, who perished on 27^th August 1943 after the sinking of H.M.S. Egret.

Ivor Johns was born in 1919 in Swansea. He was the youngest son of William Johns and Eliza Ann Morgan, who were married in 1903 in Newport, Monmouthshire.

During the 1921 Census, the Johns family lived at 10 Danygraig Terrace. 

1921 Census

William, 42, born in Ebbw Vale, worked as a Tin Plate Shearer at Baldwins King Dock Works but was unemployed. Elizabeth, 38, was born in Abercarn. They had children.

Gladys Lillian, 16; William, 14, an apprentice at British Wagon Works. Griffith Morgan, 12; Phillip George, 10; Matthew Henry, 7, all attended school. Ivor, 2.

Also present were visitors A. R. Fellows, 36, born in Batheaston, Somerset, and S. Withers, 36, born in Bath, Somerset. Both worked as painters employed by Baynall and Sons Yorks Painter.

H.M.S. Egret

H.M.S. Egret, a sloop, was constructed at J. Samuel White's shipyard in Cowes, Isle of Wight, on 21^st of September 1937. The vessel was launched on 31^st of May 1938 and completed on 10^th of November 1938.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Egret was located at Laurenco Marques in East Africa. She briefly participated in operations to locate raiders in the Indian Ocean before returning to the UK via Suez and Gibraltar. In 1940, Egret was stationed at Rosyth and assigned to escort east coast convoys in the North Sea during the Norway campaign. In December, she transferred to Western Approaches Command and was based at Londonderry, where she escorted SL/OS convoys to and from Freetown in West Africa.

In June 1941, Egret was docked for a refit before resuming escort duty.

In January, Egret was escorting SL 97 when it faced an attack by German aircraft and U-boats. The convoy received reinforcement from the Gibraltar Strike Force, an ASW support group, and U-93 was destroyed without any losses to the convoy.

In October 1942, Egret took part in Operation Torch, the Allied landings in French North Africa.

In December 1942, the Egret was escorting convoy MKF 4 from Gibraltar when it intercepted the blockade runner Germania, which was deliberately scuttled by its crew to evade capture.

In 1943, Egret escorted convoys to and from North Africa. In August, while escorting MKF 20 from Gibraltar, Egret was assigned to relieve 40 EG in anti-U-boat operations in the Bay of Biscay.

On the 27^th of August 1943, the 40^th Support Group was relieved by the 1st Support Group, comprising the sloop Egret, along with the sloop Pelican and the frigates Jed, Rother, Spey, and Evenlode. The group came under attack from a squadron of 18 Dornier Do 217 aircraft armed with Henschel glide bombs. One of the two covering destroyers, HMCS Athabaskan, sustained severe damage, and Egret was sunk, resulting in the loss of 194 crew members. Additionally, four RAF Y-Service electronics specialists, who were onboard to operate surveillance equipment designed to monitor Luftwaffe bomber communications, perished in the attack, bringing the total fatalities to 198. These RAF personnel are often excluded from published casualty figures. The other destroyer, Grenville, faced missile attacks from the Dorniers but managed to evade the glide bombs through effective manoeuvring.

Egret was the first ship to be sunk by a guided missile, which resulted in the suspension of anti-U-boat patrols in the Bay of Biscay.