"Royal Navy Destroyer Identification at Dunkirk" Topic

Hi Gents,

I have some original photographs taken during Dunkirk of a RN Destroyer picking up troops from a concrete mole. I'm trying to identify the ship, can anyone help? It has two funnels a quad 2pdr pom pom midships and twin 4.7 inch forward. There's a couple of more images of troops being loaded and ship underway with troops on board. Also one of the picture taker, my mothers first husband an RAF officer aft with a bren gun on a single mount and depth charges on both sides.

Thanks in advance,
Thomas

With two funnels and a two gun mount it is probably a Tribal class.

I think you are looking at a V/W "WAIR" AA conversion

link

The Tribals had 2 twin gunhouses forward, with a square spray shield, and the quad poms were between the funnels. In the pictures above, there is a single twin forward with a pointed spray shield, and the quad poms are aft of the funnels.

In your first pic you are standing on the starboard bridge wing looking aft past the funnels to the starboard pom pom. Almost right aft mounted up high on a deckhouse you can look into the back of the aft twin 4" mount and see the breeches. In the second picture you are standing aft looking forward past the pom pom at the aft funnel. The higher, thinner fore funnel is just visible in the smoke, and beyond that you can see part of the director atop the bridge. In the third picture you are standing on the open bridge looking down at the forward 4" twin mount which is mounted on a deckhouse – the single 4" there and the one below it on the forecastle having been removed in the WAIR conversion.

Most of the the WAIRs were at Dunkirk whereas I believe the Tribals were with the home fleet up north working the Norway scene.

Virtualscratchbuilder, thanks for your input, not sure which one it is. Trying to determine that is difficult.

Interesting and well taken photos. Thanks for posting. One small point to add is that the 'quad 2pdr' is actually a quad 0.5" HMG unless I am mistaken. Pretty sure I am right as I have just checked a couple of my reference books and the text and photos confirm 2 quad 0.5" sided port and starboard amidships. I agree with the 'Wair' suggestion based on the hull shape. She is definitely not a Tribal

fantasque, I was wondering about the pom poms myself? The ammo canisters are round whereas the 2pdr are square. Looks like you are right.

Yes, a multiple 2pdr pom pom mounting is a pretty chunky piece of equipment – large and heavy. Not surprising really when you realise the calibre is about the same as a 40mm Bofors.

British Vickers .5 HMG quad mounts had the guns mounted one above the other, slightly raked back. The quad pom pom was a 2x2 – paired vertically and horizontally like the 4 spots on a D6.

Very nice pictures.
Would it be possible for you to post the others, showing the loading of the troops? Thanks.

So because things are a bit slow at work, I looked at the Wikipedia entries for all the V&W class WAIR ships. The only two which participated for sure in the evacuation are Westminster (L40), and Wolfhound (L56). The entry for Winchester (L55) is very sketchy; maybe she participated, maybe not. The entry for Wolfhound indicates that she was damaged at Dunkirk, and towed home. Does this jibe with your stepfather's account? If not that narrows it to probably Westminster and possibly Winchester. A possible way to differentiate them is that some had the .50s set en echelon. I wasn't able to find good enough photos to tell.

Silurian, the internet being what it is they would be copied and pasted all over the place without the proper credit being given to Canadian RAF bomber pilot who hopped a ride on this destroyer, Flt Lft Gordon Leslie MacIntyre DFC. I have offered copies to the IWM, but have not heard back.
I will also offer copies to the RN archives. There are not many pictures of troops being loaded at Dunkirk so I wish to handle these with the proper care.

Thanks for the reply wrgmr1. Of course, that makes perfect sense (darn unscrupulous people…). I hope you are able to find a good home for copies of them with proper credit.

Cheers Silurian.
Once these have been published in a public archive I will post them here from the archive.

The pictures of troops boarding are not necessarily from Dunkirk proper. There were troop evacuations from Dutch, Belgian and Biscay ports before, during and after Dunkirk, and Some of the WAIRs played a role in those.

Wolsey made several evacuation runs to Dunkirk. However, Winchester was bombed about two weeks prior to the Dunkirk evacuation and was in England.

BTW, here is a good pic of troops on a WAIR:

This may be a good resource. link
If you go to the bottom of the page there is a link that has an index of all the V&W destroyers. They are also identified if they received the WAIR conversion. Several of the individual destroyers in the index have their own links to photos as well as crew recollections of their time in service. One that may be a possible match to your ship link

Thanks Hussar62. I'll have a look, maybe someone in the assoc can help?

VSB, yes I'm aware of other evacuations. I checked and found other photos with the same mole at Dunkirk.

Good work gentlemen.

Yes, thanks Gentlemen for all your input, it has been invaluable!

Cheers,
Thomas

So, looks like she's HMS Wolsey, then?

Yes, looks like it may quite well be the HMS Wolsey.