British Eastern Fleet

Suffolk and Yorkshire

Written by Godfrey Dykes.

© RN Communications Branch Museum/Library

   In December 1943, in Trincomalee the British Eastern Fleet (under Admiral James Somerville) were harbour-bound enjoying a well deserved R&R. In the heavy cruiser HMS Suffolk, somebody had the bright idea to photograph lots of different groups of the complement to reflect their home counties. London, being the size it is, had groups called 'Middlesex', North London, South London, the East End etc, but in the main, groups were called forward (note not for'ard) to the quarterdeck to the port side gangway-area of the QM's harbour position,to be photographed, reflecting their normal postal counties (although I note that the three ridings of Yorkshire are missing showing only 'Yorkshire'), like for example East and West Sussex, East and West Midlands, ignoring the fact that many counties have a vague administrative division like for example east and west Suffolk when to the majority of us we would address anybody for that county as being from Suffolk full stop. As you can imagine there were many groups, some with many members necessitating bringing on more chairs/benches whilst others, Rutland for example had just one of two crew members. Fascinating, and I wonder why it didn't catch on throughout the fleet, but the lack of such records suggests it didn't. Anyway, of the many taken in HMS Suffolk, I have shown you just two groups, fittingly that of the county of Suffolk,

and of my county, Yorkshire, with one of Suffolk's 8" twin turrets above

and their names are

Front row, left to right: AB Hall, Harrogate; AB Carter, Leeds; ERA Longley Allerton; Mid Oxley, Leeds; OM Mackereth, Dewsbury; Stoker Fisher, Dewsbury; L/Sea Wright, Bradford.
Second row, left to right: AB Kemp, Allerton; Tel Clayton, Gomersall; AB Shutt, Guiseley; Stoker Wiles, Hull; AB Collins, Bradford.
Third row, left to right: L/Stoker Scurrah, Leeds; AB Holdsworth, Queensbury; O/Sea Marshall, Hull; Stoker Foster.