Captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
Sir Edward Folmer Archdale, 3rd Baronet DSC (8 September 1921 – 31 July 2009) was a British baronet, Royal Navy officer,
submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
midshipman
A midshipman is an officer of the lowest rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Canada (Naval Cadet), Australia, Bangladesh, Namibia, New Zealand, South Afr ...
and served into the start of the war.
War service
He served aboard and . By May 1940, he was serving aboard under Lieutenant Commander Brian Dean.
Operation Dynamo
HMS ''Sabre'' was conspicuous in the evacuation of British and French soldiers from the beaches of beaches at Malo-Les-Bains and the harbour mole during the Dunkirk evacuation. During nine days and nights of the evacuation, despite being damaged in an air attack, Sabre made ten round trips to Dunkirk. An example of her activity at this time:
In the early hours of 28 May, three ships boats from HMS Sabre picked up 100 men in two hours, from the beaches at Malo-Les-Bains to the east of the harbour mole. Then it was full speed to Dover with a turnaround of only 58 minutes, and the ship was back again at the Dunkirk harbour mole at 11.00am, where they loaded a further 800 men. Departing at 12.30pm, by now the ships weight had increased considerably, lowering her propeller draft. This meant because of the falling tide and a defective echo sounder, Lieutenant-Commander Dean had to slowly edge her passage through the shallows. She arrived back in Dover at 6.20pm. Refuelled, she was back to the Dunkirk mole at 10.30pm, the third trip of the day. This time, the ship stayed for only 35 minutes picking up another 500 troops.
Finally on Tuesday 4 June just after two in the afternoon the Admiralty announced the end of Operation Dynamo. All together an armada of over 860 ships including 39 destroyers had taken part in the evacuation of troops from the beaches and harbour. The Admiralty calculated the total British and Allied troops landed in England amounted to 338,226 troops rescued.
HMS ''Sabre'' had made more round trips than most and brought back to Dover a total of 5,765 soldiers – amongst the highest number for any individual ship. Lieutenant Commander Dean was awarded a Distinguished Service Order on 6 June. Archdale, ''Sabres midshipman, was
mentioned in despatches
To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches, MiD) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face ...
.
Operation Aerial
After
Dunkirk
Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.Le Havre. Then on the 12th HMS ''Sabre'' was deployed to help with the evacuation of still more British and Allied forces in 'Operation Aerial' from the rest of France. It began with the evacuation of
Cherbourg
Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Feb ...
and continued for the next ten days, moving south to
St Nazaire
Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany.
The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean. T ...
, Bordeaux, and right down to the Franco-Spanish border. Sabre was sent to
Alderney
Alderney (; french: Aurigny ; Auregnais: ) is the northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown dependency. It is long and wide.
The island's area is , making it the third-largest ...
the northerly island amongst the Channel Islands on 23 June and helped evacuate around 1,400 islanders to safety in Weymouth.
Rescuing children from SS Volendam
In September 1940 Archdale was with HMS ''Sabre'', detailed to meet the first slow Atlantic convoy, as it approached the United Kingdom from Canada. A Finnish merchant ship, ''Elle'' 3,868 tons was torpedoed at 04.25hrs on the 28th and Sabre joined the hunt for the German U-boat (U-101) without success. Then two days later, during the evening of 30 August off Malin Head Sabre helped rescue the survivors of a torpedoed (by German submarine U-60) Dutch ship the 15,000 tons Holland America line, SS ''Volendam''. She was in an outward bound convoy OB-205 for Canada, carrying 600 passengers, including 321 children under the Children's Overseas Reception Board scheme some as young as five, together with a crew of 250. They were taken to various west coast ports in Scotland. In January 1941 Dean was badly injured in heavy seas and ''Sabre'' put into Larne, Northern Ireland. Lieutenant Peter Gretton took command from 11 January 1941.
Archdale completed his training in and , later famous for her capture of the Enigma machine, before volunteering to serve in submarines. He served from 1942 to 1943 aboard under Alistair Mars, where he served as gunnery officer. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in October 1943.
Latimer Latimer may refer to:
Places England
* Latimer, Buckinghamshire, a village
** Latimer and Ley Hill, a civil parish that until 2013 was just called "Latimer"
* Latimer, Leicester, an electoral ward and administrative division of the city of Leicest ...
Ministry of Defence
{{unsourced, date=February 2021
A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...
, Sir Edward became involved in local politics in Northern Ireland. He often wrote to newspapers about Naval policy. He was a Conservative Party member until joining the United Kingdom Independence Party later in life.
Arms
References
The Miracle of Dunkirk, (1998), Walter Lord, Wordsworth military Library, The Gourock Times of 6 September 1940: Newspaper Article about the torpedoing of SS Volendam,
Edward
Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”.
History
The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...