Sailors from RFA Lyme Bay paid their respects to servicemen buried in the most northerly British military cemetery in the world.
A visit to Tromsø – ‘Gateway to the Arctic’ – in northern Norway while training with the UK Commando Force allowed sailors from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary’s amphibious support ship to pay their respects to British and Commonwealth citizens who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War 2.
The Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery – part of the larger civic burial ground – is the last resting place of 34 British personnel, mostly sailors: Royal and Merchant Navy, and Fleet Air Arm.
Five Officer Cadets from the auxiliary, led by newly-qualified Third Officer Izzy Vince, paid their respects, laying flowers on behalf of their ship.
The fjords around Tromsø (and later around Alta, further east) served as the hiding place for Hitler’s last battleship, the mighty Tirpitz, which served as a constant threat to Arctic convoys delivering vital supplies to the Soviet war effort.
Repeated efforts were made by sea and air to sink the Tirpitz – the RAF finally succeeded in November 1944.
Among the victims of earlier attempts to knock out the leviathan is Lieutenant Lionel Whittam of HMS X7, buried in Tromsø.
He manoeuvred his ‘midget’ submarine under the German warship and dropped explosive charges during Operation Source in September 1943. Unfortunately X7 was sighted and sunk as she made her escape.
Nearly half the dead in the cemetery, some 16 souls in all, served aboard the merchantman SS Chulmleigh which ran aground off the remote island of Svalbard, 600 miles from the North Cape.
Many of the crew survived and took to lifeboats, but then endured a six-week ordeal in the Arctic winter such that only the master and eight crewmen survived.
The youth of many of Chulmleigh’s ill-fated crew struck the Officer Cadets from Lyme Bay – the ship has 20 cadets/apprentices embarked for training – with the youngest buried at Tromsø, apprentice William Pounder, just 16 and on his first voyage.
“I am glad we had the opportunity to come and make this visit, many of those buried here are the same age as myself which is especially thought provoking as I near the end of my training,” said Cadet Noah Griffiths, who is currently undertaking his final sea appointment before qualification as an Officer of the Watch.
Cadet Tom Tysoe added: “it is always interesting to learn about the history of the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary and the story behind the men and women who lost their lives in order to keep the sea lanes open during the Arctic Convoys.”
RFA Lyme Bay is now deployed on Exercise Arctic Tide, taking place in the neighboring fjords. She’s embarking elements from 40 and 47 Commando (based in Taunton and Plymouth respectively) and Commando Logistics Regiment (based in north Devon) for two weeks of amphibious exercises.
Only two British war graves on the almost-inaccessible Russian cemetery at Vaida Bay cemetery on the Rybachy Peninsula in the Barents Sea are closer to the top of the world than the fallen honoured in Tromsø.
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