SS Dardanus

 

Machaon Class. Steam turbine propulsion. Built by Workman Clark and Co Ltd. Belfast in 1923. 7,857grt, 460 feet.

Renamed Flintshire in 1935 returning to Blue Funnel in 1939.

The following was emailed to me by Alan Graham.

The following is an extract from some notes I made based on what my late father,Wilfred Thomas Graham, told me. He read this and accepted my written account. He served with BFL from 1933 to the end of WW2. This interesting little tale hides a lot more detail, but alas it was a 50 year old story when I decided to write it down so this is all I got.

I would like to know the name of the Japanese cruiser mentioned towards the end of his tale.

6-7 April 1942- Sunk by shellfire

When the Japanese fleet made a series of raids in the Indian Ocean during Spring 1942 I was again serving on the Dardanus. At the time I was 3rd engineer. The Dardanus had gone out east carrying bombs and sea mines. We had disposed of our cargo at Columbo and from there had made our way to Rangoon where we picked a number of women and children. We carried them to Calcutta out of the way of the advancing Japanese. The Dardanus then made her way back to Columbo to pick up a cargo for Britain.

It was 6 April, Easter day. A single carrier based aircraft made a dive bomb attack on us. We were not prepared for any attack and were hit by two bombs. One bomb hit the forward cargo space, the other hit the engine room. The engine room bomb entered through the skylight and passed between the two turbines. It did not explode until it passed through the lower hull and was underneath the ship. I was in refrigeration area just off the engine room when this was happening. The engine room quickly filled with steam.

Most of the crew including the Captain abandoned ship, but the DEMS gunner, the 3rd radio operator and myself were left behind. We managed in the end to launch the ships motor boat. During this operation the radio operator accidentally lost some fingers when he put his hand on the lifeboat launching runners. The motor boat had been damaged by part of the hatch cover blown up by the bomb hit on the forward part of the ship.

As we pulled away from the ship to join the others the motor boat began to sink. The Captains lifeboat rescued us just in time. Some time later it became apparent that the ship was showing no immediate sign of sinking, so we reboarded.

Around this time the Gandara, a B+I boat, arrived on the scene and offered to take us in tow. The tow was arranged and we got under way.

The next day a Japanese cruiser appeared over the horizon. The Gandara cut the tow in an attempt to escape. While the much faster cruiser pursued and destroyed the Gandara we once again abandoned ship. The cruiser returned sank the Dardanus and quickly left for other business.

After 3 days in the boats we landed at Nazapapur.

If you know the name of the Japanese cruiser please email me and I shall pass the infomation on.


 

From Roy Warwick, 3rd RO of the Dardanus when she was sunk.

Dardanus left Liverpool in December 1941 as commodore ship of a convoy bound for Freetown. I was the 3rd Radio Officer on board, and my name is Roy Warwick.
From Freetown we proceded independently to Capetown. We were bound for Singapore but the Japanese got there first and we were diverted to Colombo, Trincomalee, Madras and Calcutta.
While in Calcutta the Japanese made a hoax announcement that they were going to bomb that city, with the result that many cargo ships, including Dardanus, streamed down the Hooghly river into the Bay of Bengal.
At the mouth of the Hooghly, Dardanus opened fire on a sea plane with her machine guns. A day later we sighted warships on the horizon, and the seaplane reappeared
and dropped two bombs on us, hitting the engine room and one of the cargo holds. The crew began abandoning ship while hatch cover boards rained down on them. By the time the last lifeboat had pulled away from the ship, two Japanese cruisers and a destroyer had closed to within a mile of Dardanus. They were modern looking streamlined vessels with upswept funnels and they opened up with their 6 inch or 8 inch guns and there was bedlam.
Our lifeboat attempted to row round the stern of Dardanus to get out of the line of
fire, but by the time we had done so the cruisers had circled Dardanus and were headed straight towards us, their guns still pounding away. When it seemed inevitable that the lead cruiser would run us down, it altered course slightly and avoided doing so.
All the shelling did not sink Dardanus, or even cause her to list. The destroyer had to sink her with torpedoes.
All our lifeboats eventually made it to the Orissa coast. We suffered no loss of life or serious injuries, and upon reaching the coast survivors were greeted by curious local inhabitants who gave them refreshments and treated them very hospitably.
The talk a little later was that the cruisers sank 32 merchant ships in two days, and that more than 500 survivors landed on the Orissa coast.

The navy authorities in Madras had silhouettes of Japanese warships, but none resembled the ones we encountered. It was later established that the cruisers were the Mogami and Mikuma, and that the destroyer was the Amagiri. The lead cruiser came so close to our lifeboat that we had to crane our necks to see the crew leaning over the rails and looking down at us.