HMS Dasher

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

It is a real honour and a fitting tribute to have secured a debate on HMS Dasher, 80 years to the day when it was lost. HMS Dasher was a Royal Navy aircraft carrier that went down off the coast of Ardrossan in my constituency, resulting in the deaths of 379 people—the single biggest loss of life of service personnel in world war two not to have been caused by enemy action—under the command of her new captain, Lennox Albert Knox Boswell.

HMS Dasher had been involved in flying exercises on that fateful Saturday. She was both fully fuelled with 75,000 gallons of ship oil and 20,000 gallons of aircraft fuel, and carrying more than 100 depth charges and at least six torpedoes. At 4.40 pm, Boswell announced that the exercises were complete and the ship was to return to Greenock, where the crew were to be granted shore leave. However, that was not to be, and no one could have predicted the tragic events that were about to unfold.

The Royal Navy Research Archive records that there was a tremendous explosion. The officers on the bridge looked in astonishment as the ship’s 2 tonne aircraft lift flew about 60 feet in the air before falling into the sea behind the ship. The fleet air arm deck was completely destroyed, with the lift between the hangar and the aircraft blown sky high, then into the sea on the port side of the Dasher. The ship was plunged into deathly darkness as lights and machinery failed, and a strange silence descended on the fatally wounded ship. Within eight short minutes, it sank almost vertically beneath the waves.

Those who could abandoned the ship, jumping overboard from any point of exit they could reach as the fires in the hangar deck grew more intense. With oil burning on the water, many crewmen who had managed to jump overboard were caught up in flames when the aviation fuel floating on the water’s surface was ignited by the flames of the ship. While help was quickly scrambled to undertake rescue efforts, the ship had gone down so quickly—witnesses estimate it took no more than seven or eight minutes—that there was little chance of saving those on board. Of a crew of 528, only 149 survived, with 379 losing their lives on that fateful day.

To this day, the remains of the ship lie in the firth of the Clyde, south of Millport and between Brodick on the Isle of Arran and Ardrossan on the mainland, and the exact cause of that terrible incident remains unknown. The ship was not under enemy fire, and there are no records of German U-boats or aircraft in the area at the time.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady on securing this debate; I spoke to her beforehand about this issue. Many families of those who sadly passed away on HMS Dasher still have no clarity to this day. They worry that they themselves will be gone, knowing nothing about their loved ones’ ending. Some have formed the view that bodies are buried in a mass grave somewhere; others are convinced that someone has to know something about what happened. Many will never give up hope that they will have some closure on what happened, and like the hon. Lady, I also have that hope. Does she agree that if documentation exists in relation to this issue that is hidden from the public, we in this House should do all we can through the Minister to encourage that it be fully disclosed, for the sake of those who need clarity in order to move on and to grieve in peace?

[Patricia Gibson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. There have been some explorations about mass graves, but no evidence has been uncovered to back up that theory. However, there is an issue of men unaccounted for from that day, which is a cause of grief for families.

At the time, the Westminster Government ordered a complete news blackout for fear of damaging morale, and fearing questions as to whether or not faulty US construction could have been a factor in the tragedy. Local media were ordered to make no reference to the event, and survivors were also ordered not to discuss the events of that day. As a result, the many lives lost and the bravery of the crew and rescue teams have not always been acknowledged as they ought to have been. There has been speculation that the authorities ordered the dead to be buried in unmarked mass graves, but none has ever been found. The Royal Navy insists that a mass unmarked grave would have been against Admiralty policy, and that all sources relating to the sinking of HMS Dasher are now in the public domain.