Stanley Housley 1919 - 1943

Family history

Stanley Housley was born on 17 September 1919 in Pemberton, Wigan to John Housley and Rose Smith. His father worked in a local coal mine and his mother came from a mining family.

Stanley Housley

There is no readily available information on when Stanley enlisted in the Royal Navy, though it is thought to have been in Portsmouth – his Service Number was P/JX 177831. ‘P’ stood for Portsmouth; ‘JX’ meant he was a regular seaman, with a long service, perhaps 12 years, engagement.

It is not known when he joined HMS Arrow, H42.

Arrow was an A-Class destroyer under the command of Lt.Cdr. William Wentworth Fitzroy, RN.

In June 1943, she was assigned to the 13th Destroyer Flotilla, which escorted the joint convoys KMF-17 to Gibraltar and the military convoy WS-31 to the Middle East and beyond. On 10 July, she took part in the Sicily landings with the Support Force East and was then deployed to escort the follow-up convoys.

One of the ammunition supply vessels was the SS Fort La Montée. On 4 August 1943 she was in Algiers harbour, preparing to sail for the Sicilian invasion beaches.

A fire broke out in the freighter’s No 1 hold. The harbour authorities, fearing an explosion and damage to the other ships anchored there, ordered tugs to tow the stricken freighter out into the bay.

The Arrow, which had been tied up in harbour, came alongside the Fort La Montée to help with the firefighting. Unfortunately, the fire spread to the forward compartments and into the ammunition holds. The entire forepart of the burning ship blew up, sending flaming debris raining down on the destroyer, causing fires and explosions. The Arrow was badly damaged and suffered 36 Casualties [see Notes and Narrative below].

11 of the Casualties were Killed and 9 subsequently Died of Wounds. The remaining 16 men may have been blown into the sea: they were listed as MPK (Missing Presumed Killed). Stanley Housley’s body was either never recovered or was not identified. He has no grave and is commemorated on a bronze panel at the Naval Memorial, Portsmouth (the home port of HMS Jaguar), on Panel 74 Column 3.

6 merchant seamen and 5 Royal Navy seamen / gunners onboard SS Fort La Montée died. The ship was later sunk by a Royal Navy submarine.

There were attempts to repair HMS Arrow, but she was eventually declared a total loss and, in 1949, broken up.

Images

Notes

The Casualties figures come from a Royal Navy Casualty List for August 1943 on the Naval History website. However, internet searches have revealed other casualties who are not on this list.

The narrative quoted below mentions “a considerable loss of life”; the story gives a strong impression of many more casualties than the 11 listed as Killed on the Arrow or the 3 listed as Killed on the Fort La Montee. One commentator on WW2 Talk says around 100 lives were lost from both vessels.

Narrative

Richard Gould, a sailor from HMS Howe, which was also docked in Algiers harbour, described (on the BBC People's War platform) the recovery operation. It appears to have taken place wholly onboard “the decimated ship”, apparently referring to SS Fort La Montee.

"... a tragic incident occurred there when an ammunition ship was blown up alongside the destroyer H.M.S. Arrow. I never found out whether or not this disaster was the result of a midget submarine’s dirty work, but I do know that there was a considerable loss of life. I was selected as one of five members of the crew to accompany an officer on board the decimated ship. Our task was to recover the bodies, and mutilated body parts of those who had been blown to bits. There were disjointed limbs, torsos, organs, blood, guts and charred remains. I have been plagued by nightmares of these sordid images for most of my adult life, but it was a job that had to be done. There were no questions asked you simply followed orders. We had to bag them up, but it was impossible to identify anyone except those who had been trapped in the water-filled compartments below deck. These men had drowned and their bloated, eerily disfigured bodies were just drifting around. I was lowered down to recover them. It was ghastly. I had to reach around those grotesque bodies to secure the rope that would pull them out. This was a cargo of silent death with bloated, staring unseeing eyes.

Once this intolerable task was completed, the respective bodies were sewn into canvas bags. On each bag, a projectile was attached so that when the bodies were dropped into the water, they would sink. The job was finally done, but the horror of those unimaginable experiences would never leave those who witnessed these macabre events. The cutter berthed alongside us had been laden with body bags, and since they were obstructing our pathway, we had little choice but to walk over them. As we did so, the canvas tombs squelched under our feet. It was horrendous. Worse still, we had to carry those body bags ashore, past all the ships docked at the quay, and finally deposit them at the mortuary. We carried the bags on our backs. Blood and human excrement oozed out of the bags and mingled with the sweat on our own naked flesh. To add to the poignancy of the moment, the ships piped ‘The Still’. What an impact this had on the psyche, the spirit and emotions. There was a kind of soundlessness that froze the sordid images into the soul. This was a personal holocaust, the death of youthful spirit, and the transformation of boys to men. Unlike today, there was no psychological counselling available for those traumatized by such incomprehensible human endeavour. Neither was there monetary compensation for psychological war wounds. Orders had to be followed and the Germans had to be defeated no matter what the cost."

Sources

* Richard Gould: bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/33/a2141533.shtml

* www.naval-history.net/xDKCas1943-08AUG.htm

* ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/remembering-today-4-08-1943-assistant-steward-j-p-mclean-s-s-fort-la-montee-london.41028/

* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Arrow_(H42)

* Commonwealth War Graves Commission at cwgc.org

* Find a Grave .com