In Memory Of

SYMONS, HUMFREY EWAN

Service Details
Age:
 40
Date of Birth:
 -0001-11-30
Service No:
 72952
Rank:
 Flight Lieutenant
Regiment:
 Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
Date of Death:
 1940-05-28
Cause of Death:
 Killed in action, torpedoed and sunk in the North Sea while evacuating UK and Belgian soldiers, airmen and civilians from Ostend on the last day of the Battle of Belgium. As Abukir slowly headed west for England, Luftwaffe aircraft bombed her for an hour and a half but failed to hit her. Then at 0115 hrs on 28 May a 44-knot (81 km/h) Kriegsmarine E-boat, S-34 commanded by OLt.z.S Obermaier, attacked her off Nieuwpoort near the Westhinder or the Noordhinder light vessel. Abukir's Captain, Rowland Morris-Woolfenden, took a zigzag course by which the coaster avoided two torpedoes from S-34. The coaster sighted S-34 off her port bow 20 minutes later. Morris-Woolfenden changed course to ram the torpedo boat, but with a top speed of only 8 knots (15 km/h) Abukir was too slow. S-34 fired two more torpedoes. The first missed, but the second hit the coaster amidships, blowing her in two. Abukir burst into flames and sank within a minute. She was the first Allied ship to be sunk by an E-boat.
Commemoration
Grave Reference:
 Panel 5.
Cemetery:
 RUNNYMEDE MEMORIAL
Localitly:
 Surrey
Country:
 United Kingdom
Additional Information
Son of Ernest and Nora Symons; husband of Joyce Dorothy Symons, of Que Que, Southern Rhodesia. Author of at least three books "Two roads to Africa", "How to Pass the Driving Test" and "Monte Carlo Rally"