WA Schupp

PLYMOUTH NAVAL MEMORIAL Panel 70, Column 3.

HMS Matabele

HMS Matabele was a Tribal-class destroyer. Matabele was ordered on 19 June 1936 under the 1935 Build Programme from the Greenock yards of Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company. She was laid down on 1 October 1936 and launched on 6 October 1937. Also launched on this day from Scotts' yard was Matabele's sister, Punjabi. She was commissioned on 25 January 1939 at a total cost of £343,005, which excluded items supplied by the Admiralty, such as weapons and communications outfits.

In January 1942 she formed the screen, with Somali, for the cruiser Trinidad on Convoy PQ 8 from Iceland to Murmansk. The convoy of eight merchant ships plus escorts departed on 11 January, and came under torpedo attack on 17 January one day short of their destination by German submarine U-454 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Burkhard Hackländer. The first sunk was the Russian trawler RT-68 Enisej at 6.32 am.

That evening the merchant ship Harmatis was hit at 6.46pm by a single torpedo and taken in tow by the minesweeper HMS Speedwell, with the Matabele providing escort as the rest of the convoy continued on ahead. U-454 was able to manoeuvre into a suitable position and at 10.21 pm fired and hit the Matabele in the stern area with a single torpedo which detonated a magazine, causing the destroyer to sink in less than two minutes at position 69.21N 35.24E.

Unable to free their Carley life rafts the surviving crew were forced to jump overboard into the freezing sea, with many being killed when the Matabele's depth charges exploded as the ship sank. The ice-cold sea temperatures then caused further loss of life to such an extent that out of her complement of 238 only two survived of the four that were rescued up by the minesweeper Harrier. Among those lost were Able Seamen Jack McDermott from Nottingham, George Smith from Bulwell and Stoker 1st Class William Schupp from Nottinghamshire. (Wikipedia)

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