Name
Reginald Percy Woolsey
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
22/05/1941
29
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Engine Room Artificer 4th Class
P/MX 59251
Royal Navy
H.M.S. Greyhound
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
PORTSMOUTH NAVAL MEMORIAL
Panel 53, Column 3.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
NA
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin
Biography
He was given Service Number P/MX 59251 and served on H.M.S. ‘Greyhound’. The 1.335 ton ‘G’ Class Destroyer, built in 1935, was in a force under Admiral King engaged in preventing the passage of an Italian convoy from Greece to Crete. The convoy was strongly protected by German dive-bombers which succeeded in hitting the ‘Greyhound’ at 1351hrs, after it had sunk an enemy troop-carrier. The ‘Greyhound’ was off the island of Antikithera when she sank, many survivors of the sinking were then bombed and machine-gunned whist in the water. Of her complement of 174, six officers including the captain and 7 4 ratings were killed.
He has no known grave, but the sea and is remembered on the Portsmouth Memorial to the Missing.
He was the son of Arthur and Florence Woolsey.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Paul Johnson - local historian, ‘Dictionary of Disasters at Sea’ by C. Hocking
