Name
Dennis Edward Worboys
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
22/09/1942
23
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Signalman
C/JX 174073
Royal Navy
H.M.S. President III (M.V. Athelsultan)
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CHATHAM NAVAL MEMORIAL
59, 1.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Boys’ Grammar School Memorial (WW2), Bassingbourn War Memorial.
Biography
He was remembered as a quiet rather reserved boy during his time at Hitchin Grammar School where he attended from 1928-1934. After leaving school he took up farming, going to Oaklands Agricultural College.
At the outbreak of war he joined the Royal Navy in the Chatham Division and was given the Service Number C/JX 174073.
At the time of his death he was a member of the shore-based establishment H.M.S. President III, which was an old ship moored in London, but he was actually on the merchant vessel S.S. Athelsultan as a Convoy Signalman. This ship was sunk by enemy action whilst on convoy.
The Athelsultan was a tanker of 8,882 tons and on the 19th February 1941 had been bombed whilst 120° 2.25' from May Island. It survived this attack, but on the 2 2nd September 1942 it was sunk by a torpedo from the German U-Boat U.617 at position 58° 24'N 33°38'W, which is about 400 miles east of the tip of Greenland. At the time it was voyaging from Port Everglades and Halifax and was bound for Liverpool in Convoy SC 100, carrying 13,000 tons of molasses and 250 tons of alcohol. Of the Captain and 42 crew, 8 gunners, Convoy Commodore and 6 naval staff, only 6 crew including Captain Donovan, 1 gunner and 1 of the naval staff survived. The vessel sank in one and a half minutes. Three other U-Boats were attacking the convoy, and two other vessels were sunk that same day.
Dennis has no known grave and is remembered on Panel 59, Column 1 of the Chatham Memorial to the Missing.
He was the son of Mr and Mrs Herbert Worboys, a farming family of Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Hitchin Grammar School Chronicle, Mr F. Chambers, former Yeoman of Signals, ‘British Vessels lost at Sea 1939-45’ by HMSO, ‘U-Boat operations of the Second World War- Vol 2’ by K. Wynn, ‘Dictionary of Disasters at Sea’ by C. Hocking
