Tribal Warfare - The Tribals of WW2

[timlewin]

poor Maori was the "emergency destroyer" the one to be at instant readiness for sea, moored to the buoy in the harbour when she was bombed, there is a picture of her somewhere under water from the bridge aft and just her focsle out of the water which is probably how they managed to salve the forward mountings.

There were 27 Tribals all together between us, Canada and Australia; of our 16 only 4 survived the war. Eskimo survived but twice lost her bow and had it rebuild.

here are a few more of my rather many Tribal pictures, I will work my way through them for you.

[timlewin]

TRIBAL LIFE

from the Lewin scrap book; The photo of Adm Burrough comes from Pedestal, Mid August, the convoy that saved Malta. The Itaslian submarine fired what must have been the luckiest spread of torpedoes in the War. One hit the tanker Ohio, another the Cairo and another the flagship Nigeria. the photo shws Nigeria down by the head and stopped, Adm. Burrough transferred to Ashanti by having Ashanti nose up alongside so he and his staff could step over. Here ihe is on the bridge of Ashanti still wearig his lifebelt settling in to deliver the remnants of the convoy to Malta local forces.

here is a link to the Ch4 doco with TTL doing the commentary, he was there in the DCT of Ashanti throughout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjB0Bm-yJJY

[timlewin]

few more, the sailing is at Scapa in the ship's whaler.

[timlewin]

more for the memories file; the poor chap in the wardroom photo, sub-lt Smarden, nicknamed the dormouse because he once fell asleep during a meal, was last seen standing on Somali's horizontal bridge front as she sank in the glare of Ashanti's searchlight, as the ship went down he was seen going into the freezing water, and never seen again.

[ivorthediver]

Thank you Tim , always good to view your hoard of priceless memories , much appreciated by us all I'm sure .

Re Moari , I was informed that the wreck still had shell cases around the wreck by the Dive Centre I used to dive with there in Malta , but its a bit like the other dive centres in the Red Sea when they took you to "Shark Reef" or "Shark Point" , there may ..........have been one there once...... but your unlikely to ever see one there again

Have you any more of the dock complex please, we used to have a healthy thread on Malta once , and if I had been given the chance I would love to have dived around the naval complex at Malta , still.... to bloody old now

[timlewin]

here is the destroyer anchorage; lets restart a Malta thread??

[timlewin]

a few more including Athabaskan, lost in spring 1944.

[timlewin]

The picture of Kelly shows her damage after being mined, this damage is similar to the torpedo damage to Somali;

[timlewin]

some close ups of Eskimo and a fine picture of Canadian Haida at sea

[timlewin]

more Tribals.....the pic of Maori is at Malta and very close to where she now lies, I think?