Captain (acting) Edward Stephen Fogarty Fegen VC 5 November 1940

 I'm not much of a poetry person.  I am sharing this as a opener to a man I just recently read about.  He did his duty, he lead his crew (and they fought for him and country).  Courageous men.

"THE SAGA OF THE JERVIS BAY 1940

In memory of HMS Jervis Bay

R. David Burns

 

On the fifth of November and convoy near forty

slow moving and scattered, no escorts to call,

a liner, a steamer, Jervis Bay, you recall

not armoured, light gun, no challenge at all,

sea was quite rough and light cloudy sky

masthead shouts "Smoke, port beam, there a nigh"

Captain Fegen now sensing a serious plight

of forty slow children, their chances are slight

For the Hun's fast cruiser the Admiral Scheer

is reported in region and dangerously near

will make short meal, with its twenty mile gun

this surely must be a win for the Hun!

"Tis not well today, just listen, my crew

There's one thing only and that we must do.

We'll challenge that monster in spite of her power,

that convoy is his if we fail at this hour.

Give me steam, speed and smoke, immediate I say

we'll make him take notice of our ship here today"

'Put a light at the masthead and he will say, ''Well.

This ship means business there's more it must tell

she may be a kind of small surface raider

But I'll soon put an end to this impudent stranger ".

"You Convoy scatter, as fast as you can,

stay clear of my bow, I'm full speed to a man

 

Thus spoke Captain Fegen of Jervis the Bay

as he turned the old ship to the path of the Scheer

the crew understood first blast must be near

but not a man flinched, their duty was clear

men down below and men up on deck

will fight to the death with that fast growing speck

The engines of Jervis just roared and shook

but eighteen� knots was not in the book

then all at once the punishment came

a shattering crash that shook her old frame,

Her uppers and bridge though torn might still stay

but that won't finish Old Jervis that day

Her engines roared still, onward she pressed

no shot nor shell had stopped to arrest

her hull held intact just thirty shots more,

and flames up on deck then started to roar.

Slowly, more slowly old Jervis came to

Ship, Captain, Seamen done all they could do.

At last and too late the Hun cruiser turned

to seek the convoy it'd earlier� spurned

but the darkening night had closed right in

and the convoy dispersed so Fegen's great win

saved thirty five ships, three thousand men.

Mere couple of ships was all Scheer's gain

Brave Captain Fegen's, Warrior Crew

achieved a win, so rare with so few

'cause of his shorter range guns, so cruel,

was unable to fire in defense in this duel

But Lo, there's more on this saga that night

A Swedish brave Captain returned to the site

While Jervis still burning, and burning bright

Plucked sixty five men of Jervis's crew

from a seaman�s death, lonely, and few.

As for their Captain like Nelson we're told

died at this moment of triumph, so bold

had committed himself to country and God

Now all of you mothers, fathers and sons

of a crew in that smaller ship that night

be proud, so proud, how bravely to fight

in a battle so hopeless, seemed at first sight

that all would be lost under cold oceans spray

But instead it was won by that proud Jervis Bay

What did the Hun High Command just say

in talk of th' escape of this convoy prey?

Was it caused by a big armed ship? But nay

T�was captain and crew of our Jervis Bay.

No matter, what history it reports today,

their glory will stay on my walls for aye .

 

My Father, Lieutenant Wallace Burns, had met Captain Fegen at some time before the sinking of his ship, and his loss hit my Father very hard. If this note and poem serves as any compensation for those in the family lines of Captain and Crew, I will be very pleased.

R. David Burns,413 Palmetto Drive, Greer South Carolina 29651"

 

He and his crew were basically on a 'liner', a freight/passenger ship.  Up against an actual cruiser, a 'pocket battleship'.  

The following is from the attached link:  https://www.thurles.info/2021/11/01/capt-e-s-fogarty-fegen-vc-a-forgotten-tipperary-hero/

"History of HMS JERVIS BAY.
The HMS Jervis Bay was built originally as a passenger ship; its purpose, to carry emigrants to Australia. With WWII beaconing, it was taken over by the Admiralty in August 1939. She was fitted with seven 6-inch guns, dating from the turn of the century, which were distributed around her decks and was repainted grey. Now, lightly armed and riding high in the water, her crew would refer to her as so many other such refurbished ships, as an “Admiralty-made coffin.”.

Her role was designated as that of an ocean escort ship, to guard Atlantic convoys. The British Admiralty were well aware that Germany in the First World War, had frequently employed armed liners, for raiding allied ships and in the Second World War, against such similar liners the HMS Jervis Bay would have had an equal chance of a successful defence, but was no match against an armoured ship.

On the November 5th 1940 in the Atlantic, Captain Fogarty Fegen, was commanding the HMS Jervis Bay, while escorting 38 merchantmen, when they were attacked by the German Pocket Battleship ‘Admiral Scheer‘, commanded by Admiral Captain Theodor Krancke; latter commanding all German naval forces in Western Europe.

History of ADMIRAL SCHEER.

The Admiral Scheer was a Deutschland-class heavy cruiser (often termed a pocket battleship) which served with the Kriegsmarine (War Navy) of Nazi Germany, during World War II. [The vessel was named after Admiral Reinhard Scheer, German commander in the Battle of Jutland.]
She was built at the Reichsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshaven, in June 1931 and was completed by November 1934. Originally classified as an armoured ship (Panzerschiff) by the Reichsmarine, in February 1940 the Germans reclassified the remaining two other ships of this class as ‘heavy cruisers’.

The ‘Admiral Scheer’ had slipped through the Denmark Strait and into the open Atlantic on the night of October 31st, on her first combat offensive of WWII. Now hunting in the North Atlantic, her radio intercept equipment quickly identified convoy HX-84, as being in the surrounding sea area. An on board seaplane (Heinkel He 60) launched from a catapult on the ‘Admiral Scheer’, eventually located the HX-84 convoy on the morning of November 5th, some 144 km, (90 mls) from their then North Atlantic position.

Sometime in the late afternoon a lookout on board the ‘SS Rangitiki’, latter the tallest of the convoy ships, observed the mast of the Admiral Scheer on the horizon. At about 4:45pm Capt. Fogarty Fegen sounded action stations and began accelerating his ship out of its convoy position; to head toward the Admiral Scheer, firing the ship’s 6-inch guns, while aware he was well out of range of the enemy craft.

It was only Admiral Scheer’s third salvo that struck the Jervis Bay’s bridge, knocking out her rangefinder, wireless, and fire-control equipment, while also killing several officers and crewmen in the blast. Captain Fegen’s left arm was very badly injured in the strike.

Darkness was falling as Admiral Krancke continued to train his big guns on the Jervis Bay, with each salvo launching two and a half tons of ordnance at the stricken vessel. Admiral Krancke knew he needed to quickly sink Jervis Bay in order that he would have sufficient time to attack the rest of the convoy.

However, Jervis Bay continued steaming towards Admiral Scheer while firing her guns, until her steering gear was knocked out. Nevertheless, the heroic actions of the Jervis Bay had now saved most of the convoy, but Capt. Fegen’s actions would cost him his life and that of his ship.

With Captain Fegen now dead, Lt. Cmdr. George Roe, in assumed command, ordered the remaining crew members to abandon ship. Most of the surviving Jervis Bay crew simply jumped into the icy, sub-Arctic sea, some making it to existing rafts, while others made do with what debris they could find floating on the water’s surface.

Captain Olander of the Stureholm, impressed by the courage shown by Captain Fegen and Jervis Bay, called his ship’s crew together and proposed they return to the scene to search for possible survivors. The crew of this Swedish ship agreed, and the freighter returned to the battle scene, where it was able to pull just 68 men of Jervis Bay’s crew (of the 266 man crew) from the freezing sea, (three of same died after being rescued and were buried at sea that night).

Stureholm then returned to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, considering it the safer of two options; arriving back there on November 12th.

The remaining 38 ships of the convoy, which had taken advantage of the time the Jervis Bay had bought for them, had scattered. With Jervis Bay sunk the ‘Admiral Scheer’ continued in search of the now scattered convoy ships managed to sink only five of them.

Note: – Names of Officers of ‘H.M.S. Jervis Bay’, are hereunder coloured in Purple denoting those known ‘Killed’, while names coloured in Red denote those as ‘Missing, Presumed Killed’.
Back row – left to right – Gunner E.R. Stannard, Lieut. Richard Shackleton, Surgeon-Lieut. H.St.J. Hiley, Paymaster Lieut. A.W. Stott, Lieut. Hugh Williamson (chief radio officer), Lieut. A.H.W. Bartle, Lieut. Norman E. Wood, Lieut. Walter Hill, Lieut.-Commdr. George L. Roe, Lieut. H.G.B. Moss, Paymaster Lieut. J.G. Sargeant.
Middle row – left to right – Paymaster Commdr. E.W. White, Lieut. Commdr. K.M. Morrison, Commdr. J.A.P. Blackburn, D.S.C., Capt. E.S. Fogarty Fegen , V.C., Engineer Commdr. J.H.G. Chappell, Lieut. Commdr. A.W. Driscoll.
Front row – left to right – Wireless Operator Donald Curry, Midshn. Owens, Midshn. Ronald A.G. Butler, Midshn. C.C.T. Latch, Midshn. W.B. Thistleton.Other senior officers of the vessel, including Surgeon Lieut. Commdr. T.G. Evans, Lieut. Dudlet J.H. Bigg, and Sub-Lt. Guy Byam-Corstiaens,

 

In one of Winston Churchill’s War Time Speeches entitled. “Forward, Till the Whole Task is Done”,communicated on May 13th, 1945. he states: –
“When I think of these days I think also of other episodes and personalities. I think of Lieutenant-Commander Esmonde, VC, or Lance-Corporal Connally, VC, and Captain Fegen, VC, and other Irish heroes that I could easily recite, and then I must confess that bitterness by Britain against the Irish race dies in my heart.”

 

The war ended for the Admiral Scheer in April 1945, when she was capsized in about 50 feet of water during a 300-plane air raid at Kiel harbour, on the southwestern coast of the Baltic Sea.

Captain Edward Stephen Fogarty Fegen was recommended for the Victoria Cross by Britain’s King George VI, who was said to be “stirred deeply” by Fegen’s sacrifice. “When [Captain Fegen] attacked by the Admiral Scheer,” wrote King George VI in his diary, “he knew he was going to certain death.” The medal was awarded to Fegen’s sister, Miss M.C. Fegen, by His Majesty King George VI, at an investiture at Buckingham Palace, in June of 1941.

A citation for Capt. Fegen’s Victoria Cross was published in the London Gazette on November 22nd 1940.

It read: – “The King has been graciously pleased to approve the award of the Victoria Cross to the late Commander (acting Captain) Edward Stephen Fogarty Fegen, Royal Navy, for valour in challenging hopeless odds and giving his life to save the many ships it was his duty to protect”.

 

 Memorials can be found to Captain Edward Stephen Fogarty Fegen at; Chatham Naval Memorial, Chatham, Kent, UK (Marker: 34. 1); on a sundial, at Hamilton, Bermuda; on a 4 meter high Column in the Hospital grounds at St John, New Brunswick, Canada, the Seaman’s Institute, Wellington, New Zealand and on a little known Naval Memorial headstone the walled-in old graveyard, beside the ivy covered, ancient ruins of a Church in Drom, Borrisoleigh, Co. Tipperary, Ireland. His body was lost at sea never to be located and thus he remains listed as ‘Missing, Presumed Killed’."

The only words I can say is "they did their duty".