HMS Grafton H89

Christmas card dated December 1939, from the destroyer HMS Grafton H89
This card was sent by Lieutenant Hubert Tanner and his wife Anne. Born in 1913, Lt. Tanner was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1934 and was attached to the RAF in 1937 as a Flying Officer. He returned to Naval service in 1938 and was married in the same year.
HMS Grafton was loaded with 800 troops which she had lifted off the beach at Bray Dunes. In the early morning of the 29th May 1940, off the Kwinte Whistle Buoy some 25 miles north-east of Dunkirk, she joined other vessels in searching for survivors from the sinking of HMS Wakeful. Unbeknownst to the rescuers, the German submarine U-62 was lying nearby. At 2.50am, a torpedo slammed into the Grafton's wardroom, killing 35 Army officers; a second hit knocked out all of the ship's lighting. In the chaos that followed, a number of British vessels, believing that they were coming under attack from German motor torpedo boats, fired wildly into the darkness. In the confusion, a number of HMS Grafton's crew were killed including the Captain, Commander Charles Robinson and Lt. Tanner. In total, 15 crew members and 35 soldiers are known to have been killed. As the vessel began to sink, soldiers and crew were ordered to fall-in on deck. This order was executed with surprising calm and around 750 troops and 130 crew were successfully transferred to the ferry 'Malines', which had come alongside. Having been abandoned, HMS Grafton was then scuttled by a fellow destroyer, HMS Ivanhoe.


Lt. Tanner has no known grave and he is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.

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