History
Name
  • PS Barry (1907–1917)
  • HMS Barryfield (1917–1918)[1]
  • PS Barry (1918–1926)
  • PS Waverley (1926–1939)
  • HMS Snaefell (1939–1941)[2]
Owner
Operator
BuilderJohn Brown & Company, Clydebank
Launched4 May 1907
FateBombed and sunk, 5 July 1941
General characteristics
TypePaddle steamer
Tonnage466[3]

HMS Snaefell was a paddle steamer, built at John Brown & Company's Clydebank shipyard for the Barry Railway Company and launched in 1907 as the PS Barry.[4][2] Built to serve as a pleasure steamer carrying passengers on the Bristol Channel, she was quickly transferred to the ownership of Bristol Channel Passenger Boats which in 1911 became part of P & A Campbell.[5][1]

She was requisitioned by the Royal Navy during World War I and renamed HMS Barryfield serving during the Gallipoli Campaign where she was the last British ship to leave Suvla Bay evacuating British soldiers.[5] After the war she returned to passenger service in November 1919 under the name Barry, was refitted in 1920 and renamed PS Waverley in 1925.[5][6]

Requisitioned by the Royal Navy at the outbreak of World War II she was renamed again in 1939, this time to HMS Snaefell to avoid confusion with another paddle steamer Waverley which had already been requisitioned from London and North Eastern Railway, and assigned to the 8th Minesweeping Flotilla.[4][5][2] She was one of the flotilla of ships at the Dunkirk evacuation making two trips across the channel, credited with rescuing 981 soldiers and freeing another ship which had run aground, the Glen Gower.[4][5][2] Sunk by a German Luftwaffe bomber on 5 July 1941 with three fatalities but her other nine crew rescued,[7] her wreck was located off the coast of Sunderland in 2010.[4][8][5]

References

  1. 1 2 Dumpleton, Bernard (April 1973). Story of the Paddle Steamer. Venton Publications. ISBN 0854750576.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Mace, Martin (30 July 2017). The Royal Navy at Dunkirk: Commanding Officers' Reports of British Warships In Action During Operation Dynamo. Frontline Books. ISBN 978-1473886728.
  3. ↑ "Ship Name: Snaefell Former Ship Name: Waverley Gross Tonnage: 466". Merchant shipping movement cards 1939–1945. The National Archives.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Divers discover long lost wreck HMS Snaefell". ChronicleLive. 1 October 2010. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Salvaged artefacts from war-torn steamer return to Barry". BBC News. 11 April 2015. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  6. ↑ "Requisitioned Auxiliary - Barry". Historical RFA recording the History and Honour of the RFA. 4 May 1907. Retrieved 14 July 2021.
  7. ↑ "Naval Events, July 1941, Part 1 of 2, Tuesday 1st – Monday 14th". Naval History. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  8. ↑ Brian Matthewman, Brian. "2010 North East Wreck Week: Silent Running Mixed Gas Dive Team". Advanced Diver Magazine. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
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