On the Portsmouth Naval Memorial is the name of P/JX 157301 Able Seaman Henry Taylor Siddle serving on H.M.S. Dunedin with the Royal Navy who died 24/11/1941.
Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-
Henry Taylor Siddle was born in the first quarter of 1923, the son of Robert Siddle and his wife Beatrice Dewey who had married in 1907. In 1911 they lived at Railway Terrace, Tindale Crescent, Bishop Auckland with Robert working as a fireman for North East Railway. He served overseas with the British Expeditionary Force in the Great War with the Royal Engineers.
Henry Taylor (Harry) had siblings Robert (b.1908) Jonathan (b.1909), Fred (b.1916), Caroline (b.1919) and William (b.1928).
Harry’s father Robert died in December 1927 at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1934 his mother Beatrice married Albert H. Baines and in 1939 they lived at Dent Street, Tindale Crescent with three of her children. It would seem that Harry joined the Royal Navy prior to 1939, possibly as a boy sailor.
Kevin Richardson has provided the following information:
The service details of Able Seaman Henry T. Siddle have not been researched.
HMS Dunedin was a light cruiser commissioned in 1919 and built by Armstrong Whitworth in Newcastle upon Tyne. At the outbreak of war, HMS Dunedin was part of the 12th Cruiser Squadron based in Kirkwall on the Northern Patrol, and she was involved in the hunt for the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in November 1939 after the sinking of the armed merchant cruiser Rawalpindi. On 15 June 1941 HMS Dunedin captured the German tanker Lothringen finding some highly important Enigma material on board that helped the codebreakers at Bletchley Park.
HMS Dunedin was north of Brazil on 24 November 1941 when at 1526 hours, she was sunk by 2 torpedoes from U-124. Of 486 officers and men, only 4 officers and 63 men survived. For the 250 or so who managed to escape the ship, some died of their injuries, some went insane, others drowned and were lost to the sea. Only six life rafts were left afloat when rescue arrived in the form of the American merchantman, Nishmaha en route from Takoradi to Philadelphia. 72 men were lifted to safety, although 5 died before reaching port at Trinidad. One of those lost at sea was Able Seaman Henry T. Siddle.
Henry Taylor Siddle is remembered at St. Helen Auckland on S145.05, at West Auckland on W108.03 and on our List of Ships’ Crews.
