On the Brookwood 1939-1945 Memorial, Surrey is the name of 1984468 Lance Corporal Richard Quincey serving with 994 Docks Operating Company, Royal Engineers who died 17/06/1943.
In Darlington West Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Grave headstone which reads:
651827 Aircraftman 1st Cl.
A. Quincey
Royal Air Force
9th May 1940 age 21
Also his father
Herbert Henry Quincey
died 18th April 1921, age 40.
And in memory
of his brother
L/Cpl. Richard Quincey, R.E.
drowned 17th June 1943, age 27.
The son of Herbert Henry Quincey, and of Minnie Quincey, of Darlington, Co. Durham.
Born in Darlington in the third quarter of 1916, Richard was the son of horse taxi driver Herbert and Minnie (nee Crawford) Quincey, their other children were Ada (b.1912), Albert (b.1918) and John (b.1920). The older children Alice Maud (b.1902), Arthur (b.1903), Herbert (b.1905) and Ernest (b.1907) were from Herbert’s first marriage to Minnie’s sister Ada, who died in 1908.
By 1921, just after their father had died, Minnie, Ada and the six boys were living at 5 Robinsons Yard, Tubwell Row, Darlington.
Richard enlisted with the Royal Engineers as Sapper 1984468 and rose to the rank of Lance Corporal. He had been based in Tripoli for the North African Campaign as part of 994 Docks Operating Company but with the surrender of the Axis forces they were to be transferred to the Mediterranean to operate dock facilities for the Sicilian Campaign.
On 16th June 1943 they boarded the SS Yuma, a former British passenger liner now part of Convoy GTX2, in Tripoli, leaving the port carrying 134 officers and 994 British soldiers, including 994 Docks Operating Company and 1010 Docks Operating Company, and 22 officers and 643 ratings of the Free French Naval Forces. The British troops were going to Alexandria to be kitted out and were then to operate port facilities for the Sicilian campaign.
The next morning the convoy was northwest of the port of Derna, Libya, and many of the men were below decks having breakfast when the German submarine U-81 commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Johann-Otto Krieg fired two torpedoes which hit the Yoma, one in her engine room and the other in her number 4 hold, sinking her within five minutes.
484 people were killed: Captain Patterson, 29 crew members and 454 military personnel. Because of the danger from enemy submarines Convoy GTX 2 continued on its way, but a rescue operation was undertaken by two Royal Australian Navy corvettes, two Royal Navy minesweepers and a British-registered merchant ship, Fort Maurepas. Between them the five vessels rescued 130 crew members and 1,342 military personnel.
One of those killed was Lance Corporal Richard Quincey.
His younger brother Albert, from 12 OTU, Royal Air Force, was also drowned in WW2, and his father, Herbert Henry, was a POW during WW1.
Richard Quincey is remembered at Darlington on D40.043 and on our List of Ships’ Crews.
