On Lee-on-Solent Memorial is the name of Acting Sub Lieutenant (A) Charles Thomas Shaw serving on H.M.S. Lanka with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve who died 05/04/1942.

Dennis Lendrem has submitted the following:-

There is some uncertainty surrounding the Shaw family but Charles Thomas Shaw appears to have been the son of Thomas Shaw and Agnes Mary Botham and was born in 1921.

Charles joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and was Acting Sub-Lieutenant at the time of his posting to the shore base HMS Lanka near Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). This was considered a relatively ‘cushy’ posting until the Easter Sunday Raid of 5th April 1942. This was an air attack by carrier-based aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy.  The targets were British warships, harbour installations, and air bases.  Charles was killed during the 30 minutes of dive-bombing and low-flying machine-gun attacks.

“The most dangerous moment of the War, and the one which caused me the greatest alarm, was when the Japanese Fleet was heading for Ceylon and the naval base there. The capture of Ceylon, the consequent control of the Indian Ocean, and the possibility at the same time of a German conquest of Egypt would have closed the ring and the future would have been black.” Winston Churchill

Charles Thomas Shaw is remembered at Hartlepool on H115.16, at West Hartlepool on W111.002 and W111.055 and in our List of Ships’ Crews.