On the Lowestoft Naval Memorial, Suffolk is the name of LT/KX 108076 Stoker Robert James Jackson, serving on H.M.S. Cocker with the Royal Naval Patrol Service who died 04/06/1942.

Heslop’s Local Advertiser 15/06/1946 and 12/06/1948 both carry an In Memoriam notice which reads:
Jackson Felling, Bobbie, R.N., lost at sea, 1942.

Completed in September 1936.
The Royal Naval Patrol Service. sometimes known as Harry Tate’s Navy or Churchill’s Pirates, made up the larger part of His Majesty’s main Royal Naval Auxiliary Fleet. This was the same fleet that lost more vessels than any other branch of the Royal Navy. The men of the RNPS carried out their duty on the harsh Russian Convoys, protecting the east coast of America, serving in the Mediterranean, Africa and the Far East and mine sweeping and patroling the entire coast of the British Isles.

Norwegian whaler of Hvalfangerselskap Kosmos A/S (Anders Jahre), Sandefjord, Norway taken over by the Admiralty in October 1940. Displacement: 307 tons.
Kos XIX was renamed Cocker in September 1941.

HMS Cocker was a requisitioned peacetime whaler. It was first believed that U-331 had been responsible for sinking HMS Cocker but was later confirmed that Schnellboot S-57 commanded by Oblt. Gunter Erdmann had actually sunk the ship.

On the 18th August 1942 RN MTB’s attacked a flotilla of Schnellboots, including S-57. During the attack S-57 was badly damaged. Two of her crewmen were killed and nine others wounded.

Robert James Jackson is remembered in our List of Ships’ Crews.