HMS Stoke

[Jordi Comas]

Hi all,

British minesweeper Stoke was bombed and sunk at Tobruk by German Ju-87 aircraft 7/5/41, 21 killed.
Any more details like time, number of airplanes that attacked the ship or anything else?

Thank you very much
Jordi

[David H]

Stoke had arrived at Tobruk having escorted some ships from Alexandria. She was attacked from 16.00 by Ju.87s and was hit by two bombs, one hit amidships and a second went through the upper deck to explode in the flat below. Several other bombs burst around her. Nine men were killed.

I do not have any info on the number of aircraft involved.

[Jordi Comas]

Thank you David one more time!

Regards

[John Quick]

My father was the leading telegraphist on HMS Stoke when it was sunk, and as such he would have been sending the SOS message and could even have been the last man off the ship, apart from the captain, of course.

He believed the ship was about a mile offshore when it was bombed, and so he and all the other survivors had a long swim to safety.

Unfortunately, I didn't become interested in his war service until after he died, and now I have a million questions I wish I'd asked him.

[Siri]

Your last sentence really hit home for me. When my daughter, many years ago, asked about her grandfather’s (my father’s) war service, I realized I knew next to nothing. I decided I owed it to my children to find out more. It would have been so much easier if I had asked him about it while he was still alive, but I started on my quest to find out, and the result is warsailors.com.

Through the years I’ve had hundreds of emails from people who’ve said, “if only I had asked”, and now, whenever I talk to a young person, I always tell them, please ask your dad, grandfather, mom etc etc about their lives, while you still have them here.