HMS Charybdis & HMS Limbourne 75th Anniversary (September 2018) by Eleanor Browning
Guernsey Interactive Curriculum Map Discussion Board
As you may be aware, the 75th anniversary of the sinkings of HMS Charybdis and HMS Limbourne in October 1943 will be commemorated from the 27th – 30th September. I am not sure if you are aware of this incident so please allow me to give you a brief resume:
The two ships were torpedoed in the night of the 22-23 October 1943 by German U-boats. Both ships sank with tremendous loss of life – nearly 500 men whilst several hundred were rescued – many after spending several hours in the Channel, rather cold and covered in oil, until the morning when they were rescued by one of the other ships from the convoy. As you can imagine, the survivors had some interesting experiences to tell.
During the following weeks, 21 bodies washed up on Guernsey beaches, which the occupying forces collected from our mined sands. The Nazis then held a funeral service at Le Foulon which they forbade islanders to attend and tried to suppress the details of its timing. However, word was passed around via the milkmen and the postmen and, on the day, 5,000 locals walked from all corners of the island to attend the funeral. This was a quarter of those who remained on the island during the occupation. The Nazis had not expected this at all and were totally overwhelmed. Guernsey’s piece de resistance passed off very peacefully and courageous locals acquired the Union Jacks which had been draped over the coffins. This was the single mass demonstration of resistance during the whole course of the occupation of our island.
Interested? Resources Pack of ideas and links HERE
For further information, please see http://www.guernseyroyalcourt.gg/article/1940/HMS-Charybdis-and-HMS-Limbourne
At the moment, we still have two survivors who are planning to come over for the weekend, out of three remaining. One of the gentlemen was 93 last month and one will be 94 in August so, as you will understand, September is a long way off. Nevertheless, the Committees of the Charybdis Association and the Guernsey Association of Royal Navy and Royal Marines (GARNRM) are really keen to make this a significant anniversary. Usually around 40-50 members of the Charybdis Association come over to Guernsey for the weekend.
Our Associations are particularly keen to increase the numbers attending the Memorial Foulon Service at 1445 on Sunday 30th September as numbers have dwindled in recent years. In order to try and achieve this, we should like to ask for your kind assistance at engaging schools across the island and helping our children to learn more of their local history. One idea which we have for this is to invite schools to make wreaths and for some of those wreaths to be laid at the service. We are open to your suggestions as to how we can best make this work.
From what I understand of the new local curriculum, I fully believe that the history of the disaster would fit in with it on a number of different fronts. History and Literacy (Primary) or English (Secondary) are subjects with obvious interlinks. However, the locations of the ships’ departure points and where the engagement took place can be studied in geography, distances travelled and times taken to travel them could be examined in numeracy or maths. For older children, some may be interested to research the different locations in which the sailors’ bodies ended up and try to understand the natural forces at play.
I have a number of ideas as to how we can get engage children and young people right across the ages ranges in our schools. For example:
Literacy: Children can write a topic entitled “A Day in the Life of ….” about the day of the sinkings – This could be a sailor on board one of the ships, such as one of the radio communicators, stokers, helmsmen, officers, marines or it could be written from the point of view of an islander who went to the funerals.
Drama: Children could put together various forms of small plays to dramatize a part of the event.
Assemblies: Members of the Charybdis Association are looking at the possibilities of presenting assemblies to children, both primary and secondary to increase knowledge of their local history.
There is the potential for some competitions to encourage engagement from the children.
To assist schools and children/young people in their research, we can provide first-hand survivors’ accounts, images from the Press Photographer at the time, a suggested bibliography and a copy of one dramatization which has previously been performed.
Please can you advise me if your school is willing to support the Charybdis Association and GARNRM to make this 75th Anniversary a memorable one for both the remaining survivors, families of the sailors and the children and young people of Guernsey today?
Reply to this thread (so everyone is kept in the loop) or contact Eleanor at charybdislimbourne75@gmail.com
E J Browning (Mrs)
FCCA, B.A. (Hons) (Dunelm), VR.
Honorary Treasurer
Honorary Welfare Officer
Guernsey Association of
Royal Navy and Royal Marines