Lieutenant James Guye Francklin Watkinson ROBERTS RN
HMS Exmouth, Royal Navy

Date of birth: 12th July 1910
Date of death: 21st January 1940

Killed in action aged 29
Commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial Panel 37 Column 1
He was the born at Beckenham on the 12th of July 1910 the eldest son of George Watkinson Roberts, incorporated accountant, and Dorothy Georgina (nee Tinney) of 17 St James Park, Beckenham.

He was educated at Falconbury School, Purley, and at the King's School Canterbury from September 1924 to July 1928, where he was in Langley House. He was awarded a Junior Scholarship in June 1926 and a Senior Scholarship in June 1927. He was appointed as a House Monitor in 1928.

On leaving School he entered the Royal Navy on a special entry cadetship where he attended the gunnery training ship HMS Erebus and was Captain of the Rugby XV while he was there. He passed out third, gaining gunnery and torpedo prizes, and was appointed as a Midshipman on the 1st of September 1929. He saw service in the Mediterranean and in the Far East. He was promoted to Acting Sub Lieutenant on the 1st of January 1932 and to Lieutenant on the 1st of October 1932 after gaining five "firsts" in his examinations.

In 1935 he was posted to HMS "Excellent" to specialise in gunnery and during 1936/37 he was employed on the staff of a gunnery school. He served as Gunnery Officer in his Flotilla from January 1938.

In early 1936 he was married to Helen Mary Peggy (nee Palin).

On the afternoon of the 20th of January 1940 he was serving on the E Class destroyer HMS Exmouth (H02), under the command of Captain Richard Stoddart Benson DSO RN, when they received orders to rendezvous with a merchant ship, the Cyprian Prince, off Aberdeen and escort her to Scapa Flow. The merchantman, under the command of Master Benjamin Wilson, was carrying a cargo of searchlights, anti-aircraft guns, trucks, cars and ammunition for the naval base there. Having made contact in the early evening, Cyprian Prince followed HMS Exmouth northwards. At 3.25am on the morning of the 21st of January 1940, the two vessels were passing to the southeast of the Orkneys, when they sailed across the path of the German U-Boat U-22, under the command of Karl Heinrich Jenisch, which had been observing three Scandinavian steamers and, instead, began stalking the two new targets. At 4.38, U-22 was turning to fire at Cyprian Prince when she fired a torpedo at HMS Exmouth which hit the destroyer on the starboard side.

HMS Exmouth's stern light was still in sight of the Cyprian Prince at 4.44am, when Chief Officer Albert Thomas Clark (who was on watch on the Cyprian Prince) heard two explosions. The second detonation was so loud that it soon became clear that the Exmouth had been attacked and had suffered a devastating blow. It is thought that the ship’s magazine was hit, such was the ferocity of the explosion. Hoping to find survivors, the Cyprian Prince stopped her engines to search the immediate area. Voices were heard and flashing lights were seen in the water. The captain of the Cyprian Prince had by that stage already ordered men to stand by the boats, ready to pick up the survivors. But he decided that to stop in good visibility carried too great a risk for his own vessel. At 4.56am, he rang down for 'Full steam ahead' and turned to port, to head for Kirkwall. At an inquiry, Benjamin Wilson stated that "I decided that it was impossible to render assistance to the men in the water without sacrificing the Cyprian Prince.

A week later bodies from HMS Exmouth were washed ashore at Lybster on the north-eastern tip of Scotland, and a funeral took place at Wick soon afterwards. In a single mass grave, the bodies of 18 seamen were buried. HMS Exmouth was the first Royal Navy ship to be lost with all hands in the Second World War.

His brother, Lieutenant Peter Scawen Watkinson Roberts RN VC DSC (OKS) HMS Submarine Thrasher, won the Victoria Cross on the 17th of February 1942.

Back