Leading Writer John Edmund ROBINSON (C/MX 621804) RN
HMS Boadicea Royal Navy

Date of birth: 13th August 1923
Date of death: 13th June 1944

Killed in action aged 20
Commemorated on the Chatham Memorial Panels 78, 3
He was born in Norway on the 13th of August 1923, the son of Edmund Alfred Robinson, incorporated accountant, and Dorothy Mary of Bygdo Alle, Oslo later of "Silvermere", Portmore Park Road, Weybridge in Surrey.

He was educated at Boundary Oak School, Purbrook, Hampshire, and at the King's School Canterbury from September 1937 to July 1939, where he was in The Grange.

On the outbreak of war he was at home in Oslo when the Germans invaded Norway. He escaped to England where he joined the Royal Navy as a Telegraphist rising to the rank of Leading Writer and was posted to the 1,360 ton B Class destroyer HMS Boadicea (H65).

In the spring of 1944 she was moved to the Channel to prepare for Operation "Neptune”. On 6th June 1944 she escorted thirty one tank landing craft of 8th Armoured Brigade, the first main battle tanks to land, those of B and C Squadrons of the 4/7th Dragoon Guards.

On the 13th of June 1944 the 1,360 ton B Class destroyer HMS Boadicea, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Frederick William Hawkins RN, was some twelve miles to the south west of Portland Bill escorting convoy EBC-8 which had left Milford Haven in support of the Normandy landings. She came under attack from a Junkers 88 aircraft which hit the ship with two torpedoes, one of which detonated the forward magazine blowing the forward part of the ship away. She sank in just three minutes with the loss one hundred and eighty officers and men. Two officers and ten ratings survived and were picked up by the destroyer HMS Vanquisher from where they were taken to Portland.
The Grange

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