Home  |   The Great War  |   Second World War  |   Other Conflicts  |   Useful Links  |   Contact Us

 

Able Seaman Colin Abbott BONNER (P/JX 181870) RN
HMS Hood, Royal Navy Date of birth: 27th May 1919 Date of death: 24th May 1941 Killed in action aged 21 Commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial Panel 47 Column 2
Colin Abbott Bonner was born at Streatham Manor, Leigham Avenue, Streatham in South London on the 27th of July 1919 the elder son of Stanley Abbott Bonner, a bank manager, and Marie Maxwell (nee Denning) Bonner of Streatham Manor, Leigham Avenue, Streaham, later of Westron House, Highworth in Wiltshire. He was educated at Downside Preparatory School at Purley in Surrey and at Lancing College where he was in Sandersons House from September 1933 to September 1938. He was a member of the Cricket XI from 1935. He went on to St John's College Cambridge in 1938 where his tutor was C.W. Guillebaud. He joined the Royal Navy in 1939 and was posted to HMS Hood. At 1am on the 22nd of May 1941 the battleship HMS Hood set sail from Scapa Flow in company with the newly built battleship HMS Prince of Wales. They were escorted by the destroyers HMS Achates, HMS Antelope, HMS Anthony, HMS Echo, HMS Electra and HMS Icarus for Hvals Fjord in Iceland following reports that the German battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen had left Bergen in search of merchant shipping targets. By the evening of the 23rd they were to the south of Iceland when they received a report from the destroyer HMS Suffolk that they had sighted Bismarck in the Straits of Denmark and at 7.39pm they changed course to intercept and increased their speed. Due to the pounding seas and the high speed of the two larger ships, the escorting destroyers were struggling to keep up and were given permission to drop back at 4am on the 14th as the two capital ships continued the hunt on their own. The enemy ships were sighted and at 5.52am “Hood” opened fire on Prinz Eugen at a range of 25,000 yards. Prince of Wales fired its first salvo one minute later. Hood received five salvos in reply from the two enemy ships, the second and third of which bracketed the ship causing a fire to break out on the port side. At 6am she was hit by the fifth salvo in the aft magazine, blew up, and sank in three to four minutes with the loss of 1,415 of her crew of 1,418. He is commemorated on the war memorial at St John's College Cambridge.

Sandersons House