Ordinary Seaman Timothy James Hare DUKE (D/JX 270136) RN
HMS Matabele, Royal Navy

Date of birth: 4th February 1922
Date of death: 17th January 1942

Killed in action aged 19
Commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial Panel 37 Column 1
Timothy James Hare Duke was born in Brussels on the 4th of February 1922 the son of Reginald Franklyn Hare Duke CBE, First Commercial Secretary to HM British Legation in Athens, and Mary Diana Ffooks (nee Woodforde) Duke later of North Green, Datchet in Berkshire.

He was educated at Lancing College where he won a Scholarship and was in Sandersons House from September 1935 to July 1939.

On the 8th of January 1942, the Tribal Class destroyer HMS Matabele (F26), under the command of Commander Arthur Stanford DSC RN, and the destroyer HMS Somali (F33) were ordered to join the escort of convoy PQ-8.

The convoy had left Hartlepool on the 8th of January with the following vessels making it up:-

SS “British Pride”
SS “Dartford”
SS “Harmatris”
SS “Southgate”
SS “British Workman”
SS “El Almirante”
USS “Larranga”
SS “Stary Bolshevik”

The two escorts joined the convoy on the 11th of January and arrived at Murmansk on the 17th of January 1944. The convoy was attacked on that date by the U Boat U-454 commanded by Kapitanleutnant Burckhard Hacklander, which attacked and damaged the “Harmatris” although she survived the encounter and was towed into Murmansk on the 20th.

The U-Boat then turned its attention to HMS Matabele, which was just off the Kola Inlet, and fired a G7 torpedo which struck her amidships, causing her to blow up and sink in only two minutes. Despite the brief time available many of the crew managed to abandon ship but due to the freezing water, only two of the crew, from a complement of two hundred and thirty eight, survived to be picked up by the minesweeper HMS Harrier.
Sandersons House

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