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Lieutenant John Hollingworth ROBERTS RNVR
HMS Euphrates Royal Navy Date of birth: 21st November 1906 Date of death: 7th December 1942 Killed on active service aged 36 Commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial 66, 1
John Hollingworth Cook was born at Holborough Court, Snodland in Kent on the 21st of November 1906 the younger son of Ralph Montagu Cook JP and Millicent Anne (nee Roberts) Cook of Roydon Hall, Paddock Wood near Tonbridge in Kent. He was educated at Lancing College where he was in Heads House from September 1920 to July 1925. He was a member of the Cricket XI in 1924 and 1925 and was appointed as a House Captain in 1924. He spent some time in Argentina before returning to England on board the SS “Avelona” on the 15th of November 1928. In 1928 he changed his last name by Deed Poll to Roberts, on succeeding his uncle, William Leigh Henry Roberts, of Holborough Court, Snodland, Kent; which was the home of his maternal grandparents. He was a Director of the Aylesford Pottery Company Ltd. He was married to Nancy Myra (nee Brooke) on the 24th of June 1931 at St George's Church, Hanover Square and they lived at Holborough Court, Snodland. On the 8th of June 1934 his wife filed for divorce on the grounds of his adultery with Patricia Hunter at the Metropole Hotel on the night of the 4th/5th of May 1934. She was granted a Decree Nisi on the 19th of November 1934 and a Decree Absolute on the 27th of May 1935. She was re-married to Captain Charles Michael Stratton on the 15th of February 1941. He enlisted in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve at Chatham as an Ordinary Seaman on the 20th of February 1940 and, after a period of time at Bristol, he went to sea on the 19th of April 1940. He was commissioned as a Sub Lieutenant on the 6th of March 1941 and was promoted to Lieutenant on the 6th of June 1941. He was posted to the Middle East where he was to act as a Gunnery Lieutenant. On the 23rd of November 1942 he set sail from Liverpool on board the liner HMS “Ceramic” bound for the Persian Gulf. The vessel was commanded by Captain R. Elford and was carrying 278 military personnel (mostly medical staff) and crew as well as 378 civilians including children. She was initially part of a convoy but left the convoy at some point to make her own way. While sailing to the west of the Azores in bad weather on the night of the 6th of December 1942 she was hit by a torpedo fired by U515, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Werner Henke. A few minutes later two more torpedoes hit the engine room below the water line and she began to sink. Eight life boats managed to launch and the ship was sinking slowly so a few hours later U515 fired two more torpedoes into her and she sank rapidly. The survivors in the lifeboats were thrown into the water by the heavy seas and left to struggle in the water. The next day U515 returned and picked one survivor up leaving the rest of the six hundred and fifty five other passengers and crew to die. The survivor was Engineer Munday who was either unable or unwilling to say where the ship was going and was later interned as a POW in Stalag 8B where he stayed until the end of the war when he was able to report the ships fate. He was reported missing by the Admiralty on the 30th of December. The ship seems to have been referred to as HMS "Euphrates" to mislead the public and cover up the extent of the tragedy until an announcement appeared in the Sunday Express on 3 October 1943. Werner Henke was captured on the 6th of April 1944 by the American aircraft carrier USS “Guadalcanal” and was shot while trying to escape from an interrogation centre at Fort Hunt in Virginia on the 15th of June 1944. His elder brother, Major Edwin Thomas Cook 6th Battalion Grenadier Guards, died of wounds on the 8th of November 1943.

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