The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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229231 Seaman Thomas Tubman Royal Navy HMS Capetown (d.16th November 1939) My grandfather, Thomas Tubman, served on HMS Capetown and was killed in 1939. He is buried in Gibraltar. Can anyone tell me how he was killed, what battle took place etc. and what happened to the Capetown? Update Capetown was a light cruiser, built by Cammel Laird, launched in 1919. 4290 tons, 425ft x 43ft, armed: 5 x 6in. Between 1934 and 1938 she was based in the Far East and was then laid up in reserve until 1939 when she was recommissioned in September 1939 and was then based at Gibraltar for service with the Med. Fleet. She escorted a couple of convoys to the eastern Med during mid-1940, but in August 1940 she went to the Far East again and was based at Bombay. She there took part in supporting ops in east Africa, being damaged by a torpedo on 8th April 1941 and was under repair at Bombay until August 1941. She remained in Indian waters until she returned to UK in 1943 from when she was used as an accommodation and depot ship for landing craft; in this role Capetown took part in the D-Day landings. She went into reserve 1944 and was scrapped at Preston in 1946. She did not see any action in 1939, so I would presume that your grandfather died either in an accident or from illness.(David H) Derrick Thompson Add to this record.  Related Content: HMS Capetown Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.