ATTACK ON CONVOY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 134, 7 May 1940, Page 7

ATTACK ON CONVOY

DESTROYER SUNK. ACTION BY GERMANS. TRANSPORTS UNTOUCHED. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) Received May 7, 9.15 a.m. LONDON, May 6. The Admiralty ahnoimces: — “Following the withdrawal of troops from Namsos His Majesty’s ships including the destroyer Afridi (Captain P. L. Yian, D. 5.0.) provided defence for a convoy against aircraft and submarine attack. “With tho arrival of daylight repeated waves of enemy aeroplanes kept up an incessant attack against the convoy, but the barrage maintained by the escorts’ anti-aircraft guns was so effective that the transports were untouched. It was in the course of this operation that the Afridi was struck by bombs and subsequently sank, Two enemy ’planes were shot down.” The British Official ' Wireless says that the Afridi was a destroyer of the Tribal class, with a displacement of 1870 tons and a normal complement of 190. She is the eleventh British destroyer to be lost since the outbreak of the war and the fifth since the Norwegian campaign.

COMMANDER’S CAREER. Captain Philip Louis Vian, formerly of 11.M.5. Cossack, who so admirably handled the delicate situation attendant upon the rescue of several hundreds of British merchant seamen from the Nazi prisonship Aitmarck, and for which he was awarded the D. 5.0., has spent much of his 23 years’ service in the Royal Navy in destroyers. He entered Osborne College in May, 1907, in the same term as the Prince of Wales. During the Great War he served as sub-lieutenant in the cruiser Argonaut and the destroyer Morning Star, and as lieutenant in the destroyers Ossory and Sorceress till August, 1918, when he was selected to specialise in gunnery. After the war he served as gunnery officer in a number of ships, including the cruiser Kent, on the China Station and the battleship Royal Sovereign in the Mediterranean. As a commander he was in the Training and Staff Duties Division at the Admiralty from 1930 till 1933. Subsequently he commanded the destroyer Active as leader of the Fifth Division' of the Third Destroyer Flotilla in the Mediterranean. Promoted captain on December 31 ; 1934, ho was appointed to the flotilla leader Douglas in December, 1935, as Captain (D) of the Nineteenth Destroyer Flotilla in the Mediterranean. In May, 1936, Captain Vian was appointed to the flotilla leader Iveppel as Captain (D) of the First Destroyer Flotilla, also in the Mediterranean. After attending a senior officers’ war course at the Naval College at Greenwich Captain Vian was appointed on March 26, 1937, to H.M.S. Arethusa as flag-captain and chief staff officer to Rear-Admiral Lionel V. Wells, C. 8., D. 5.0., commander of the Third Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean. Captain Vian commanded the Arethusa until recently, wliefi lie was appointed captain (D) of one of the new destroyer flotillas.