SPLENDID RECORD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 November 1941, Page 6

SPLENDID RECORD

CORVETTE GLADIOLUS

MANY DECORATIONS WON.

IN WAR AGAINST U-BOATS.

(British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.5 p.m.) RUGBY, November 6. The corvette Gladiolus, which has just been sunk, helped to sink two German submarines and took a leading part in many other encounters with U-boats. During the night of June 30, 1940, the submarine U-26 torpedoed a ship of a convoy which the Gladiolus was escorting. The Gladiolus at once counter-attacked with depth charges and U 26 was so damaged that she was forced to the surface, when she was sighted and attacked by a flying-boat. The Germans thereupon scuttled the boat and abandoned ship.

On September 9, 1941, the commanding officer of the Gladiolus, Lieuten-ant-Commander Sanders, was awarded the D.S.O. “for enterprise, skill and devotion to duty in action against enemy submarines.” This time the Gladiolus shared with two other corvettes in the destruction of U 556. On June 27, 1941, this U-boat was commanded by Kapitan-Lieutenant Wohlparth, who with 40 of his ship's company survived her destruction. This U-boat captain was particularly notorious, since it was a U-boat under his command which, on March 10, 1941, shelled and set on fire the unarmed Icelandic fishing trawler Raykjaborg, killing all but three of her crew. In a subsequent description of his exploit on the German wireless, Wohlparth boasted that “it was a most beautiful sight to see her burping in the dusk.”

Altogether there were awarded to the ship’s company of the Gladiolus a total of one • D. 5.0., two D.S.C’s. and four D.S.M.’s. In addition six officers and men were mentioned in despatches.