HARRY W.
SUMMERFIELD
Leading
Telegraphist D/J 45547
Henry William Summerfield was born in Birmingham on 1 October 1899, the son of John Thomas and Lucilla Chafe
Summerfield.� There is no record of
baptism or of attendance at the village school, so it can be assumed that the
family moved to Newton Ferrers when Harry had passed school age.� His mother ran a general store in what is now
part of the Yealm Yacht Club.� His early
employment was as a telegram messenger before joining the Royal Navy on 28 October 1915.
After initial training, Boy Telegraphist Harry
Summerfield joined HMS EGMONT, a submarine depot ship based in Malta, where he spent the next two
years.� After the end of the war most of
his service was spent in shore establishments, but he also spent almost two
years onboard HMS HOOD during her first commission, gaining advancement to
Leading to Leading Telegraphist in the meantime.� The latest available records show that he
served onboard HMS EAGLE in 1928, and also that on 8 March 1929 he signed on to
complete pensionable service.� This would
have been to the age of 40, so he would have been almost due to retire when
World War 2 started. At some time between the wars he met his wife Winifred
Muriel from Noss Mayo.
In June 1940 Harry Summerfield was serving onboard the
destroyer HMS ARDENT.� On 8
June, as British forces were withdrawing from the Norwegian Campaign, she and
her sister ship HMS ACASTA were escorting the aircraft carrier HMS GLORIOUS
across the Norwegian Sea some 250 miles northwest of Trondheim.� By chance, they were spotted by the German
battle-cruisers SCHARNHORST and GNEISENAU, who opened fire at 4.30pm at a range of 27,000
yards.� Early hits on GLORIOUS meant that
she was unable to deploy her aircraft, and, despite the most gallant efforts of
the destroyers, laying smokescreens and attacking with torpedoes, the British
force was quickly overwhelmed.� At 5.28pm, ARDENT, hit by many shells
and with all torpedoes expended, capsized and sank.� At about the same time the order was given in
GLORIOUS to abandon ship.� ACASTA
valiantly continued to attack, achieving significant damage on the SCHARNHORST
with a torpedo hit, before she too sank.�
The total casualty list from all three ships came to
1,519 killed or missing.� Onboard ARDENT,
only six sailors got away on a liferaft and of those only one survived the next
four days without food or water.� Harry
Summerfield was one of the missing, and is remembered with honour on the
Plymouth Naval Memorial (Panel 39 Column 3), and on his mother�s gravestone in
Holy Cross Churchyard.
Postscript:� Why HMS GLORIOUS and her escorts were so far
ahead of the main evacuation force, without air patrols flying and without
intelligence warning of the German squadron, has remained a matter of controversy
to this day.� Questions were asked in
Parliament about this as recently as 1999. ��
������������������������� HMS ARDENT
�ACASTA� CLASS DESTROYER � COMPLETED 1929
DISPLACEMENT:��� 1770
tons
MAIN ARMAMENT:� 4
- 4.7� Guns
SPEED:� ������������������ 36 Knots
COMPLEMENT: ����� 152
(only 1 survivor)
HMS GLORIOUS
���������������������� (sister ship of
COURAGEOUS)
GNEISENAU
�� (sister ship of SCHARNHORST)