Charles Lightoller, Second Officer of RMS Titanic was Also a Hero on the Beaches of Dunkirk

Charles Lightoller, Second Officer of RMS Titanic was Also a Hero on the Beaches of Dunkirk

Larry Holzwarth - November 7, 2019

Charles Lightoller, Second Officer of RMS Titanic was Also a Hero on the Beaches of Dunkirk
World War I U-Boats were despised by Royal Navy commanders, who considered their use dishonorable. US Navy

15. Lightoller was exonerated for the loss of Falcon and given command of HMS Garry

Lightoller took command of HMS Garry in the summer of 1918, operating out of Portsmouth. In July Garry was patrolling off Yorkshire when it encountered a German U-Boat, UB-110. The U-Boat dove to escape and Garry attacked it using depth charges sufficiently to force it to surface. When the submersible emerged too close to allow a gunfire attack, Lightoller ordered his ship to ram the Germans. The attack ruptured the U-Boat’s hull, and it sank after most of its crew escaped into the water. From that point accounts of the battle conflict. The British claimed 13 German crewmen died in the sinking.

The German commander, who survived the action, later claimed that of the 36 member crew of the U-Boat, all but two survived the attack and abandoned ship, indicating that they had surrendered. According to the German account, which was made after the war, the British attacked the helpless crew in the water with small arms fire, before rescuing the 13 who survived. Lightoller later dismissed the accusation with an off-hand and somewhat oblique remark in his memoirs, Titanic and Other Ships. Lightoller was awarded a bar for his DSC in lieu of a second award for the action.

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