Royal Oak survivor dies

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Andy H
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Royal Oak survivor dies

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Post by Andy H » 26 Aug 2003, 18:36

From Todays Daily Telegraph
Ted Fairney
(Filed: 26/08/2003)

Ted Fairney, who has died aged 93, was one of a rapidly dwindling band of survivors from Royal Oak, the first battleship to be lost in the Second World War.

Of 1,208 on board, 833 died when Royal Oak, under the command of Rear Admiral W G Benn, was torpedoed in Scapa Flow late in the evening of Friday October 13 1939. Fairney was one of the 375 survivors, some of whom died shortly afterwards from injuries or exposure. The war was barely six weeks old.

Scapa Flow, in Orkney, had been thought impregnable to enemy U-boats, and the penetration of Britain's most secure anchorage dealt a huge blow to the Navy's morale; even Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, expressed reluctant admiration for what he called the "remarkable exploit of professional skill and daring" by the U-boat captain Gunther Prien in gliding U-47 between blockships and over a sandbar through Kirk Sound and into the Flow. Within 13 minutes of being hit, the 27,000-ton Royal Oak lay 90 feet below.

Fairney, a stoker who was in the mess room at the time, was two decks below on the waterline. He and a shipmate decided that the only way out was through the adjacent mess deck, and they opened the connecting watertight door.

They found that balls of ignited cordite had raced through the ship, incinerating many of the crew. There was no sign of life from crewmen who had been in their hammocks. Fairney re-locked the door, scrambled up two decks, and leapt into the water.

A fair swimmer, he struck out in the darkness for what he hoped was the shore half a mile away. But, as Royal Oak heeled over to starboard, halyards carrying signal flags from one of the masts caught him and dragged him under. He could never recall how he managed to work himself free.

Fairney and his surviving shipmates then faced 50ft cliffs, some of the men falling back on to the rocks. To the end of his days, Fairney said that he owed his life to two crofters who found him in the dark, injured, soaking wet and suffering from hypothermia.

Edwin Henry Fairney was born in Cardiff on February 13 1910, one of a family of 13 children of George and Amelia Fairney. Educated at Wood Street School and the local technical college, he joined his father, a foreman boilermaker, at the city's Mount Stuart Channel Dry Dock.

He was 25 when his younger brother, Hill, persuaded him to enlist in the Navy; the weekly wage of £2 18s (£2.90) was a fortune compared to shipyard rates.

The brothers served together in the training ship Iron Duke at Portsmouth before Ted Fairney was posted to Malta in Cyclops, a submarine depot ship. He made something of a name for himself in the Mediterranean as someone who could carry out "impossible repairs", earning the admiration of gold-braided engineer officers, including a rear-admiral.

In 1939 the brothers were again due to be appointed together, this time to Royal Oak. But when war broke out, Admiralty preference was for close family members not to serve together. Eric Jenkins, a fellow Welshman, took Hill's place, and was one of those lost.

Ted Fairney's gift for survival continued to be evident, in spite of his seeing action throughout six years of war. By now a chief engine-room artificer, he was serving in the battleship Nelson when she was torpedoed in the North Atlantic. He helped patch her up sufficiently for her to limp to America for repairs. When he was transferred to the city class cruiser Birmingham, it was for convoy duty to Malta.

Years later, Hill discovered that, of Portsmouth Regulars such as he and Ted, the chances of surviving throughout the war were less than one in three. Nevertheless, Ted saw further service in the Korean War.

Ted Fairney served with the Navy until 1963; he never returned to Scapa Flow. For the remainder of his life he eked out a frugal living on his naval pension, enjoying touring Europe in his car. He died at a nursing home in Watford on August 13.

He was twice married, and is survived by three children from his first marriage.

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