In Memory Of

FAIRWEATHER, JAMES MACGREGOR

Service Details
Age:
 42
Date of Birth:
 -0001-11-30
Service No:
 07077
Rank:
 Wing Commander
Regiment:
 Royal Air Force
Date of Death:
 1940-05-28
Cause of Death:
 Killed in action, torpedoed and sunk in the North Sea while evacuating UK and Belgian soldiers, airmen and civilians from Ostend on the last day of the Battle of Belgium. As Abukir slowly headed west for England, Luftwaffe aircraft bombed her for an hour and a half but failed to hit her. Then at 0115 hrs on 28 May a 44-knot (81 km/h) Kriegsmarine E-boat, S-34 commanded by OLt.z.S Obermaier, attacked her off Nieuwpoort near the Westhinder or the Noordhinder light vessel. Abukir's Captain, Rowland Morris-Woolfenden, took a zigzag course by which the coaster avoided two torpedoes from S-34. The coaster sighted S-34 off her port bow 20 minutes later. Morris-Woolfenden changed course to ram the torpedo boat, but with a top speed of only 8 knots (15 km/h) Abukir was too slow. S-34 fired two more torpedoes. The first missed, but the second hit the coaster amidships, blowing her in two. Abukir burst into flames and sank within a minute. She was the first Allied ship to be sunk by an E-boat
Commemoration
Grave Reference:
 Panel 3.
Cemetery:
 RUNNYMEDE MEMORIAL
Localitly:
 Surrey
Country:
 United Kingdom
Additional Information
Decorations:
 D F C, Mentioned in Despatches
Citations:
 D F C LG Sup 12 July 1920 - "For services in the Baltic", MID LG Sup 22 December 1919 "For services in the Baltic"
Son of Alexander Middleton Fairweather and of Maggie Fairweather (nee Kirsten); husband of Kathleen Isobel Fairweather (nee Sweeny), of Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa. Commemoration stone in Queenstown Cemetery. Commemoration stone in Kiltearn Cemetery