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Extrait de /members.iinet.net.au 
" More Maritime Disasters of World War II "
HMS FIDELITY (January 1, 1943)
Formerly the French merchant ship Le Rhin (2,455 tons) requisitioned by the Admiralty, converted to a SSV ship (Special Service Vessel) and renamed HMS Fidelity. Armed with four inch guns, torpedoes and depth charges she also carried two sea-planes, a motor torpedo boat and two small landing craft. The vessel, believed by some of the crew to be totally unseaworthy, carried out operations of an extremely hazardous nature i.e. landing of secret agents on enemy territory. Due to the secret nature of the ship, the crew were volunteers, the non British members sailing under assumed names and the French and other crew members received anglicised names. Her captain was an ex-French spy Claude Peri, who assumed the name Jacques Langlais and to the amazement of the crew took his mistress, WRNS officer Madeleine Barclay, onboard with him.
After operations in the Mediterranean, the Fidelity was assigned to the Far East Fleet and sailed from Portsmouth to Colombo via the Cape, part of the way with convoy ONS-154. In an area of the Atlantic known as the Black Pit, an area beyond the protection of aircraft, the convoy, escorted by five Canadian corvettes, was attacked by U-boat wolf packs and over the next five days fourteen of the forty-five ships were sunk with 510 lives lost. The Fidelity, lagging behind with engine failure, was torpedoed by the U-435 (KptLt. S. Strelow) on the night of December 30/31, 1942. She went to the bottom with almost all her complement of 280 crew, fifty-one Royal Marine Commandos and the WRNS officer plus four civilians. About fifty survivors rescued earlier from the SS Empire Shackelton were also on board. Two LCVs (Landing Craft Vehicles) Nos. 752 and 754, being carried by the Fidelity were also sunk. There were only ten men who survived the sinking of the Fidelity. The largest convoy that ever sailed was Convoy HX-300. It consisted of 167 ships. " Laurent Laloup le vendredi 20 juillet 2007 Contribution au livre ouvert de Madeleine Victorine Bayard alias Barclay Montrée dans le livre ouvert de 2 Claude André Michel Péri alias Jack Langlais | |
