Remembrance Service at HMS Excellent

Families came together on Saturday morning to remember their loved ones lost on HMS Royal Oak in 1939 at a service held at HMS Excellent.

Transcript

00:00 [wind]

00:22 [chatter]

00:30 Could you introduce yourself please?

00:32 I'm Mandy Messenburg, I'm from Portsmouth.

00:35 And can you explain a little bit about where we are today as well?

00:39 We're on HMAS Excellent, Waley to me, and I'm here for the Royal Oaks Memorial Service.

00:47 And can you tell us a little bit more about why this is so important to you and why you're here today?

00:53 Yeah, I'm here to represent my grandad, he served on the Royal Oak.

00:58 He was lucky he survived, but obviously he dealt with the after trauma of it all.

01:04 So he still, although he left the Navy, we still had ties to the Navy because they used to run the post office here on HMAS Excellent.

01:14 So it's a stomping ground for me as a child, and I was also christened over the bow when I was a baby.

01:22 So yeah, so I'm here today to sort of pay respects to him and his colleagues that he lost.

01:29 Okay, well obviously we're going to head down to the church in a minute, but I hope that today is a very special day for you.

01:36 Yeah, it will be.

01:37 And I hope it all goes smoothly.

01:38 Yes, thank you.

01:39 Alright, nice to meet you, thank you.

01:40 Thank you.

01:41 [Music]

01:56 Could you introduce yourself please?

01:58 My name is Brian Hackett and I've become this year the chaplain of HMAS Royal Oak Association.

02:04 I'm a parish priest based on Portsea Island, but I've had a connection with this group for a number of years now

02:10 and taken over this responsibility. It was a great privilege and I'm leading the service for the first time this year.

02:15 Lovely, and tell us a bit more about what's happening here today.

02:18 Today is the annual service of remembrance. This is the day on which the Royal Oak was sunk in Scarborough Flow in 1939,

02:26 the first big ship of the British fleet to be sunk in the Second World War.

02:30 And what's so important for people in Portsmouth, in Hampshire and in this Royal Naval Yard

02:36 is that many of those who died were Portsmouth men and boys. 835, many of them from the local area.

02:44 And so obviously this means a lot to a lot of the families here today.

02:47 Yes.

02:48 Have you had a chance to speak to them and how do they feel about it?

02:52 It's a very important event in their lives, in the memory, the folk memory of families and friends and so forth.

02:59 So although there are no survivors of the sinking left, there are children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews,

03:06 people who knew those who sank and died.

03:08 Yeah, so an important day for them.

03:10 Yes.

03:11 Thank you very much for talking to us.

03:14 [Music]

03:33 [Music]

03:43 [Music]

03:53 [Music]

04:06 [Music]

04:11 [Music]