HMS Dasher

Work commenced on the steamship Rio de Janeiro at the Sun Shipbuilding Company in late 1940. She was launched on 12th April 1941. The diesel powered passenger/cargo ship was to have a very different future to that envisaged by her designers and builders. She measured 492.25′ x 66.25′ x 23.25′ and displaced 13785 tons. She was powered by 4 x 6 cylinder, single shaft diesel engines by William Doxford and Sons delivering 8500 brake horse power. As the war in Europe intensified and the need to defend and supply Allied countries increased, she was sold to the Royal Navy under the lease/lend agreement set up between Britain and USA. On completion, the Rio De Janeiro was taken to Brooklyn Naval Yard where, by July 1942, she had been converted into the Archer Class Escort Carrier HMS Dasher including fitting 3 x 4″ Mark 9 anti-aircraft guns, 6 x 0.5” AA Colt guns, 10 x 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft cannons. She could carry up to 15 aircraft.

These escort carriers were never popular ships as the rush to get them into service left them poorly finished and, many thought, unsafe. The economical nature of their construction resulted in their unfortunate, if appropriate, nickname – ‘Woolworth carriers.’ In one incident, during convoy duty near Iceland, the crew of the Dasher below decks were horrified to see a seam on the side of the ship burst open, almost to the water line, giving them a clear view of the convoy destroyers through the side of the ship. However, she made it back to Scotland and was repaired at the Caledon yard in Dundee allowing her and her two squadrons of Hurricanes and one squadron of Swordfish to take part in the successful invasion of North Africa, codenamed Operation Torch. In an even more sinister prelude to the Dasher’s final loss, her sister ship Avenger was lost after a submarine attack in the Atlantic – she was hit by a torpedo from U-155 but was lost, with most of her crew, in the huge unexplained explosion which followed the initial hit.

In March, 1943 the Dasher was stationed in the Clyde and late in the month was carrying out some exercises off Arran. On the morning of the 27th she left the safety of the anchorage at Lamlash at 11am and, after a day of practice flights off the east coast of the island, she headed back to the protection of the Clyde anchorage off Greenock. In fact, Captain Boswell had already radioed ahead that he expected to reach the boom at the Cloch Lighthouse by 6pm that evening. Her five hundred and twenty eight officers and crew were already anticipating some time ashore in Greenock or maybe even a trip into Glasgow for a respite from stress of wartime convoy duty. It has never been absolutely established what happened next but, at 4:42pm as the last of the Swordfish were being refuelled, there was a rumbling explosion followed almost immediately by a second, larger explosion. These explosions completely destroyed the Fleet Air Arm deck and blew the lift between the hanger and the aircraft deck high into the sky and into the sea on the port side of the Dasher. The ship was plunged into darkness as the lights and machinery failed and a strange silence descended on the fatally wounded ship. Within six minutes the Dasher lifted her bow almost vertically to the sky and sank. Many of her crew didn’t even make it to the deck before she sank and even more were lost when they jumped overboard into the sea only to be killed in a huge fire when the aviation fuel floating on the surface was ignited by the flames aboard the ship. The many ships that rushed to the scene were beaten back by the flames although two small steamships, Cragsman and Lithium, were to brave the flames and steam through to pick up many of the survivors. However, of the men and women aboard only one hundred and forty nine were saved by these two ships and the many other vessels that converged on the disaster area.

The subsequent official enquiry, held aboard her sister ship HMS Archer anchored off Greenock, could only point to possible causes of the disaster and even these were influenced by the politics of the situation and the controversy that followed between Britain and the United States. It was clearly established that a small, but potentially serious, petrol leak had been discovered two weeks before the disaster and that a hole leading from the petrol storage area into the shaft tunnel existed. It is also known that ammunition and sixty eight depth charges were stored close by. The official enquiry, presided over by Captain Guy Grantham of HMS Indomitable, concluded that somehow the petrol leak had caused a build up of petrol vapour in the shaft and storage areas and that these fumes had been ignited causing the first explosion heard by the survivors. The second larger explosion, possibly ammunition or the depth charges, ruptured the ship’s hull causing the rapid sinking. Due to the heavy security surrounding the movements of shipping during the war, the relatives of the unfortunate crewmen killed in the incident only learned the true nature of the accident many years later. Even today the controversy and the secrecy continues. With the release of official documents in 1972 the details of the accident and the men lost became public but the relatives of the men never received any further communication to follow up on the brief, terrible telegram informing them that their relative was either dead or missing.

Most of the bodies that came ashore or were picked up were buried in unmarked graves. The only known graves are 13 in Ardrossan cemetery and 6 in Greenock cemetery. These graves are recorded by the War Graves Commission – the locations of the remainder are lost or forgotten. 

The wreck of the Dasher lies upright in 150 metres with a least depth of 125 metres in position 55° 37.747’N, 005° 00.953’W (WGS84) close to the ferry route from Ardrossan to Brodick. She is lying east/west and still substantially in tact although her wooden flight deck has collapsed midships and the forward part of the flight deck is missing. The wreck has been designated as a protected military wreck but was first dived in January 1982 dived by Royal Navy divers based on MV Seaforth Clansman  A commemorative plaque was placed on the flight deck to honour the men lost in the tragic wartime accident. In June and September 2000 further dives were made by teams of private individuals. The first dive in June was made on open circuit breathing apparatus while the second dive in September by the Northern Gas Team, utilised closed circuit rebreathers with OC bailout as back-up.