Robert Frederick Barlow (1919-1943)

Robert Frederick Barlow (1919-1943)

Second World War Roll of Honour’

Robert Frederick “Bobby” Barlow was born in Lancashire in 1919, the eldest son of Dr Robert Gordon Barlow, a GP, and Hilda (nee Bawden) of 7 Olive Mount Villa, Mill Lane, Wavertree in Lancashire. He was educated at King William’s College on the Isle of Man before matriculating at Downing College in 1937 studying Medicine. He was granted a short service commission as a Surgeon Lieutenant in the Royal Navy on 29 January 1943. 

In October 1943, intelligence was received by the Royal Navy that the Germans were planning to dispatch an important convoy and keep it close to the French coast off Brittany and Normandy. On 22 October 1943, the Royal Navy assembled Force 28 at Portsmouth, made up of the light cruiser HMS Charybdis and the anti-aircraft escort destroyer HMS Limbourne (to which Barlow had been posted), which arrived with five other destroyers from Plymouth on the same day to locate and attack the enemy convoy in what was codenamed Operation Tunnel. Only one of the ship’s Captains was able to attend the briefing for the operation as their ships were being refuelled.

In the early hours of the morning of 23 October 1943, the flotilla was sailing near to Les Sept Isle off the north coast of Brittany and to the south of Guernsey. The weather was poor, with heavy rain reducing the visibility. With radar indicating the presence of at least five German ships in the area, the commanding officer of HMS Charybdis fired a star shell to illuminate the enemy convoy at 1.40am. The shell went well above the cloud and failed to illuminate the convoy more than 8,000 metres away, so a second star shell was fired. This lit up the British ships instead and they were spotted by five German Type 39 torpedo boatsfrom the 4th Torpedobooteflotille, which were sailing between the convoy and the British task force. At 1.46am, four white torpedo tracks were seen in the water approaching HMS Charybdis at speed and seconds later she was hit. She sank half an hour later with the loss of 464 of her crew. Meanwhile, HMS Limbourne had also become aware of the presence of the enemy motor torpedo boats and was turning when she was hit in the bow at 1.52am by a torpedo fired by the torpedo boat T22. It struck HMS Limbourne in the forward magazine, blowing off the entire bow forward of the boiler rooms and the forecastle deck forward of the bridge. Although she remained afloat, attempts to tow the crippled destroyer back to port for repairs failed and she was sunk at 6.40am with torpedoes fired by the escort destroyer HMS Talybont and with surface fire from the destroyer HMS Rocket.

Surgeon Lieutenant Barlow was one of 40 crew members who were killed in the explosion on HMS Limbourne. He was 24 years old. He is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial Panel 73 Column 1.

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