A Reluctant Hero: The Life of Captain Robert Ryder VC by Richard Hopton

Author:Richard Hopton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Modern / General
ISBN: 9781844682652
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2012-02-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

HMS Fleetwood, HMS Prince Philippe and Marriage (1940–42)

After a fortnight in hospital Ryder’s swollen feet had recovered sufficiently for him to be discharged. He spent a week convalescing at Charborough Park, near Wareham in Dorset, the home of the Drax family. Admiral Drax, who, as Commander-in-Chief, West Indies, had been Ryder’s commanding officer and host in Bermuda, was away at sea but Lady Drax and her teenage daughters Elizabeth and Mary were there to dance attendance upon the recuperating hero. It was, he remembered, ‘a carefree week’.

Ryder and Kathleen Drax had struck up a friendship in Bermuda, but Ryder’s attentions were now drawn elsewhere. It was during his stay at Charborough that Ryder first became attracted to Elizabeth Drax. She was at least fifteen years younger than he, but evidently something sparked between the Admiral’s daughter and the rising star of the Navy during that week in the Dorset countryside. By the end of the year Ryder was smitten. Writing to his mother from Scotland just after Christmas, he confessed ‘I am feeling sad at having no word from Elizabeth Drax – very discouraged really. There is evidently no great enthusiasm on the part of her or her mother.’1

Ryder’s stay at Charborough Park and his burgeoning infatuation with Elizabeth Drax were no doubt welcome distractions from his anguish at the loss of so many of Willamette Valley’s crew. Less than a year into the war Ryder had already lost two of his closest friends, James Martin and Michael Seymour. This loss was compounded by the news, received at about this time, of the death of his beloved eldest brother Lisle. Despite the six-year age gap they had always been close, brought together by a love of the sea and of sailing. It was in Lisle’s boat Edith that Ryder had had his first taste of the sea. Later they had lived cheek-byjowl for three years on Penola, sharing the joys and rigours of the Antarctic.

Lisle, following in the family tradition, had gone into the Army, being commissioned into the Royal Norfolk Regiment in 1922. Between 1927 and 1931 he had served in the Royal West Africa Frontier Force, during which time Midshipman Ryder visited him when Ramillies put in to Accra. He then returned to regimental duties before joining his brother on the BGLE in 1934. Back in England after three years in the Antarctic, in 1938 he married Enid Ralston-Patrick; their son Ralston was born in 1939.

At the outbreak of war in 1939 Lisle, by now a major, was sent with his regiment to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). The 2nd Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment landed in France on 21 September 1939 and spent the entire ‘phoney’ war there. As a result, when Hitler invaded France, it bore the brunt of the assault. As the British fell back on Calais and Dunkirk in the desperate days of May 1940, the Norfolks held a sector of the perimeter of the Dunkirk salient. On 27 May, after prolonged heavy fighting, the tattered remnants of the battalion laid down their arms.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.