David Bartlett attends Memorial Service for HMS SIDON

21 Jun 2023 - On 16 June 1955, the submarine HMS SIDON was sunk by an explosion caused by a faulty hydrogen peroxide fuelled torpedo while alongside the depot ship HMS MAIDSTONE in Portland Harbour. Of the 56 men on board, 13 were killed. SIDON was raised to serve as a target in 1957.

MCDOA member Lt Cdr David Bartlett MBE RN (shown beside the Vernon Mine Warfare & Diving Monument in July 2020) was a 21-year old Torpedo & Anti-Submarine branch sonar operator on board SIDON at the time of the incident. He was injured and spent several months recovering in hospital.

David was commissioned in November 1962 and qualified as an MCDO at HMS VERNON in 1967. Among his other appointments, he served in the Ton class minehunter HMS MAXTON (1968), as OIC of the Mediterranean Fleet CD Team based in Malta (1969/71), XO of HMS BRINTON (1972/73), CO of HMS VERNON’s diving training tender HMS LALESTON (1975/77), OIC of the VERNON-based CD team that recovered artefacts covered by the Great Aswan Dam waters in Egypt (1978) and DTO (Diving Training Officer) at HMS VERNON (1979/81).

David Bartlett (right) with two members of the Fleet Clearance Diving Team in Egypt in 1978

On 16 June this year, exactly 68 years after the SIDON disaster, David was one of the last two known survivors to attend a remembrance ceremony at the memorial near the Portland Heights Hotel. I am grateful to his son Dennis for sending me these photos of the occasion:

Those present also laid a wreath in Portland Harbour and scattered the ashes of one of their comrades who had crossed the bar since their last gathering.