4 Nov 2026 - I am sad to relate that Dave Bartlett’s son Dennis has informed me that his dad crossed the bar peacefully this morning at Admiral Jellicoe House in Eastney. He was 93.
Among his other MCD appointments, David had been Boss 2 of the Med Fleet Clearance Diving Team, Boss of the Fleet Clearance Diving Team, CO of HMS LALESTON (HMS VERNON’s deep diving tender) and DTO (Diving Training Officer) at HMS VERNON. He was appointed an MBE in the 1983 New Year Honours list.
David was born on 25 Sep 1933 and joined the Royal Navy as a Boy Seaman at the age of 15. He married Dorothy, whom he met via her naval brother, on 20 April 1955.
On 16 June that same year, David was a Torpedo & Anti-Submarine branch UC3 (Underwater Controller 3rd Class) sonar operator in the submarine HMS SIDON alongside at Portland when the volatile HTP (High Test Peroxide) fuel exploded in one of her torpedoes causing the loss of 13 lives. He was among the injured and spent several months recovering in hospital.
An annual memorial service is held at Portland to commemorate SIDON's sinking and David was one of the last three remaining survivors to attend the event in June 2021.
David’s last attendance at the ceremony was on 16 June 2023 when he was one of the last two survivors. I chronicled the event on this website here:
https://mcdoa.org/news/david-bartlett-attends-memorial-service-for-hms-sidon
David was commissioned as an officer in 1962 and qualified as a Minewarfare & Clearance Diving Officer at HMS Vernon in 1967.
In November 2017, Pat Gale, David Bartlett (second left), the late Nigel Davies and David Ramsden celebrated the 50th anniversary of their course at the MCDOA’s Annual Dinner at HMS EXCELLENT.
In 1968/69, David was the 2I/C of the Mediterrenean Fleet Clearance Diving Team based on Manoel Island in Malta. The photos were courtesy of Derek Shea, son of the late clearance Diver David Shea.
The left photo shows:
Back row: LEP (Locally Employed Personnel), LEP, Dave Shea, Errol Flynn, Robbie Roberts, Ken Bryant (ships diver), Mick Curtin, LEP, LEP.
Front row: LEP, John Dadd, Alf Slingsby, John Parry, Dave Bartlett, Darky Newman, Harry Neve, Dudley North
For much more background, see my entry for 7 Jan 16 in News Archive 53 of the MCDOA’s old website here.
Between 1976 and 1978, David and fellow MCD officer Ed Thompson successively led members of the Fleet Clearance Diving Team in finding, lifting and relocating Philae monuments flooded after the construction of the Aswan dam in Egypt.
In August 2021, I joined David and French documentary maker Olivier Lemaître for a discussion about the UNESCO-sponsored recovery of the temple of Augustus Caesar from the flooded island of Philae in Egypt in 1977/78. David, who had just relinquished Command of VERNON's diving tender HMS LALESTON, led divers of the RN Fleet Clearance Diving Team to find and recover the sandstone blocks of the temple, immersed in 30 ft of water and buried in visibility-obscuring mud following the construction of the Aswan high dam in the 1960s. The temple was subsequently re-assembled on the island of Agilka (sometimes spelled Agilkia), which was landscaped to replicate the flooded island of Philae, and then renamed Philae itself.
Olivier Lemaître, Yours Truly and David Bartlett
David dug out his slide presentation of the operation and mentioned that Agatha Christie's Poirot book, Death On The Nile, was being filmed at the same time. The cast, which was staying in the nearby Old Cataract Hotel, took a great interest in proceedings and the actress Bette Davis was extremely grateful to have one of her necklaces recovered from the water by one of the RN divers.
Having already produced one documentary on the subject, Olivier was planning to make another. In 1976, David's fellow MCDOA member Lt Cdr Ed Thompson MBE had led a similar operation by members of the Fleet Clearance Diving Team to recover the Diocletian Gate which was reassembled on Agilka island, subsequently renamed Philae. In 2007, he was involved in the making of a documentary, first broadcast on Channel Five in March 2008, called Monster Moves: Rescuing Ramesses, which replicated the re-construction process.
This memento was produced by Portsmouth Graphics Pool in HMS VERNON and presented to the Egyptian Ministry of Culture on completion of the operation to recover the temple of Augustus Caesar from the flooded island of Philae in 1977/78.
In April 2014, David presented the Historical Diving Society’s museum with a framed copy of the above certificate "to the Ministry of Culture, Arab Republic of Egypt, by the Royal Navy to mark the successful completion of the work undertaken by the joint Royal Navy and Egyptian Navy Team in the recovery of the Philae Monuments between October 1976 and April 1978. The monuments included the remains of the Temple of Augustus Caesar which was submerged by the building of the two dams at Aswan."
The late Dr John Bevan, Dorothy Bartlett, David Bartlett and former FCPO(D) John Dadd BEM
In 1978, David was the Long Course Training Officer for LMCDO ‘78 at HMS VERNON.
Following his retirement from the Royal Navy, David worked in the underwater weapons department of Marconi, later taken over by BAe Underwater Systems, at Waterlooville. He was a keen golfer and won many RN championships at his club in Southwick where he also gave talks and celebrated his 60th wedding anniversary with Dorothy and their family in April 2015.
David was also a regular attendee of our Association’s annual dinners.
In recent years, David joined his ailing wife Dorothy at Admiral Jellicoe House, the Royal Naval care home in Eastney. Dorothy passed away on 11 May last year and I last visited David on 3 October.
I am sure all members of our community will join me in extending our heartfelt condolenes to David’s sons Andy and Dennis, and his daughter Dawn and their families. I will publish funeral details as and when they become available.