Great War father and Second World War H.M.S. Egret casualty group to the Nicklin Family. The father, Corporal F.S. Nicklin, Manchester Regiment, later Wiltshire Regiment and the son, Engine Room Artificer 4th Class H.C.S. Nicklin, Royal Navy who was killed in action on 27th August 1943 when H.M.S. Egret was hit and sunk in the Bay of Biscay becoming the first ever ship to be sunk by a guided missile.
Father: British War Medal 1914-1919; (75766 CPL.F.S. NICKLIN. MANCH. R.)
Condition: edge-knock reverse rim at 4 o’clock, otherwise Good Very Fine
Son: 1939-1945 Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; War Medal together with handwritten Admiralty casualty slip for ‘Hugh C.S. Nicklin’
Along with a forwarding letter for a Bar to the Service Medal of the Order of Saint John to Divisional Officer E. Nicklin, Longton Nursing Division, County of Stafford.
Frederick Sidney Nicklin was born in Staffordshire on 29th November 1896 and saw service as a Corporal (No. 75766) with the Manchester Regiment and later as a Corporal (No. 39886) with the Wiltshire Regiment. He was court martialled on 28th August 1919 for ‘Wilfully and without reasonable excuse, allows to escape any person who is committed to his charge or whom it is his duty to keep or guard’. Subsequently Honourably acquitted after being found not guilty.
Hugh Christopher Samuel Nicklin was born on 7th May 1922, the son of Frederick Sidney and Emily Nicklin of 47 Wallis Street, Fenton, Stoke on Trent, serving with the Royal Navy he was aboard H.M.S. Egret which was to become the first ship sunk by a guided missile when she was struck by a glide bomb in the Bay of Biscay on 27th August 1943. Nicklin was killed in the sinking and is remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial. He was the son of Frederick Sidney and Emily Lily Nicklin of Fenton, Stoke-On-Trent. The British Bay offensive in the summer of 1943 saw aircraft from RAF Coastal Command patrolling the Bay of Biscay and attacking U-boats as they travelled to and from their bases in occupied France. A mistaken decision on the part of U-boat commander, Adm. Karl Dönitz, had led to U-boats resisting air attack by remaining on the surface and fighting back with anti-aircraft weapons, rather than diving to safety underwater, a policy which led to the loss of a number of boats. An escalation of the campaign had seen German and British long-range fighters, and then RN escort groups joining the fray. In mid-August 1943 40 EG was on station and came under air attack; on 25 August 1943 the Germans had used their Henschel Hs 293 glide bomb for the first time, against the ships of 40 EG in the Bay of Biscay. Landguard was slightly damaged by a near miss. Bideford was hit and damaged, with one sailor killed, though more serious damage was avoided because the bomb's explosive charge did not fully detonate.
On 27 August 1943 the 40th Support Group was relieved by the 1st Support Group, consisting of Egret together with the sloop Pelican and the frigates Jed, Rother, Spey and Evenlode. The group was attacked by a squadron of 18 Dornier Do 217 carrying Henschel glide bombs. One of the two covering destroyers, HMCS Athabaskan, was heavily damaged and Egret was sunk with the loss of 194 of her crew. At the time there were four RAF Y-Service electronics specialists on board, all of whom also died in the attack, thus bringing the total killed to 198. (These four RAF personnel are typically excluded from published casualty figures.) Egret had been fitted with electronic surveillance equipment designed to monitor Luftwaffe bomber communications and these Y-Service technicians were aboard to operate this equipment. The other destroyer, Grenville, commanded by Roger Hill, was attacked by the Dorniers firing one missile at a time, but survived by being able to out-turn the glide bombs.
Egret's sinking led to the anti-U-boat patrols in the Bay of Biscay being suspended.