James Herbert Hemsley

FRANK S. TAYLOR FAMILY AND ROYAL NAVY HISTORY.NET

H.M.S. BIRMINGHAM

JAMES HERBERT HEMSLEY

Stoker 1^st Class

Service No KX 128168

Royal Navy

10 August 1943 – 28 February 1946

The following details were received courtesy of Mr Peter Hemsley from Leeds, Yorkshire, UK.

“I have seen your advertisement in the Navy News regarding your search for former shipmates and comrades who knew your father. Well my late father James Herbert Hemsley, Stoker 1st Class Service No. KX 128168 served on the Birmingham from 10th Aug. 1943 to 28th Feb 1946, and from 1st March 1946 to 21st May 1946 at HMS Victory a Portsmouth shore base, being demobbed on or just after that date.

Before Birmingham he served on HMS Malaya. As to whether they knew one another I'm afraid I unable to say. I've looked through the photo's I have and do not see any likeness to your father, but then I know that stokers had a separate mess, although I'm sure they knew each other.

It seems that you are doing the same thing in NZ, as I am here in the UK and in my case, it came as a big surprise to find out just how far my father travelled in the ships, he served in. Any way good luck in your search.

I enclose two photos of HMS Birmingham docked in Copenhagen at the end of the war, the 13th May 1945 to be exact as I have a Danish newspaper of that date showing Field Marshall Montgomery leading a parade with the Birmingham in the background. She took the surrender of the German warships Prinz Eugen and the Nurnberg.

Also, a photo of two of the Birmingham's crew on leave, the one on the left is my father.”

HMS Birmingham

Copenhagen, May 1945

(Photos from James’s album)

Hospital ship

AA Battery and Swedish Göteborg class destroyer Malmö

in the background.

Ship identification courtesy of Mr Erling Baldorf,

(Ex Senior Chief Petty Officer, Royal Danish Navy)

Denmark scuttled her ships on 23^rd August 1943

to prevent their use by Nazi Germany.

Capt. H W Williams - Birmingham (right)

On Leave

James Hemsley (left)

James Hemsley (centre)

James Hemsley (left) and Shipmate

James Hemsley (left)

Quite out of the blue we received an enquiry from Steve Edney in the UK who had acquired James Hemsley’s “Crossing the Line” Certificate from his time aboard

H.M.S. Malaya and thought to research his new find. We are grateful to Steve for this.

It is interesting to see the changes in such certificates. They are different from each other as you will see from other stories on this site. It would seem that each ship

made an individual input. In this case the images of mermaids, sea mines and sunken U-Boat are obvious references to a world at war and the political caricatures at the

bottom right refer to Churchill with his trademark cigar (the octopus) playing with the severed heads of Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo.

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HMS Birmingham - WW2