The Life and Legacy of Eric Rhodes: The HMS Sidon Disaster
 

Early Life and Education

Charles Eric Rhodes, affectionately known as Eric among family and friends, was born on Tuesday 3^rd April 1928, at "Heightside", Market Street in Whitworth, Lancashire. His parents were Edmund Charles Cooper Rhodes [1890-1970], a cotton cloth merchant, and Lavinia Elsie Rhodes (née Holgate), [1892-1974]. Eric had an elder brother, Keith, [1921-2005] who attended Giggleswick School in Yorkshire, served briefly in the Royal Navy, and later worked in the cotton business in India and Nigeria.

Eric began his education at Sunny Bank School, Burnley¹ in 1932, where his conduct was noted as "Very Good Indeed" with the Headmistress, Miss Edith Farrer, remarking "I feel that when Eric has definitely decided that life is not a joke, he will move forward and sense his intelligence". School Fees for the term amounted to £5 1s 0d! He subsequently attended Syddall Park School in Bramhall  from 1934 to 1937, and Cheadle Hume Preparatory School from 1937-43 before moving to Wrekin College (Saxon) from May 1943 to July 1946.

Eric then went on to study medicine at the University of London. His Housemaster, J.S.Kerr, BA, remarked in Eric's first end-of-term report² that he had made “A promising start.” Regular remarks such as “Very Good” continued throughout his time at Wrekin College, culminating in the comment “A very good finish.” Kerr observed Eric as a young man “driven to succeed”. While such remarks in end-of term reports often did not reflect the individual's later development, in Eric's case, they proved accurate.

School Interests and Activities

Eric was an enthusiastic sportsman and represented his school as a member of both the Third & Second XV Rugby teams. He also had a passion for the theatre and enjoyed socialising, particularly on the dance floor.

After his departure from Wrekin College, Eric maintained his keen interest in Rugby. Although his deteriorating eyesight prevented him from playing, he became the London Hospital Rugby Club's non-playing Hon Secretary, a unique appointment at the time.

Eric’s passion for sailing led him to choose the Royal Navy for his National Service. He contributed as crew for yachts competing in cross-channel races to La Rochelle and also assisted with crewing for the United Hospitals Sailing Club in events on the river at Burnham-on-Crouch.

Medical Training and Family

Deciding to pursue medicine, Eric trained as a doctor at the London Hospital, qualifying as M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. in September 1952 and M.B., B.S. (London) the following month. He held the post of house-physician from December 1952 - May 1953 and became house-surgeon at Harold Wood Hospital, Essex  from June - November 1953.

His cousin Patricia was at university in Reading at the same time, and remembers coming up to London to meet him as a student:

“I used to go up and meet Eric in the evenings to go to the theatre, because Reading isn't that far from London... He would take us to somewhere nice like Simpson's in the Strand or Brown's... and then Eric and I would go on to the theatre. He was wonderful fun to be with. He was very courteous; he made you feel very important when he was taking you out.”

While working at the London Hospital, Eric met Josephine Dorothy Eley (née Tompkins), who was born in 1924. At the time, Josephine was undergoing nursing training and qualified on 1^st April 1952. Having previously experienced a failed marriage, Josephine and Eric were married at Romford Register Office on 26^th November 1953. Through their marriage, Eric became step-father to Josephine’s son, Anthony. Later, the couple welcomed their own daughter, Gill, who was born just 19 days before Eric’s death in June 1955.

National Service and Life in Dorset

On 31^st December 1953, Eric was called up for National Service with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and was subsequently posted to Dorset in February 1954 after a brief period at the Royal Naval barracks in Portsmouth.

His duties required him to alternate between land-based and sea-based assignments every six months.  At the time of his death, Eric was serving on “HMS Maidstone”, the Submarine Depot ship of the Second Submarine Squadron [where he was known as the "Young Doctor"], and combining his medical responsibilities with that of Sports Officer for the ship. Despite the demands of his service, Eric was able to reside with his young family in a caravan situated at Southwell farm four miles from Portland Harbour. Their daughter, Gill, joined them for only a few days following her birth.

The HMS Sidon Submarine (P259)

“HMS Sidon”, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Hugh Tyrrell Verry, a midget submarine specialist [1925-2010], was a Royal Navy submarine launched in September 1944. Built by Cammell Laird & Co Limited in Birkenhead, Sidon was part of the third group of S class submarines and was named after the naval bombardment of Sidon in 1840. In 1953, the submarine participated in the Fleet Review to celebrate the Coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II.

The Disaster on Thursday 16th June 1955

On the morning of 16^th June 1955 “HMS Sidon” was moored alongside the depot ship “HMS Maidstone” in Portland Harbour, tied up between two other submarines, “HMS Subtle” and a Danish V class sub, the “Saelen”, preparing to proceed to sea for an exercise. Sidon had two 21-inch Mark 12 high test peroxide-powered torpedoes loaded for testing, with fifty-six officers and crew aboard. These torpedoes, known as Mk 12 or "Fancy SR," were converted from Mk 8 torpedoes to use high test peroxide (HTP) motors. The Mk 8 torpedoes contained metals that could violently react with HTP, potentially causing catastrophic explosions.

At 8:25 am, an explosion occurred in one of the "Fancy" torpedoes (not the warhead itself) in the No. 3 torpedo tube. The blast blew open the tube’s bow cap and blew off the rear door, allowing seawater to flood in. The explosion caused major damage to the submarine's stowage compartment, watertight door, and bulkhead, as well as the crew space and wardroom causing a barrier of debris. Toxic fumes, fire, and smoke quickly filled the hull. Twelve men in the forward compartments were to die, either from flying debris, the pressure wave resulting from the breach or the toxic fumes; seven others were seriously injured.

Lieutenant-Commander Verry, who was on the bridge, initially thought the explosion was caused by the batteries but soon realised the true extent of the disaster when he saw an injured crew member. After ordering the DSEA hatches to be opened, Verry attempted to assess the damage but was blocked by wreckage. At this point, Sidon was down by the bow with a list to starboard, and water was pouring in, causing the submarine to sink.

The Admiralty signal “SUB SUNK” brought all rescue forces into action…

Rescue Efforts and Tragedy

As the disaster unfolded, the crew aboard “HMS Maidstone” sounded the alarm and dispatched a sea rescue party equipped with fire-fighting equipment and breathing apparatus. The naval mooring vessel “Moordale” was transiting across the harbour and turned to assist and as the Sidon began to dip by the bow, secured a wire around her stern, but she was unable to hold the submarine on the surface. The Commander Submarines aboard Maidstone recognised the severity of the situation and ordered Lieutenant-Commander Verry to "abandon ship." Despite efforts to close the after hatch and seal the submarine, the attempt failed. Crew members aft of the wardroom survived and evacuated in an orderly fashion, though many were dazed and confused. The torpedo party, including the Squadron Armament Officer, Lieutenant-Commander [E] Jerrold Needham and five ratings, died instantly. A second officer, Lieutenant Julien Rycroft, and five more ratings also succumbed to fumes and lost their lives. The loss of the submarine deeply affected Verry for the remainder of his life.

Eric Rhodes' Heroic Actions

Eric Rhodes, whose role aboard “HMS Maidstone” was to care for naval personnel, was in the wardroom at 8:25am eating his breakfast when the explosion occurred. He immediately left his ship to provide medical assistance to the trapped and injured on “HMS Sidon”. Eric entered the stricken submarine twice, in all helping to bring at least three survivors to safety by pushing them up the conning tower. On his second attempt, he used a Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus³ [DSEA], despite having no training with the equipment. Tragically, Eric lost his life in the process having been overcome by the fumes, his cause of death being attributed to asphyxiation: he was 27 years old. His body was later recovered from the middle of the control room near the foot of the conning tower.

Eric was due to take a period of leave at the end of the month taking his family to Jersey where he could lie on the sandy beaches and listen to the radio commentary of the Wimbledon Championships. His period of National Service was scheduled to finish in the late Autumn and he was destined to take up a new civilian medical appointment in Doncaster.

Aftermath of the Disaster

Around 8:50 am, "HMS Sidon", containing the bodies of twelve officers and sailors as well as Eric Rhodes, sank to the bottom of Portland Harbour, coming to rest 36 feet down with a 25-degree list to starboard. Specialist Royal Navy divers were flown in and worked through the night to attach high-pressure air hoses to the hull. Despite attempts to salvage the submarine by pumping air, persistent leaks prevented success. Salvage vessels from Dover and Portsmouth arrived, attaching buoyant steel tubes called 'Camels' to the wreck. These tubes were flooded to sink and then pumped out to lift the submarine to the surface.

Every evening since the sinking Josephine drove the four miles from her caravan home to the cliff top overlooking the harbour to see if the Sidon had been brought to the surface.

“People may think I am morbid but I cannot be content until I see the submarine. After all my husband died in it. Even now it is hard to realise my husband is dead. We were shopping in Weymouth together the day before it happened.”

Eric's cousin Patricia didn't hear about what had happened until later that night:

“I first heard about this accident when we were in bed. We put on the late-night news and it said this submarine has sunk in Portland Harbour and several people have lost their lives. I realised it was Eric immediately. You don't expect these things in peacetime, do you? An accident is an accident but it's still a horrible, horrible shock.”

Sidon was finally raised on the morning of Thursday 23^rd June 1955, and towed to a causeway off Chesil Beach the next day. There, the thirteen victims were removed from the stricken vessel by a medical officer and Sidon's uninjured submariners for a military burial with full honours at the Portland Royal Naval Cemetery overlooking the harbour.

Once all the formalities were complete the surviving crew were split up and posted elsewhere.

The Inquest - 27th June 1955

Final Disposition of HMS Sidon

Sidon was refloated and returned to port. On 14^th June 1957, she was towed to a position off Chickerell, Dorset, and deliberately sunk to serve as an ASDIC target, where she remains to this day.

Inquiry and Legacy

The Naval Court of Inquiry determined the accident was caused by a malfunctioning "Fancy" torpedo. The torpedo began a "hot-run," starting its engine inside the submarine and producing extremely high fuel system pressures. The oxidizer line burst, spraying HTP onto copper fittings inside the torpedo, which then decomposed into oxygen and steam. The warhead did not detonate, but the hull burst violently, rupturing the torpedo tube and causing the flooding that destroyed the boat. Whilst the final report did make some criticisms of actions and judgements, no blame was attached to Lieutenant-Commander Verry or any other officers or crew. The torpedo programme was terminated, and the torpedoes were withdrawn from service by 1959.

A Royal Presentation: Honouring Eric Rhodes

The Award Ceremony for Josephine Rhodes

Notwithstanding any previous arrangements, the Lord Chamberlain’s office received direct instructions from Her Majesty. She decreed that, should Josephine Rhodes be able to travel to London on Tuesday, 6^th December 1955, the award would be presented to her on that day. Additionally, special dispensation was granted for both of Eric’s parents to accompany Josephine, ensuring the family could be together for the occasion.

Private Audience at Buckingham Palace

On the appointed day, the small family group travelled to London at government expense, and were received in a private audience at Buckingham Palace by the Queen. In this intimate setting, Josephine Rhodes was formally presented with her late husband’s award, marking a poignant moment for the family.

Family After the Disaster

A memorial stone stands adjacent to the Portland Cenotaph, where an annual memorial service has been held on 16^th June [since the 50^th anniversary in 2005] organised by the Dorset Submariners Association. 

Gill’s husband Fred said: “That weekend in 2005 was the most emotional weekend we have ever spent. A lovely man came and spoke to Gilly – he was one of the divers from the Maidstone. He had to report to Gill’s father and said to Gilly ‘I remember you as a three-week-old baby in the ward room’. He came up to her and gave her a big hug.”

At the time of Eric's death, his daughter Gill was just weeks old and was later christened in the bow of “HMS Maidstone” on Sunday 21^st August 1955. Josephine, together with a colleague, plus support from the Royal Navy, later opened a nursing home near Portland.

Josephine later went on to marry Hector Redshaw in 1957 whom she had met whilst at the Nursing Home, and their son Simon was born in 1959. The Home was subsequently sold after this marriage with Josephine, her new husband and children, going to live on a farm. Regrettably this marriage also failed and in September 1966 Josephine married Eric Allen, but this marraige too was not to last. She passed away in October 1996 and now rests in All Saints Churchyard in Purleigh, Essex under the name Josephine Dorothy Rhodes.

"Josephine would have loved to have attended the now annual memorial services,” Gill said.

“I think she found dad’s funeral quite traumatic. There were 13 coffins and they were trailed all the way up from the bottom of Portland to the naval cemetery at the top. I just think it’s really sad that he didn’t make it and couldn’t get out of the submarine, he didn’t come out alive.”

“I do think about that, that he was just down the bottom of the conning tower before they closed the hatch.

My grandad Rhodes, dad’s father, never rested after what happened and wanted answers after the accident. He always felt he never fully knew what happened.

I think about the other submariners who have passed away, they were so young and they all lost their lives that day.

I think about how I would have had a very different life if he had survived.”

Dr Archibald Clark-Kennedy, MA, MD, FRCP, [1893-1985] was Dean of the London Hospital Medical College when Eric Rhodes was a medical student. After his death he wrote the following in the British Medical Journal of 25^th June 1955.

Rhodes was a student when I was Dean of the London Hospital Medical College and when he qualified he became my house-physician. So it was my privilege to know him well, and the good fortune of others to know him well too. For through his personality he left his mark on the college, and, had this disaster never happened, he would still have been among those we all remember and always rejoice to meet again. Why was he so much liked? For his ready willingness to help others, I think; for his kindly tolerance of incompetence in the beginner; for his ever readiness to organise activities so that others might enjoy themselves; for his ability as a leader often of the lesser men; for his quiet competence in getting things done; for his love of helping others to do the many things which he so rightly thought worthwhile doing himself .

Reasons such as these led him to become the first non-playing secretary of rugger and, although exceedingly short sighted, a pillar of the second fifteen.  All in the know agree that our present high standard at the game is largely due to his energy and enthusiasm. But his intimate friends will remember him, not on the rugger field, rather on summer seas in a dinghy instructing a beginner in the art on the estuary at Burnham, or more than pulling his weight in a larger boat on some ocean race. Quietly he organised me. His patients loved him and he was always ready to give a helping hand to the diffident clerk. Intellectually he was not exceptional, but what mattered that?

Far more important his energy and enthusiasm for everything he touched turned him into a first-class all-round doctor, and, had he lived he would have found his rightful place among the élite of general practitioners. But that was not to be. His love of the sea took him, when that time came, into the Navy, and when the call came he did exactly what, as so many have said to me, they would have expected Rhodes to do under the circumstances with which he was so suddenly confronted.

So he died true to the profession in which he had so recently started, true to the tradition of the Navy in which he was privileged temporarily to serve, above all true to himself as a man and to the sea on which his heart was set. The deepest sympathy of all at the London go out to his widow in her pride and her distress.

Remembrance Sunday 11^th November 2007 had a special significance for Wrekin College. Gill Dash, the daughter of  Surgeon-Lieutenant Eric Rhodes AM, was present, proudly wearing  the Albert Medal which had been presented to her mother as a new memorial was consecrated to the memory of the three OW’s who lost their lives in the Malayan Emergency of 1948-60 together with the two Albert Medallists who died in 1955.

The wreath was laid by Surgeon Commodore James Sykes (S.1963-67), who at that time was the Medical Officer i/c The Institute of Naval Medicine at Gosport.

Later that month the OWA received a letter from Rev’d Canon David Murray Main [1928-2016], Head of School from 1945-46, and who had been in Saxon House with Eric. This is an extract of that letter.

Eric is also commemorated by name on the Armed Forces Memorial located within the 150 acre National Memorial Arboretum⁴ in Staffordshire.

1. Sunny Bank School, which in Eric’s day was run by the Misses Farrer & Rhodes, closed in 2006.
    
2. End-of-term reports at the time were compiled by the Housemaster and were regarded as being for “internal use only”: they were not circulated to pupils or parents!
    
3. Davis Submerged Escape Appartus – DSEA -  was an early type of oxygen rebreather invented in 1910 by Sir Robert Davis, head of Siebe Gorman and Co. Ltd., inspired by the earlier Fleuss system, and adopted by the Royal Navy after further development by Davis in 1927.
    
4. The estate will become the Royal British Legion National Remembrance Gardens in September 2026, following a full integration with their parent charity, the Royal British Legion (RBL).

My thanks to Gill Rhodes Dash, and her husband Fred, for their time and sharing memories and artfefacts of the past.

A copy of this story may be downloaded here.

Appendices     [click on the appendix number to access]

Appendix 1: HMS Sidon Naval - SITREPS (Situation Reports) 16^th & 17^th June 1955

Appendix 2: HM Government correspondence re Medallic recognition for Surgeon Lieutenant Eric Rhodes, RNVR

Appendix 3: Admiralty Board of Enquiry – Witness Statements [contains graphic detail of injuries inflicted on the casualties]

• Captain G.D.A. Gregory DSO*, RN, CO HMS Maidstone and Captain (S/M) Second Submarine Squadron
• Lieutenant-Commander H.T. Verry, RN, CO HMS Sidon
• Dr G.C. Wright, Admiralty Physiologist, Royal Naval Medical School
• Commissioned Engineer Officer R.E. Hawkins, RN, HMS Sidon

Appendix 4: HMS Sidon - Rescue operation

Appendix 5: HMS Sidon - Cause of explosion

Appendix 6: HMS Sidon - Cause of sinking

Appendix 7: Admiralty Board of Enquiry - Photographs