Able Seaman D/SSX 25776 George Oswald Seaman Campbell, HMS Gloucester was born the 17th of June, 1920, the son of Mrs J Campbell.
George joined the Royal Navy about 1938 and at some time he went aboard the cruiser HMS Gloucester.
With a main armament of 6 inch guns, the Town Class cruiser HMS Gloucester was commissioned on the 31st of January 1939.
From early 1940, the ship was in the midst of action in the Mediterranean, engaged in coastal bombardment, convoy escort and surface engagements, particularly notable being the Battles of Matapan and Otranto.
In May 1941 the Royal Navy was heavily engaged in supporting allied troops on the island of Crete which was being invaded by German forces.
Ship losses from air attack were heavy and Gloucester fell fowl of one such attack by Stuka dive bombers at 15.50 on the 22nd fourteen miles north of Crete.
Several bombs hit the ship and she sank soon after. Of the 807 men on board, there were only 85 survivors, but George was not one of them, his body was never found and he is remembered on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.
The Huddersfield and Holmfirth Examiner for the 31st of May 1941 reported upon Able Seaman D/SSX 25776 George Oswald Seaman Campbell being reported missing. T
he paper reports that his mother, Mrs J Walsh of 21, St Paul's Street, Huddersfield had recently received the news, following the loss of HMS Gloucester off Crete.
The paper goes on to report that George was dangerously wounded at the Battle of Oran and following recovery saw action in the Battles of Otranto and Matapan. He was twenty years old and had joined the navy “three years ago and it is more than two years since he was last home on leave. Before joining the Navy he had spent two years with the local territorials and was employed at the works of Messrs Joseph Lumb and sons of Folly Hall where he was known by fellow workers by the sobriquet “Happy”. As a boy he attended Beaumont Council School. (*)
As an incidental, the same issue of the newspaper reports upon three men of Huddersfield, lost in the sinking of HMS Hood
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