Summary
New Plymouth man KEN OTTER has written a book to honour the men of HMS Gloucester, which sank during the Battle of Crete costing hundreds of lives, including that of his father, Chief Petty Officer Fred Otter. Mr Otter jnr's research also turned up one special New Zealand hero. This is his story THE sole New Zealander to survive the terrible sinking of HMS Gloucester in World War II has emerged as one of the tragedy's heroes.
Many of the 83 survivors out of a ship's company of 808 officers and men owed their lives to Surgeon Lieutenant Hugh Singer, a native of Gisborne.See the full content of this document
Extract
Kiwi to the Rescue
Singer, the Gloucester's junior doctor, helped many of the injured before and after the Royal Navy ship went down, sunk by German bombers during the Battle of Crete.
HMS Gloucester, a 9600-ton cruiser, was commissioned in January 1939 and in March of that year sailed from Plymouth to take up her duties as the flagship of the Royal Navy's Far East station in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).One of the ship's young sailors, Michael Noonan, remembered their early, benign adventures: "We had the time of our lives sailing around the Indian Ocean and visiting such exotic places as the Maldives, Seychelles, Mombasa and other places we had only read about at school."John Stevens, an aircraft mec...See the full content of this document
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