Stoker 2nd Class P/KX 136545 John Nicholls

Family details:
Son of John and Sarah Nicholls, of St. Helens, Lancashire.

Census details:
1939 Register. Unfortunately John and two other members of the household are redacted. Father John Nicholls born 08/05/1897 a Colliery Hewer Below, mother Sarah Nicholls born 08/05/1900 an Unpaid Domestic amd sister Doris Bennett (Nicholls) born 13/05/1929 At School are living at 114 Recreation Street, Parr, St Helens.

Notes:
[note=14]Remembered on Parr Central Memorial[/note]

[b][pic]imgs/sppics/[/b]HMS_Eagle_WW2.jpg[/pic][caption][b]HMS Eagle[/caption][/b] Chilean Dreadnought battleship purchased by the Admiralty on 28th February 1918 and converted for use as an aircraft carrier. This ship had been laid down at Elswick by Armstrongs on 20th February 1913 and was to have been named ALMIRANTE COCHRANE. After purchase build was continued and she was launched as EAGLE on 8th June 1918. Conversion for deployment in this new role was completed on 20th February 1924. WW2 Service. At the outbreak of World War II, HMS Eagle was at Singapore and in October 1939 she was part of Force I hunting for the German ship pocket battleship [b]Admiral Graf Spee[/b]. For the first two months of 1940 she was escorting troop transports in the Indian Ocean but on 14 March 1940 was damaged by an internal explosion in her foreward bomb room, when 13 ratings were killed, and she returned to Singapore for repairs. HMS Eagle joined the Mediterranean fleet in May 1940. On 5 July her aircraft attacked enemy shipping in Tobruk. They sank the Italian destroyer [b]Zeffiro[/b], the merchant ships [b]Manzoni[/b] (3,955 tons) and [b]Serenitas[/b] (5,171 tons) besides damaging the [b]Liguria[/b] (15,354 tons) which was later scuttled. After four days she was in action off Calabria when her aircraft attacked the Italian fleet. During her return to Alexandria after this engagement she was heavily bombed and four Italian bombers were shot down during the attacks. On 20 July 1940, on another attack on shipping in Tobruk, her aircraft sank the Italian destroyers [b]Ostro[/b] and [b]Nembo[/b] as well as the merchant ship [b]Sereno[/b] (2,333 tons). On 22 August her aircraft attacked and sank the Italian submarine [b]Iride[/b] in the Gulf of Bomba. At the end of the month she took part in Operation 'Hats' in a reinforcement of the Mediterranean fleet, and her aircraft attacked the airfield at Maritza, Rhodes. For the next six months she provided cover for convoys in the Eastern Mediterranean, her aircraft attacked Italian airfields, laid mines, and attacked shipping. HMS Eagle took part in one of the most memorable Fleet Air Arm events in history. On 11 November 1940, five of her aircraft which were embarked in HMS Illustrious took part in the attack on Italian battleships at Taranto. Subsequently, she was ordered through the Suez canal in March 1941. Her aircraft flew to Port Sudan and assisted in the destruction of the Italian ships at Massawa and in the Red Sea. She arrived at Simonstown, South Africa on 8th May and then proceeded to Freetown, remaining on the South Atlantic station until October 1941. On 6 June 1941 her aircraft sank the German merchant [b]Elbe[/b] (9,179 tons) and on 15 June 1941, in conjunction with the British light cruiser HMS Dunedin, she intercepted the U-boat supply ship [b]Lothringen[/b] (10,746 tons) which surrendered about 1000 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands. After completing a major refit in early 1942, the ship made multiple trips delivering fighter aircraft to Malta to boost its air defences in the first half of 1942. [i]Eagle[/i] was torpedoed and sunk by the German Submarine U-73 on 11 August 1942 while escorting a convoy to Malta during Operation Pedestal. [b]The Sinking. [/b] On the early afternoon of 11 August, [i]Eagle[/i] was hit by four torpedoes from the U-Boat U-73 commanded by Helmut Rosenbaum, and sank within four minutes, 70 nautical miles south of Cape Salinas. 131 officers and men, mainly from the ship's machinery spaces, were lost in the sinking, Sixteen Sea Hurricanes were lost; four from 801 were aloft when the ship was torpedoed, and landed on other carriers. The destroyers Laforey and Lookout and the tug [i]Jaunty[/i] rescued 67 officers and 862 sailors. 163 lives where lost, including John Nicholls. [br] [center][pic2]imgs/sppics/Nicholls_Portsmouth.jpg[/pic2][/center][caption]The panel on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial bearing the name of Stoker 2nd Class John Nicholls[/caption]