Lieutenant Claude Holloway DSC

LIEUTENANT CLAUDE HOLLOWAY

When in 1938 Claude Holloway told his father that he wanted to join the Royal Navy, he was warned that war was approaching but, undeterred, he enrolled as a seaman and was drafted to the battleship Warspite. While in Warspite in April 1940 he witnessed the dramatic Second Battle of Narvik when the battleship boldly entered a narrow Norwegian fiord, contributing to the sinking or scuttling of eight German destroyers and a U-boat. Later, Warspite moved to the Mediterranean, leading Admiral Cunningham’s first brush with the Italian navy off Calabria in July.
Holloway’s qualities marked him as officer material, so he was sent home in August 1940, emerging in December from the officers’ training base HMS King Alfred as a sub-lieutenant RNVR. He joined Coastal Forces at Chatham and by April 1941 was second-in-command of a powerfully armed motor-launch (ML), taking part in the noisy, violent and mostly night-time actions against German convoys in the North Sea and Channel. In July 1942 he was given his first command of a motor torpedo boat (MTB); his second was loaded in a merchant ship for passage to the Mediterranean, arriving at Malta in July 1943. Under the command of the gallant and much decorated Lieutenant Christopher Dreyer (obituary July 4, 2003) in the 24th MTB Flotilla, Holloway saw plenty of action during Operation Husky, the landings in Sicily, during which he participated in the sinking of a U-boat in the Messina Straits and came under attack from German aircraft and E-boats.
In September 1943 he was one of the seven MTBs that escorted 18 warships of the Italian fleet to their surrender at Malta. A less happy episode was the attack by the German air force on the port of Bari in December. The port was crowded with Allied shipping, full of ammunition and supplies for the 8th Army. Attacked by 20 bombers, the harbour became an inferno with ships sinking and the water thick with burning fuel oil. Some 17 ships were sunk or damaged and about 1000 lives lost. What was not apparent was the mustard gas carried by an American ship as a possible retaliation should chemical weapons be used by the Germans. When Holloway was engaged in rescuing men in the water, he had the misfortune to fall in and became covered in oil and mustard gas.
A prolonged period in hospital in Malta was followed by sick leave in Alexandria and resumption of command in February 1944. During one of the subsequent actions his flotilla leader was killed alongside him. Holloway later transferred to a new MTB and the 28th Flotilla now based at Naples. During the last three months of the war, the 28th Flotilla chalked up a remarkable record, firing 51 torpedoes to sink or immobilise 21 ships. He was awarded the DSC for his torpedo attack on a convoy off the Istrian coast on April 16, 1945.
The Germans surrendered on May 2. Thereafter Holloway was senior officer of the 28th Flotilla at Malta in a training role until it paid off in November 1945. During this time he was able to get back to Naples, arriving on April 15 and marrying his fiancé, Anne Gaylor, a Wren serving at Ischia, the next day.
After the war Holloway took up stockbroking, rising to a partnership in Laurence Prust and Co and retiring in 1984. He was the founding member and first chairman of the Wadhurst Social Action Project to support the sick, lonely, handicapped and housebound in the village and surrounds. He was a member of Rye golf club for 47 years. His mild-mannered and modest nature was also noted for its steely determination.
His wife Anne died in 1996. He is survived by their two sons.
Lieutenant Claude Holloway DSC RNVR, coastal forces captain and stockbroker, was born on May 14, 1919. He died on March 25 aged 92.