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Lloyd Richards Signed Naval Art
Lloyd Richards
Llloyd Richards was born on the island of Guernsey on 8th July 1919. He joined the Royal Navy in December 1934, serving on HMS Royal Sovereign in 1936 and then HMS Royal Oak for duties on the south coast of Spain on intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War. His next appointment was to HMS Guardian for anti-submarine net laying and target towing. Lloyd then joined the Fleet Air Arm in 1938 and trained at HMS Raven (now Southampton airport) and RAF Aldergrove Signal School. He then flew to RNAS Hatston to reform 803 squadron for duties on HMS Ark Royal flying Skuas. In June 1940 Lloyd was shot down during the attack by the Scharnhorst, taken prisoner and held in a German POW camp but escaped a few months before the end of the war. Serving as the wireless operator in the back of the Skua of pilot Sub Lt Bartlett on 12th June 1940, the Skuas were without the planned air cover from Blenheim aircraft and were decimated by the German fighter cover for the ships. With eight of the fifteen aircraft shot down almost straight away, and with fire from the ships exploding all around them, their Skua was eventually hit by cannon fire which injured Sub Lt Bartlett. Despite coming close to losing consciousness through blood loss, Bartlett managed to get his bomb away and pull out of their steep dive. The damaged aircraft crash landed in a field, and Lloyd Richards was trapped in the back of the cockpit for a while, before hacking a hole in the aircraft to escape, helping the injured Bartlett out as well. They were soon captured, and while Bartleet was sent for medical attention, Richards was sent to a POW camp. As a POW he was transferred to several different camps until 1945. On another march between camps, he escaped, and eventually found an Allied camp after a trek of some 400 miles. He was returned to the UK, and some years later returned to his native Guernsey.
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Supreme Courage by Philip West. Skuas flew from HMS Ark Royal through much of the 1940 campaign off Norway, and one is seen getting airborne in typically grey North Sea weather. The Blackburn Skua had many remarkable firsts to its credit; the first all-metal monoplane built for the Fleet Air Arm (FAA); the first dive bomber in British air services; the first enemy aircraft shot down in WW2 fell to a Skua; the first fighter ace in the FAA (Lt. Bill Lucy DSO) flew Skuas and the first warship (Konigsberg) destroyed by dive bombing was sunk by Skuas. |
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