Name
Frederick John (Ted) Males
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
22/05/1943
20
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Ordinary Seaman
C/JX 376323
Royal Navy
H.M.S. Armadillo
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CHATHAM NAVAL MEMORIAL
70, 2.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
NA
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Boys’ Grammar School Memorial (WW2), Pirton Village Memorial
Biography
He attended the Hitchin Grammar School from 1934-1939. He was assisted to the school by a Rand's Educational Trust Scholarship and, after gaining his School Certificate, was employed by Vauxhall Motors in Luton as a trainee draughtsman and then went to the British Tabulating Machine Co. Ltd in Letchworth. He was interested in cricket and tennis.
In 1942 he joined the Chatham Division of the Royal Navy with the Service Number C/JX 376323. He went into Combined Operations with a Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla based on H.M.S. Armadillo at Inverary, Scotland, the Nominal Depot Ship being a 16ft trawler used as a Naval Beach Commando School.
The day before he died he was complimented on his smartness and efficiency by Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten who was then Chief of Combined Operations. About that time, units were landing on the Normandy beaches to investigate beach conditions in preparation for the landings the following year.
The Admiralty informed his parents that on the 22nd May 1943 a night exercise was in progress, when there was an explosion in the motor torpedo boat and the craft sank immediately. This may have been the 75 ton Motor Launch 133. Whether this night exercise was in training or in action has not been established. The Commodore at Chatham wrote that Ted was reported missing presumed killed and that there was no hope that he might have survived. Curiously, the Navy informed his parents that he was entitled to prize money so that it is reasonably certain that he had been engaged on active service at some stage. Another strange occurrence was that although his body was not recovered, his identity disc was later returned to his parents along with other personal effects and the prize money. This raises the question of how he came to be separated from his identity discs.
He has no known grave and is remembered on Panel 70 Column 2 of the Chatham Naval Memorial to the Missing.
His parents were Mr and Mrs Arthur Males, and he was the youngest of three brothers. They lived at 11, Davies Crescent, Pirton.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Hitchin Grammar School Chronicle, Hitchin Grammar School Registers, Mr F. Chambers, former Yeoman of Signals, Mrs J.M. Upton - his sister, National Maritime Museum Records, Herts & Beds Express dated 5th June 1943
