Eric Maurice Pay

Name

Eric Maurice Pay

Conflict

Second World War

Date of Death / Age

23/05/1941
18

Rank, Service Number & Service Details

Ordinary Telegraphist
P/JX 163503
Royal Navy
H.M.S. Fiji

Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards

Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country

PORTSMOUTH NAVAL MEMORIAL
Panel 53, Column 1.
United Kingdom

Headstone Inscription

NA

UK & Other Memorials

Hitchin Town Memorial, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin

Biography

He joined up in 1940 and trained as a telegraphist at H.M.S. ‘Ganges’ and was given the Service Number P/JX 163503. He joined the crew of H.M.S. ‘Fiji’ which was a cruiser of 8,000 tons built in 1939. The warship was being used to prevent Italian convoys sending reinforcements and supplies from Greece to Crete. Several Luftwaffe aircraft were shot down in attacks on a number of warships off the coast of Crete. At 18.45hrs on the 22nd May 1941 the ‘Fiji’ capsized and sank at 20.15hrs after several hits from air attacks at position 34 35N 23 10E, which is off the island of Antikithera. Eric was one of many reported missing. The losses were 17 officers and 224 ratings. 


He has no known grave, but the sea and is remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial to the Missing on Panel 5 3 Column 1. 


He bad a twin brother also in the Royal Navy and was the son of William Walter and Nellie Bertha Pay of 7, Charlton, Hitchin. 

Acknowledgments

David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Paul Johnson - local historian, ‘Warship Losses of W.W.II’ by D. Brown, ‘Dictionary of Disasters at Sea’ by C. Hocking, Herts Pictorial dated 3rd June 1941