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
