HANDLEY, Arthur, 7045828, Gunner.
4/2 Maritime Regiment, Royal Artillery.
He was born in the summer of 1911 at Darlaston, the son of Arthur and Dora E Handley (nee Ellis).
He was killed in action on the 15th January 1943.
Gunner Handley was a DEMS (Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships) Gunner employed to operate weapons of various calibres on Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships. At the time of his death, Gunner Handley was aboard the S.S. Ocean Courage either as a Gunner attached to the ship or as one of two DEMS Gunners on passage to their next assignment.
S.S. Ocean Courage was a transport which had been launched in June 1942. She had left Freetown on the 12th of January bound for Trinidad and then the United States carrying 8,956 tons of iron ore and eight bags of mail. Armed with one 3 inch gun, three 20mm cannons and two machine guns, she was sailing unescorted. At 0315 on the 15th of January she was attacked by the German U-Boat U-182. A torpedo struck the Ocean Courage on the port side at the bulkhead of Number 2 hold and was sinking, bow first, within 90 seconds. Without time to launch the lifeboats the crew had little chance of survival, only six finding refuge on a raft. The remaining 42 members of the crew, including all eight DEMS Gunners and the Master, Thomas Harold Kemp perished. The six survivors were rescued six days later by the crew of the British Motor Merchant Vessel Silver Walnut. U-182, Commanded by KapitanLeutnant Nicolai Clausen, was herself sunk in May 1943 when attacked with depth charges by the American Destroyer U.S.S. MacKenzie. None of the 61 crew survived the sinking.
He has no grave but the sea and is remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.
DARLASTON REMEMBERS 