Able Seaman Cecil Patterson

Able Seaman Cecil Harold Patterson, Royal Navy. He was lost at sea aboard H.M.S. “Cossack” on 23rd October 1941, aged 38 and is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial. He was the son of Frederick and Kate Patterson and the husband of Elsie Patterson of North End, Portsmouth. ” Cossack ” was a Tribal class destroyer completed at Vickers Armstrong in June 1938 and displaced 2,500 tons with a crew of 190. She had been involved in several famous actions including the freeing of naval prisoners from the German ship the ” Altmark “, the Second Battle of Narvik and the hunt for the German Battleship ” Bismarck “. On the 23rd October she was escorting a convoy from Gibraltar to the U.K when she was torpedoed by U-563. She was taken in tow by a tug but in worsening weather the tow was slipped and she sank on 27th October. 159 of the crew were lost. U-563 was herself sunk with all hands in the Bay of Biscay on 31st May 1943 by two R.A.F. Halifax bombers.