Petty Officer Air Fitter George Richardson

Petty Officer Air Fitter George Thomas Richardson, Royal Navy ( Fleet Air Arm ). He was lost aboard H.M.S. “Dasher” on Active Service on 27th March 1943, aged 23 and is commemorated on the Fleet Air Arm Lee-on-Solent Memorial, Hampshire.  He had been born at Drakemyre, Berwickshire and was the son of Mary Richardson of Wester Row, Greenlaw. H.M.S. “Dasher” was an “Avenger ” Class Escort Carrier which were ships based on converted merchant hulls and  had been used to carry  Hawker Sea Hurricanes in support of Operation Torch, the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa.  She had returned to the Clyde for refit when on 27th March she suffered a massive internal explosion and sank with the loss of 379 of her 555 crew. Various investigations failed to discover the cause and at the time the disaster was hushed up for the sake of public morale. There is a Memorial at Ardrossan in honour of the dead which was unveiled in 1993.