Chief Petty Officer Hector McDonald

Chief Petty Officer, Hector McDonald, Royal Navy. He was lost at sea, aged 41, aboard H.M.S. “Hecla” on 12th November 1942 and is commemorated on the Plymouth Memorial. He had been born in Peebles and was the son of the late William and Agnes McDonald and the husband of Annie McDonald of Charles Court, Lauder. He had joined the Navy as a boy in 1917. The ship was a Destroyer Depot Ship of 11,000 tons and was operating as a support vessel for Operation”Torch” when she was sunk by U-515 West off Gibraltar with 279 crew lost and 568 rescued. ( U-515 was sunk on 9th April 1944 by U.S. Destroyers). The ship had hit a mine on 15th May 1942 but was towed into Simonstown, South Africa where she was repaired. 24 sailors were lost and 112 wounded on that occasion. The sketch drawn by a survivor shows the “Hecla” sinking.