THE Arran Banner has received new information supporting the growing claim that World War Two aircraft carrier HMS Dasher was sunk by a plane crashing into it.
The Dasher sank in the Firth of Clyde on March 27, 1943, with the loss of 379 of its 528 crew members.
It was the largest loss of life not in the face of the enemy, and the official probable cause was that vapour in the main petrol compartment ignited, causing an explosion.
But witnesses say the cause of the boat sinking was a bi-plane, possibly one of its own, crashing into it.
One, 84-year-old George Humphreys, wants the Ministry of Defence to admit that was the case.
He believes that the truth was hushed up because the war was not progressing well for the Allies and the country’s morale was low.
Following a story about the Dasher in The Oban Times last week, the paper received a call from Alan Johnston, of Slochavullin, near Kilmartin.
The 57-year-old heating engineer said: ‘I have a keen interest in history, and I was fascinated by the article because it brought back the memory of a conversation I had with a former colleague in Glasgow 20 years.
‘This gentleman, Max, told me how he had been an officer based on the Clyde that day, and told how the Dasher was a merchant ship which had been converted into a carrier.
‘There were a number of vessels like that and they were nicknamed ‘Woolworths carriers’.
He said their design left a space between the deck and the stern of the ship, and according to Max a biplane had struck into this gap, causing the explosion which sank the boat.
‘He said this plane was one of a number which had been practising take-offs and landings.’
Mr Johnston said he also had a friend, now deceased, who was from the Ardrossan area and who had told him that a lot of the kids there were paid sixpence or a shilling to recover bodies from the Dasher washed onto the shoreline.
George was a young signalman on watch on another ship when, he says, he saw, through his telescope, the plane crash into the Dasher.
However, official records insist that the explosion that sank the craft was not due to any external cause. George’s ship’s records for that day have also been obliterated, he says.
This latest information is being passed onto George Humphreys who has pledged to use the national media to continue his fight for the truth.
