Other Members of the Crew of HMS Halcyon

With Halcyon until 27.9.40 when hit mine. Then transferred to Repulse (died when she was sunk 10.12.41)

Hamilton

Born on 3rd March 1924, he died on 8^th September 2002

The son of a doctor, David Stanley Tibbits was born at Warwick on April 11 1911, educated at Dartmouth in the St Vincent term and went to sea aged 16. After serving in the battleship Queen Elizabeth, flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet, Tibbits became one of the youngest officers to specialise in navigation. As the junior member of his course he expected the dullest appointment until a colleague fell sick, and he was given a pierhead jump to the minesweeping sloop Scarborough on the American and West Indies Station.

Luck continued to play a part in Tibbits's career, and two days after the sloop arrived at Bermuda he met his future wife. As war loomed, he served in a minesweeping flotilla during the Abyssinian crisis, in the minesweeper Halcyon during the Spanish Civil War, and was navigator of the 1st Submarine Flotilla at Malta.

At the start of the war, Tibbits was in the heavy cruiser York, with which he saw nearly every campaign of 1939 to 1941 until she was wrecked in Suda Bay, Crete. He tried to save York, when she was badly damaged by Italian explosive "suicide" motorboats, then beached her; but there she became a sitting duck for German air attacks.

Eventually Tibbits was evacuated in the light cruiser Orion, in which he was subjected to heavy bombing. He returned home via the Cape as a passenger in the liner Otranto to join the cruiser Devonshire.

On November 22 1941, Devonshire found Atlantis, a disguised German raider which had sunk 22 merchant ships of some 150,000 tons. Tibbits identified the enemy from a picture in the American magazine Life and navigated Devonshire as she destroyed the raider. This involved launching her reconnaissance aircraft for early identification, manoeuvring outside the enemy's gun range, signalling for confirmation of false identity and setting her on fire with just four salvos from her 8 in guns.

Atlantis had been supplying U-boats which were still in the area, so her survivors were left in their lifeboats. Next Tibbits planned Operation Ironclad, the invasion of Madagascar. This required a difficult entry at night by a large fleet into Courrier Bay, which Tibbits achieved undetected and unopposed; he was awarded the DSC.

In 1944, Tibbits worked in the stables in Southwick House, outside Portsmouth, on the plans for the D-Day landings. This was followed by appointment to the battleship Anson, destined for the British Pacific Fleet and the relief of Hong Kong.

Source: Daily Telegraph Obituaries - Captain Sir David Tibbits 2.6.2003

Also, his name was written on HMS Halcyon Union flag dated 8th May 1945.
Source: Sue Chapman, daughter of Robert Hamilton