Blue plaque honour for Belfast VC hero who sank Japanese warship
NORTHERN Ireland’s sole Victoria Cross recipient is to be commemorated with a special blue plaque.
Submariner James Joseph Magennis, a trained diver, won the UK’s highest military honour for his bravery onboard a midget sub that attacked the Japanese cruiser Takao in Singapore Harbour on July 31, 1945.
Born into a working class Catholic family from Majorca Street, he joined the Royal Navy aged 15.
He was tasked with attaching six mines to the enemy vessel in the risky covert operation.
But he ran into difficulties when he was unable to exit his vessel, the XE-3, as the hatch wouldn’t open properly, such was its proximity to the target.
A citation published in the London Gazette on November 9, 1945, describes how Magennis, who was forced to squeeze through the narrow space available, experienced further problems due to “the foul state” and “pronounced slope” of the Japanese vessel, which prevented the mines from sticking.
“Before a limpet could be placed therefore Magennis had thoroughly to scrape the area clear of barnacles, and in order to secure the limpets he had to tie them in pairs by a line passing under the cruiser keel,” it added.
“This was very tiring work for a diver, and he was moreover handicapped by a steady leakage of oxygen which was ascending in bubbles to the surface.
“A lesser man would have been content to place a few limpets and then to return to the craft.”
Magennis, however, persisted with his mission before returning to the sub in an exhausted condition.
He had spent 30 minutes scraping the hull of the Takao with his knife and risked being spotted the entire time.
Shortly after he withdrew, his colleague Lieutenant Ian Fraser, who was also awarded the VC for his role, endeavoured to jettison his limpet carriers but one of them failed to release and fall clear of the craft.
Magennis at once volunteered to leave the craft again and free the carrier by hand rather than allow a less experienced diver to
undertake the job — it took seven minutes to complete the nerve-racking task using a heavy spanner.
His “great courage, devotion to duty and a complete disregard
for his own safety” was recognised by King George VI on November 13, 1945 when the highest award for gallantry was bestowed on him.
Magennis continued his service until 1949 when he returned
home to Belfast with his wife Edna Skidmore and their four sons.
Many blamed sectarianism for the fact he did not receive the Freedom of Belfast for his exceptional courage.
In 1952 he lost his job and was forced to sell his VC medal, which was later returned by an anonymous benefactor on the condition that he did not sell it again.
Magennis spent the rest of his life in Yorkshire working as an electrician before dying of lung cancer on February 11, 1986 aged 66.
He died just hours before his heroism was to be honoured by the Royal Navy Philatelic Office.
The Submariners Association decided to erect blue plaques at the former homes of 14 VC recipients from the Royal Navy’s Submarine Service in 2012.
The plaque will be erected alongside an already existing Ulster History Circle Blue Plaque (inset) on the Royal Navy Association Headquarters building on Great Victoria Street next Saturday at 2pm.
Secretary of the NI branch Chris Batten said the gesture serves as a “fitting reminder” that the relatively small Royal Navy unit “has more than its fair share of heroes”.