Kent man’s gallantry features in new book
Old matelots and admirers of the Royal Navy are in for a treat.
A new book by Chris Bilham, takes a new approach to telling the stories of those waging war at sea.
Mr Bilham has chosen 23 men from a cross-section of ranks who won medals during the war - and looks into the story behind those medals.
The subjects in the new title served in nearly every kind of warship and in all the main theatres of the war and their individual acts of gallantry under extreme conditions make for inspiring reading.
Mr Bilham illustrates a cross-section of the war-time Navy long-service regulars, volunteers and recalled veterans of the Great War.
One of those to feature is a Maidstone man, Cyril James Harden.
Mr Harden, an Ordnance Artificer 1st Class was mentioned in despatches for bravery and enterprise in the Battle of Matapan.
The battle was one of the few bright spots for the Royal Navy in the early years of the war - a crushing defeat over the Italian navy.
Harden was born in 1903 and had joined the Navy at 21 in 1924 long before the war broke out.
HMS Warspite was his seventh ship when he joined it in 1937.
In the early part of the war, she was on North Atlantic convoy escort, but when the Germans invaded Norway, Warspite was involved in the Battle of Narvik, which saw the destruction of eight German destroyers and a U-boat.
In 1940, Warspite returned to the Mediterranean as flagship for Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, taking part on the Battle of Calabria and destroying the Italian flagship Giulio Cesare.
In March 1941, it fell to Harden who was in charge of the ship’s fire control system when the Warspite attacked another Italian fleet at the Battle of Matapan.
In his memoirs, the admiral recalled the calmness of Harden’s voice as he laid down fire.
Warspite, assisted by HMS Greyhound and HMS Valiant sunk three heavy cruisers and two destroyers without a single British casualty.
The Italian navy were so shaken by the defeat that they stayed in port for months afterwards.
Harden remained in the Navy until December 1946, serving on board HMS Resolution in the Far East against the Japanese.
In 1944, he was aboard HMS Ramilies when it fired more than 1,000 rounds at the Germans in support of the Normandy landings.
His medals include the 193945 Star, the Atlantic Star with clasp ‘ France and Germany’, the Africa Star, the Burma Star, the War Medal 1939-45 with MID, the Royal Navy Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, GVIR.
Sailors Behind The Medals, by Chris Bilham, £25, is published by Pen and Sword Books.