Jack Broome
Jack Broome | |
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Other work | Writer and Cartoonist |
Captain John Egerton Broome DSC (23 February 1901 – 19 April 1985), also known as Jackie Broome, was a Royal Navy officer who served in both World Wars. He commanded the escort group of the ill-fated Arctic Convoy PQ 17 in 1942.[1] After the Second World War, he became a writer and illustrator.
Early career
He was born in 1901 in
World War I and between the Wars
In 1917 he was posted as a midshipman to the battleship HMS Colossus in the Grand Fleet.
Shortly after the end of the War, he was promoted
He served in several submarines from 1923 to 1938, except for two short spells on the capital ships HMS Tiger and HMS Royal Oak. Much of this period was spent at the Hong Kong naval station. He married Sybil Nicholas in 1928, with whom he had a son and a daughter.
He reached the rank of commander in 1936, while commanding the submarine, HMS Rainbow. In 1938, he attended a staff course at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich.
Second World War
Broome was judged to be too old in 1939 to command a submarine in wartime. Instead, he was given command of the destroyer HMS Veteran recommissioned from reserve. Characteristically, Broome applied for membership of the Company of Veteran Motorists, who made the ship a life member.
HMS Veteran served in the Norwegian campaign in 1940. While there, her bridge was adorned with a huge stuffed hippopotamus head, acquired by Broome from Formby Golf Club during a spree ashore. Broome also acquired a German torpedo, which had missed its target and run onto the shore of a fjord. Suitably covered in German graffiti, it was eventually handed to the authorities in Rosyth. After the end of the Norwegian campaign, Veteran was assigned to counter a threatened German invasion, and was damaged by an acoustic mine.
With Veteran laid up for extensive repairs, Broome was then assigned as
After several months in this duty, he temporarily served as
PQ 17
Then in June 1942, EG1 was assigned to protect
On 4 July 1942, PQ 17 was attacked several times by torpedo-carrying German aircraft. Three merchant ships were lost, but four aircraft were shot down, and several others damaged. At this point, Admiral Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord, fearing that Tirpitz was about to attack, sent three fateful signals:
- 2111: Most Immediate. Cruiser Force withdraw to westward at high speed
- 2123: Immediate. Owing to threat from surface ships convoy is to disperse and proceed to Russian ports
- 2136: Most Immediate. My 2123. Convoy is to scatter
The rising tone of panic in these messages convinced Broome and every other recipient that Tirpitz was approaching. Since the first of the messages was not directly addressed to Broome, he was not immediately aware that the cruisers were withdrawing. In fact, although they should have been out of sight of the convoy, because of navigational errors they were clearly visible as they worked up to full speed. Convinced that the cruisers were about to engage enemy ships, Broome collected the miscellany of destroyers in EG1 and attached them to the cruisers, while the convoy scattered.
A day later, it became clear that the threat from German surface ships did not exist, and that the scattered ships of the convoy were being picked off individually by U-boats and aircraft. It was by then too late to reform the convoy; Broome's destroyers were low on fuel after their high-speed dash in company with the cruisers, and the oilers which had accompanied the convoy had themselves been sunk.
Twenty-one of the convoy's thirty-five ships were sunk following the order to scatter. The Royal Navy felt themselves disgraced by the unhappy episode. Later that year, the
After a brief spell in the Mediterranean, during which EG1 played a peripheral part in Operation Pedestal, HMS Keppel was paid off late in 1942. Broome was surprised to be promoted to captain, and also awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1943. (Broome was aware that not only was anyone connected with PQ 17 liable to have that episode on their record, but also that his habit of drawing and circulating acerbic caricatures of senior officers had made him unpopular with some.)
He commanded the
He was commandant of a shore establishment at Portsmouth, HMS Vernon II in 1945 before being appointed captain of the aged battleship HMS Ramillies in 1945–1946.
Writer and cartoonist
Broome retired from the Royal Navy in 1947. From 1947 to 1951, he busied himself as editor of the Sketch Magazine. He wrote a number of books on naval subjects, and edited and illustrated several humorous collections of naval signals. He was also a founder member of the Lord's Taverners Cricket Club.
He was naval advisor for several films, including The Cruel Sea. Actor Jack Hawkins apparently based his portrayal of the fictional Lieutenant Commander George Erickson on Broome. He also wrote television and film scripts.
He and his first wife divorced in 1954, and he subsequently married Joan Featherstonhaugh Crisp.[1]
Towards the end of his life, he was able to see Richard Briers play him in a TV play about PQ 17.