http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6793735.ece Reginald Samples, always known as “Mac”, was awarded the DSO for his conspicuous gallantry during the torpedo attack by the Swordfish aircraft of No 825 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm, against the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen as they made their way up the English Channel from the French port of Brest to Germany in 1942. Vulnerability to RAF bombing in Brest had prompted Hitler to order what became famous as the “Channel Dash”. The British had got wind of this bold manoeuvre through signals intelligence, but estimated that the Germans would try to transit the Strait of Dover in the dark, thus Vice-Admiral Otto Ciliax’s well-thought out plan to leave Brest on the night of February 11, 1942, concealed their departure and delayed their discovery; indeed they were already well up the Channel when two RAF Spitfires on patrol were the first to spot them but, unbriefed and under radio silence, did not report them until return to base. The British response was therefore tardy and insufficient. The Times commented: “Vice-Admiral Ciliax has succeeded where the Duke of Medina Sidonia failed. Nothing more mortifying to the pride of our seapower has happened since the 17th century. . . . It spelled the end of the Royal Navy legend that in wartime no enemy battle fleet could pass through what we proudly call the English Channel.” Under the direction of the Führer, a massive fighter umbrella of Me109s, Me110s and FW190s was provided by day and night as well as seven escorting destroyers and several E-boats. Gallant attacks by five Dover-based MTBs and a flotilla of six ancient destroyers based at Harwich were ineffective against German speed and firepower. Repeated attacks by RAF bombers were beaten off with losses. The Fleet Air Arm’s 825 Squadron was based with six aircraft at Manston in Kent. The Swordfish, descriptively known as the “Stringbag”, was a biplane, obsolete at the beginning of the war but which, besides its antisubmarine capabilities, achieved some notable successes against surface ships, including the night attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto, sinking or immobilising three battleships, and the vital contribution to the sinking of the battleship Bismarck. But an attack by day upon such a force was bound to be a desperate affair. The official naval historian S. W.Roskill, speaking of the commanding officer, Lieutenant-Commander Eugene Esmonde, wrote: “There can, in the history of forlorn hopes, be few more moving stories than that of the last flight of No 825 squadron. Its leader — the same officer who had led the Swordfish from the Victorious to attack the Bismarck in May 1941 — typified all that was finest in the newest branch of the naval service and the junior members of his squadron followed him faithfully to the end.” Samples recalled Esmonde’s rapid briefing of his aircrew. From the next room he overheard the Air Sea Rescue organisation also being briefed: “They’re all going to get shot down — you’ll find them about here.” Airborne with his six aircraft, each manned by a pilot, an observer and a telegraphist air gunner, Esmonde waited briefly over Ramsgate for his Spitfire escort, only ten of which achieved the rendezvous. Making his attack in two flights of three at very low level, Esmonde’s Swordfish were soon under attack, the Spitfire squadron reporting more than 30 German fighters and immense fire from the ships. All six Swordfish were shot down and of the 18 aircrew, only five survived, four of whom were wounded.. In the first flight, Sub-Lieutenant Samples was the observer of the aircraft flown by Lieutenant Pat Kingsmill. The telegraphist air gunner, Leading Airman Don Bunce, recalls how Samples, “covered in blood”, continued to shout orders to the pilot to dodge attacking aircraft while he himself continued to fire his machinegun. With the wing fabric full of holes, the aircraft could not maintain height and a hit in the engine brought it down just after the torpedo was launched towards the Prinz Eugen. After an hour in the water, all three men and two from another Swordfish, Lieutenants Rose and Lee, were rescued by a Dover MTB. Esmonde was awarded a posthumous VC, the surviving officers the DSO and Bunce the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal. Gneisenau and Scharnhorst were both damaged by mines before they reached German ports and, ten days later, Prinz Eugen was badly damaged by a torpedo from the submarine Trident. Two weeks later, Gneisenau was put permanently out of action by the RAF. What had been a tactical victory for the German navy became a strategic victory for the British as the threat of these heavy ships to the Atlantic convoy routes was lifted. After convalescence from his serious wounds Samples was posted to RNAS Fighter Training Station at Yeovilton, where he met Elsie Roberts Ellis, whom he married in 1947. Reginald McCartney Samples was born in 1918. The war interrupted his studies in economics at Liverpool University, and it was to that that he returned on his demob in 1946. On graduating in 1947 he joined the Central Office of Information as economics editor of overseas newspapers, and in 1948 transferred to the Commonwealth Relations Office and was immediately posted as economic information officer to the British Deputy High Commission in Bombay. Three years later his wife contracted polio and encephalitis and was flown home with their two sons. Samples was promoted to deputy information.officer, Delhi, subsequently to information director in Karachi, Pakistan. In 1959 he was posted to Ottawa as director of the British Information Service, and in 1963 he was appointed OBE in recognition. He was later head of the British Information Service in Delhi and in 1968 was appointed to London as assistant under-secretary of state, Commonwealth Office. In 1969 he went to Toronto as Consul-General, a post he held for ten years and for which he was appointed CMG. Leaving the diplomatic service in 1978, Samples joined the Royal Ontario Museum as development officer and then as assistant director, retiring again in 1983 to care for his wife who was suffering from a post-polio syndrome. He was active in the cultural life of Toronto, serving on the board of the National Ballet of Canada for 19 years, including two years as president of the board, and on the boards of the Canadian Aldeburgh Foundation and the Canadian-Scottish Philharmonic Foundation. Samples possessed a rich, resonant speaking voice and for many years was a volunteer reader at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, where he was the recipient of the Torgi Award for best recorded book of the year in 1991. A wonderful raconteur, he loved a party and could enthral listeners with stories drawn from his wide experience of the world. His wife died in 1999. Their two sons survive him. Reginald “Mac” Samples, CMG, DSO, OBE, Fleet Air Arm aircrew and Consul-General, Toronto 1969-79, was born on August 11, 1918. He died on July 31, 2009, aged 90
So are any of these five men left alive? I'm pretty sure I remember reading Kingsmill's obituary not long ago.
