GROVES, Roy Ronald

Roy was born 1913 in Newport to Benjamin & Sabrina (nee MORRIS) GROVES. In 1938 at Newport Registry Office, he married Olive Beatrice Evelyn HERRINGTON.

HMS/M Grampus was patrolling the Central Mediterranean, off Augusta, eastern Sicily in the Ionian Sea when she was torpedoed by the Italian Torpedo Boats Circe, Clio, Calliope & Polluce. She had sailed from Malta on the 10th to lay mines off the east coast of Sicily. She signalled a successful lay on the 13th, then nothing further was heard. Sighted by Italian ships three days later, a final depth charge attack by Circe & Polluce is believed to have sunk her on the 24th of June 1940 with the loss of all 59 crew.

Roy, aged 27, is commemorated by the Commission on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial to the Missing together with nearly 15,000 of his shipmates.

Roy is also remembered on the Carisbrooke War Memorial.