Friends of the Somme - Mid Ulster Branch  
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Updates for Corporal Desmond Mary Grant
Date Information
11/12/2019 The remnants of 33 Squadron retired to Egypt by the end of May after the Battle of Crete.
11/12/2019
11/12/2019 The inhabitants of Toome district were delighted when they heard the good news on Monday evening that Mr and Mrs James Grant had received a telegram stating that their son, Desmond Grant, was safe,. Mr Grant is on the Air Force and was on the British Aircraft Carrier Courageous when she was torpedoed on Sunday by a German submarine.
11/12/2019 Desmond Mary Grant was the son of James and Ellen Josephine Grant.
11/12/2019 Desmond Grant was born about 1918.
11/12/2019 Corporal Desmond Grant served with the Royal Air Force in World War Two.
11/12/2019 By 1941, it is thought he was part of the RAF ground crew either with 33 Squadron or based at Crete.
11/12/2019 33 Squadron was involved in heavy fighting in Africa and had to be withdrawn to Crete on 27 April.
11/12/2019 From the Mid Ulster Mail dated 23rd September 1939: Toome
11/12/2019 Corporal Grant was taken prisoner on Crete on 24th May 1941.
11/12/2019
11/12/2019 Corporal Desmond Grant died in a German POW camp on 20th September 1941, aged 23 years.
11/12/2019 German authorities buried him in the German Military Cemetery at Doberitz, Berlin. This cemetery had an area set aside for prisoners of war who died in captivity.
11/12/2019 In 1948, he was reinterred in the Commonwealth Military Cemetery, the Berlin 1939-1945 War Cemetery. His inscription reads ‘Sacred heart of Jesus, have mercy on him. loving father, sisters and brothers’.
11/12/2019 The CWGC record Corporal Desmond Grant as the son of James and Ellen Josephine Grant of Toomebridge, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
11/12/2019 In 1939, Corporal Grant was on the British aircraft carrier Courageous when she was torpedoed by a German submarine.
11/12/2019 On the evening of 17th September 1939, Courageous was on patrol off the coast of Ireland. The ship was stalked for over two hours by a U-boat. The carrier then turned into the wind to launch her aircraft. This put the ship right across the bow of the submarine, which fired three torpedoes. Two of the torpedoes struck the ship on her port side. Courageous capsized and sank in 20 minutes with the loss of 519 of her crew, including her captain. The survivors were rescued by the Dutch ocean liner Veendam and the British freighter Collingworth. Corporal Grant was one of the survivors.
11/12/2019
11/12/2019 The RAF and the ground personnel fought hand-to-hand with German paratroopers to protect the airfield. Many RAF ground crew were left behind on Crete when 33 Squadron was evacuated. It was a fighter squadron so there was no means of taking the ground crew with them.
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