Sailors Remembered After WW2 Bombing

18 June 2013, 07:17 | Updated: 18 June 2013, 07:55

HMS Collingwood in Fareham will later mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of the base in 1943 when more than 30 sailors lost their lives.

Survivors and relatives of survivors have been invited to the naval base where they will attend a service of remembrance which displays a memorial board giving names of those who lost their lives, followed by visit to the exact site where the bomb hit.

In the early hours of June 18 1943, just one bomb dropped onto one of the accommodation huts and killed over 30 sailors.

These sailors, all volunteers were mainly 17 and 18 year olds. They had only been in the Royal Navy for just over a fortnight and were still under training.

Mike Crowe Chairman, HMS COLLINGWOOD Association, has been coordinating visitors to this event, he said "We should remember not only the sacrifice made by the dead and the wounded, who were mainly young volunteers, but also that of the families who have lived with the memory for so long."