HMS Bideford in Distress, 1:700 by Don McKeand

This diorama came about due to reading John de S Winser’s book on the BEF ships involved in Operations Dynamo and Aerial. Amongst the many incidents and heroic actions was a mention that after rescuing a number of troops on 29th May HMS Bideford was severely damaged when a bomb detonated her depth charges and blew 40 feet off her stern. The old coal burning fleet minesweeper HMS Kellett came to her assistance, taking off survivors and the rescue tug St Clears also arrived to help. Bideford drifted aground, and attempts by St Clears and the destroyer HMS Havant to take her in tow failed. Eventually the following day the gunboat HMS Locust managed to get her off and towed back to the UK, where she was under repair for seven months before rejoining the fray as a convoy escort where sloops were desperately needed.
 
The tug St Clears is a resin casting I mastered for the Finewaterline set with some modifications to give an open bridge.
 
Kellett is the Finewaterline kit mastered by Roy Allen. Pre-war Kellett had served as a survey ship and had her superstructure and provision of boats extended for this role which required some modifications.
 
Bideford herself was a Shoreham class sloop. I had previously scratch built HMS Rochester of this class, but as I was unsure how the damaged stern would turn out, I did not really want to have to start all over again with yet another hull if things went badly. So I decided to make a resin cast of the hull as a back-up and have been persuaded that this should be the basis of a future release for Finewaterline. There are a couple of excellent pictures of the sloop HMS Bittern which had her stern blown off in similar manner at Namsos only a month or so before Bideford’s ordeal, and these pictures provided the basis for the appearance of the model. The stern was sawn off ahead of the 40 foot point and the hull sides extended backwards to the 40 foot mark with paper. Internal bulkheads and decks were added and then some crumpling was done to represent damaged plating with the paper infused with thin CA glue to stiffen it up. The book mentioned that the tall pre-war main mast had fallen across the searchlight tower. The tower was made from a White Ensign photo etch lattice tower, which was then mangled in the way I used to manage quite involuntarily when first using PE. I normally replace plastic masts with brass, but in the case of the fallen item on Bideford, I was able to use up a plastic one from a Tamiya destroyer. The 4” guns are the excellent Niko items. The pennant numbers were changed from flag superior L to U in April 1940, so I showed her with U43 freshly painted on the hull. Subsequently I have had doubt cast on this and she may well have still carried the earlier L43 at Dunkirk.
 
Researching the subject opened my eyes to the many acts of heroism and endurance by naval and merchant marine crews at Dunkirk as well as the stoicism and discipline of the troops, some of whom were rescued by ships which were then sunk, and only the lucky ones were rescued again. Men exhausted and with hardly time to grab a bite to eat still returned time after time enduring almost constant heavy air attacks. An epic not to be forgotten.