Jack Broome
Jack Broome DSC, RN, (1901 - 1985) was a
Royal Navy officer who served in
World War II. Earlier, in
World War I, he had been a junior officer. His most important action as a naval officer in World War II was as commander of the escort group with the ill-fated
Convoy PQ-17. After the war, he became a writer and illustrator.
He was born in 1901 in
Seattle,
Washington State, to an English adventurer who had joined the gold rush to the
Klondike, and christened
John Egerton Broome. He accompanied his parents to Panama in 1907, but returned to England where he was raised largely by his mother's relatives. In 1912, he passed the entrance examination to the
Royal Naval College at
Osborne. From Osborne, he passed in 1915 to the senior College at
Dartmouth.
In 1917 was posted as a
Midshipman to the
battleship,
HMS Colossus at
Scapa Flow. (Ironically, she was commanded by the then Captain
Dudley Pound).
Shortly after the end of the War, he was promoted
Sub-Lieutenant and served in the
destroyer HMS Clematis in the Red Sea and at Aden. From there he attended
Trinity Hall,
Cambridge, and after graduating, chose to serve in
submarines. By this time, his talent as a
cartoonist and wag was well established.
He served in several submarines from 1923 to 1938 (although with some spells in surface ships, including the
battlecruiser,
HMS Tiger). Much of this period was spent at the
Hong Kong naval station. He married in 1928.
He reached the rank of
Commander in 1936, while commanding the submarine,
HMS Rainbow. In 1938, he attended a staff course at the Royal Naval College at
Greenwich.
Ironically, Broome was judged to be too old in 1939 to command a submarine in wartime. Instead, he was given the destroyer
HMS Veteran recommissioned from reserve. Characteristically, Broome applied for membership of the
Company of Veteran Motorists, who made the ship a life member. (She was sunk by a
U-Boat in 1942.)
HMS Veteran served through the
Norwegian Campaign in 1940. While there, her bridge was adorned with a huge stuffed hippopotamus head, acquired by Broome from Formby Golf Club during a spree ashore. Broome also acquired a German torpedo, which had missed its target and run onto the shore of a fjord. Suitably covered in German graffiti, it was eventually handed to the authorities in Rosyth.
After the end of the Norwegian campaign,
HMS Veteran was assigned to counter a threatened German invasion, and was damaged by an
acoustic mine.
Broome was then assigned as
Staff Officer to
Admiral Sir Percy Noble, the Commander-in-Chief of the
Western Approaches Command. His cartoons enlivened many drab briefing rooms and dreary routine reports.
After several months in this duty, he temporarily served as
Captain(D) at the base at
Londonderry and then commanded the First
Escort Group, (EG1) in the destroyer
HMS Keppel.
For most of 1941 and 1942,
HMS Keppel was engaged in arduous convoy duties in the Atlantic. A brief stay at Londonderry was enlivened by the capture of a German spy who was attempting to escape to the
Irish Free State in a stolen motor boat.
Then in June 1942, EG1 was assigned to protect
Convoy PQ-17, sailing from
Hvalfjord in
Iceland to
Murmansk in
Russia. The Arctic convoys were reckoned to be very hazardous missions, as they faced not only U-Boats but also German aircraft and surface ships, including the powerful battleship
Tirpitz. A squadron of British and American
cruisers was assigned to protect the convoy, and the
Home Fleet, with its battleships and
aircraft carriers was at sea, but distant.
On
July 4 1942, PQ17 was attacked several times by torpedo-carrying German aircraft. Three merchant ships were lost, but four aircraft were shot down, and several others damaged. At this point, Admiral Dudley Pound, the
First Sea Lord, fearing that
Tirpitz was about to attack, sent three fateful signals:
2111: Most Immediate. Cruiser Force withdraw to westward at high speed2123: Immediate. Owing to threat from surface ships convoy is to disperse and proceed to Russian ports2136: Most Immediate. My 2123. Convoy is to scatterThe rising tone of panic in these messages convinced Broome and every other recipient that
Tirpitz was approaching. Since the first of the messages was not directly addressed to Broome, he was not immediately aware that the cruisers were withdrawing. In fact, although they should have been out of sight of the convoy, because of navigational errors they were clearly visible as they worked up to full speed. Convinced that the cruisers were about to engage enemy ships, Broome collected the miscellany of destroyers in EG1 and attached them to the cruisers, while the convoy scattered.
A day later, it became clear that the threat from German surface ships did not exist, and that the scattered ships of the convoy were being picked off individually by U-boats and aircraft. It was by then too late to reform the convoy; Broome's destroyers were low on fuel after their high-speed dash in company with the cruisers, and the oilers which had accompanied the convoy had themselves been sunk.
Twenty-one of the convoy's thirty-five ships were sunk following the order to scatter. The Royal Navy felt themselves disgraced by the unhappy episode. Later that year, the First Lord of the Admiralty,
A. V. Alexander paid a visit to HMS
Keppel. Broome asked the reason why PQ17 was scattered but received no satisfactory answer.
HMS Keppel was paid off late in 1942. Broome was surprised to be promoted to
Captain, and also awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross. (Broome was aware that not only was anyone connected with PQ17 liable to have that episode on their record, but also that his habit of drawing and circulating acerbic caricatures of senior officers had made him unpopular with some).
He was appointed to command
HMS Begum, an
escort carrier under construction in
Vancouver. When completed,
HMS Begum served with the Eastern Fleet. Her aircraft sank a particularly troublesome U-Boat in the Indian Ocean, late in 1944, for which Broome was
Mentioned in Dispatches. He was also awarded the
Burma Star for his service in Indian waters.
After the end of the War, Broome commanded the aged battleship
HMS Ramillies, before she was sent to be scrapped in 1946.
Broome retired from the Royal Navy in 1946. For the next four years, he busied himself as Editor of the
Sketch magazine. He wrote a number of books on naval subjects, and edited and illustrated several humorous collections of naval signals. He was also a founder member of the
Lords Taverners Cricket Club.
He was involved in the production of a number of Radio and TV programmes, and in the making of the film,
The Cruel Sea. Actor
Jack Hawkins apparently based his portrayal of the fictional commander "Ericsson" on Jack Broome.
At the end of his life, he was able to see
Richard Briers play him in a TV play about PQ17.
In 1968, the historian
David Irving published a controversial book about PQ17. It concentrated on allied blunders and shortcomings, and in particular, alleged that Broome's decision to withdraw his destroyers was the primary cause of the disaster to the convoy. Broome mounted a
libel action to defend his reputation. He was successful, winning £40,000 in damages (a very large sum for the time, although Broome never actually received any payments) and securing the withdrawal of all copies of the offending book from circulation (although it has since been republished, with corrections.)
Make a Signal, Putnam, 1961.
McTuff at the top, Putnam, 1961.
Convoy is to Scatter, William Kimber, 1972, ISBN 0718303326
Make Another Signal, William Kimber, 1973, ISBN 0718301935
Services Wrendered, William Kimber, 1974, ISBN 071803733
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Broome family page
