Portland: Tribute to HMS Sidon hero Dr Charles Eric Rhodes

Gill Dash was just three weeks old when her dad Charles Eric Rhodes, aged 27, was killed on HMS Sidon, which sank in Portland Harbour on Thursday, June 16, 1955.

One of its torpedoes had exploded, wrecking the torpedo tube and devastating the forward compartments.

Doctor Rhodes was stationed at the alongside HMS Maidstone and, without hesitating, rushed to the scene to help.

Gill, 68, of Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, said: “He went down and managed to get one survivor out. He went down again and was made to put on a breathing apparatus.

“He was unfamiliar with it. By the time he went down to the fourth person they decided to close the hatches.

“He passed out in the bottom of the conning tower.”

Sidon went down with 12 sailors aboard and Dr Rhodes, its 13th victim, and the only member of the rescue party.

The day of the Sidon tragedy - you can see Eric Rhodes putting on their breathing equipment - he is facing the camera (Image: Gill Dash)

Eric Rhodes was originally from Bramhall, Cheshire. Growing up with an older brother, Keith, he studied at Wrekin College and trained as a doctor at Whitechapel Hospital in London and became a surgeon.

The keen sportsman loved playing rugby and was a regular theatregoer and a lover of socialising and dancing.

He met his wife-to-be Josephine at Whitechapel Hospital. She was training to be a nurse and the pair got married in November 1953.

Just a month later Dr Rhodes started his national service and was posted to Dorset, where he and Josephine ended up staying on a caravan on a farm in Portland – worlds away from their London home.

His role as a doctor on the Maidstone meant looking after all the sailors on board and meant he found himself eating breakfast in the ward room of the ship at 8.30am when the Sidon explosion occurred on June 16, 1955.

Gill said her widowed mother was left in shock after the tragedy and would return to the jetty every day.

Josephine in her nurse's uniform (Image: Gill Dash)

Josephine went on to open up a nursing home and eventually married again but always made sure a young Gill was aware of what her father did, saving her newspaper cuttings on the sinking of Sidon.

When Dr Rhodes was awarded a posthumous Albert medal for his bravery, Josephine went to London to accept it from the Queen.

The Albert Medal, now replaced by the George Cross, was the premier decoration for civilian acts of gallantry in saving life at sea and on land.

• READ MORE: 'Seaman remembers anniversary of disaster'

Every year Gill returns to Portland to attend the Dorset Submariners’ HMS Sidon memorial service, which was first held on the 50th anniversary of the tragedy in 2005.

Gill and her husband Fred the day after the Sidon memorial service 2023 (Image: Gill Dash)

Her husband Fred said: “That weekend in 2005 was the most emotional weekend we have ever spent. A lovely man came and spoke to Gilly – he was one of the divers from the Maidstone. He had to report to Gill’s father and said to Gilly ‘I remember you as a three-week-old baby in the ward room’. He came up to her and gave her a big hug.”

At the memorial service this year there were just two survivors left from the tragedy, Brian Simpson and David Bartlett.

Josephine died in 1996 and ‘would have loved’ to have attended the now annual memorial services, Gill said.

“I think she found dad’s funeral quite traumatic. There were 13 coffins and they were trailed all the way up from the bottom of Portland to the naval cemetery at the top.

The guard of honour formed at the funeral of the men who were killed in the Sidon tragedy (Image: Gill Dash)

“I just think it’s really sad that he didn’t make it and couldn’t get out of the submarine, he didn’t come out alive.

“I do think about that, that he was just down the bottom of the cooling tower before they closed the hatch.

“My granddad Rhodes, dad’s father, never rested after what happened and wanted answers after the accident. He always felt he never fully knew what happened.

“I think about the other submariners who have passed away, they were so young and they all lost their lives that day.

“I think about how I would have had a very different life if he had survived.”