'Chippy' - the carpenter on HMS 'Curacoa'

This sensitive portrait shows a seated man in a blue jacket, facing to the right, his gaze downcast. It is inscribed on the reverse ‘“Chippy” – the carpenter on HMS Curacao, painted Cholmondeley Castle 1943’, and ‘then he recovered […] Straightaway he was made whole’.

The artist, Rosemary Rutherford, trained at the Slade School of Art and exhibited at the New English Art Club prior to the Second World War. In 1940, aged 27, she joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment of the Red Cross, with whom she performed a variety of jobs. These included driving a mobile canteen to gun batteries on the east coast and working as a nurse in the Royal Naval Hospitals at Chatham and Haslar (Gosport) and other RN auxiliary hospitals. She also obtained permission from the War Artists Advisory Committee to record her experiences in her spare time. Her evocative wartime drawings include scenes of leisure on the beach, shipbuilding and convalescing sailors.

Rutherford’s inscription on this portrait indicates that she made it while working as a nurse at Cholmondeley Castle in Cheshire. This stately home was used during the Second World War as a Royal Naval Auxiliary Hospital, specialising in the treatment of servicemen experiencing poor mental health and psychiatric symptoms, referred to at the time as ‘war neurosis’. The facilities at the hospital were designed to treat ‘cases of good morale, who are suffering from nervous breakdown usually as the result of operational stresses’ (The National Archives, ADM 1/12067, ‘Organization for handling Nervous and Mental Diseases in the Royal Navy’, 1942). Treatments included physical training, occupational therapy, outdoor work and psychotherapy.

The man depicted in the portrait is named in the inscription as ‘“Chippy” – the carpenter on HMS Curacoa’. The ‘Curacoa’ was C-class light cruiser built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. It was converted into an anti-aircraft cruiser at the start of the Second World War and employed as a convoy escort.

On 2 October 1942, the ‘Curacoa’ collided with the ocean liner ‘Queen Mary’. The latter was acting as a troop ship, carrying more than 10,000 American soldiers of the 29th Infantry Division across the Atlantic. The ‘Curacoa’ was tasked with providing anti-aircraft cover for the final leg of the liner’s journey to Scotland. The ‘Queen Mary’ was steaming a zig-zag course (‘Zig-Zag Pattern No. 8’) at full speed, a defensive measure intended to evade submarine attacks. Meanwhile, the ‘Curacoa’, which had a slower top speed, remained on a straight course. As the distance between the two ships reduced, it became apparent that the liner would pass too close to the cruiser. However, each captain expected the other to give way and neither took evasive action until it was too late.

The collision occurred around forty miles north of Tory Island on Ireland's northern coast. The ‘Queen Mary’ struck the ‘Curacoa’ amidships at full speed, cutting the smaller vessel in half. The aft end sank almost immediately with the rest of the ship following a few minutes later. Three-hundred and thirty-seven officers and men, a little over three-quarters of the cruiser’s crew, lost their lives in the disaster. It was several hours before two destroyers arrived to rescue the survivors from the freezing, oil-slicked water.

For fear of damaging national security and morale, the Admiralty hushed up the incident until after the war. Families of the victims were given only minimal information, and survivors were sworn to secrecy. A post-war enquiry initially exonerated the ‘Queen Mary’ and found the ‘Curacoa’ at fault, but this ruling was modified on appeal to assign two-thirds of the blame to the cruiser and one-third to the liner.

Rutherford’s portrait is dated 1943, the year after the collision. ‘Chippy’ was presumably a survivor of the disaster. It was quite possibly the trauma of the experience, coupled with the enforced secrecy around it, that caused or at least contributed to his struggles with his mental health and led to his needing treatment at Cholmondeley Castle.

‘Chippy’ was a generic nickname for a ship’s carpenter. Records of the ‘Curacoa’ incident at the National Archives indicate that the ship’s chief carpenter, Chief Petty Officer Lionel Gordon Aubrey Dunce (1902–67), was among the survivors. Dunce was called as a witness at the post-war enquiry into the collision. In his testimony, he credited to his survival to the fact that he was in his workshop on the upper deck of the ‘Curacoa’ at the time of the incident, commenting that his shipmates on the lower decks ‘would not have stood any chance whatsoever’. He also said that ‘it was a shock – people did not realise what had happened’ (The National Archives, ADM 116/6158).

C.A. Taylor of the RNVR, who held the rank of Joiner, 4th Class, is also recorded as having survived the collision (The National Archives, ADM 358/3196). Rutherford’s portrait presumably depicts Dunce or Taylor. The former is perhaps most probable: as chief carpenter, Dunce is more likely to have been known as ‘Chippy’.