Tom's Story.
Tom, the son of Edwin Sims-Hilditch & Ada Cyrilla Sims-Hilditch of Nantwich, Cheshire was educated at Wrekin College, Shropshire and at Crewe Secondary School from 1921-24After completing his full time education he was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and at the beginning of 1942 was serving aboard HM Trawler Rosemonde. On the 13th of January 1942, HMT Rosemonde left Milford Haven enroute to Gibraltar, together with the minesweeping trawlers HMS Rosalind and HMS Lord Grey but lost sight of them in stormy weather on the 15th of January.
While the other trawlers arrived at Gibraltar on the 22nd of January, the Admiralty reported HMT Rosemonde as missing and considered lost after the limit of her endurance was reached on the 27th of January.
At around 23.00 hours on the 19th of January 1942, U-581 attacked what was believed to be a British corvette of some 800 tons steering towards Gibraltar, during an extremely dark night with limited visibility due to rain, about 400 miles east of the Azores. A first torpedo missed, but then one of a spread of two torpedoes struck the vessel amidships and caused it to break in two and sink within one minute, followed by an underwater explosion presumably caused by depth charges. The U-boat searched the vicinity of the sinking for some considerable period but found no survivors or wreckage.
It is very likely that HMT Rosemonde was sunk in this attack.
Tom was declared dead on Thursday the 22nd of January 1942, and is commemorated on the Lowestoft Naval Memorial, Suffolk and the Ruskin Road School memorial
Loestoft Naval Memorial