Word: boddam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Died. Rear Admiral Edye Kington Boddam-Whetham (pronounced boddom-wettem), 57, famed British sea dog; on active service at Gibraltar. Huge, salty, genial Boddam-Whetham commanded destroyers through World War I, in 1939 retired. Five weeks later he rejoined the Service, during the next three years took some 30 convoys safely through the seven seas, was in charge of a famed, fanatically assaulted Archangel convoy in the fall of 1942. Once during the eight-day air attack one of his escorting destroyers picked off a crippled German plane. Boddam-Whetham flashed a message: "Thought it not done to shoot...
Last week the commander, Rear Admiral Edye Kington Boddam-Whetham (pronounced boddom-wettem), proudly told the story himself in Moscow. Weathered, towering (6-ft.-3) Admiral Boddam-Whetham had good reason for proud chuckles: he had just brought safely into Russia's Arctic ports the biggest convoy in history. A large part of it had come all the way from the Hudson River...
...thinks about is getting his chickens home," said Admiral Boddam-Whetham's brother, an official in the British fuel ministry (three other brothers died in the army in World War I). "Being a sailor, he fears fog and ice more than any U-boat or Focke-Wulf. He is very reserved and hates to talk about himself...
When salty, 55-year-old Admiral Boddam-Whetham retired in August 1939, he looked forward to a quiet old age in his Hampshire village, where, in baggy tweeds, basket on arm, he did his own marketing. Behind him were almost 40 years in the navy as commander of various destroyers and of the battleship Queen Elizabeth. Five weeks after retirement he was back in uniform, assigned chiefly to duty on the perilous Arctic convoy route, where his sailor's fear of fog and ice found ample justification...
Said Admiral Boddam-Whetham: "I won't complain if the next time they give someone else the chance to make this trip." The British Admiralty announced the loss of the destroyer Somali and the minesweeper Leda. Admiral Boddam-Whetham said that about twelve out of 40 merchantmen went down...
| 1 |