Remembering the brave actions of Ulster man killed in first naval battle of World War Two

Sub Lieutenant Thompson Baird Quinn was on board HMS Rawalpindi when it was sunk by two German battleships off the coast of the Faroe Islands on November 23, 1939.

The 23-year-old was mentioned in despatches for “coolness, courage and devotion to duty” as the P&O liner built by Harland and Wolff, which had been converted into an armed merchant cruiser, came under attack.

His mother and father James and Elizabeth Jane Quinn lived in Ravenhill Park in Belfast.

A letter from The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to his mother, dated December 28, 1946, read: “With complete disregard for his own safety, Sub Lieutenant Quinn took charge of the lowering of the life boats and by his skill and determination many men were saved.

“I am to express Their Lordship’s pleasure at this mark of His Majesty’s appreciation and their deep regret that your son did not live to receive it.”

The letter was shown to the News Letter by Jordan Quinn Greer, grandson of the late Amy Greer (nee Quinn), who passed away last year.

Amy, who was Thompson’s cousin, also kept copies of the News Letter which reported the sinking of the Rawalpindi as the first naval battle of World War Two and the paper’s report on two Belfast men, one of whom was Thompson, who were “missing feared lost” after the battle.

Jordan said: “The original copy of the Belfast News Letter which mentions him was a treasured personal item of my late grandmother who passed it onto me a few years before her passing in 2019.”

He also was able to share a handwritten copy from Thompson of a famous poem At The Gate Of The Year by Minnie Louise Haskins.

Jordan said: “He transcribed part of it and posted it home from the HMS Rawalpindi just days before he died in battle.”

The words are: “And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown”

“And he replied: Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

“That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

Sub Lieutenant Thompson Baird Quinn’s name is commemorated on Plymouth Naval Memorial.

A number of his close relatives had served in the First World War mostly in the Canadian Expeditionary Force where some of the Quinns had emigrated in the early 1900s.