TREADWELL, George (#179)
#179
Chief Petty Officer George TREADWELL
Royal Navy
Alan Pollock’s Rough Notes:
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Chief Petty Officer George TREADWELL RN was the ALDERSHOT son of a regular soldier (who survived 21 years with 9th LANCERS in 1919) and was born in 1911.
He had two elder brothers in the Royal Marines and RN, & two soldier brothers in law – after being groom to SANDHURST’s then Adjutant, Captain F A M, later Lt Gen Sir Frederick BROWNING KBE CB DSO CdeG at 15 (also he would meet Captain Browning’s future wife, Daphne du Maurier) before serving 33 years in the ROYAL NAVY, from St Vincent 1927 to Chief Boatswain’s Mate, he left in 1960, after SERVING in 15 WARSHIPS.
Sea power needs continuity for wartime expansion – three times George was in HMS NELSON beginning in 1929, again in both 1932 and 1944, finally taking her to the breakers’ yard at ROSYTH in Sep47 – in 1986 he founded the Old Comrades Association of this “great, ugly but happy ship”.
From 1939 to 1941 George was in the 7,550 ton CRUISER HMS EMERALD (570 feet long with a complement of 572), whose Captain was Augustus AGAR VC DSO RN and Commander E S Fogarty FEGEN, soon promoted to be the Captain of the Armed Merchant Cruiser, HMS “JERVIS BAY”, who would win a posthumous VC for its brave distracting action against the “Admiral Scheer” pocket battleship, thereby saving, on 5 Nov 1940, much of CONVOY “HX 84”, recorded next to his signature to recall ALL THOSE 30,000 MERCHANT SEAMEN killed manning ALLIED CONVOYS and the 2,603 MERCHANT SHIPS and 175 ALLIED WARSHIPS SUNK in the ATLANTIC in WW2.