WEST Devon pensioner Joe Brown has a poignant and important date next month.

Joe from Horrabridge will be joining relatives of his dead comrades, including several from East Cornwall and West Devon, at the unveiling of a memorial to the men of Glorious, Acasta and Ardent in Devonport on Sunday June 10.

The three ships, based at Devonport, were lost on June 8, 1940 during what has been described as one of the worst naval disasters of the second world war.

But it was more than 50 years before relatives began to get some idea that the Admiralty was trying to keep secret that not only could the disaster have been avoided, but the men were deliberately left to die.

Joe, now 88, welcomed the memorial, though he couldn't help but feel it was something that should have been done before.

'The incident is more or less forgotten now, except by the few — most of the people involved are gone.'

That is a view shared by relatives of men lost in the disaster, who are still smarting from the revelations and the cover-up.

Hazel Stocks, from Callington, daughter of Ernest Stocks, leading stoker on HMS Ardent, said: 'I certainly think it's about time. I got my father's discharge papers saying he was killed, but nothing was said about the way he died for more than 50 years, no details, just that the ships were lost in the North Sea.'

Derek Sambells, also from Callington, whose brother Kenneth was one of the carrier's stokers, said it shook him to learn that perhaps his brother need not have died, especially as he was in the Navy himself.

'I was very upset,' he said.

'I don't think all the truth has come out even now,' said Lorna Mason, whose father Reg Cole was a plumber on Glorious. 'But the longer they keep quiet the fewer survivors there are.'

Both Mrs Mason and Margaret Bassett, daughter of Arthur Edwards, an Engine Room Artificer, live in Callington. Jean Rogers is from Dousland. She is the sister of Lt Alan Noble of Glorious.

David Woodcock, who helped organise the memorial, was living in Tavistock in 1940. His father, John Frederick Woodcock, Master-at-Arms (the Jaunty), was one of those killed.

It was only four years ago that many of the details came out. Reports of the incident were filed away under the 100 year rule, but, as a result of increasing pressure, the MOD released the papers in 1997.

Glorious, one of the Navy's largest aircraft carriers, was sunk with its two escort destroyers on June 8 1940 after being caught unawares by two German pocket battleships — the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst.

The German ships were able to shower salvoes of 11 inch shells into Glorious whilst keeping out of range of her much smaller guns. The destroyers were credited with an heroic effort and even managed to inflict some damage on the battleships.

Glorious was part of a convoy picking up men from the failed attempt to retain an allied footing in Norway. But the carrier, escorted by only two destroyers — a fraction of the protection stipulated by the Admiralty — was in a rush to get back to Scapa Flow and left the convoy.

The Admiralty claimed this was because she was short of fuel, but new evidence found in Admiralty documents suggested Capt Guy D'Oyly-Hughes was in a hurry to court martial his Chief of Air Staff John Heath detained over a row about the use of airplanes — a row which meant the carrier was left without vital air cover.

The Admiralty always claimed no one had any idea about Glorious' plight because a message sent just before the attack was 'garbled' and 'unintelligible'. But a desperate last clear message was picked up by a nearby British cruiser, the Devonshire, with Vice Admiral John Admiral Cunningham on board — and ignored, according to evidence from the Devonshire's radio operator, suppressed for many years — leaving the 1,500 men to perish in the icy Arctic waters off Norway.

The ship, carrying the king of Norway, his entire cabinet and the country's entire gold reserves, neither changed course to pick up survivors nor passed the message on because she was under orders to maintain radio silence and get straight back to Britain.

The Admiralty had even been repeatedly warned about the German battle fleet putting to sea, but refused to alert its own ships.

More than 900 men boarded life rafts after the sinking and spent three days in the Arctic without rescue. The 41 survivors, 39 from Glorious and one each from the two destroyers, were eventually picked up by vessels passing by chance.

As a joiner on Glorious, Joe had been unaware of the row between the captain and Heath, but, he said: 'If Heath had been able to send out a few "String Bags" — Fairey Swordfish reconnaissance planes — they would have spotted the two ships. There was no doubt about it, it was the captain who failed. He should have had planes up — we could have got away with it if we had. D'Oyly was a cantankerous captain — he was a submariner, he shouldn't have been on a carrier.'

It wasn't until the first shells exploded that they knew about the German battle fleet.

'It was too late to do anything about it then — all we had was 4.7 inch guns, they had 11 inch. The destroyers gave a good account of themselves, they nipped in and out under the smoke screen and managed a hit on one of the ships, killing 50 blokes, but we couldn't do anything about it — it was just target practice for them, we couldn't get our shells anywhere near them.'

The action, which started at about 5pm, was all over by 6.30.

Joe said his memories of the occasion were not all that sharp after 61 years, but he jumped overboard into the icy water as the ship sank that Saturday evening.

'There were about 900 of us that got off, but any number down below who couldn't get out and those killed by the shelling.'

Joe swam to a life raft. He was one of about 40 men on a float designed for 25. During the next two days and nights, 35 of them died, exposed to terrible cold and without food and water.

'The five of us were picked up on the Monday by a Norwegian fishing boat, but one of them died soon after,' he said. 'Nobody was out looking for us — the boat that picked us up was on its way back from the Faeroe Islands.'

The survivors were taken to hospital in the Lofoten Islands.

'We were just about finished, we wouldn't have lasted very much longer. It was weeks before we could walk, many weeks,' he said.

The Germans got wind of their presence and they were taken prisoner. Joe ended up in Stalag 8b in Lansdorf, Poland, where he stayed until 1945.

'We were forced to march from Lansdorf right across Germany to near the Rhine when the Russians got too close, we were marching for three months.'

No sooner had they got there than they were ordered to march again, but many of the POWs refused and the Germans left them there, to be met by an advance party of General Patten and flown back to Britain.

Joe was put on a train to Plymouth where he arrived at about 2am and because he lived nearby he was taken home immediately, the first time in almost seven years.

'I hadn't had a chance to phone home, so my people didn't know I was coming — they still thought I was in Germany.'

These experiences didn't put Joe off the Navy. After three months owed leave he returned to serve as chief joiner until he retired in 1958.

'The ship had the wrong captain and there was a lot could have been done to avert that disaster — Cunningham must have known.

'He was between the devil and the deep blue sea, but he could have done something and saved more than 900 lives — it was terrible,' said Joe.

'There must have been a lot of people who couldn't sleep at night, but it's no good to be bitter.'

The ceremony will take place at St Nicholas Church, HMS Drake in Devonport on Sunday June 10 at 10am. There will be a fly-past on the Hoe on the Saturday at 10.15am.

For further information about these events contact Nigel Heath on 0151 426 2850, 26 Dunbeath Ave, Prescot, Merseyside, L35 0QH.