No.LT/JX 378507, Seaman, George STUTTERS
Aged 20
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Born in 3rd qtr 1924 Bury St.Edmunds 4a:1551, son of John and Florence STUTTERS(née NEWMAN). In the 1939 register they were at 6 Boyne Road, Bury St.Edmunds,
his father was a butcher, brothers Jack [24-3-1923] errand boy and Bertie [16-3-1926] school; sister Florence [10-7-1928], two closed entries.
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The Cap d’Antifer was a steam trawler built in 1920 on the River Clyde and was first registered under the name Hornbill (H244). In 1936 she was sold to a Belgian fishing company and in November she sailed from Grimsby to Ostend, where her new owners registered and renamed her as Compass In November 1939 she was sold to a French company to help with the impending war effort, she subsequently officially entered service in the French navy as an auxiliary minesweeper (pennant AD69, under the name Cap d’Antifer. On the German invasion of France she was commandeered by the Free French and brought across the Channel. Under French command she assisted with the evacuation of Dunkirk, making one trip and landing 291 troops. The vessel was seized by the Royal Navy on July 3, 1940 at Southampton and put into service (pennant FY 350)as an auxiliary patrol vessel and then from 1941 as a minesweeper — serving from 1943 with the 19th Minesweeping Group based at Grimsby. An oil/diesel engine that developed 150bhp powered her single steel propeller, which gave her a maximum speed of 8.5-knots and carried a crew of 29.. Converted to a Royal Navy minesweeper. On 13 February 1944, Grimsby based, she was on sweeping duties off the Humber when Korvettenkapitän Zymalkowski’s Schnellboots of the 8th Flottille attacked and sunk her with a torpedo. There were no survivors and all that was ever found was an oil slick and a piece of the boat’s nameboard. No photograph of her has been found. The RN Patrol Service sometimes known as "Churchill's Pirates" or "Harry Tate's Navy" consisted of a mixed bag of personnel, Navy men (old sea dogs and raw recruits), fisherman, crewing a motley collection of requisitioned trawlers, drifters, yachts, anything that floated and that could be converted to carry weapons
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