Stoker 1st Class
Frederick Charles
WOODARDS
Royal Navy
19
Frederick Charles Woodards was born in Edmonton in London on 16 May 1924, the son of George Woodards (a horticultural glazier) and Alice Woodards (née Gipp). In the 1939 Register the Woodards family were listed as living at 18, Hartington Road, Edmonton. Frederick Woodards was noted to be one of eight siblings (including at least three brothers and one sister) and he was listed as leather splitter.
He joined the Royal Navy as a Stoker and was allocated to the Chatham Depot. By March 1944 he was a Stoker First Class serving in HMS SYRTIS. SYRTIS left Lerwick on 16 March 1944 for a patrol off the Norwegian Coast and, on 20 March, was ordered to an area in the vicinity of Bödo. SYRTIS was ordered to leave her patrol area but failed to return to Lerwick as expected on 30 March. An air search was carried out but no sign of the submarine was found. SYRTIS is assumed to have been lost with all hands by striking a mine off Bödo between 22 and 28 March.
Frederick Charles Woodards, who was unmarried, is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial on Panel 78 Column 1.
One Response
Charlie was my uncle whom I never knew. My poor grandmother had lost her first husband who was a Sapper called Henry Marshall who was killed in October 1918. As I read Charlie’s name I am filled with pain and sadness.