Sub Lieutenant
Brian Neville Thornley
LLOYD
Royal Navy
20
Brian Neville Thornley Lloyd was born in Bridgend, Wales on 14 October, 1920, second son to Cyril Herbert Powell Lloyd and Ethel Thornley Lloyd, and younger brother to Geoffrey Herbert Thornley Lloyd. He was educated at Bryntirion Primary School and Wycliffe College, Gloucestershire, after which he attended RNC Dartmouth as a cadet from 1938. He saw operational service as a Midshipman on HMS MALAYA in early WW2; his logbooks from this time are in the National Maritime Museum archive.
In 1941 Sub Lt Brian Lloyd was posted to Malta. In September 1941 he volunteered for a special mission and was selected by Captain Simpson of the 10th Flotilla. He was to join HMS URGE, whose CO was Lt Cdr Edward Tomkinson. Tomkinson had orders to take an SIS special agent to the enemy coast in Sicily, disembark the agent by means of Lloyd taking him to shore in a folbot (canoe), and re-embark a week later.
The drop off was successfully achieved, but during the week the agent was captured by the enemy, who were waiting for Lloyd when he returned to collect the agent. Lloyd was killed by machine gun fire when he reached the shore, although only after he had returned fire to his ambushers. Tomkinson narrowly managed to extricate HMS URGE from an ambush in the bay, assisted by Leading Signalman Eric Law who sighted an enemy vessel searching for the submarine.
Brian Lloyd is buried in the CWGC Cemetery, Catania, Sicily, and commemorated on the HMS URGE Memorial, Malta.
In November, 2023 Brian Lloyd’s nephew Chris Lloyd and the Mayor of Bridgend unveiled a blue plaque in his honour in Bridgend, accompanied by other HMS URGE families and people from the community in Bridgend (see this article).
