Charles James Oxenham

Charles James Oxenham was serving as a Petty Officer Stoker on the River-class frigate HMS Itchen, which was sunk in the North Atlantic on 23rd September 1943 by the German submarine U-666. The Itchen was acting as an escort for the closely linked Convoys ONS 202 and ON 202.

The convoy battle was ferocious. At 21:51 on 20th September, the Canadian destroyer HMCS St. Croix was torpedoed and sunk by U-305. The Itchen rushed to assist, picking up 81 survivors from the water. Just over an hour later, while the rescue operations were unfolding, U-305 fired a torpedo at the Itchen that missed its mark, striking and sinking HMS Polyanthus instead. As the Polyanthus went down, it tragically provided a screen for further chaos.

At 02:01 on the morning of 23rd September, U-666 struck back, firing a newly developed GNAT (German Navy Acoustic Torpedo) that hit the Itchen. The frigate blew up instantly—detonating its own depth charges—with the loss of 230 lives, including 14 officers and 134 ratings of her own crew alongside the survivors she had taken aboard.

In the end, there were only three survivors from the entire disaster: two from the Itchen’s crew and one from the original St. Croix survivors she had been carrying. They were rescued from a motorboat by the Polish merchant freighter SS Wisła. Charles was 38 years old and is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.