Robert Timbrell

He died on April 11, 2006, and is survived by his widow (Patricia Timbrell née Jones, after nearly 60 years of marriage), their daughter and their grandson, who is following the family naval tradition, by becoming an officer in the Canadian Forces Maritime Command.

He made a final return to Dunkirk in May 2000, as part of the 60th anniversary celebrations. Llanthony had been restored for the occasion, but in the event bad weather meant he could not complete the crossing on his original vessel, so he travelled on the British destroyer, HMS Somerset.

Following his retirement Timbrell became president of the Dominion Marine Association an organisation related to shipping on the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway. He held this position until 1985, when he moved from Ottawa to Chester Basin, Nova Scotia.

After fuelling and loading several barrels of fresh water they set off across the English Channel for Dunkirk. Before arriving at the beaches they met a broken down Thames pleasure steamer, crowded with evacuated troops which they immediately towed back to Ramsgate. Setting out once more for the evacuation beaches, this time they reached Dunkirk and started on the evacuation. Then, as Timbrell told CBC in 1980, "On the third or fourth trip we got bombed. We were hit on the fo'csle. I lost about five of the crew and both my anchors snapped. The fuel pipes were severed so both engines died. We drifted up on the beach."

His post-war career saw him command a variety of vessels including the aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure as well as several staff roles. He ultimately became head of Canada's naval forces but he was unhappy with the merger of the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force into the unified Canadian Forces. Following conflicts with the Chief of the Defence Staff, he retired in 1973.

He then returned to sea in command of HMCS Bonaventure ferrying Canadian troops to Cyprus in the mid 1960s. Again sea command was followed by staff appointments, this time at Training Command in Winnipeg, then working with General Jean Allard to reduce Canadian military commitments overseas and then two years on the Canadian Defence Liaison Staff in Washington DC, which also carried diplomatic rank as military attaché at the Canadian Embassy there. He then returned to Canada, going to Halifax, Nova Scotia to serve as Commander Maritime Command in the unified Canadian Forces. Never happy having been forced into the green uniform of the Canadian Forces, he clashed with the Chief of the Defence Staff and retired in 1973 as a Rear Admiral and was honoured as a Commander of the Order of Military Merit.

In 1946 he married Patricia Jones. He then served successively as commanding officer of the frigate HMCS Swansea, and the light cruiser HMCS Ontario. In the latter command he was responsible for transporting Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip from Prince Edward Island to Sydney, Nova Scotia.

He was twice mentioned in dispatches, firstly for his part in the destruction of the German submarine U-621 in the Bay of Biscay on August 18, 1944, and then for the sinking of U-984 two days later.

Timbrell was promoted Sub-Lieutenant and posted to the Royal Naval gunnery school at Whale Island, Portsmouth. He was still just 20 years old, when in May 1940 he was among 20 other junior officers who were ordered to take command of small boats to assist in the evacuation from Dunkirk.

Llanthony itself had brought back 280 men, and with the trawlers under his command the total for which Timbrell was responsible was 900 evacuated. Timbrell's DSC was gazetted on 16 August 1940 and the investiture was made by King George VI himself, on September 3, 1940.

Born in Tavistock, Devon he was the son of a British railway engineer who found work in Canada. His early schooling was at West Vancouver High School in British Columbia, but at 15 he joined the River Mersey-based training ship HMS Conway as a cadet. Timbrell graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada in 1937, student# RCNSE54.

From 1937 served as a Midshipman in the RCN. There was then no naval training in Canada itself, so he was posted to the Royal Navy ships HMS Erebus, HMS Vindictive, HMS Barham, HMS Warspite, and HMS Hood in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic.

He was sent to Ramsgate and placed in command of the 1934 Camper and Nicholsons motor yacht Llanthony, which belonged to the former Member of Parliament Colonel Lionel Beaumont Thomas MC. Timbrell was assigned a crew consisting of a Royal Navy petty officer, two London Transport (LT) bus mechanics and six woodsmen from Newfoundland. The only equipment that was issued was a First World War revolver, an uncorrected magnetic compass and a chart of the (known) minefields. However, Llanthony did carry two tenders, which would later allow them to take 16 men at a time off the beaches.

Rear Admiral Robert Walter Timbrell, CMM, DSC, CD, Royal Canadian Navy (February 1, 1920 – April 11, 2006) was the first Canadian to be decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross during the Second World War. This followed his part in Operation Dynamo where he was personally responsible for the evacuation of 900 troops from the beaches of Dunkirk.