HMS Exmouth victims to be remembered at Seafarers Memorial in Wick

Sailors who lost their lives on HMS Exmouth during World War II will be honoured at a short ceremony at the Seafarers Memorial in Wick on Remembrance Sunday.

The Royal British Legion Scotland and the Merchant Navy Association have arranged to lay a wreath in memory of the 190 officers and men who died when the destroyer was sunk by a German U-boat off Noss Head on January 21, 1940, while escorting the British merchant vessel Cyprian Prince.

Six bodies were washed up near Wick, with another nine found on the coast about 12 miles away. It was decided these 15 sailors should be buried at Wick cemetery with full military honours, and a report at the time described the funeral as probably the saddest scene in the town's history.

The destroyer's exact resting place was unknown until a dive team discovered it in June 2001. Three months later a large group of relatives travelled to Wick for special events to remember those who had lost their lives.

The wreath-laying on Sunday, November 12, will take place at the Seafarers Memorial at the Braehead between 1.30 and 1.45pm.

This will be the first Remembrance Sunday commemoration since the memorial, designed by sculptor Alan Beattie Herriot for the Seafarers Memorial Group, was officially unveiled in May. It was the culmination of a five-year campaign to raise more than £100,000 for a statue honouring all those lost at sea from or in the WK registration area, stretching from Portmahomack up to Stroma and across to Port Vasgo.

The Braehead ceremony will follow on from the Remembrance Sunday service and wreath-laying at the town's war memorial, which was unveiled 100 years ago.

HMS Exmouth was en route from Aberdeen to Scapa Flow when it was struck by the U-22, under the command of Karl-Heinrich Jenisch.

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