Surgeon Lieutenant John Ross Ivey (JRI) MRCS LRCP was born on 6th December 1916 in Cornwall. His father, Ronald Churchill Ivey came from a family of farmers from Sancreed, near Penzance, but in 1911 worked as a Railway Clerk in Shrewsbury. From 1919 he worked as a Railway Superintendent for the Indian Railways in Bombay, so JRI may have spent some of his childhood there. In 1928, Ronald, his wife Mary Annie (nee Rogers) and their three year old daughter Barbara Marie sailed on the Maella from Bombay to Plymouth. JRI may have been at school in England at this time. By 1939, now a medical student aged 22, he was living in St Ives, Cornwall with his mother and sister; his father seems to be still in India. JRI married Barbara Hull in London between April and June 1944.
He seems to have joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a Temporary Surgeon Lieutenant in June 1944. He was 27.
He was made Surgeon Lietenant on the C- class destroyer, HMS Cassandra (R62). She was launched in November 1943, and following sea trials, was commissioned on 28th July 1944 and joined the 6th Destroyer Flotilla, Home Fleet, at Scapa Flow. JRI signed a photograph of the the newly commissioned ship for Midshipman Lansky, and has his own copy of the photograph, signed by fellow officers.
By October 1944, HMS Cassandra was in the Barents Sea and acting as destroyer screen for the carriers launching air attacks on the German airbase at Bardufoss in Norway who were launching attacks on the Russian Convoys. On the 2 November, as part of convoy JW61A (Dep Liverpool 31st Oct, arr Murmansk 6th Nov), HMS Cassandra became a target for air attacks when she escorted the troop carriers, RMS Empress of Australia and RMS Scythia, taking 11,000 Russian troops captured in Normandy to Murmansk (Arctic Convoy JW.61A). However, HMS Cassandra returned without incident.
On the 1 December 1944 HMS Cassandra left Scapa Flow as part of Convoy JW62 to escort a large convoy of thirty-one 7,000 ton liberty ships to Murmansk. The day before leaving the Captain fell down a hatchway and First Lieutenant GC Leslie took over as Captain and, in accordance with strict naval tradition, became the junior ship of the destroyer escort and was posted at the back of the convoy where they were more exposed and vulnerable to attack. However, the outward journey to Russia was uneventful and no ships were lost.
Overnight on 9th/10th December, HMS Cassandra carried out a sweep for a known assembly of U-boats in the Kola Inlet and later that day rescued the pilot and observer of a ditched Swordfish plane of 835 Naval Air Squadron launched from the Escort Carrier, HMS Nairana. As Ship’s doctor, JRI would have checked the rescued airmen over.
HMS Cassandra left the Kola Inlet with Convoy RA62 on 10th December but at 0602 on Monday 11th December, approximately 190 miles NNW of Murmansk, she was torpedoed by U-365 (commanded by Lt Dieter Todenhagen and sunk two days later with the loss of all hands). The whole of the front of the ship was blown off and 62 ratings, asleep in the mess decks in the bow were killed. There must have been a lot of work for the ships’ doctor! There is a graphic account of the action from Midshipman Lansky and Seaman DJ Mills at http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/MiroslavLanskyPart2.html, which includes a photograph of the officers on HMS Cassandra co-signed by JRI.
The ship was towed back to Kola Inlet by HMS Bahamas (see Convoys Remembered John William Allen), where it underwent repairs, and “arrangements were made to transfer our wounded out of the care of Surgeon Lt Ivey RNVR, the ship’s doctor, to the RN Hospital at Vaenga” [Mills]. Ivey was still in Russia on 22nd Dec when DJ Mills visited the hospital with tonsillitis.
It is not known how or when he returned to the UK or how he spent the rest of the war until he was released on 8th August 1946. He is registered on the electoral roll in the Kensington area from 1945 until at least 1952.
John Ross Ivey continued in the Royal Navy Reserve until 1966, spending time each year at HMS Cambria, a shore-based establishment in Cardiff. By 1960 he had the rank of Surgeon Lieutenant Commander. He died in Swansea in 2014.