Royal Navy, HMS Esk, Service no. P/KX90772
Born: 7th September 1918. Died 1st September 1940, aged 22
Story
James was the son of James Taggart and Elizabeth Irving of Carlisle, Cumberland. James was in the navy before the war started, on HMS Esk. After Dunkirk, where they were rescuing allied troops from the beaches, he came home on leave unexpectedly while his ship was being repaired. He then had to return for mine-laying operations. The family never saw him again. A telegraph came, to say that he was missing, lost at sea, but other than that they did not get to know what had happened to him. James’s mother could not believe that he would never come back home. On one occasion, his mother was told that a man in naval uniform was knocking on the door, and she thought it would be him. It turned out to be a relative who was in the Canadian Navy. James’ mother died before it became known what had happened.
The Esk (pictured below), commanded by Lt. Cdr. R J H Couch RN, DSC, was part of a group of destroyers from the 20th Destroyer Flotilla, which set out from Immingham on a mine-laying mission off the Dutch coast, on 30th August 1940. The ships were then sent to intercept a German force picked up on aerial reconnaissance. It was wrongly thought that they were part of an invasion force. The destroyer Express hit a mine and was badly damaged. The Esk went to her aid, hit a mine itself, and sank immediately at a position about 40 nautical miles north-west of Texel, off the Dutch coast.
Kippax Connection
James was the brother of Jean Beever, (née Taggart.) James was sixteen years older than Jean, who met her husband, Dennis Beever, of Kippax, and was married in Kippax at St. Mary’s in 1954, and still lives in Kippax. Jean finally found out what had happened to her brother about ten years ago, when her grandson and his girlfriend did some research on the internet.
James is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial, Panel 42 Column 2
Kippax Roll of Honour 