HMS Revenge’, from HMT Orion, en route to Egypt, 1941 (b/w photo)

HMS Revenge’, from HMT Orion, en route to Egypt, 1941. Photograph by Major Wilfred Herbert James Sale (1913-1995), MC, 3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), World War Two (1939-1945), 1941. The battleship HMS Revenge was launched in May 1915. A veteran of the Battle of Jutland, she was still in service when World War Two broke out. Revenge undertook convoy escort duties in the South Atlantic and was then sent to the Indian Ocean. En route, she arrived at Freetown on 31 August 1941, to pick up and escort the convoy which the HMT Orion formed part of. According to the Sharpshooters’ war diary, 40 officers and 603 other ranks of the 3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters) embarked on the Orion at Avonmouth on 14 August 1941. The troopship sailed for Egypt the next day. British forces travelling to Egypt avoided the Mediterranean Sea because of the threat from German and Italian forces. The Orion’s route included Freetown in Sierra Leone, Cape Town in South Africa, Aden and then up to Port Said in Egypt via the Suez Canal. From an album containing 229 group photographs compiled by Major W H J Sale, MC, 3rd/4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), 1941.