McClement, Donald
Engine Room Artificer 4th Class
No. P/MX 60352, HMS Quentin, Royal Navy
Killed in action on Wednesday 2 December 1942 (aged 23)
No known grave
Commemorated:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Portsmouth Naval Memorial, Hampshire, England (Panel 67 Column 2)
BIOGRAPHY
The death of Engine Room Artificer 4th Class Donald McClement (No. P/MX 60352) was reported in the 12 December 1942 edition of the Newtownards Chronicle under the headline Former Kircubbin Engineer Lost.
Donald McClement was born on 16 May 1919 in Wolstanton, Staffordshire and he was the only son of Hugh Henry and Florence (Florrie) Caroline McClement (nee Steele), formerly of Kircubbin and then of Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire.
Donald McClement’s uncle and aunt, Thompson and Mary Ann Donald, together with his aunt Lizzie McClement, lived at 41 Adam Street, Belfast. Later they moved to Townhall Street, Belfast. Donald McClement’s uncle, Seaman John McClement, was drowned on 30 January 1917.
During the Second World War Donald McClement served with the Royal Navy aboard the Q-class destroyer HMS Quentin. Built by John Samuel White and Company of Cowes in the Isle of Wight she was commissioned on 15 April 1942 and less than eight months later she sank on 2 December 1942.
On 1 December 1942 HMS Quentin was part of a British force (Force Q) that left Bone Harbour in Algeria with the objective of intercepting an Italian convoy in the Sicilian Narrows. The British ships destroyed the Italian convoy in the Battle of Skerki Bank but the following morning, on the way back to Bone, the ships of Force Q came under attack from German bomber aircraft. At 6.36 am HMS Quentin was hit by a 500 kg bomb and sank within four minutes. Engine Room Artificer 4th Class Donald McClement (aged 23) was one of around 20 men who died, and he is commemorated on Portsmouth Naval Memorial in Hampshire.