# Talk:HMS Curacoa (D41)

Would it be helpful for readers if an explanation of the name were given in the article? To name a ship Curacoa "after the place named Curaçao" seems surprising. I am not disputing the fact, merely suggesting that a simple explanation would be helpful Afterbrunel (talk) 07:13, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

@Afterbrunel: The article includes this line, "...and named to commemorate the capture of the Dutch island of Curaçao in 1807." I'm surprised we even have that much information about the rationale of naming the ship that particular name. I'm not sure what else more than that we could write? Mkdw talk 17:03, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, yes. What I meant was that the place name ends in ÇAO like "sow" and the ship name ends in COA like "Ko-er".
I realise that the Admiralty probably didn't feel the need to "justify" their naming decisions and therefore they may be no citable source to explain this, though. Afterbrunel (talk) 21:55, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
I think you're right and it was a matter of convenience. I doubt they had the desire or ability to reliably and consistently add 'Ç' to all their documentation and communications. I haven't seen anything specifically about it in all the reference material I read. Mkdw talk 23:31, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
The ship was named 'Curacao', as per the island. Contemporary reports confirm this. A typo has become embedded over time. 86.185.227.207 (talk) 10:31, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
Mkdw, I think you've missed the point. I came here to ask the same question. It's not about the 'Ç', it's about the apparent typo between naming something "...coa" after something that's called  "...cao". --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:46, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

@Afterbrunel@Dweller@Mkdw Very late followup, but I think this is ultimately down to an archaic spelling - the namers of the first ship in 1809 would have said they were naming Curacoa after the island of "Curacoa", and as later ships were built, they were named consistently with the earlier one, rather than using the modern name for the island.
It seems (based on frequency in the newspaper archives) is that the shift took place in the late 19th century - in 1807, the year it was captured, something like 95% of uses spell it "Curacoa", in 1890 it's about even, and by 1950 it's swung all the way round to 95% "Curaçao" (or "Curacao"). Andrew Gray (talk) 18:41, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
I'm obliged. Afterbrunel (talk) 07:30, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
I'm not used to getting responses 6 years after the question, but I really like it. Thank you. And yes, it is very helpful for this to be in the article! --Dweller (talk) Old fashioned is the new thing! 11:35, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

The article says that there were "eight crewmen" killed on 24th April 1940. I don't have access to the source used here, so can't check exactly what it says, but I think this might be an undercount.

The naval-history.net service history has "30 of ship's company were killed and another 30 wounded";
the naval-history.net campaign history has "killing forty five ratings and wounding thirty six";
the naval-history.net casualty list has 42 killed on 24th April, with three more died of wounds on 26th and 27th April (total 45);
the CWGC database has 36 died on 24th, four on 25th, one 26th and two 27th (total 44)
The first of these is an outlier, but the others seem to converge on 44/45. The casualty list (#3) and CWGC database (#4) differ a little on whether some deaths were on the 24th or 25th, but otherwise seem to agree; the one extra on the casualty list is an FAA airman, missing presumed killed, who CWGC thinks was assigned to HMS Edinburgh but agrees died on 24th April. That ship was in refit at the time, so maybe he had been transferred, or given that he's at the end of the list it may have got tacked on by accident and the number should indeed be 44. Definitely suggests more than eight, either way!
The note about all eight being buried in Veblungsnes may also be off a bit; CWGC records only one Curacoa burial there. There are two additional unknown burials, but both are noted as unknown soldiers not sailors. All the others who died on 24th/25th are noted as commemorated on memorials. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:42, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Would definitely agree that the CWGC records form the core or what actually happened. The same, of course, can be said of the eventual lost of the ship. The CWGC database has 337 on 02/10/40 plus a presumed DoW on 20/10/40. There are also one each in 1944, 1945, and 1946, which again are presumably men injured in the 1940 sinking who never served on another ship subsequently. In this context, the current article text suggesting the number of casualties was only settled in 2013 is more than a bit suspect. Nick Cooper (talk) 21:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
@Nick Cooper: Interesting - I've checked the contemporary (1945) reports of the loss being announced in May/June 1945, and they all give 338 - given this I suspect the one on 20/10 is a transposition of 02/10, rather than died of wounds two weeks later, since he is listed on a memorial rather than having a known grave. (His probate record also has 02/10, for what it's worth, so that seems to be the date his family were told.). This probably explains why the 2014 casualty list has 337 - it's ultimately drawn from whatever went into the CWGC list and missed the same record.
The notes on survivors being buried "in Chatham and in Arisaig" is also a bit odd: CWGC has known graves in Arisaig (5), Ashaig on Skye (13), Oban (2), Portree (3), and even Derry in NI (5), plus a handful in other west-coast cemeteries. There seem to be a few "unknown sailor" burials attributed to Curacoa in these graveyards as well, though it's harder to search for them. There is only one burial in Chatham - it seems to be one of about half a dozen cases where the bodies were taken to what I assume were family churchyards.
Not sure how best to fit the corrections into the text, though... Andrew Gray (talk) 19:34, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
@Andrew Gray: Yes, the 20/10 death is very probably a transcription error, although presumably an old one, as the scan of original register has it. Such errors are not unknown (I've certainly come across a number at different times), but are notoriously difficult to get the Commission to acknowledge or correct. I would assume that the west coast and Derry burials - including the unknowns - are where they were either recovered and landed, or washed up, but obviously families did have the option to have their relatives buried closer to home within the UK, hence the scattered ones that invariably correspond with where the next of kin lived as per the Additional Information field (certainly the case for the Chatham burial). This sort of thing is easy to deduce, but runs the risk of someone crying an Original Research foul! Nick Cooper (talk) 20:18, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

The BBC documentary mentioned in the article is spelled "Curacao" when it should be "Curacoa" like the ship is actually called. Sontails1234 (talk) 16:45, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

@Sontails1234 It looks like the BBC page is titled with the incorrect name as "HMS Curacao Tragedy", and the original writer uses that spelling, though the comments below are mostly under the correct "Curacoa" name. So I think it's best to leave the spelling as given in the source, even if incorrect. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:48, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
PS @Sontails1234 you should have been able to edit this article! I think it being fully-protected is an unintended bug from its appearance on the main page - will try and get that sorted out. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:04, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, I actually can't edit a bunch of articles that are linked to by this article and in the same category as this article today, interestingly. I guess it somewhat makes sense given it's on the main page, still weird, though. Thanks again! Sontails1234 (talk) 21:53, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
@Sontails1234 So this turned out to be a really interesting thing I don't think we'd spotted before - many thanks for flagging it up.
What happened is that template pages transcluded on the main page are meant to be protected, and the type of "cascading protection" used flows down to any templates they use, and so on, meaning you can't insert dodgy pictures into some template at the bottom of the chain. (You'd be amazed how often people used to manage that...). Mere linking doesn't normally do it.
But there's something odd about the special templates that are used for formatting ship names; they make the system think the linked page is transcluded like a template, and so it gets protected. But this article then uses some of those formatting templates itself, linking to other ship articles, so those are potentially affected in the same way, and so on along the chain... and you might end up with a big swathe of articles getting protected without anyone actually meaning to, and without it being obvious why. All very messy! Andrew Gray (talk) 22:59, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
Oooh that's very interesting! I can definitely imagine people doing the picture insertion like you noted, but it's funny that it could cause something like this! Thanks for letting me know :) Sontails1234 (talk) 00:04, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
All good then :), I saw that but wasn't sure about precedence between what's written and what's right in that case. Thanks for letting me know! Sontails1234 (talk) 21:52, 2 October 2025 (UTC)