James Magennis

Leading Seaman and diver of the midget submarine XE3, holder of the Victoria Cross and the only man from Northern Ireland to receive it in the Second World War. Born on 27 October 1919 in Belfast. On 31 July 1945, during Operation Struggle, XE3 entered the Johore Strait off Singapore where the Japanese heavy cruiser Takao lay, and worked in under the ship to rest on the bottom beneath her. Magennis left the craft twice through its cramped wet-and-dry hatch in a diving set. The cruiser's hull was so thickly encrusted that the limpet mines would not hold, and he had to scrape the growth away with a knife, working in the narrow space between the ship's bottom and the seabed with oxygen leaking from his breathing apparatus. He placed six charges. As XE3 withdrew, one carrier failed to release, and Magennis went out a second time to free it by hand. The Victoria Cross was awarded jointly with Lieutenant Ian Fraser, commanding XE3, and gazetted on 13 November 1945. After the war he lived in Belfast and later in England, working as an electrician. He died on 12 February 1986.