Duthies was an 89-ton steam drifter taken into Royal Navy service. German aircraft bombed her while she lay beside the jetty at Montrose on 25 October 1940. The vessel sank, but the entire crew escaped. The same raid struck the nearby air station and other local targets, bringing the air war directly to the town and…
Read the whole record
Duthies was an 89-ton steam drifter taken into Royal Navy service. German aircraft bombed her while she lay beside the jetty at Montrose on 25 October 1940. The vessel sank, but the entire crew escaped. The same raid struck the nearby air station and other local targets, bringing the air war directly to the town and harbour. The saved point records the named loss, although no public description of present wreckage was found in the quick check.
The vessel and voyage
Duthies was a small 89-ton steam drifter, formerly fishing vessel FR106, requisitioned for Royal Navy use. The saved entry does not give her builder, year, specific naval job or full crew. On 25 October 1940 she was alongside a jetty at Montrose rather than on an open-sea voyage. Her harbour setting made her part of the same local target area as the air station and shore facilities during a wider German raid on the Angus coast.
How it was lost
German aircraft bombed Duthies at the Montrose jetty on 25 October 1940 and sank her. This attack took place during raids in which Ju 88 aircraft also bombed the air station and damaged buildings and aircraft ashore. The checked naval chronology clearly gives bombing as the cause, not a mine, collision or grounding. It does not say whether the fatal damage came from a direct hit, near miss, fire or flooding, so that finer detail remains unknown.
Deaths and survival
The entire crew was rescued and no death aboard Duthies is reported. That makes the event an important survival story within a raid that killed and injured people elsewhere at Montrose. The short public sources do not give the crew size, names, method of escape or rescuer. Those details would add local value later, but the supported result is already clear: aircraft destroyed the vessel beside the jetty while the people aboard got away.
What remains
The national record supplies a precise point for Duthies but gives no water depth, hull measurement, boiler, engine, timbers or modern survey. A small vessel sunk alongside a working wartime harbour may later have been lifted, broken or cleared, and the present land-water boundary may differ from 1940. The pin is therefore reliable for the recorded historic place but not a promise of a complete visible drifter. Harbour records or close survey would be needed to describe survival.
Why it mattered
Duthies makes the Montrose raid a joined air, land and sea story. German bombing did not stop at the air station: a small requisitioned fishing craft at the harbour was also destroyed. The crew's complete survival balances the loss of the vessel with evidence of successful escape under attack. The wreck record also represents the thousands of ordinary fishing boats turned into local naval helpers whose service rarely received the attention given to major warships.
Sources for this account
Sources checked 2026-08-15.
Montrose Basin Wildlife CentreVisitor information · 743 yd
BaldovieDovecot (19th Century), Enclosure (medieval) - (18th Century), Rig and Furrow (medieval) - (post Medieval) · 761 yd
Rossie CastleCountry House (18th Century) · 778 yd
Craig HouseCropmark(s) · 879 yd
Balgove SteadingFarmstead · 942 yd
Montrose Basin Local Nature ReserveNature reserve · 1731 yd
The SeafarerMemorial · 1.2 mi
Miles Master I: Montrose Basin, North SeaAircraft (20th Century) · 1.2 mi
Wharf Street, MontroseNo Class (event) · 1.3 mi
James Graham StatueMemorial · 1.4 mi
Montrose AcademyVisitor information · 1.5 mi
Mid LinksPark · 1.9 mi
What do you know about this place?Tap to add a comment or ask a question