Lieutenant Richard Haynes Utting
- Rank
- Lieutenant
- Appointment
- Royal Australian Navy 1942
- Service number
- Commissioned
- Unit
- London Depot Royal Australian Navy
- Cause of death
- Killed in Action
- Place of death
- Atlantic Ocean
- Date of death
- 7 December 1942
- Age
- 33
- Plaque number
- MW13A
- Co-located plaques
- MW13 - AB Peter Utting
- MW13B - SGT Philip Utting
- Dedicated by
- His family on 1 August 1999
- More information
Lieutenant Richard Haynes Utting (1909-1942, born Burma (Myanmar)) enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy in Fremantle, Western Australia, on 9 June 1941 under the Yachtsman Scheme and was sent to the United Kingdom and attached to the Royal Navy. He took part in operations in the Arctic Sea to the Russian port of Archangel in convoy escort duties to supply the Russian war effort. He was being returned to Australia as a passenger in transit on the Steam Ship (SS) Ceramic when the ship was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine about 600 kms west of the Azores about midnight on 6 December 1942. Of the Ceramic’s complement of about 650 crew and pasengers, 150 were estimated to have died in the attack and the other 500 died of exposure mostly the next day. One British serviceman was taken Prisoner of War and survived to provide the record of events.
Lieutenant Utting has no known grave and his official memorial is the Plymouth Naval Memorial, Plymouth, Devon, United Kingdom, where his name is shown on Panel 77, Column 1. His Roll of Honour has not been determined.
His honour plaque in Kings Park was dedicated by his family on 1 August 1999. He is the son of James Horatio Utting (1880-1950) and Elna Utting (nee Haswell) (1886-1966) and husband of Beryl Amy May Utting (nee Brown, later Woods (remarried 1946)) (c1917-2008) of Cottesloe, Western Australia. He is the brother of Peter Septimus Utting F3485 (killed in action) and the nephew of Philip Edward Utting 36 (killed in action).
Lieutenant Utting is remembered with honour.