LOSS OF BLACK PRINCE

My great-grandfather went down with all hands on deck 100 years ago on 31 May in the icy Baltic Sea at the Battle of Jutland (June issue). Little is known about the last moments of the Black Prince, it must have happened so fast. And no one would last longer than five minutes in those freezing waters.

This was a year after he’d survived the sinking of the Goliath in the Dardenelles, when just 120 men out of a crew of some 600 escaped. I swam the annual race across the Dardenelles on 30 August last year, at which the Turks celebrate the defeat of Allied forces in the Gallipoli campaign, to commemorate my greatgrandfather’s sacrifice. The bit that gets me every time is when he described shouting to a fellow survivor ahead for help because he was almost “done”, only for the fellow to shout back he was almost “done” as well. In the end, they were fished out by a rescue boat.

Whatever you think about war – and that war outdid all wars for absurdity – the stoicism, gallows humour, even the cheerfulness in dreadful conditions is an inspiring reminder of qualities that once defined the British character.

Johnny Roberts Skipton, North Yorkshire