Western Morning News (Saturday)
Paying tribute to naval heroes in ‘truly historic’ act of remembrance
As millions of people fall silent this weekend to mark 100 years since the end of the First World War, most thoughts will be focused on the trenches of the Western Front.
But the Royal Navy played a major part in the conflict, losing more than 200 warships and 800 auxiliary vessels.
The last, the battleship, HMS Britannia, was sunk off Cape Trafalgar just two days before the Armistice, taking 50 men down with her.
On land, the sailor-soldiers of the Royal Naval Division fought from Antwerp to the Hindenburg Line via the Somme, Passchendaele and Gallipoli – but at a fearful cost.
In all, 49,573 personnel in the Naval service died between 1914 and 1918.
Just shy of 14,000 are “remembered” on the Royal British Legion’s website everyoneremembered.org.
The legion is asking more people to go on to the website to post tributes to the more than 35,500 sailors and Marines who are still “unremembered”.
“Since we launched the Every One Remembered website more than 14,000 people have left messages of remembrance for their relatives, namesakes and strangers who died in the Navy,” Catherine Davies, head of remembrance at the Royal British Legion, said.
“As we approach the end of the centenary, we would love to see each and every one of these men and women individually commemorated.
“Leaving a personal tribute, however long or short, is an opportunity to take part in a truly historic and significant act of remembrance.”
Naval warfare in the First World War was mainly characterised by the efforts of the Allied Powers, with their larger fleets, to blockade Germany and her allies by sea, and the efforts to break that blockade or to establish an effective blockade of the United Kingdom and France with submarines and raiders.
The war at sea was not confined to servicemen. Many Westcountry fishing trawlers were pressed into service as minesweepers. Their crews paid a heavy price, with an estimated one in five being killed.
Members of the Plymouthbased Type 21 Association will join in tomorrow’s Remembrance services, laying poppy wreaths with the Type 21 Association Crest.
In Plymouth, home of the Type 21 frigates, the wreath will be laid at the Falklands War Memorial in the Mari- time Memorial Garden on Plymouth Hoe.
In the Falkland Islands, a wreath will be laid at the War Memorial in Stanley to commemorate those who lost their lives on HMS Ardent and HMS Antelope which were sunk during the 1982 conflict.
Wreaths will be laid at The Cenotaph in Whitehall and at the National Memorial Arboretum, and also at the main War Memorials in Portsmouth and Chatham.
A few of those honoured on the Every One Remembered website include: T. W. Thorogood, a corporal in Royal Marine Light Infantry, who died on December 29, 1915.
Corporal Thorogood was the husband of Mrs. P. Thorogood, of 8, Hotham Place, Millbridge, Devonport. He is buried in the Pieta Military Cemetery, Malta.
Daphne Freeman writes in memory of Chief Stoker A. Freeman, who is buried in the Capuccini Naval Cemetery, Malta: “Thank you from our Freeman family, we are from Plymouth too, a city with a proud naval heritage of duty and sacrifice.”
J Tidball, a petty officer stoker, husband of Mary Tidball, of Kennford, Exeter, died on September 11, 1918.
He is buried in the Capuccini Naval Cemetery, Malta, and remembered by Kerry Lovatt, who writes: “I wish I had known you and had a chance to thank you for everything you gave to us who survive you.”
‘Leaving a personal tribute is an opportunity to take part in a truly historic and significant act of remembrance’
Catherine Davies, RBL