Tag: Chatham Naval Memorial

Robert William Vanson: A Naval Life Cut Short

Early Life and Family

Robert William Vanson was born at Wingham, Kent, on 2 October 1883, the son of Robert Vanson and Susannah Cowell. Although his birthplace was in the east Kent countryside, his childhood was spent in and around Dover. In the 1891 census he was living with his family at Hultsdorph Cottages, South Road, Dover, aged seven and described as a scholar. [1]

Robert entered naval service as a young teenager. His service record places him aboard the training ship Impregnable from 14 July 1898, when he was fourteen. The move from a Dover childhood into naval training began a lifelong association with the sea and introduced him to the discipline, routines and practical skills expected of a Royal Navy sailor. [1]

By the 1901 census Robert was serving aboard a Royal Navy vessel in Grand Harbour, Malta. He was eighteen and recorded as an able-bodied seaman, demonstrating that he had progressed from naval training into active service. Malta was one of the Royal Navy’s most important Mediterranean bases, and service there would have exposed him to the international character of the fleet and the demands of life at sea. [1]

On 16 April 1904 Robert married Amelia Field in Dover. The couple had three children: Robert William, Elizabeth Florence and Susie Marjorie Vanson. By the outbreak of the First World War, Robert was therefore not only an experienced sailor but also a husband and father with a young family at home. [1]

Robert Vanson’s naval career began in adolescence and ended with the loss of a husband and father during one of the Royal Navy’s earliest submarine disasters.

Military Service

Robert served as Able Seaman 199912, with the additional Royal Fleet Reserve identification R.F.R. Ch. B.9073. He was serving aboard HMS Cressy as part of the Royal Navy when he died. His service records and later commemorations identify him as a Chatham-associated sailor, reflecting the strong connection between the ships of the 7th Cruiser Squadron and the naval communities of Kent. [1]

The Royal Fleet Reserve consisted largely of former regular sailors who had completed their active service but remained liable for recall. These men were not inexperienced civilians. They were trained seamen with previous naval experience, brought back into service when the fleet expanded after the outbreak of war. Robert’s record illustrates the way in which Britain relied upon reservists and former regulars to crew many of its warships in 1914. [2][1]

As an able seaman, Robert would have formed part of the ship’s working company. His duties could include seamanship, handling boats, maintaining equipment, assisting with guns and ammunition, lookout duties and damage-control work. On a large armoured cruiser, the safe operation of the vessel depended upon the coordinated efforts of hundreds of sailors, each carrying out specialist or general duties under pressure.

Robert was posthumously entitled to the 1914 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal, as well as the Memorial Plaque issued to the next of kin of those who died as a result of the war. These awards reflect both his early-war service and the official recognition of his death through enemy action. [1]

Unit Context at the Time of Death

HMS Cressy was a Cressy-class armoured cruiser, a type of large warship designed for overseas patrols and imperial defence. The ships were commissioned at the beginning of the twentieth century and were no longer considered modern by 1914, but they retained heavy guns, armour and the endurance needed for extended operations. At the outbreak of war, Cressy was assigned to the 7th Cruiser Squadron, also known as Cruiser Force C. [3][4]

The squadron was sent from Chatham to Harwich to support a force of destroyers and submarines operating in the southern North Sea. Its principal task was to patrol the Broad Fourteens, a shallow area of sea off the Dutch coast, and protect the eastern approaches to the English Channel. The patrols helped safeguard the maritime routes used by British shipping carrying troops and supplies between Britain and France. [5][6]

The squadron included HMS Cressy, Aboukir, Hogue, Bacchante and Euryalus. Because the cruisers were older and many of their crews consisted of reservists, observers and sailors later nicknamed the formation the “Live Bait Squadron”. The label was cruel but reflected contemporary concerns about the vulnerability of slow, unsupported surface ships to submarines. Robert and his fellow reservists were experienced mariners, but they were operating in a form of naval warfare that was changing rapidly. [7][3]

On 22 September 1914 the supporting destroyers and submarines were absent, partly because poor weather had prevented them from putting to sea. The three cruisers—Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy—were consequently patrolling alone. Their mission remained defensive: to watch the sea, deter enemy movement and protect shipping routes. It was during this routine patrol that the German submarine U-9 found them. [5]

Circumstances of Death

On the morning of 22 September 1914, U-9, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen, attacked the three British cruisers in the North Sea, roughly sixty miles off the Dutch coast. The submarine first torpedoed HMS Aboukir. When HMS Hogue stopped to assist survivors, she too was attacked and sunk. HMS Cressy then moved towards the stricken ships, exposing herself to the submarine’s torpedoes. [8][1]

U-9 fired at Cressy and struck her with a torpedo. A further attack followed, and the cruiser capsized before sinking. The entire action lasted less than two hours. Although rescue vessels reached the scene and saved hundreds of men, the combined loss from the three ships was catastrophic: 1,459 officers and sailors died, while only 837 were rescued. [9][5]

Robert William Vanson was killed in action in the North Sea on 22 September 1914, aged thirty-one. The official records describe his death as caused directly by enemy action. His body was not recovered for burial. The loss was particularly devastating for his family because Robert was the dearly loved husband of Amelia and the father of three children. [1]

The wider loss had a strong connection with Chatham. Contemporary material recorded that 1,263 of the 1,437 officers and men whose bodies were not recovered and identified belonged to the Port of Chatham. Around forty bodies were later washed ashore on the Dutch coast and buried in Holland, but Robert was not among those identified. [1]

Robert Vanson was one of the experienced Royal Fleet Reserve sailors whose routine patrol became a struggle for survival against a new and devastating submarine threat.

Burial and Commemoration

Because his body was not recovered, Robert is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial. The memorial honours Royal Navy personnel who died at sea and have no known grave. It provides a permanent place of remembrance for a sailor whose final resting place lies somewhere beneath the North Sea. [1]

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records him as Able Seaman Robert William Vanson, service number 199912, of HMS Cressy, who died on 22 September 1914. His commemoration identifies him individually, while also placing him within the collective memory of the three-cruiser disaster. [1]

The connection with Dover and Lydden was preserved in the local press. The Dover Express of 16 October 1914 described Robert as the “dearly loved husband” of Amelia Vanson and the eldest son of Robert Vanson of 35 Stonehall, Lydden. This notice provides a personal dimension to the official naval record and confirms the family’s immediate loss. [1]

Legacy

Robert William Vanson’s life illustrates the close relationship between Kent and the Royal Navy. Born at Wingham, raised in Dover and connected with the Chatham naval establishment, he followed a familiar path from local family life into maritime service. His career began aboard the training ship Impregnable, continued through service in Malta and culminated in his return to the fleet as a Royal Fleet Reserve sailor in wartime. [1]

His death also belongs to a turning point in naval history. The sinking of Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy showed that submarines could destroy major surface ships with alarming speed. The disaster led to changes in patrol practice and encouraged the Admiralty to take the submarine threat far more seriously. It also demonstrated the danger of sending vulnerable cruisers to sea without adequate escort or anti-submarine precautions. [9]

For Amelia and their children, however, Robert was not primarily a figure in naval strategy. He was a husband, father and eldest son whose absence shaped the family’s future. The Chatham Naval Memorial preserves his name, while the family notice in the Dover Express preserves something of the affection in which he was held.

Remembering Robert requires both perspectives: the professional sailor serving in a historic naval disaster and the Kent family whose private grief followed the sinking. His name links Wingham, Dover, Lydden, Chatham and the North Sea, creating a lasting record of one man’s service and sacrifice during the opening weeks of the First World War.

Sources and Further Reading

Sources
[1] Individual-Report-for-Robert-William-Vanson.pdf https://ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/web/direct-files/attachments/141549598/ea2431a4-073b-4204-9fa1-588bd99605e5/Individual-Report-for-Robert-William-Vanson.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=ASIA2F3EMEYE5ZM2ASQY&Signature=3Vk%2BS0QZkndBkKi2RGj1vcPUy%2BI%3D&x-amz-security-token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjENv%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIQDaA1whplcASSH3hGL2uYfqtMFgaj%2FXcvedGpZJUq%2BuLAIgAkyWkvR08P3dWE32dLx6JWeZGE0kVy1JFUHgFgokf%2BQqgwUIo%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FARABGgw2OTk3NTMzMDk3MDUiDP1A3C9wMwfu3%2ByKiirXBME8%2FGUXFcji0ZgY0BDT2EAWB6HAEtvijIxbhD9wXVGNA6x2kOhXMmPTK9to1OrD8TRFFvPq4rNJ3oLiXjS%2Bbrxzu%2BJtGLwS5Aim8E0fwLg3GvrYZ0VC9N8Xq1vZ%2BcV41RhmtCGuEMG4UXUrbUhaCGhETkjaM102QLWdwfP11kovqey0SmJjKy9ZR1wo%2FHW%2FxyT15u9xOI7cgEdF0QcybZvia9gemlo9njSCkTVJEzILz8EuG5AKkXlP7CfieBBXn2cL2by9R4XnGECSvQXvkER4ZKsubIkX99gFpAdzIJsj9r0%2BizMYdNGe2gDb%2BoFG9iCerlPZpmPgiN94E%2Fd6FF0WThqFCF6fhRjJng2%2FKrpCcJnpFCbKZb4Q9Ul3%2F9MSiXzd5mXgHM3m3IbZcYtEr3aHhRmKMNIu%2B8AKky3TnZ%2Ft%2F%2B8uM3pTocynDWNLMp5LhlRXrQ60PjnARZx0yemuwbxh5OyT9kYduhqtGbahyYtjwJmQq5GDVeSwuk6drKZ10J3%2BSCtOhn0gJ3wnYTL8kE7S6tH4F4LoxmecNUGHtHshtGry44YMpg2AN%2FqgPM7442NIKG0R6%2BidCHU%2BxxhExQSVgRBkQhtVqAy2sYTWmfpTV5G6qMJD8nA%2FPtCzXMPnUsKh%2FBRFNzdtSGGwdC7yLvLhANjqdhuYwHYKDqa%2B4VH0J9c2npNPvXmn6GbfcpD2T73UmvFui41HzApzTBZ%2Fi%2Fv5xR%2BhL74WRlaSjT%2FLRE%2FcId0ayyQPdxSlxOG3Q4U%2FEEAAg5uEFe0YmSCTebijFTscQLT%2Bm3kSMN2%2BydUGOpgBaA3AOpk5t1M5ZUk3R5jj8sMrchnT4xPknuL6nYHKUZ1bRz%2BBoebHKD5OYaM5r1rP2CeN%2FlLqfyG5q302z2Uwl5%2F0E2fonmJWUthi1xMFZ1GtaWKjesOx0BGt1IQ6MpmAWXVc241NHqAMF4NUGHlR2uoTZaSkhJC%2Fq7pv7hCURc%2FJn1muQ8xV6bTAhz5tHnZAGwYazGsN1PY%3D&Expires=1790077072
[2] U9 Sinks Three British Cruisers 22 September 1914 https://warandsecurity.com/2014/09/22/u9-sinks-three-british-cruisers-22-september-1914/
[3] Cressy class armoured cruisers (1899) https://naval-encyclopedia.com/ww1/uk/cressy-class-armoured-cruisers.php
[4] HMS Cressy (1899) – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Cressy_(1899)
[5] Three Cruisers – Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust https://thedockyard.co.uk/the-collections/digital-exhibitions/three-cruisers/
[6] 7th Cruiser Squadron – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Cruiser_Squadron
[7] HMS Cressy Archives – History Hub Ulster https://historyhubulster.co.uk/tag/hms-cressy/
[8] THE ACTION OF 22 SEPTEMBER 1914, HMS ABOUKIR, HOGUE … https://hmcoastguard.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-action-of-22-september-1914-hms.html
[9] The ‘live bait squadron’ – The National Archives blog https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/live-bait-squadron/
[10] [PDF] Casualty Details – Faded Genes https://www.fadedgenes.co.uk/CWGC_Robert_William_Vanson.pdf
[11] THE DOVER WAR MEMORIAL PROJECT – WWI http://www.doverwarmemorialproject.org.uk/Casualties/CWGC/WWI%20United%20Kingdom%20C.htm
[12] The Coal Black Sea – How a Shocking 1914 Naval Disaster Nearly … https://militaryhistorynow.com/2022/07/15/the-coal-black-sea-how-a-shocking-1914-naval-disaster-nearly-sank-winston-churchill/
[13] Life story: Robert William Vanson | Lives of the First World War https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk/lifestory/7691738
[14] Livebait Squadron: One of the largest Naval disasters in history https://historyhubulster.co.uk/livebait-squadron/
[15] HMS Aboukir (+1914) | MaSS https://mass.cultureelerfgoed.nl/hms-aboukir
[16] The Historic Dockyard, Chatham, Kent: Ship models https://wargamingmiscellanybackup.wordpress.com/2015/09/25/the-historic-dockyard-chatham-kent-ship-models/

The Story of David Collins and the Live Bait Squadron

Early Life and Family

David Harry Collins was born at Kingsnorth, near Ashford in Kent, on 25 January 1883. He was the son of David Collins and Susannah Charlotte Foord, and was baptised on 4 March 1883 at St Michael and All Angels, Kingsnorth. His earliest years were spent in the Kentish countryside, although the family later moved towards the growing communities around Ashford. [1]

In the 1891 census David was living at 146 Cudworth Road, Willesborough, aged eight and described as a scholar. The household record places him within a working family environment at a time when compulsory schooling and the expansion of local industries were reshaping the lives of children in Kent. By the age of seventeen he had entered maritime employment, beginning a career that would take him away from the county and into the Royal Navy. [1]

The 1901 census recorded David aboard a vessel at Portland, Dorset, where he was listed among the crew as a Boy 1st Class. This entry provides an important glimpse of his transition from childhood to naval service. It shows a young Kentish man already living within the disciplined, mobile world of the merchant and naval ports, learning the practical routines of life at sea. [1]

No spouse or children are identified in the surviving family report. David’s story is therefore preserved chiefly through his parents, his naval records and the official memorials that commemorate the men lost with HMS Cressy. [1]

From a scholar in Willesborough to a senior sailor aboard an armoured cruiser, David Collins’s life followed the sea at a time of rapid naval change.

Royal Navy Service

David entered military service on 5 January 1900, aged sixteen. His later records identify him as Petty Officer 1st Class, service number 208619, serving in the Royal Navy aboard HMS Cressy. The rank indicates that he had progressed considerably beyond his early status as a Boy 1st Class and had acquired experience and responsibility within the ship’s company. [1]

A petty officer was a senior rating who helped supervise the work, discipline and training of junior sailors. In a large warship, petty officers were essential to the daily functioning of the vessel. They stood between the commissioned officers and the wider company, ensuring that orders were understood and carried out while also maintaining standards in technical, domestic and seamanship duties.

HMS Cressy was a Cressy-class armoured cruiser, constructed at the end of the nineteenth century. The class had been designed for overseas naval service and carried substantial armour, heavy guns and a large crew. By 1914 the ships were no longer at the forefront of naval design, but their size, endurance and weaponry made them suitable for patrol and blockade duties in waters where the Royal Navy needed a visible and persistent presence. [2][3]

David’s medals and service records place him among the professional sailors who formed the working core of the Royal Navy during the transition from peace to total war. The report records him as entitled to the relevant naval war-service recognition, while his service history shows that he had already spent many years at sea before the outbreak of the First World War. [1]

Unit Context at the Time of Death

At the outbreak of war, HMS Cressy was assigned to the 7th Cruiser Squadron, also known as Cruiser Force C. The squadron’s task was to patrol the southern North Sea, particularly the area known as the Broad Fourteens, and to support the wider naval forces guarding the eastern approaches to the English Channel. Its work helped protect the sea routes carrying the British Expeditionary Force and supplies between Britain and France. [4][5]

The squadron consisted largely of older armoured cruisers, many crewed partly by reservists. Their patrol area was comparatively shallow, and the vessels were expected to maintain a steady presence while watching for German warships attempting to reach the Channel or interfere with British shipping. The ships’ age and vulnerability led some naval observers to refer to the squadron as the “Live Bait Squadron”, a nickname that became tragically prophetic after September 1914. [6][2]

HMS Cressy was not operating in isolation by design. The patrol was intended to be supported by destroyers and submarines associated with the Harwich Force. However, poor weather, mechanical difficulties and operational circumstances meant that the three cruisers—Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy—were alone on the morning of 22 September. Their mission was defensive and protective rather than an attack on a particular enemy port: they were maintaining a patrol intended to deter, observe and intercept. [7]

That role placed David and his shipmates at the meeting point between traditional surface warfare and the emerging submarine age. The cruisers were heavily armed and armoured, but their patrol procedures had not yet fully adapted to the speed, concealment and striking power of modern submarines.

Circumstances of Death

On the morning of 22 September 1914, the three cruisers were patrolling off the Dutch coast when they were sighted by the German submarine U-9, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen. U-9 first attacked HMS Aboukir. When Hogue and Cressy stopped or slowed to assist survivors, they presented the submarine with further targets. [2][1]

After the loss of the first two ships, Cressy attempted to engage the submarine and also tried to ram it. U-9 manoeuvred into position and fired torpedoes at close range. A torpedo struck Cressy at approximately 7.25 a.m., followed by a second hit several minutes later. The cruiser capsized and sank in less than half an hour. [8][9][1]

David Harry Collins was killed or died as a direct result of enemy action in the sinking. He was thirty-one years old. The loss of Cressy formed part of a catastrophe in which three British cruisers were sunk by one submarine in roughly ninety minutes. Approximately 560 men were lost aboard Cressy, while 1,459 sailors died across the three vessels; 837 men were rescued by British and neutral vessels. [8]

David Collins died not in a distant ocean battle, but on a routine North Sea patrol that became one of the Royal Navy’s earliest submarine disasters.

Burial and Commemoration

David’s body was not recovered for burial. He is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial, which honours Royal Navy personnel who died at sea and have no known grave. The memorial is especially appropriate for a sailor from Kent: it connects his service with the naval establishments and communities of the Medway and preserves his name within the county’s maritime history. [7][1]

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records him as Petty Officer 1st Class David Harry Collins, service number 208619, Royal Navy, who died on 22 September 1914 aboard HMS Cressy. His commemoration records ensure that his identity is not absorbed into the much larger casualty total. He was one particular man: the son of David Collins and Susannah Charlotte Foord, born in Kingsnorth and raised in the Willesborough area. [1]

The Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust continues to interpret the loss of Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy as part of the dockyard’s wartime history. The three ships were associated with Chatham before being sent to Harwich as part of the 7th Cruiser Squadron, giving the disaster a direct connection with Kent’s naval heritage. [7]

Legacy

The sinking of HMS Cressy had consequences far beyond the loss of one ship. It demonstrated that a single submarine could destroy several large surface vessels in a short period and forced the Admiralty to reconsider the risks of unsupported cruiser patrols. The attack also influenced later anti-submarine practice, including the importance of escorting vulnerable ships, maintaining movement and treating submerged submarines as a major strategic threat. [4][2]

For David Collins, the historical significance of the action should not obscure the individual story. He had entered naval service as a teenager, progressed to the responsible rank of Petty Officer 1st Class and spent his adult life within the Royal Navy. His career joined the local world of Kent with the global reach of Britain’s maritime forces.

His name on the Chatham Naval Memorial represents the enduring cost of that service. There is no known grave to visit and no surviving account in the report describing his final moments. Yet the combination of census entries, naval records, casualty registers and memorial inscription allows his life to be reconstructed with care. David Harry Collins remains part of both the Collins family history and the story of the Royal Navy’s painful encounter with submarine warfare in the first weeks of the Great War.

Sources and Further Reading

Sources
[1] Individual-Report-for-David-Harry-Collins.pdf https://ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/web/direct-files/attachments/141549598/1deb49f5-f4f4-459d-97e5-f42813f25e3a/Individual-Report-for-David-Harry-Collins.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=ASIA2F3EMEYE2HR37775&Signature=dHa6Xl%2BHnshfojQPi5eyyANR1cE%3D&x-amz-security-token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjENv%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIFynzI0O7oF7ezzdEwVjHiGtP6c%2Fwn55JcPeBZCpLR11AiEAk3bEo4zl7HtJ2a4T1AgpNWEUBDylGrCzBzoW%2F3tcTRkq%2FAQIpP%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FARABGgw2OTk3NTMzMDk3MDUiDA%2BFlqdcWHQdKTo6UirQBEp32NKrh4cIc%2FXfB9PkNC9JKwkVf8mHcb9Xe54f79NH%2FnmkPfQay7xVtqFr3m6bdZf1c8cqEj28YemPjlv05GEyj8TEMqmkXR%2FdWWlL2MAA5vaZN%2Fd0LSR2fBUj2R8PsLmuLZEUYiI6KCHDXWSDk36N15mJphnIWlRX1WHDvBM8%2B6nGNdLdPB5otmf71b2ggtpKh6tojMXlqMJ2Ru%2F51gNVIXIdfNIauQDR7%2BV0pnv55wXSorMEPXgY%2FsfnZdxafRNGja9nkYA9Z6yOZgtQzJtS%2BZbtIJcJpd3XWl%2BCypzZ1PS85znrZC%2BuyM8%2B%2BS1GKzgcDKyx6CvqkGF6UyBXuEZkP3pH4HDR7AWD9ugFzmoFIvIhNh1zVmdf7nMdG5FXgEjtWdpK4gvTdyRI%2B7soOVWkndKbgozzqLkhSqjjRmEPqraYrpd9o5H1yLG23mUjUcYCSRFb1As0X3d376wEthNE15DdJxmAn99R6Z%2FSJWo3yp0qPnJq9j8gDyBvvxoUnxW7XEuGI2apDoQWhehrZ62f3Vp%2Bb6Awi5xevE4tpLd9uSNFJb2%2FVKmL8UlHmonwXGGuSZjlsJtStYUpnjY8969YE%2BUNz21CoCUUstVojv%2BOMUTYY3jKHblgqVV2WGpQVrWfOhms2lZrNZQDMqsHKcCQxp1eVaInWns3xO%2F8v0tA1b0vuO09a1xhYL9YazOYVcAwLXN69t%2FA1OjQ9m4LmzREL97N1InrG252ZQyp6KG9FPFKbfpB2aml5H7HuH8nGn%2BidQ5KNh3JOGar7tEAK6kwoLPJ1QY6mAGgXswDx5UFXY4SjCmWQUzIBBQSd0hoYQqxV9UW0ZQdfj8N9N%2BU7muk3CVRG7ds5Ef6A10kj%2FUOCETw%2FYbOQnEG3FsoPZjhSSp2XG8i%2B0IXspjQxw3N8hsdIdkeZNDYP6z1xeaCKRS5mxgERLCn3UR74Q533%2F%2F3iN3oBXVuJkpL%2BbeV%2FbaTQWxvnAA%2Bjxcc1WpOgUEZrPPQGw%3D%3D&Expires=1790075731
[2] HMS Cressy (+1914) | MaSS https://mass.cultureelerfgoed.nl/hms-cressy
[3] Cressy class armoured cruisers (1899) https://naval-encyclopedia.com/ww1/uk/cressy-class-armoured-cruisers.php
[4] HMS Cressy (1899) – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Cressy_(1899)
[5] 7th Cruiser Squadron – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Cruiser_Squadron
[6] The Live Bait Squadron – Live Bait Squadron https://www.livebaitsqn-soc.info/the-live-bait-squadron/
[7] Three Cruisers – Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust https://thedockyard.co.uk/the-collections/digital-exhibitions/three-cruisers/
[8] 22 September 1914: Remembering HM Coastguard’s … https://hmcoastguard.uk/news/22-september-1914-remembering-hm-coastguards-greatest-loss
[9] Remembering the War at Sea – Part 1 – Wessex Archaeology https://www.wessexarch.co.uk/news/remembering-war-sea-part-1
[10] Search Results | CWGC https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/search-results/
[11] Find War Dead | CWGC https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/
[12] Royal Navy, HMS Cressy – First World War Casualties – A Street Near You https://astreetnearyou.org/regiment/10218/Royal-Navy,-HMS-Cressy
[13] Cressy-class cruiser – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cressy-class_cruiser
[14] HMS Cressy Archives – History Hub Ulster https://historyhubulster.co.uk/tag/hms-cressy/
[15] World War One https://fortingall-graveyard.org.uk/world-war-one/
[16] The Historic Dockyard, Chatham, Kent: Ship models https://wargamingmiscellanybackup.wordpress.com/2015/09/25/the-historic-dockyard-chatham-kent-ship-models/

Leslie Victor Rogers: Tribute to a Fallen Royal Marine

Marine Leslie Victor Rogers, CH/X104204, was a young Royal Marine from Dover who was killed during the raid on Axis-held Tobruk, Libya, on 14 September 1942. He served with the 11th Battalion, Royal Marines, in the amphibious assault force for Operation Agreement, and is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial. [1][2][3]

At nineteen, Leslie Rogers left Dover for one of the most hazardous combined operations of the North African campaign: the raid on Tobruk.

Early Life and Family

Leslie Victor Rogers was born in Dover on 21 April 1923. His birth was registered in the Dover district during the second quarter of that year. He was the son of Thomas James Frederick Rogers and Bertha Florence Ballard, and grew up in the Tower Hamlets area of Dover, a community closely linked with the town’s port, railway and military life. [1]

The 1939 Register records Leslie at 39 Dickson Road, Dover, aged sixteen, single and employed as a butcher’s roundsman. This was practical, local work involving the delivery of meat and provisions around the town, likely by bicycle, handcart or van. It also places him within a working household at the beginning of the Second World War, when Dover was already becoming a frontline town exposed to the risks of the Channel conflict. [1]

By the time Leslie was serving overseas, his father had died and the local press described him as the eldest son of Mrs Rogers and the late Mr Thomas Rogers. His mother continued to live at 39 Dickson Road, while later remembrance notices name his brother and sisters Marjorie, Vera and Ena. Leslie did not marry and no children are recorded. His death therefore fell particularly heavily upon his mother and siblings, whose newspaper memorial notices continued for years after the war. [1]

Royal Marines Service

Leslie joined the Royal Marines and served as Marine CH/X104204. The “CH” prefix indicates a Chatham Division connection, consistent with his home in Kent and his eventual commemoration at Chatham Naval Memorial. Before the creation of a unified post-war corps structure, Royal Marines were administered through the historic divisional system centred on Chatham, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Deal. [1][3]

The family report identifies Leslie’s sub-unit as the 11th Battalion, Royal Marines. This was a wartime battalion formed for land operations within the expanding Royal Marines organisation. It was trained to operate alongside the Royal Navy and Army in combined operations, including amphibious landings, raids and attacks on coastal targets. [1][2][4]

Marine infantry were expected to fight ashore as well as carry out traditional shipboard duties. The report’s contemporary description of the Tobruk raiders evokes the equipment carried by the men: khaki clothing, steel helmets, heavy boots for silent movement, Tommy guns, Bren guns, rifles, grenades, sticky bombs and demolition charges. Such equipment shows that the 11th Battalion’s role at Tobruk was not defensive garrison duty but an assault and demolition mission against a fortified enemy port. [1]

Operation Agreement and Tobruk

Leslie died during Operation Agreement, a combined British, Rhodesian and New Zealand operation against Axis-held Tobruk on 13–14 September 1942. The operation took place during the North African campaign, at a time when the Axis forces of Germany and Italy used Tobruk as an important port and supply base. The Allied intention was to strike behind the front line, disrupt the garrison and damage the facilities that supported Axis operations in Libya. [5][6]

The objectives included destroying harbour installations, fuel stores, ammunition dumps, vehicles, shipping, airfields and repair facilities. The raid was designed to impose a disproportionate cost on the enemy through a surprise attack by sea and land. Its success depended on careful co-ordination between Royal Navy ships, landing craft, Royal Marines, soldiers, special forces and supporting aircraft. [6][7]

The 11th Battalion, Royal Marines formed the spearhead of Force A, the amphibious assault element of the operation. The battalion was to land from destroyers and landing craft north of the harbour under cover of darkness, establish itself ashore and assist in destroying the selected targets. This was a high-risk assignment: the attackers were heavily armed but greatly outnumbered by the German and Italian garrison and vulnerable to coastal artillery, aircraft and confusion during the landing. [1][2][7]

The destroyers H.M.S. Sikh and H.M.S. Zulu played a central part in landing and supporting the raiding force. They were joined by other naval vessels, motor launches, motor torpedo boats and landing craft. The newspaper account included in the family report describes the assault force boarding in darkness while Allied bombers attacked Tobruk for more than five hours, intended to suppress defences and assist the landing. [1][8]

Leslie’s battalion was the spearhead of Force A: Royal Marines sent ashore to attack a heavily defended Axis port and destroy the infrastructure that sustained enemy forces in North Africa.

Unit Context at the Time of Death

The raid did not unfold as planned. Italian shore batteries engaged the attacking vessels, and H.M.S. Sikh, which had helped deliver the landing force, was disabled and later sank off Tobruk during the morning of 14 September. The remaining naval forces came under further air attack. H.M.S. Coventry was lost and H.M.S. Zulu was damaged by bombing and later sank while under tow. [2][7][8][9]

Ashore, the landing force encountered stronger resistance than expected. The Axis garrison had been reinforced, and the assault failed to achieve its intended objectives. The 11th Royal Marines suffered particularly heavily: records of the operation report sixty-nine Royal Marines killed, while many more, including senior officers and other ranks, were missing or captured. The wider raid cost hundreds of Allied lives and resulted in many prisoners of war. [2][6][7]

Leslie was one of the Marines who died ashore. His death record gives Tobruk, Libya, as the place of death and identifies him as killed in action on 14 September 1942. The precise place and circumstances of his death are not preserved in the surviving family material. It is therefore not possible to state whether he died during the landing, in the fighting around the shore installations, or during the withdrawal and collapse of the raid. [1][3]

What can be said with confidence is that Leslie died as part of the 11th Royal Marines’ first major operation. The battalion’s role in Operation Agreement was direct assault, demolition and the seizure or destruction of targets within a fortified enemy-held port. His death was not a distant naval loss but the result of close-range combat in one of the most difficult combined operations attempted in the Middle East during 1942. [2][4]

Circumstances of Death

Initial news in Dover was uncertain. On 2 October 1942, the Dover Express reported that Leslie had been posted missing while on war service in the Middle East. For his mother and family, this meant many months without certainty as to whether he had been killed, wounded, captured or had somehow survived the raid. [1]

In September 1943, the newspaper reported that Leslie, then aged nineteen, had been officially confirmed as killed in action during the landing of Marines at Tobruk on 14 September 1942. The delay reflects the chaotic outcome of Operation Agreement, in which men were killed, taken prisoner, rescued, scattered during the withdrawal or left unaccounted for after ships and landing craft were lost. [1]

From 1945 onwards, the Dover Express carried repeated notices from Leslie’s family on the anniversary of his death. His mother, brother and sisters recalled him as a “dear son and brother” who had given his life at Tobruk. These notices reveal the long afterlife of the loss within the Rogers family and their determination that he should remain remembered in his home town. [1]

Burial and Commemoration

Leslie has no known grave. He is commemorated on Panel 84, Column 1 of the Chatham Naval Memorial in Kent. The memorial records naval and Royal Marines casualties of the Second World War who were lost at sea or whose bodies were not recovered for individual burial. His commemoration there connects his Dover origins, Chatham service division and death ashore in Libya. [1][3]

The family report includes a Find a Grave memorial, number 14379528, and identifies his entitlement to the 1939–1945 Star and War Medal 1939–1945. These medals recognise his wartime service, while the Chatham Naval Memorial provides the formal public place at which his name is preserved. [1]

Legacy

Leslie Victor Rogers’s story links the streets of Dover with the far-reaching conflict in North Africa. In 1939 he was a sixteen-year-old butcher’s roundsman living with his family at Dickson Road; three years later he was a Royal Marine taking part in an amphibious assault on Tobruk. His journey reflects the rapid transformation of young civilian workers into service personnel during the Second World War. [1]

His service with the 11th Royal Marines reveals the hazardous and adaptable role of the Corps in combined operations. The battalion was trained to work from naval vessels, land under fire and carry out ground combat and demolition tasks. In Operation Agreement, these duties placed Leslie directly in the assault force sent against an enemy base defended by far larger German and Italian forces. [2][4]

His loss remained present in family memory long after the war. The repeated anniversary notices published by his mother, sisters and brother show that the date of 14 September remained a lasting point of remembrance. For the family, Leslie was not merely one of the casualties of Operation Agreement; he was their eldest son and brother, a young man whose life had been rooted in Dover. [1]

Today, his name on the Chatham Naval Memorial ensures that his sacrifice is formally remembered. The surviving records, newspaper notices and unit history give further depth to that commemoration: Marine Leslie Victor Rogers, CH/X104204, was a nineteen-year-old Dover man who died ashore at Tobruk while serving with the 11th Battalion, Royal Marines, during Operation Agreement. [1][2][3]

Sources and Further Reading

Sources
[1] Individual-Report-for-Leslie-Victor-Rogers.pdf https://ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/web/direct-files/attachments/141549598/f0d2c85e-2b05-4d29-a3ca-c76f6fc7ea42/Individual-Report-for-Leslie-Victor-Rogers.pdf
[2] 11th RM Battalion – Operation Agreement – Raid on Tobruk https://www.royalmarineshistory.com/post/11th-rm-battalion-operation-agreement-raid-on-tobruk
[3] Grave of Leslie Victor Rogers https://rmhistorical.com/index.php/grave/7743?page=514
[4] Sea Your History – Land service https://seayourhistory.org.uk/content/view/472/628/1/1/
[5] Operation Agreement : commando raid on Tobruk, 14 September … https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/LIB6411
[6] Operation Agreement – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Agreement
[7] OPERATION AGREEMENT – The Bay Museum & Research Facility https://the-bay-museum.co.uk/2022/09/13/operation-agreement/
[8] HMS Sikh (F82) – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Sikh_(F82)
[9] BBC – WW2 People’s War – HMS Zulu at Tobruk https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/07/a2705807.shtml
[10] Royal Marines officers – The National Archives https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/royal-marines-officers/
[11] `Agreement’: 11th Battalion at Tobruk | The National Archives https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2954679
[12] D-Day | Daily Maverick https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article_tag/d-day/?dm_source=article-keyword&dm_medium=link&dm_campaign=inform
[13] The Marine | Daily Maverick https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article_tag/the-marine/?dm_source=article-keyword&dm_medium=link&dm_campaign=inform
[14] British Expeditionary Force | Daily Maverick https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article_tag/british-expeditionary-force/?dm_source=article-keyword&dm_medium=link&dm_campaign=inform
[15] British Military | Latest News & Features – Northsound 1 https://www.hellorayo.co.uk/northsound/tags/british-military
[16] 14th September 1942 – Operation Agreement – Commando Veterans https://forum.commandoveterans.org/cdoForum/posts/list/3578.page
[17] 14th September 1942 – Operation Agreement https://forum.commandoveterans.org/cdoForum/posts/list/3578.page;jsessionid=4DF9B12C2AA955C26F5EEDC635C6AED4
[18] Leslie Charles Rogers https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/R1574112
[19] Major Victor Rogers | War Casualty Details 93385 | CWGC https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/93385/victor-rogers/
[20] Able Seaman Arthur Rogers | War Casualty Details 3049958 https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/3049958/arthur-rogers/
[21] Company Sergeant Major Reginald Clarence Rogers https://www.cwgc.org/stories/stories/company-sergeant-major-reginald-clarence-rogers-mm-royal-marine-light-infantry/
[22] World War II https://www.sas.rochester.edu/his/sites/campus-history/History/World_War_II_The_Definitive_Encyclopedia.pdf
[23] Graves of lost World War 1 Marines identified in France … https://www.gov.uk/government/news/graves-of-lost-world-war-1-marines-identified-in-france-and-belgium
[24] Leslie Rogers https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/bmd_death?name=Leslie_Rogers
[25] First World War cemetery at CHATHAM NAVAL MEMORIAL – view casualties – A Street Near You https://astreetnearyou.org/cemetery/142000/CHATHAM-NAVAL-MEMORIAL
[26] ROGERS Leslie 449787 https://aviationmuseumwa.org.au/afcraaf-roll/rogers-leslie-449787/
[27] Kent, Chatham Naval Memorial | ͏ https://www.commandoveterans.org/Chatham-Naval-Memorial
[28] † Victor Richard Rogers – WRECK WRAK EPAVE WRACK … https://www.wrecksite.eu/peopleView.aspx?130522
[29] Biography of Brigadier Thomas Leslie Rogers (1886 https://generals.dk/general/Rogers/Thomas_Leslie/Great_Britain.html
[30] Casualties on the Town Memorial – Surnames M to P http://www.doverwarmemorialproject.org.uk/Casualties/WWII/SurnamesMtoZ.htm
[31] Roy Leslie Rogers (1892–1919) • FamilySearch https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/KFYD-DD6/roy-leslie-rogers-1892-1919

Tragic Fate of HMS C34: Remembering Playford

William George Playford, born on March 30, 1894, in Kent, served as a stoker in the Royal Navy during World War I. He died on July 21, 1917, when HMS C34 was torpedoed by a German submarine. Commemorated at the Chatham Naval Memorial, Playford’s sacrifice highlights the dangers faced by submariners.

William George Playford was born on 30 March 1894 at Bilsington, Kent, the son of Javan Playford and Martha Jane Godden. He was baptised at Ss Peter & Paul, Bilsington, on 20 May 1894 and spent his childhood in east Kent before moving into service work as a young man. By 1901 he was living in Aldington with his family, and by 1911 he was in Mersham, recorded on Kingsford Street as a single servant and market gardener’s assistant. [1]

Playford’s early life was rooted in the Kent countryside, where agricultural labour and local service were common first occupations for young men. He had no spouse or children, so the surviving story is carried through his parents, his naval service, and the memorials that preserve his name. His military medals were the Victory Medal, British War Medal, and Memorial Death Plaque, the standard recognition for a serviceman lost without a known grave. [1]

He was a Kent farm worker who became a stoker in the Royal Navy and was lost at sea with his submarine.

Early Life and Family

Playford came from a family established in east Kent, with his father Javan Playford and mother Martha Jane Godden named in the family record. The move between Bilsington, Aldington, and Mersham suggests a family that remained within the local rural economy rather than drifting far from home. In 1911 his occupation as a servant and market gardener’s assistant shows him still at the start of adult working life, on the cusp of the wider disruption brought by war. [1]

The picture that emerges is of a young man shaped by the land and by practical labour. That background may have prepared him physically for the demanding environment of naval engineering work, especially below decks in the confined heat and noise of a submarine’s machinery spaces. The family home remained the emotional centre of his life, even after enlistment took him into the Royal Navy. [1]

Military Service

William George Playford enlisted in the Royal Navy on 13 October 1913 and became Stoker 1st Class, serving in the engine room artificers’ branch. His service numbers K/21054 and later K/21854 identify him within the naval system, and his role would have been to keep machinery running, tend boilers and engines, and maintain the submarine’s power plant under difficult conditions. Submarine stokers were essential crewmen: the boat could not move, dive, or surface safely without them. [1]

Playford served in HM Submarine C34, a C-class submarine built for coastal patrol and reconnaissance work. C-class submarines were not large boats; they displaced about 290 tons surfaced and 320 tons submerged, were about 142 feet long, and carried a small crew of roughly sixteen men. Armed with a single 18-inch torpedo tube and just two torpedoes, they were modest in size but important in Britain’s early submarine warfare system. [1]

Unit Context at Time of Death

By mid-1917, C-class submarines like C34 were being used chiefly for patrols and reconnaissance in the North Sea and around the northern approaches to Britain. Their task was to guard key waters, watch for enemy movement, and counter German U-boats threatening Royal Navy and merchant shipping. Although small and comparatively slow, they were part of the Royal Navy’s layered response to the U-boat campaign that was strangling British trade and testing the Navy’s anti-submarine defences. [2][3][1]

C34’s patrol area off the Shetland Islands was strategically important because it lay near the routes used by both Allied shipping and German submarines moving into the Atlantic and the northern seas. In this setting, British submarines were sent out to deter, observe, and engage the enemy where possible, despite the risks of operating on the surface and the limited defensive capability of early boats. Playford’s submarine was therefore part of a dangerous and relatively new form of warfare in which the hunter could quickly become the hunted. [3][1]

C34 was a small patrol submarine, but it served in one of the most dangerous maritime environments of the war.

Circumstances of Death

William George Playford died on 21 July 1917 off Fair Isle, Orkney, when HMS C34 was lost after being torpedoed by the German submarine UC-22. Later accounts indicate that the submarine had sailed from Scapa Flow on 16 July for an anti-submarine patrol between Orkney and Shetland and was struck the following day while on the surface. The attack was swift and catastrophic, leaving C34 sunk almost at once and taking most of her crew with her. [4][3][1]

The family record notes that Playford’s body was not recovered for burial. Although one survivor was later found from the boat, the loss was still one of the grim and sudden submarine tragedies of the First World War. The official date of death recorded by the Admiralty and CWGC is 21 July 1917, reflecting the point at which the vessel was declared overdue and lost. [3][4][1]

Burial and Commemoration

Playford has no known grave and is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial in Kent. This memorial bears the names of Royal Navy personnel lost at sea with no known resting place, and it is an appropriate memorial for a submariner whose body was never recovered. His name is preserved there alongside those of thousands of other naval casualties from the First World War. [5][1]

For his family in Kent, commemoration would have come through the memorial plaque, medals, and the official notice of his loss rather than through a grave to visit. The CWGC record, together with later submarine remembrance sources, ensures that the story of C34 and her crew remains accessible today. In that sense, Chatham Naval Memorial acts as both a local and national place of remembrance for Playford and the men who died with him. [4][5][1]

Legacy

William George Playford’s life illustrates the way in which ordinary rural boys from Kent entered the machinery of industrial war at sea. He began as a market gardener’s assistant and ended as a stoker in a submarine that served in the dark waters off northern Scotland. His death reminds us that the war at sea was fought not only by battleships and cruisers, but by small submarines and the men who kept them moving in cramped, dangerous spaces. [1]

He also belongs to the story of early submarine warfare, when C-class boats patrolled British waters against a growing German U-boat threat. The loss of C34 off Fair Isle shows how exposed these little boats were when operating on the surface and how quickly a patrol could turn fatal. Playford’s name on the Chatham Naval Memorial ensures that his sacrifice is not forgotten, even though no grave marks the place where he died. [5][3][4][1]

Sources and Further Reading

Sources
[1] Individual-Report-for-William-George-Playford.pdf https://ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/web/direct-files/attachments/141549598/4ad6cfa8-fe44-4504-bd90-f35783b5b2ab/Individual-Report-for-William-George-Playford.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=ASIA2F3EMEYE745QYHFV&Signature=GKudIGXLAqZuSTy4A%2BbH6JNprXU%3D&x-amz-security-token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEIP%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJGMEQCICLwPUIRj0Ua6zkqU34pggy1laM0Zp0cnh1AqtPATiPeAiBSkv9XDXAddz8ODGrez1Sdf1qKkGlhUE8SOLBiZE%2FAESrzBAhMEAEaDDY5OTc1MzMwOTcwNSIM0h3%2F35E9WdsgATGlKtAEoqQNXx%2BxNLRatN5oeuxaos5iJA%2B7f0rtY9V8x4OuMYysQce1lBaJGoiz1D9mywZmQu6XA3vFGBBTR0z4lvx2k9k5vUXf00A7fCHQzU%2BU13aiN3vx1L25b1Q6eUBfvD2vt2YnaX%2Br3JEnT9LQVw8ptd6dYJ9wohM9pdEyNKDX8Q7m9DVkYpQNYJJ3PRNhKt4niJrQD2gF72bn%2BJt%2B7HZXwpXUaFKN12PVk4lvTIfDoFCmJnmKFS4ogoA0a7QUx7nehw48e4g8UbsjknLVICl72gw5vLCNDQQBOcdRXSUJJUB7ZazUwfJwpnQ4uGF5FfPS9Q%2BYU0Y%2B7zImWY%2BGKtP8NO7w97Tx8HK8ETJ%2Fl94cHzjBF1ZeHfyl%2F3z0W9Q%2BI9Dyz4mTZknRQDs%2BarIqJ0kTUjaO%2B6hGY6nULJgIKwiPvZ1P%2BfiKW1PcriCW5feH5X9slVKso23%2BZfVX%2B5zJoYK82HJME%2BPdT%2F8JHXbmnCyRVo2agY9OuG9SW6weM5WX4sL1qmRpuozJ%2BdApNVnhlk0M7pOmh2zU4b8vQiLS%2FtNHiYdz109A1e5CTlVyzE0%2BREcrOrhBpdtYII118b5fs%2B0%2BqMZUYC6%2F0mN0t6LUNUK80dAsM2qpbdglVmayiYd3NSbjBkmrqz528mdnctvYtfeFzkCYWKY4j5Cff3mgC7HSMVGqtaYmNCJO4mDIl8NCRLftW3u2RvL4fl21KF7LBuHFEVwcvj5MLpvV1A%2B4fuqZo4EyQrvl%2BA6VWB2mU%2Fx870IzNk6LJupDeaawFt70haCd%2FzCAy%2BTSBjqZAQIXs3oWNdy3EzYAxJx01px8QJUXPBUqLLz4LiumFARf3YIJeURdt8ojwiYgNGCoXHOjqo5Kr8nhj%2Fb%2FzZkXbZxmkx6lP00NDmWsup6XhfE2SWTsqsm7DFe%2FBOUSyTGOGkxcxVmWI7JmOCuNiteb36JHzxeN6cTZ0l859NG%2ByvRTJ%2FXZjpr%2B8ptNViiI83RKxjdVjrDVGyQE%2Bg%3D%3D&Expires=1784228172
[2] Submarines World War 1 – Harwich and Dovercourt History https://www.harwichanddovercourt.co.uk/submarines-ww1/
[3] C 34 (I 64) https://rnsubs.co.uk/index.php?PageID=206
[4] HMS C34 (1910 – 1917) – Submarine Book of Remembrance https://submarineremembrance.uk/submarine/11383-hms-c34
[5] Chatham Naval Memorial | Cemetery Details | CWGC https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/142000/chatham-naval-memorial/
[6] Chatham Naval Memorial | CWGC https://www.cwgc.org/our-war-graves-your-history/explore-great-britain/south-east-region/chatham-naval-memorial/
[7] HMS C34 – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_C34
[8] After the First World War, an appropriate way had to be found of https://www.cwgc.org/media/p1dn3uwh/chatham-naval-memorial-site-tour.pdf
[9] HMS C34 – LOSTINWATERSDEEP.CO.UK https://lostinwatersdeep.co.uk/hms-c34.html
[10] List of shipwrecks in July 1917 – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_July_1917
[11] July 1917 – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_1917
[12] SM UC-22 – Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_UC-22
[13] Mate George Edwin TILLER – Submarine Book of Remembrance https://submarineremembrance.uk/people/32802-tiller-george-edwin
[14] HMS C34 – Submarine – NAVY – MARINE WWI – Guerre 1914 – 1918 https://milanpatrick8.wixsite.com/ww1-us-photos/hms-c34-submarine
[15] Naval Memorials – Chatham https://www.isle-of-wight-fhs.co.uk/naval-memorials—chatham
[16] SM UC-22 – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_UC-22