America Bound

On August 7th 1915, my Great Uncle, Solomon Charles Wraight, boarded the White Star Liner S.S. New York in Liverpool bound for New York, USA.

Solomon Charles Wraight Circa 1910

Solomon Charles Wraight was born on the 22^nd May 1895 in Lambeth, Surrey. He was the eldest son of Solomon (Solly) and Alice Wraight (Nee Uden) and had three sisters Alice (born 1897), Elsie (born 1903) and Ivy (born 10 Oct 1904) and three brothers William (AKA Bill born 1899), Arthur (Born 1907) and Frederick (Fred Born 1911).

Solomon and William were at school together in 1908 at the Gideon Road School, Wandsworth and by 1911 the family were living at 14 Eland Road, Lavender Hill, Battersea. Solomon Charles aged 15 was now an apprentice Joiner. His father Solly being a Builders Joiner (Shop Foreman). Alice, William, Elsie and Ivy were all attending school. His younger sister Alice died in 1911 aged 14. 

The Wraight Family

The passenger list for The S.S.New York lists Solomon Charles as 20 years of age and a carpenter. Solomon travelled 3^rd Class paying the fare himself and arrived at Ellis Island on the 15^th August 1915. 

SS New York

His final destination being Philadelphia, where he was due to join the Carpenters Union in Philadelphia. Solomon was 5Ft 7 inches, fair complexion with brown hair and brown eyes and no distinguishing marks. His health was good and he was able to read and work.

His uncle, Albert Uden, who had emigrated to Canada in 1907, had joined the 4^th Field Company, Canadian Engineers, whose regiment had recently made the opposite journey to Solomon across the Atlantic arriving in England on 29^th April 1915. (the records are not currently available to confirm if Albert was among their number). For Solomon though a new life awaited in America.

The Battle of Dogger Bank

24^th January 1915  – The Battle of Dogger Bank

The German raid on Scarborough on the 16th December 1914 had resulted in 86 dead and 424 wounded, the public outcry against this attack on civilians was huge and at the inquest the coroner remarked “Where were the Navy?” With young children among the casualties Real Admiral Franz Hipper had earned his new sobriquet “Baby Killer”. The Royal Navy waited for the German High Seas Fleet to reappear.

On the 24^th January 1915, the Navy got its chance!

Naval intelligence reported that the German Battlecrusier Squadron had left its Jade Island base late the previous day. Hipper’s flagship Seydlitz was accompanied by Moltke, Derfflinger and Blucher. The 2^nd Battlecruiser Squadron under the command of Admiral Sir David Beatty on his flagship The Lion, accompanied by Tiger, Princess Royal, New Zealand and HMS Indomitable sailed to intercept.

Serving on board HMS Indomitable was Stoker (2^nd Class) Robert Harris, my Great Grand Father in Law.

Stoker 2nd Class - Robert Harris

Contact was made with the enemy at 7.20am and a deadly pursuit began immediately. As the stern chase started the response of the engine room was magnificent, By 8.30am the British squadron were doing 26 knots, Admiral Beatty called for 27. Yet the Indomitable, commanded by Captain F.W. Kennedy, whose trail speed was just over 25 knots was keeping up. The flagship in admiration signalled “Well steamed, Indomitable” (The Great war at Sea).

At 8.52am The Lion fired at couple of ranging shots and whilst still at 20,000 yards Beatty ordered his other ships to “open fire and engage the enemy”

Like the older Blucher, Beatty’s rearmost ship, the Indomitable, was no longer able to hold the pace and was dropping astern. Moltke, Defflinger and Seydlitz all concentrated their fire on the Lion and between 10.30 and 10.50am the Lion received heavy damage and was hit 15 times. The Seydlitz and Blucher were also badly damaged, which caused the Blucher to slow to 17 knots.

At this point a submarine periscope was spotted and fearing they had been lured into a trap the British turned allowing the Germans to make a run for it, leaving the Blucher to her fate. Beatty wanted the pursuit to continue and Indomitable to finish off the Blucher by herself, but due to a signalling misunderstanding all four remaining ships concentrated their fire on the stricken Blucher.

Although the Blucher fought on valiantly to the end, her fate was sealed and she eventually sank with the loss of 792 men. 234 men were saved by the British ships but efforts to rescue more were ended when a German Seaplane attacked the scene, although no damage was done the British ships were sitting targets for further attacks and withdrew.

SMS Blucher Sinking

By this time, Hipper had escaped and his ships were now too far away for the British to catch them again.

The Indomitable had fired 134 shells, hitting the Blucher 8 times and had received one direct hit, but there were no casualties on board Robert Harris' ship.

But the danger for those on-board the Indomitable was far from over. The badly damaged Lion had to be towed back to port by the Indomitable, at a maximum speed of just 10 knots, the danger of submarine attacks was great and a screen of over fifty ships was assigned to guard the two battlecruisers on their long and dangerous voyage home.

"The War Illustrated" reported on "The Naval Victory in the North Sea - Triumph of British Gunnery and Seamanship" (6th Feb 1915), the truth analysed over the last 100 years perhaps paints a different picture, the accuracy of the German fire was better and their ships were able to withstand greater damage than ours but at that time there was no doubt in the press that the "Baby Killer" had been given a bloody nose and that British Naval honour had been restored

References

The Great War at Sea, Richard Hough

The War Illustrated.

Wikipedia - The Battle of Dogger Bank

The first days of War - In pursuit of the enemy

As the lights went out across Europe at the Outbreak of World War One, Robert Harris, my Great Grandfather in law was serving on board HMS Indomitable, part of the Mediterranean fleet based in Malta.

Robert Harris - HMS Indomitable

Robert, at 5 foot 3 3/4 inches and with a sallow complexion, joined the Royal Navy on the 1st September 1913 serving on HMS Pembroke as a Stoker (2nd Class) and had transferred to the Indomitable on the 10th February 1914. Born on 22nd June 1895 in Bethnal Green, he was one of eight children of Dock Labourer Samuel Harris. His mother Emily (Nee Emily Spence) had passed away in 1903 aged just 38.

In 1911 the family were living in Newling Street, Bethnal Green with widow Ann Baker and her family, 12 people in all, in just 4 rooms! By 1913, when Robert joined the Navy, he was living in Barnet Grove, Bethnal Green and listed his trade as cabinet maker. His father Samuel married Ann Baker in early 1914

At 09.30 on the morning of the 4th August, HMS Indomitable accompanied by HMS Indefatigable, under the command of Admiral Milne encountered the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau sailing in the opposite direction heading east after a bombardment of the French Algerian port of Philippeville. Unlike France, Britain and Germany were not yet at war (the declaration would not be made until later that day, following the start of the German invasion of neutral Belguim), so Milne turned to shadow the Germans as they headed back to Messina in Italy to re-coal. 

Initially ordered by Churchill to attack, However, a meeting of the British Cabinet decided that hostilities could not start before a declaration of war, and at 14:00 Churchill was obliged to cancel his order. Milne reported the contact and position, but neglected to inform the Admiralty that the German ships were heading east, rather than west and hence threatening French transport ships, which Britain had agreed to protect, Churchill therefore still expected them to threaten the French transports, and he authorised Milne to engage the German ships if they attacked. 

British ships following The Goeben and Breslau

All three battlecruisers had problems with their boilers, and the Goeben could only manage 24kn (her normal speed was 27kn) and this was only achieved by working men and machinery to the limit; four stokers on board the Goeben were killed by scalding steam, but the Goeben and Breslau were able to break contact and reached Messina by the morning of the 5th.

By this time war had been declared, after the German invasion of Belgium, but an Admiralty order to respect Italian neutrality and stay outside a six-mile limit from the Italian coast precluded entrance into the passage of the Strait of Messina, where they could observe the port directly. 

Therefore Milne stationed HMS Inflexible and HMS Indefatigable at the northern exit of the Strait of Messina, still expecting the Germans to break out to the west where they could attack French troop transports, the light cruiser HMS Gloucester at the southern exit and he sent HMS Indomitable to re-coal at Bizerte (in modern day Tunisia) where she was better positioned to react to a German sortie into the Western Mediterranean.

The German ships however, eventually evaded the British fleet and passed through the Dardanelles to reach Constantinople on the 16th August, where they were eventually handed over to the Ottoman Empire. 

In October, The Goeben, renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim, was ordered by its German captain to attack Russian positions, in doing so brought the Ottoman Empire into the war on the side of the Central Powers.

Writing several years later, Winston Churchill - who at this time was First Lord of the Admiralty - expressed the opinion that by forcing Turkey into the war the Goeben had brought "more slaughter, more misery, and more ruin than has ever before been borne within the compass of a ship."

HMS Indomitable and Robert Harris remained in the Mediterranean to blockade the Dardanelles.

Tony

References
1911 Census of England and Wales (via Ancestry.com)
Robert Harris - Royal Navy Service Record (Personal collection)
Pursuit of Goeben and Breslau - (via Wikipedia.org)

100 Years on...The story of my family in the Great War 1914-18

In the halcyon summer of 1914 the world stumbled inevitably, it seems now, towards a global conflict that would effect a whole generation. My hope, in this blog, over the next four years is to chronicle some of the stories and details of that human catastrophe as they effected my ancestors exactly 100 years before.

I can only claim to be a keen amateur family historian, so there may be mistakes or omissions as I go along, these are all honestly made and I would welcome advice, suggestions and any additional information that I haven't uncovered as yet. I'm sure there is plenty of information easily available on family history websites and maybe once I've retired after winning the lottery I will have the money to add to the family archives!

I hope my family, friends and long lost relatives which I'm slowly uncovering around the world through my family history research like this blog and find it interesting to them and if they wish to contribute their own WWI ancestor stories that would be very welcome.

My Grandfather - Arthur Hollins

Having spent many enjoyable years researching my ancestors I amazed how many must have been involved in WWI, many I have no service details for, but for that generation, it was rare for someone of active service age not to have been called to the colours in some way. So my research will continue and occasionally new information will come to light after the centenary of that event has passed. This blog is not intended to be a finished, polished academic study, but rather an organic and forever growing testimony to my family ancestors, so I hope you will forgive any chronological errors.

Sadly much of information that is easily obtainable concerns those that did not return home and I suppose we are all lucky that our direct ancestors did and that we are able to relate their stories.

This blog, rather than featuring stories of daring exploits and boys own capers is more about how ordinary young men left their family homes in Rugeley, Staffordshire, Wimbledon and Hackney for far flung fields of conflict, the horrors of which I cannot even begin to understand. I hope only to honour their memory in some small way and this blog over the next four years is my tribute to my family ancestors in the 1914-18 First World War.

Tony