Family :

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

Naval Campaign is defined as to include all sea operations where attrition rates are in ones and twos and which do not fall within specific naval battles such as Jutland, Coronel, Falklands etc. This includes Merchant Navy losses.

Detail :

J/63240 Ordinary Seaman Alfred Prest, Royal Navy. Killed in Action on HMS Mary Rose, with HMS “Strongbow” and two armed trawlers which were overcome by the German cruisers “Brummer” and “Bremse” whilst protecting a convoy of 12 Merchant ships in North Sea, 17th October, 1917. HMS “Mary Rose” (7th) which had been launched in 1915 and had been part of the 12th Destroyer Flotilla at the Battle of Jutland, May 1916.

See more at Wrecksite EU: Original hmsstrongbow.org.uk - deprecated).
"On the afternoon of the 16/10/1917, HMS Mary Rose (C.L. Fox) left Marsten with twelve merchantmen, 2 British (Benelench), 1 Belgian, 2 Danish (Margrethe, Stella), 5 Norwegian (Dagbjørg, Habil, Silja, Sørhaug, Kristine) and 3 Swedish (Visbur, H. Wicander), and 2 armed trawlers in convoy bound for Shetland, joined later by HMS Strongbow (Edward Brooke). At 0600 hours the following morning at 60 deg 6 min N, 1 deg 6 min E, HMS Strongbow sighted two German cruisers, the Bremse and the Brummer in poor visibility and mistook them for British cruisers. The Brummer had closed to within 3000 yards and opened up with devastating fire, knocking out Strongbow’s main steampipe and wireless.

Many of the hands below were scalded to death, those on deck were struck down by well directed fire. Just before this the Strongbow had been attempting to transmit a warning but the German cruisers jammed the signal. The wireless office and the bridge were wrecked by shells, the Captain badly wounded and the Quartermaster killed. Lieutenant-Commander Brooke was hit in the leg by a shell splinter, but continued in command, not allowing anybody to attempt to leave the ship until he was absolutely certain that every confidential book and paper had been destroyed. He commanded that the ship should be sunk. The Strongbow was abandoned and sank at about 0930 hours with the loss of 47 Officers and men, after the German ships had made three separate attacks against her. The German ships then turned their attention to the merchantmen and quickly sank 4 of them. The Mary Rose had heard the firing astern of her and closed in to fight against desperate odds. Lieutenant-Commander Fox had no idea that the convoy was being attacked by anything other than a submarine. A few moments later he sighed the German cruisers and grasped the real position. Without a moments hesitation he approached the enemy at high speed, and at about twenty minutes past six the gunners opened fire at a distance which was estimated at between 6000 and 7000 yards. When at a distance of about 2000 yards from the enemy Lieutenant-Commander Fox put the helm hard over, and the German gunners got the range as the Mary Rose was on the turn. After that the end came quickly.

She sank in a very short time taking with her most of her compliment of 88 Officers and ratings, including Lt. Cdr. Fox, who was last seen swimming in the water just before the Mary Rose went down. A few survivors with one Officer, Sub Lt. Freeman managed to escape on a raft. The Germans subjected all the boats and rafts to an indiscriminate shelling whereby many persons lost their lives, although this was disputed in later reports. The captain of the armed trawler Elise contrived to keep his ship out of the fire of the German cruisers, and returned to the scene of the disaster as soon as he could, where he picked up a number of survivors, amongst them Lieutenant-Commander Brooke and the party from the Strongbow. Sub-Lieutenant Freeman and the men from the Mary Rose reached the Norwegian coast near Bergen, where the lighthouse keepers took them in and fed them and attended to their injuries. Altogether about 250 lives were lost in this. Only ten men from the Mary Rose and forty five from the Strongbow survived including her Commanding Officer, Lt Cdr Brooke who died of pneumonia some twelve months later. In addition to the Elise, the trawler P. Fannon and three other steamships managed to escape. Nine of the convoy ships perished. There were strong British forces at sea in the area but as no word of the action was received until 1550 hours on the 17th, they were not in a position to intercept the Bremse and the Brummer and they returned to their home port in safety."

The sinking occurred 65 miles east of Lerwick. Two officers and eight men were saved.

Masonic :

32 year old Manager, resident of Seacombe. "Killed at Sea Oct 1917." He was a petitioning and founder member of James Thompson Lodge No. 3653, joining at its consecration 27th February, 1913, but he but resigned by December of the same year (with an allowance spill over of 6d. to 1914.

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley