Family :

Service Life:

Campaigns:

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

During 1914, at the start of the First World War, the Hawke, commanded by Captain Hugh P.E.T. Williams, was engaged in various operations in the North Sea. On 15 October, out on patrol Hawke was torpedoed by a German submarine U 9. Her sister ship HMS Theseus, which was in company, was attacked at the same time but was undamaged. The Hawke sank in a few minutes, with the loss of her Captain, 26 officers and 500 men - only four officers and about 60 men were saved. Newspaper report of how two of the survivors described the Hawke's destruction: ?We were struck right amidships between the two funnels quite close to one of the magazines. All hands were on deck, and it was a terrible explosion. The vessel immediately took a heavy list to starboard. I have never been on a ship so well equipped with life saving apparatus, but the way the vessel heeled over made it almost impossible to get the boats out. The boat in which I was saved had a narrow escape from being taken down with the suction. "We were struck about 11o'clock in the forenoon, and just as we got away from the Hawke, we distinctly saw the periscope of the enemy's submarine come to the surface. We thought he was going to ram us, but apparently he was on the lockout for any other rescuing vessels. Prior to the accident the Hawke was cruising about zigzag fashion, and we never saw the submarine until we felt her. It was beginning to get hazy when we were almost run down by the Norwegian steamer which picked us up. This boat, after affecting the rescue, cruised about in search of the rafts, but nothing was seen.?

The second survivor reported: ?Those on deck for an instant, immediately after the explosion, saw the periscope of a submarine, which showed above the water like a broomstick. When the explosion occurred, I, along with the others in the engine-room, was sent flying into space as it were, and must have been stunned for a little. When I came to, I found myself in the midst of an absolute inferno. One of the cylinders of the engine had been completely wrecked, and steam was hissing out in dense, scalding clouds, penetrating to every nook and cranny of the engine-room and stokehold. The horror of the situation was added to when a tank of fuel oil caught fire, and the flames advanced with fatal rapidity. ?I scrambled up the iron ladder to the main deck. Already the captain, commander, and a midshipman were on the bridge, and calmly, as though on fleet manoeuvres in the Solent, orders were given out, and as calmly obeyed. The bugler sounded the ?Still? call, which called upon every man to remain at the post at which the call reached him. Soon there came the order, "Abandon ship, out boats". ?Many of the crew had scrambled on to the side of the sinking cruiser as she slowly turned turtle, and from this temporary place of safety were sliding and diving into the sea. The captain and the midshipman stuck bravely to their posts on the bridge to the last, and were seen to disappear as the ship finally plunged bow first amid a maelstrom of cruel, swirling waters.

As the Hawke went down a small pinnace and a raft which had been prepared for such an emergency floated free, but such was the onrush of the men who had been precipitated into the water that both were overcrowded. ?On the raft was seen about seventy men standing knee-deep in the water, and the pinnace also appeared to be overfilled. The cutter rowed around the outskirts of the wreck, picking up as many survivors as the boat could with safety contain. All aboard who had donned life jackets divested themselves of these and threw them to their comrades struggling in the water, and oars and all movable woodwork about the boat was also pitched overboard to help those clinging to the wreckage, many of whom were seen to sink. ?A westerly course was set with the idea of striking the Scottish coast. About 4 p.m. a Norwegian sailing ship hove in sight, and the exhausted men were taken aboard and treated in the most kindly fashion, being served with stimulants and furnished with clothing. The rescuing ship headed towards Peterhead, but on the way encountered the Aberdeen trawler Ben Rinnes, to which the men were transferred.? On March 18th 1915, Kapitanleutnant Otto Weddigen, now commanding the U-29, was manoeuvring for a shot at the modern British warship HMS Dreadnought when the ship?s lookouts spotted the periscope, and just seven minutes later the 17,900 ton Dreadnought, travelling at eighteen knots, rammed into the U-boat raising the bows out of the water. The identifying number was clearly visibly as the Dreadnought sliced through the submarine, there were no survivors.

Masonic :

"Died in ship sunk by enemy 15.10.14""

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