Service Life:

Campaigns:

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

The Battle of Jutland was the largest naval battle of World War I, and the only full-scale clash of battleships in that war. It is considered to be the largest conventional naval battle in history. It was fought on 31 May - 1 June 1916, in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. The combatants were the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet, commanded by Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, and the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. The German fleet's intention was to lure out, trap and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, as the German numbers were insufficient to engage the entire British fleet at one time. This formed part of a larger strategy to break the British blockade of the North Sea and to allow German mercantile shipping to operate. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy pursued a strategy to engage and destroy the High Seas Fleet, or keep the German force bottled up and away from Britain's own shipping lanes. Considered a tactical victory for the Germans but a resounding strategic victory for the British.

Detail :

Chief Artificer Engineer Ernest Slack, HMS Ardent, Royal Navy. Killed in Action 31st May, 1916.

Wrecksite EU ARDENT British Navy, destroyer; 1912; Denny Bros; 950 tons; 266X 27x9; 25,000 i.h.p.; 32 knots; turbine engines; three 4 in. guns, 4 T.T. The destroyer ARDENT, Lt.Cdr. A. Marsden, was a unit of the 4th Flotilla at Jutland on May 31st, 1916. The flotilla was badly mauled, losing one of its leaders and four of its destroyers. During the day the ships managed to escape with the loss of one of their number, the Shark, but between 11 p.m. and 12 midnight the flotilla, proceeding in line ahead, ran into a squadron of German dreadnoughts and came under a devastating fire.

The Sparrowhawk was run down and sunk by the Broke (out of control) and the Fortune was blown to pieces by gunfire. The flotilla leader Tipperary had been sunk just previously, and so great was the general damag e to the flotilla that the ARDENT was the only ship which could be said to be battle-worthy. At 12.19 a.m., when steaming alone, the ARDENT saw the smoke caused by the blowing up of the Black Prince and, thinking it betokened the presence of the rest of the flotilla, made towards it. Actually she ran into the German battle-squadron which had sunk the Black Prince and within a few seconds she was the centre of a blaze of searchlights and a target for every gun which the enemy could bring to bear. Nevertheless she got off two torpedoes before she went down with all her crew, save Lt.Cdr. Marsden and one man, both of whom were wounded. Four officers and 74 ratings were lost."

Masonic :

37 year old Artificer Engineer resident of Gillingham. "Killed in Action 31st May 1916"

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