Family :

Service Life:

Campaigns:

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

During the war there were a number of Naval Accidents which we have isolated because of their shocking caualties and the corresponding impact on members of the craft. There were a number of vessels destroyed in port by explosions which we would today categorise as 'Health & Safety' failures.

Detail :

270355, Chief Engine Room Artificer 2nd Class Frederick William George Smith, Royal Navy. H.M. Submarine K13.

Wikipedia "On 29 January 1917, K13 was undergoing final pre-acceptance trials in the Gareloch, Argyll, Scotland. During a dive in the morning, a small leak had been reported in the boiler rooms, so a second dive was programmed for the afternoon. All boiler room vents were opened to clear the boiler room of steam to aid searching for the leaks. At about 3:00 pm, the submarine went to diving stations, and after confirming that the engine room had been shut off, the submarine was dived. She had 80 people on board - 53 crew, 14 employees of the shipbuilders, five sub-contractors, five Admiralty officials, Joseph Duncan, a River Clyde pilot, Commander Francis Goodhart and engineering officer, Lieutenant Leslie Rideal, both from her sister ship K14, which was still under construction.

As she dived, seawater was seen to be entering K13's engine room, and the submarine's commanding officer, Lieutenant-Commander Godfrey Herbert ordered watertight doors to be shut and ballast tanks to be blown to bring the submarine to the surface, and then the drop keels released. Despite this, the dive could not be stopped and the submarine was soon stuck fast on the bottom of the Gareloch. The crew of E50, another submarine undergoing trials on the Gareloch, watched K13 dive and became concerned that the dive did not "look right" and raised the alarm. Two men were seen on the surface by Annie MacIntyre, a maid in a hotel a mile or so away, but her report was ignored.

The first rescue vessel, the torpedo gunboat Gossamer had started searching for K13 using grapples by 23:00. Attempts to send divers down were delayed since Gossamer had a diving-suit but no diver, and when a diver arrived from Fairfields, he was nearly drowned when the suit, which had not been used for years, burst. Despite the lack of proper escape apparatus, Herbert, and the commander of K14, Commander Goodhart, attempted an escape to the surface by using the space between the inner and outer hatches of the conning tower as an airlock. Herbert reached the surface alive, but Goodhart's body was later found trapped in the wheelhouse.

Once at the surface, Herbert was able to co-ordinate rescue efforts, and later that afternoon an airline was connected, which allowed the ballast tanks to be blown and by midday on 31 January the bows had been brought to just above the surface and supported by a barge on each side. A hole was cut through her pressure hull, and at 22:00 the final survivor was rescued from the submarine. 32 people died in the accident and 48 were rescued. 31 bodies were expected to be still on the submarine, but only 29 were found, and it was concluded that the maid had indeed seen two people escaping from the engine room. They were later identified as Engineer-Lieutenant Arthur Lane and Fairfield foreman John Steel. Lane's body was recovered from the Clyde two months later, Steel's body was never found.

At 6 p.m. the following day, K13 tore the bollards out of the barges and sank again, flooding through the hole. The submarine was finally salvaged on 15 March, repaired and recommissioned as HMS K22.

The court of enquiry found that four of the 37 inch (940 mm) diameter ventilators had been left open during the dive, and that the indicator lever in the control room had actually showed them as open. The engine room hatch was also found to be open."

Masonic :

Listed as a 29 year old Engine Room Artificer aboard HMS Irresistable, berthed in Malta in 1907 at the time of his initiation. The contribution record shows "Died 20 Feb.1917."

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