Family :

Education & Career :

Fitter and Joiner (1917)

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 :

ARMSTRONG, Ernest William, Engine Room Artificer 3rd Class, HM Submarine J6 Ernest Armstrong served in HM Submarine 'J6' and lost his life through an unfortunate error in volving a Q-Ship. A Q-Ship was a heavily armed merchant ship with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. This gave the Q-ship the chance to open fire and sink them. The tactic of the Q-ship directly led to German U-Boat captains being highly suspicious of all merchant vessels and contributed to the sinking of unarmed and neutral merchantmen. Eventually this considerably influenced opinion in the USA and contributed to the background to the decision of the USA to enter the war on the side of the Allies in 1917. On 15th October 1918 HMS J6 was lying on the surface outside Blythe, Northumberland. The Q-ship Cymric was also in the area and had already encountered two British submarines that day. At 1600hrs the Cymric spotted a third submarine which it believed to be German and closing for identification ahead of an attack. The Cymric at once went to action stations believing the submarine to be the German U-boat U6. Clearly the Cymric confused J6 for U6 with disastrous results. The Cymric opened fire and as shells poured into the submarine the J6 signalman attempted to hoist a recognition signal and was killed. J6 attempted to lose the Q-ship by entering a fog bank and Cymric followed and found the submarine settling in the water. It was only when survivors were picked up that the mistake became clear. Ernest Armstrong was one of the men who lost their life through an accident of war, one of many. It was the more tragic as it was less than a month before the Armistice.

Masonic :

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