Early Life :

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 :

At the outbreak of war in 1914, Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, formed the Royal Naval Division, comprising of 12 Battalions, largely recruited from the R.N.V.R. John was posted to the 7th Battalion on 22 August 1914 as Seaman B/90, although it would later be known as the “Hood Battalion”. After minimum infantry training, and poorly equipped, the battalion, with others of the Royal Naval Division embarked from Dover on 4 October, for Antwerp. It was at Antwerp that the Royal Naval Division gained its first Battle Honour, although with horrendous losses, and John joined the main withdrawal through to Ostend, and back to England, being discharged to Portsmouth on 28 October 1914.

The following day he is back with the R.N.V.R. as service number Mersey 1/30, listed on HMS Victory until 17 November when he moves to HMS Caesaria, on which he serves until19 November 1915. This was an armed boarding steamer, built at Cammel Laird, Birkenhead in 1910 for the London and South Western Rail Company. Taken over by the Royal Navy in October 1914 for use off Scotland, then later converted to carry troops. She was based at Scapa Flow from 30 December 1914 until moving to the Aegean in March 1915. This was the period of the Gallipoli campaign.

On 20 November 1915 John transfers to another armed boarding steamer, SS Dundee, and is with her until 1 April 1916 when he moves to HMS Victorious. He is promoted to Leading Seaman on 16 March 1917 after being ‘mentioned in despatches” and is still listed against Victorious until 1 July 1917 when he is returned to the SS Dundee. His service papers show him officially leaving the Dundee 15 September 1917. What is not mentioned is that John was aboard the Dundee on 16 March 1717 when she with the cruiser HMS Achilles intercepted a large merchantman north of the Faeroe Islands and ordered her to stop for inspection. At 3.40 pm, just after Dundee’s boarding party had gone aboard, the supposedly neutral Norwegian steamer Rena revealed her concealed armament. She was a disguised enemy surface raider and an already suspicious Commander Selwyn Day RNR, Dundee’s commanding officer saw: "…the large Norwegian flag painted on her port quarter fall outboard, being hinged on the lower side, and I gave the orders “Fire” and “Half speed ahead” to keep station, the raider now slewing rapidly to port with slight, if any, headway. Two torpedoes followed from her in quick succession, passing from 20 to 50 feet astern [of Dundee]… Our guns were already firing, and every shot was a hit. The first (from our aft 4″) raked her port battery deck, causing an explosion and volumes of smoke. The fore gun fired through the deck into her engine-room and volumes of steam spread with intense smoke and flames…the 3-pdr. gun fired at her bridge. Forty-four 4″ and twenty-five 3-pdr. rounds were fired at about 1,000 yards’ range before the raider fired her first gun. "

"Dundee" had by then used up all her 4” ammunition and was still coming under return fire. She was, as Commander Day would later recall, ‘in a difficult position.’ There was much relief when HMS Achilles closed and finished off the enemy vessel, which turned out to be the heavily-armed surface raider Leopard, sending her to the bottom with all of her 319 crew and Dundee’s six-strong boarding party.

The London Gazette of 22 June 1917 shows John as Mentioned in Dispatches 16 March 1917 (HMS Victorious III). As mentioned previous he left the Dundee on 15 September 1917, however the vessel had been torpedoed on 2 September by the German submarine UC - 49, south-west of the Scilly Isles on sunk the following day. On arriving back John is sent to HMS Excellent, a shore establishment near Portsmouth, which he is listed against until 28 March 1918. He is then listed to HMS President until his loss while serving as Acting Leading Seaman aboard the “SS Red Rose” (HMS President III Defensively Armed Merchant Ships) presumed dead on Tuesday 21 May 1918.

The “SS Red Rose” had left Littlehampton for Le Havre on 21 May 1918 with a cargo of Government stores and was torpedoed by the German submarine UB - 57 with the loss of 11 crew. It was owned by Richard Hughes & Company of Liverpool, and had been built on the River Clyde.

In addition to masonic memorial, John is commemorated on; Plymouth Naval Memorial. Panel 29, Memorial, Parish Church, St. Mary, Towerlands Street, Edge Hill. His family headstone at St Mary’s, which informs that John’s familiar or nickname within the family was “Mac.”

Masonic :

John McColm Cullen was initiated into Ancient Briton Lodge No 1675 at the Masonic Hall, Hope Street, on the 26 March 1912. John was described as being a Wine and Spirit Merchant, aged 23 years, of 195 Wavertree Road, Edge Hill, Liverpool, and was proposed by Robert Lloyd a boot-maker, seconded Robert McGee stationer. The lodge records give him being passed to the Second Degree on the 25 May 1912, but do not give the date of the third degree. However returns held by United Grand Lodge give 28 May as the date for the second degree with him raised as a master mason on 26 June. His Grand Lodge certificate issued on 29th June, 1912.

On 25th February, 1919 John’s younger brother Ernest Arnold Cullen was initiated into Ancient Briton Lodge.

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
• Researcher : Geoff Cuthill