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Medals to HMS Naiad 1 year 2 months ago #87910

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QSA (0) (W. J. Owen, Ord. HMS Naiad.);
AGS 1902 (1) Somaliland 1902-04 (W. J. Owen. A.B., HMS Naiad.);
1914-15 Star (198545, W. J. Owen, A.B., R.N.);
BWM and VM with MID (198545 W. J. Owen. L.S. R.N.)

MID LG 20 February 1919: ‘Honours for Services in Submarines between the 1st July and 11th November 1918.’

William Joseph Owen was born in Trowbridge on 27 September 1882. He joined Royal Navy on 26 March 1898 as a Boy. He joined Naiad on 19 March 1901, earning his QSA and AGS in that ship.

He probably joined the R.N. Submarine Service when he joined the submarine depot ship HMS Mercury on 1 April 1910. He would probably have trained on B and C-class submarines and during W.W.I he is listed as serving on the submarine depot ship HMS Maidstone. This was the depot ship of the 8th and later the 9th submarine flotillas based at Harwich. It is likely that he would have served on E-class submarines during this period. He remained with the submarine service and was promoted to Leading Seaman in 1916 and the final entry on his record of service shows him serving on the submarine depot ship HMS Titania. He was discharged to pension on 9 June 1922, and died in Northumberland on 27 December 1945.
Dr David Biggins
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Medals to HMS Naiad 7 months 1 week ago #91650

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DSM GV (146095. W. Dowell, Ch. P.O. H.M. Submarine. E.11.);
QSA (2) Cape Colony, South Africa 1901 unofficial rivets (W. Dowell, P.O. 1. Cl., H.M.S. Naiad);
AGS 1902 (1) Somaliland 1902-04 (W. Dowell, P.O. 1 Cl., H.M.S. Naiad.);
[ Trio ];
[ RN LS&GC EdVII ]

DSM London Gazette 13 September 1915: ‘For service in submarines in the Sea of Marmora.’

RHS Case no. 29,586: ‘At the disaster on June 21st, 1898, as detailed in Case 29,525, W. Dowell, petty officer, H.M.S. Mars, at great risk, rescued three persons.’

William Dowell was born in Poplar, Middlesex in January 1873. He joined the Royal Navy as Boy 2nd Class in August 1888, and advanced to Able Seaman in September 1891. Subsequent service included with H.M.S. Mars, January 1898 - January 1900, during which time he was involved in the ‘Blackwall Disaster’ and was awarded a bronze Royal Humane Society Medal for his actions during that event:

‘A special meeting of the Royal Humane Society was held on Wednesday, Col. Horace Montagu presiding, for the purpose of considering the merits of a number of cases arising out of the Blackwall disaster after the launch of the battleship Albion on the afternoon of June 21st last [1898]. Bronze medals have been awarded to Privates Dorrington and McMillan, of the Royal Marine Light Infantry, who were both standing near when the accident happened, and dived in and saved six between them. Dorrington was struck by wreckage, and then his comrade stuck to him. William Dowell, 26, petty officer, of the battleship Mars, Arthur Freeman, 20, A.B., and George Moir, A.B., both of the Pembroke, very gallantly rescued many persons by diving several times under the floating timbers and wherever people were thought to be. They have been awarded the medal in each case.’ (The Naval and Military Record, 1 September 1898, refers)

Thousands of people had gathered to watch the launch of the Albion on the Thames. A wave created by Albion's entry into the water caused a stage from which 200 people were watching to collapse into a side creek, and 34 people, mostly women and children, drowned in one of the worst peacetime disasters in Thames history.

Dowell advanced to Petty Officer 1st Class in April 1900, and served with H.M.S. Naiad, March 1901 - August 1904. He advanced to Chief Petty Officer in September 1910, and joined the Submarine Service prior to the Great War - serving at H.M.S. Dolphin, August 1912 - September 1914 and with the submarine depot ships Maidstone and Adamant. Dowell appears to have joined the submarine E.11 on 1 April 1915.

The spring of 1915 found the E.11 attached to the Fleet in the Mediterranean and, with Lieutenant-Commander Martin Eric Nasmith in command, she proceeded to make history at a rapid rate. It was in the middle of May that she left for her perilous passage through the Dardanelles, and before she was through them she ran into her first encounter with the enemy. When the Narrows had been successfully negotiated, and the submarine rose to get fresh bearings, two battleships were seen to be lying a little further on. Such an opportunity was not to be let slip without an effort, and, necessarily keeping the periscope above water, Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith at once proceeded to put his boat in a suitable position for launching a torpedo. Unfortunately, the Turks sighted the periscope a minute or two too soon, and instantly the battleships began blazing away with their light guns as hard as they could. At the same time they ‘upped anchor’ and got under way, so there was nothing for it but for the E.11 to dive and hide herself until the furore had subsided. She was far too slow to catch the battleships if she ran submerged, and if she rose to the surface she would almost certainly have been breached by a shell. After a little, therefore, she gently settled herself on the bottom of the Straits, and there she remained until dusk.

That same evening she pushed on into the Sea of Marmora, where for several days she alternately rested and cruised about without finding anything that was worth the expenditure of a torpedo. Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith made Constantinople the centre of his operations during the whole of this raid, and his first reward came one Sunday morning, just before half-past six, when a big gunboat was seen cruising off the port. The submarine was ready for instant action, and in less than a minute the fatal torpedo was underway. At 6.25 the gunboat was hit; at 6.30 she had sunk, but not without giving the E.11 something of a shock. While she was heeling well over to the water's edge, a shot was fired that went clean through the submarine's periscope, carrying away about four inches of the diameter a few feet from the base, and leaving the rest standing. Had the shot struck about six feet lower, it would very probably have made a breach in the conning tower, and so rendered the submarine helpless, as she would not have been able to dive.

The very next day brought an adventure which, if it was not so exciting, at any rate did not lack in interest. A big steamer was sighted making her way from Constantinople towards the Dardanelles, and the E.11 came to the surface a short distance ahead, fired a shot across her bows, and brought her to a standstill. There happened to be a facetious American newspaper correspondent on board, and when Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith hailed “Who are you?” - meaning, of course, to inquire what the ship was and what was her business - this gentleman replied by giving his own name and that of the paper for which he was working. This was not good enough for the E.11. A few more questions elicited the fact that the ship was a Turkish transport, the Nagara, and when he got as far as that, Nasmith promptly replied, “Right. I am going to sink you”. “May we have time to get off?” queried the newspaper man, by this time rather subdued. “Yes”, came the answer from the submarine, “but be d..... quick about it.”

The Turks were so quick that they upset two of their boats in lowering them, and capsized several men into the water, though all of them managed to get into safety again. Then Nasmith went on board the ship to see what she carried. There was a six-inch gun, destined to strengthen the forts on the Dardanelles; there were several sets of mountings for weapons of large calibre; and there was a great quantity of ammunition for heavy guns on its way to the Dardanelles. The ship was, in fact, loaded from keel to upper deck with war material; and when the crew, and the American correspondent, had withdrawn to a safe distance, the submarine drew off, fired a torpedo, and sent the ship to the bottom.

The most audacious act of the E.11 was, however, her raid on Constantinople itself. Early one morning, while she was slowly cruising off the mouth of the harbour, she hailed a Turkish merchantman to stop; but the enemy ignored the demand and ran for all he was worth toward the harbour, with the E.11 in hot pursuit. It may have been this incident that gave Nasmith his inspiration; but however that may be, the E.11 found herself early one morning lying actually within the port of Constantinople itself. Observations were cautiously taken, and it was seen that a number of enemy transports were lying alongside the wharfs and that some of them actually had troops on board. The harbour of Constantinople is traversed by tricky currents, and although the E.11 fired two torpedoes, neither of them hit the object at which it was aimed. Nasmith's intention was, of course, to sink the transports, and although the first torpedo did not do that, it blew up a barge with such force that the transport Stamboul, lying close by, was so badly damaged that she had to be run ashore in order to save herself from sinking. The second torpedo did not hit a ship, but it exploded against the quayside and destroyed a considerable length of it. In the Turkish capital itself the moral effect of this attack was tremendous. Hearing the explosion of the two torpedoes and the noise of the guns - for the Turkish batteries went on firing long after the E.11 was safely out of sight - the civil population jumped to the conclusion the Allied Fleet had arrived before their city.

This by no means ended the thrilling experiences of the E.11. Before she set out on her return journey from the Sea of Marmora she had sunk in all one large gunboat, two transports, three small ships, and one ammunition ship (the Nagara), and had forced another store ship to run ashore; and when, on her way back, she was about to enter the Dardanelles again, Nasmith sighted another transport coming up astern, and he waited until she came along and then torpedoed her and sent her to the bottom. In all the E.11 destroyed eleven ships, no bad record for a small vessel with a crew of 30 officers and men, who had to face the gravest perils single-handed from the time they entered the Dardanelles until they left them. On the way out these perils were encountered in a most alarming form. As the E.11 was making her way seawards beneath the surface, those on board became aware of a resistance which was not of the sea, and every now and then a faint bump was heard against the vessel's side. Instinctively and instantly everyone on board realised what had happened.

The submarine had fouled the cable by which a floating mine was chained to its anchor on the sea bed, and the cable, instead of slipping past the smooth hull, had somehow become entangled in the forward hydroplanes. Any one of those ominous bumps might suffice to explode the mine and send the submarine to the bottom like a log. It was impossible for Nasmith to manoeuvre his boat in an effort to get rid of the thing, for he was passing through the most thickly mined area of the whole Straits, and any deviation from the set course would almost certainly have taken the boat straight to destruction. Nor could he rise to the surface and send a man out to detach the machine, for the churning screws of the patrol boats could be heard overhead. There was nothing for it but to carry on as slowly and as carefully as possible and to trust to Providence. For eleven miles the submarine crept on with sudden death dangling from her bows, a death from which those on board were saved only by the lightness of the bumps by which the mine had announced itself. A sharp blow would have detonated it. One can imagine what feelings of relief there were when the boat at last reached an area where she could 'break surface' in safety. Once afloat again, it did not take long to disentangle the cable and drop the mine over the side.

His courageous services brought Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith the award of the Victoria Cross, while the two other officers on board, Lieutenant Guy d'Oyly-Hughes and Lieutenant Robert Brown, RNR, received the Distinguished Service Cross. All the Petty Officers and men were granted the DSM.

Remarkably, Nasmith, his crew and the E. 11 returned to the Sea of Marmora for two further protracted and highly successful patrols. On the first of them, in July-August 1915, which lasted for 29 days, they sank the Turkish battleship Barbarossa, a gunboat, six transports, a steamer and 23 dhows, in addition to bombarding enemy troops and other military objectives along the coast. And on the second, which lasted for 42 days in November-December 1915 - the longest patrol accomplished by any submarine to date - they sank a destroyer, 11 steamers and 35 sailing ships.

From the end of 1916 Dowell served above the waves in a variety of vessels, finishing his service at H.M.S. Dolphin in March 1920 (awarded the LS&GC in May 1906).
Dr David Biggins
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Medals to HMS Naiad 7 months 1 week ago #91674

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Thank you David
A fascinating life full of action and a long series of actions for the E11.
What happened to Dowell’s VC ?

Clive

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Medals to HMS Naiad 5 months 2 days ago #92590

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Clive,

His VC is reportedly in the Royal Marines Museum in Hampshire.

Best wishes
David
Dr David Biggins

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Medals to HMS Naiad 5 months 2 days ago #92591

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QSA (0) (F. Corney, Car. Crew, H.M.S. Naiad);
AGS 1902 (1) Somaliland 1902-04 (F. Corney, Car. Crew, H.M.S. Naiad);
1914-15 Star (343471, F. Corney, Shpt. 2, R.N.);
British War and Victory Medals (343471 F. Corney. Shpt. 1, R.N.);
RN LS&GC GV (343471 Frederick Corney, Shpt. 2 Cl., H.M.S. Princess Royal)

Noonan's say 133 no-clasp Queen South Africa Medals were awarded to the ship’s company of HMS Naiad.

Frederic Corney was born in Hove, Sussex in May 1881 and entered the Royal Navy in the rate of Carpenter’s Crew in June 1900. He subsequently served aboard HMS Naiad from March 1901 to August 1904, in which period he qualified for his Queen’s South Africa and Africa General Service Medals.

A Shipwright 2nd Class aboard the cruiser Princess Royal by the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, he remained similarly employed for the duration of the War, thereby participating in the actions at Heligoland Bight on 28 August 1914; Dogger Bank on 24 January 1915; and Jutland, in which latter engagement the Princess Royal received several hits and sustained casualties of 22 killed and 78 wounded.

Corney, who was awarded his LS&GC medal in July 1915, was pensioned ashore as a Shipwright 1st Class in June 1922.
Dr David Biggins
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Medals to HMS Naiad 4 months 2 weeks ago #92783

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East and West Africa (1) Benin 1897 (B. E. Parsons, Ord. H.M.S. St. George.);
QSA (0) (B. E. Parsons. A. B. H.M.S. Naiad.);
AGS 1902 (1) Somaliland 1902-04 (B. E. Parsons, A.B., H.M.S. Naiad.);
1914-15 Star (176462. B. E. Parsons, P.O., R.N.);
British War and Victory Medals (176462 B. E. Parsons. P.O. R.N.);
Royal Navy LS&GC GV (176462. B. E. Parsons. P.O. H.M.S. Hazard:)

Benjamin Edgar Parson was born at Mylor, Cornwall on 25 May 1878 and enlisted with the Royal Navy as Boy Class II on 4 October 1893. Posted first to Alexandra in 1895 he later joined St. George and reached his majority with her on 25 May 1896. This Edgar-class cruiser was stationed at Zanzibar the next month with a squadron of British warships when the Anglo-Zanzibar War began.

After a British ultimatum to the Sultan was ignored Kahalid was the Squadron opened fire on his palace at 09:00 in the morning. The royal yacht Glasgow attempted to return fire with it's small cannon, targeting St. George which swiftly sank her. The war was to last no more than 45-minutes making it the shortest war in history.

The next year the Benin expedition was launched with St. George being part of the force assembled. Too large to go upriver she contributed a large force of bluejackets to land force. Parsons returned to Britain and went ashore on 19 February 1898, being posted to Naiad on 19 March 1901.

With her he served off South Africa and later off Somaliland where Royal Naval vessels patrolled the sea lanes for gun runners attempting to arm the Mullah's forces. Again returning to Britain and going ashore in 1904 Parsons was promoted Petty Officer while served with H.M.S. Dreadnaught on 7 January 1910. He was awarded his LS&GC with H.M.S. Hazard in March 1912- the month after she collided with the submarine A3 at Spithead, sinking her with all hands.

At the opening of the Great War Parsons was stationed with the cruiser HMS Edgar, however he went ashore to Victory I in December 1914. He was to see foreign service again however being posted to Egmont, a depot ship stationed at Malta on 23 January 1915. It was here that Parsons was killed on 30 June 1915, his service record giving the grim details, stating:

'Killed by an explosion in the Torpedo Lecture Room Malta Dockyards'

He is not listed as buried but rather commemorated upon the Plymouth Memorial which suggests his body was never recovered.
Dr David Biggins
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