Clement Agnew - Behind the name

The first name on the 1939-1945 names on the Armadale War Memorial is Clement Agnew. There is no rank or unit on the memorial but he is easy to find on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database. He was a tragically young sixteen years old when he died. Surprisingly the boy from deepest West Lothian was a volunteer in the Royal Navy.

AGNEW, CLEMENT WILLIAM
Initials: C W
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Boy 1st Class
Regiment/Service: Royal Navy
Unit Text: H.M.S. Royal Oak
Age: 16
Date of Death: 14/10/1939
Service No: P/JX 159143
Additional information: Son of Clement and Susan Agnew, of Armadale, West Lothian.
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Panel 34, Column 1.
Memorial: PORTSMOUTH NAVAL MEMORIAL

Boy Agnew was lost on the 'Royal Oak' when it was torpedoed in Scapa Flow by U-9. 833 other sailors were lost that night many of them teenage ratings like Clement Agnew. The tragedy was that the 'Royal Oak' had returned to Scapa Flow from the North Atlantic after a patrol which showed she was too old for active service. When she was sunk she was actually of little threat to the German Navy.

Her loss was a bitter blow to Britain and a propaganda coup for Germany. It also brought home the war to a small Lothians town.

The loss of the Hampshire - On this day in Scottish Military History - 1916

Ninety five years ago today the most famous soldier in the British Empire drowned when the ship carrying him on a mission to Russia sunk off Marwick Head, Orkney.

HMS 'Hampshire' was struggling in a gale not unlike the ones we've seen recently in Scotland when she hit a mine and foundered within a matter of minutes. The party for Russia and 643 sailors perished. Hampshire's destroyer escorts had turned for home in the force nine gale earlier so there was no-one nearby to help. The local lifeboat crew who knew the ship had gone down were ordered by the Royal Navy not to help. Civilians on shore were ordered by soldiers not to go near the wreck of the ship to help either.

The Hampshire, her crew and her guests were left to their fate. The fact she was heading to Russia and had Field Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum on board has led to wild speculation and conspiracy theories.

The man who encouraged young men to join up in 1914 had been enoying the hospitality of Jellicoe, the recent victor of Jutland, at Scapa Flow, just hours before his death. His sudden loss stunned the nation. On 13th June 1916 a memorial service was held in St Paul's in London for Kitchener and all the others who went down with the 'Hampshire'

The people of Orkney erected a memorial to the great man near to the spot he died on duty. You can see photographs of the memorial tower on Marwick Head on the Scottish War Memorials Project

The Victors of Jutland return to base - On this day in Scottish Military History - 1916

It may not have been clear to them at the time but the Royal Navy ships which limped back to their home ports in Scotland on this day ninety five years ago had just won the greatest naval battle of the First World War. The Germans may have inflicted more damage at Jutland but they were the ones who ran away. The Royal Navy ruled the waves once again.

It had been a terrible day for the Royal Navy. They had lost fourteen ships and thousands of men were killed and wounded. When they returned to port the injured men were taken to naval hospitals and the dead were buried.

The Battlecruiser squadrons from Rosyth shipped their casualties to the pier at Port Edgar in South Queensferry and then were taken the short distance to Butlaw Naval Hospital (The Queen Mary and Princess Christian Emergency Naval Hospital). The dead were buried in South Queensferry's Dalmeny and South Queensferry Cemetery.

Others lost in the battle were buried at Cromarty Cemetery on the Black Isle and Lyness Naval Cemetery at Hoy in Orkney.

Two of the ships erected crosses over the mass graves of the sailors who had died. HMS Barham and HMS Malaya at Hoy.

The Fleets leave the Firths - On this day in Scottish Military History - 1916

Exactly ninety five years ago, one hundred and fifty one Royal Navy warships slipped their Scottish moorings and sailed into the North Sea night to face the German High Seas Fleet.

The Admiralty had broken the German Navy codes so they knew the Kaiser's warships were leaving their bases and could be heading north to reach the Atlantic, or east to go into the Baltic. The British would head for the seas off Norway and Denmark to cover both approaches.

The 1st and 4th Battlecruiser Squadrons, and the 5th Battle Squadron left the Firth of Forth from Rosyth; the 2nd Battle Squadron left the Cromarty Firth from Invergordon; and the 1st and 4th Battle Squadrons of the Grand Fleet, and the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron left the Pentland Firth from Scapa Flow.

Whether they knew it or not Admirals Jellicoe and Beatty were about to face their opposite numbers - His Imperial German Majesty's admirals Scheer and Hipper, in the greatest naval battle of the First World War.

The two biggest naval powers of the time were about to meet in a showdown between 250 warships which would potentially change the course of the war. Whoever won the battle would control the sea lanes. If Germany won Britain's blockade of Germany would be broken and island Britain would be blockaded in return.

Last serviceman to witness Scapa Flow scuttle passes away

The last serviceman to witness the surrender of the German Grand Fleet in the Firth of Forth in 1918 and then its scuttling at Scapa Flow in Orkney in 1919, passed away in Australia yesterday at the age of 110.

British-born Claude Choules had joined the Royal Navy at the age of 15, lying about his age, and saw action in the North Sea on the Rosyth based HMS ‘Revenge’. Now nearly 93 years after the guns fell silent, the final combat veteran of the First World War has passed away.

As historians we should perhaps be used to events slipping from living memory, but the First World War carries such a large footprint, not only in the subject we devote time to, but in our everyday lives, that the passing of the final veteran should feel somehow different and deserves to be marked in some way.

As the oft-repeated words say: We Will Remember Them

The Loss of U-47 - On this day in Scottish Military History - 1941

In 1939 the defences of Scapa Flow were breached by a German U-boat and the battleship HMS "Royal Oak" was lost with 833 hands. It earned the Captain of the U-boat the Knight Cross of the Iron Cross with oak Leaves - The German equivalent of the Victoria Cross.

Nine months later the transport ship SS "Arandorra Star" was torpedoed by the same U-Boat off the Hebrides. The "Arandorra Star" was carrying Axis internees to Canada. Many crewmen, guards from Scottish yeomanry regiments and hundreds of German and Italian civilians died in the sinking. The survivors were taken to the Clyde and over the next few weeks bodies from the ship were washed ashore on the Western Isles.

This same U-boat was on station in the North Atlantic in November 1940 as a weather ship, and first spotted convoy HX84 which was under the protection of the "Jervis Bay". Tracking the convoy, U-47 led the battleship "Admiral Scheer" to its prey.

U-47 was commanded by Günter Prien. He was one of Hitler's favourites. A dyed-in-the-wool Prussian Nazi and a ruthless submariner. He had sunk the second British ship lost in the war, the SS "Bosnia" and by March 1941 he and his crew had sunk 30 ships.

On this day seventy years ago U-47 was lost with all hands near the Rockall Banks whilst attacking convoy OB293. HMS "Wolverine" is credited with its sinking but there is doubt that was the actual cause of U-47's loss. Even if "Wolverine" was responsible or not, the U-47 never surfaced again.

No-one in Scotland would have shed any tears for the 'Bull of Scapa Flow' and his 44 crewmen who had caused so many deaths around the shores of Scotland over the previous eighteen months.

Sites of Interest: "The Fallen Oak"

HMS Royal Oak was sunk at Scapa Flow in 1939, and is now recognised as a war grave.

In 2006 ADUS Ltd were commissioned by the Ministry of Defence to carry out a sonar survey of the wreck.

Images of that sonar survey can be viewed on the ADUS website here, as well as images of other wrecks.

You can also view a movie "flypast" of the wreck, which is fascinating to watch.