Articles
About the Project
My two
great great uncles, Eddie Crascall and Harry Crascall are
named on the Town War Memorial. Through them my
Dover War Memorial Project began. Having researched for many
years my own family history I knew well their families, their
stories, and what had happened to them. But what of all the
other lost loved ones from Dover? That's what I wondered when I
stood during the two minutes' silence on Remembrance Day 2005.
Who were they, what did they do, how did they die - and who did
they leave to mourn?
In loving memory, in honour of those who
gave all they could, that is why I began my Dover War Memorial Project. Lest we forget.
"GREAT
OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROW" by Marilyn Stephenson-Knight
Who was Coulson Crascall? And who was Harry
Terry? And what do they have in common?
Questions like these are exactly what an
exciting new initiative for Dover will answer. Supported by the
Town Council I have the honour to be the academic researcher for
the Dover War Memorial Project. It aims to discover the full
names, the families, and the histories behind every person named
on the memorial that stands outside the Dover Town Council
officers at Maison Dieu house. Fittingly, the Project was born
on Remembrance Sunday last year, the commemoration of the 60th
anniversary of the ending of World War II. While we stood in
reverent silence by the memorial, remembering those who have
given so much for all of us, there were two men in particular of
whom I thought. Both are named on the memorial, both were my
great uncles, and one was Coulson Crascall.
Therein lies the first answer. Coulson
Crascall and Harry Terry were both Dovorians and both of them
died in the Great War, World War I. Their names are preserved by
the memorial, and we honour them and millions of others every
November. The Dover War Memorial Project will continue this,
publishing in an accessible form as much information as possible
about our local heroes. The intention is to try to understand
who they were and what they did – and how they lost their lives.
In other words the Project seeks to find and to know, as far as
is possible, the person who bore the name.
The benefits of this are many. Not only
does it help us to remember them – and underline the meaning and
the enormity of the loss – but this Project also will help
educate our new generations about the sacrifices made by their
forebears. It will give them an insight into the personal costs
of war, it will enable them to relate important events in
history to local knowledge, and in many cases it will reveal
what their own relatives did, thus giving them an introduction
to social and family history too. That is not all, for the Dover
War Memorial Project is a community project. There is great
enthusiasm and interest, there are many offers of help, and
several people have already brought in to the Town Council
offices items relating to their relatives, including an official
yet most kindly letter announcing a death and some photographs,
along with much useful information. This is a resource which
everyone may use and to which everyone may contribute, including
schoolchildren who may participate in research.
Can the Dover War Memorial Project tell us
more about what Coulson Crascall and Harry Terry have in common?
Indeed it can, for research reveals that both their fathers were
born in Dover and they even had the same name – Henry. Their
sons, Coulson and Harry, are described as having brown hair and
fresh complexions, both were married, and both of them, with
records of “very good” conduct, were seamen. They had tattoos on
their left arms, but only Harry had a nautical one, having
chosen an anchor. Though Harry, born in 1875, was three years
older than Coulson they probably knew each other, for they came
from the same area of Dover (Coulson lived at Military Road and
Harry just off Biggin Street) and several times passed through
the same stone frigates (naval shore establishments), the Pembroke
at Chatham and the Wildfire at Sheerness, though not always
at the same time. They also both served on H.M.S. Cressy.
This was to be their last voyage, for here, not long after the
war began, both of them died. The cause of their deaths on 22nd
September 1914 is given as “killed in action with submarine in
North Sea”.
Other records offer more information about
what happened. Coulson is described as “drowned” and Harry as
“lost” in the “North Sea when Cressy was sunk by a German
submarine. The submarine was Unterseeboot U-9, commanded by
Lieutenant Otto Weddigen, who just a month before had married
his childhood love. At around 7.15 am he fired three torpedoes
at the Cressy. One missed, and one, of which the crew plainly
saw the trail as it approached them, struck her on the starboard
side. Cressy began to list but remained steady for the crew had
already closed the watertight doors and scuttles. It was the
third torpedo that was fatal. It hit by a boiler room, the
boiler exploded, and within just 25 minutes “in a cloud of dense
black smoke” the Cressy had turned over and sunk.
Lieutenant Weddigen stated that the men of
the Cressy were “brave and true to their country’s sea
traditions”. They remained as long as they could by their guns,
seeking the U-boat and even attempting to run it down. But they
were unable to damage it. Just how brave they were is shown by
what else had already happened that morning. The Cressy was the
last of three armoured cruisers lost within an hour. The crew
had already witnessed the sinking of H.M.S. Aboukir. She was
struck by torpedo at 6.25 am under one of her magazines. This
then exploded, hurling part of the vessel into the air. As the
Cressy and the third ship, HMS Hogue, lowered boats to help
survivors, the Hogue too was struck by two torpedoes. Her engine
room flooded and she sank within twenty minutes. Captain Johnson
of the Cressy ordered the crew to begin zigzagging as a defence,
trying at the same time to manoeuvre close enough to assist the
crews from the Aboukir and Hogue. Even before Cressy was struck
her crew had thrown overboard all their loose timber to provide
support for the men in the water. But the zigzagging failed.
Survivors from the Cressy described how their fate was
predicted, for they had seen the third and fatal torpedo aimed
at them passing directly over the upturned hull of the sinking
Aboukir.
Otto Weddigen states that before he
attacked he passed by several British ships, including torpedo
boats, for he was seeking “bigger game”. He is described as
hardly able to believe his luck when he espied, as he says, the
“grey-black sides” of the cruisers “riding high over the water”.
The three vessels formed a triangle and he positioned U-9 in the
centre, thus enabling the submarine to strike any one. But why
was he so easily able to do this, and to carry out such a
successful attack?
The three cruisers, Aboukir, Hogue, and
Cressy, were of an old design, much slower than newer
warships. Even before the war the decision had been made that
they were no longer to be maintained and once faults became
serious they were to be scrapped. Many from their crews were
young and inexperienced, and they were without their normal
hierarchy of command for two Rear Admirals were absent. Despite
advice the Admiralty commanded the cruisers to patrol an area
off the coast of Holland in order to help keep approaches to the
English Channel clear of German minelayers and torpedo boats.
Operating without destroyer support owing to adverse weather
conditions, so great was the vulnerability of the cruisers that
they were known as the “Live-Bait Squadron”. Having enticed U-9,
their own actions compounded their danger for they ordinarily
travelled without zigzagging – which Otto Weddigen himself
stated had rendered Cressy more difficult to hit – and Hogue and
Cressy, rather than calling for destroyers and removing
themselves, had stopped their engines in order to help the crew
of the Aboukir. At the later enquiry in to the loss of the
vessels all their senior officers were censured.
One who came in for particular criticism
was the absent Rear Admiral Campbell who was in overall command
of Cruiser Force C, as the patrol was known. He was accused of
“a very poor performance” at the enquiry for he maintained he
did not know the purpose of his command. While this may seem an
incredible admission, it nevertheless provides a further
perspective. World War I was like no other – the period has
become known as the birth of Total War. The Great War was one of
the children of the industrial revolution and a key moment for
the power of the modern state in terms of mass mobilisation,
industrial logistical warfare, and the formation of patriotic
identity. But at the same time it carried vestiges of previous
eras, for in the battlefields contemporary technology and
infrastructure were frequently unable to provide swift
communication and transport, and so armies often moved by foot
and depended on messengers. Along with the soon-shattered belief
in 1914 that the war would be finished by Christmas, this
provides a sense that new tactics for this different époque
needed to be developed, learnt, and employed. This perhaps is
what lies behind Rear Admiral Campbell’s statement. They were
learning on the job.
In 1914 the submarine as a combatant was
given little importance or credence, for it was assumed that war
at sea would be between battleships. There was much less
awareness of danger from beneath the waves, and in those first
days of the war many vessels customarily did not zigzag.
Moreover, the cruisers were looking out for ships, not
submarines, and thus when the Aboukir exploded Captain Drummond
believed they had struck a mine. He signalled the other two
vessels to his aid. It was only when the Hogue was torpedoed
that the danger was understood. Even then there was confusion,
for Bertram Nicholson, Commander of the Cressy, believed there
was more than one submarine, and Lieutenant Weddigen states that
the Cressy was firing wildly, hoping to hit a target, but that
only one shot came “unpleasantly near”.
Great oaks from little acorns grow. What
this research for the Dover War Memorial Project demonstrates is
how initially following the story of one man, Coulson Crascall,
provides an entry to greater and further knowledge, in this case
until the very nature of the Great War itself and how it was
understood may be addressed. But again, it does not end there!
At the same time the Project it illustrates how vast events may
have local impacts. Left behind when Harry and Coulson died were
two widows and grieving families and dependents. But they were
not the only ones. On our memorial is another seaman lost with
the Cressy. Allan Loram was a Stoker, and he left behind his
parents, Jesse and Mary Ann, when he was killed at the age of
37.
This is where the Dover War Memorial
Project finds surprises. For research has shown that, although
he is not named on the memorial, there is a fourth Cressy victim
from Dover. His name was William Epps and he was 47 when he
died. His father was a Dovorian, and his wife Margaret lived
just along the coast at Sandgate. Very probably he knew Allan
Loram, for William was a Petty Officer Stoker. Perhaps they were
both working where the U-9’s third torpedo struck.
There are also Dover victims from the
Aboukir. Six are named on the memorial: Sydney Claw, Edward
Everall, William Fairweather, John Fennel, Benjamin Franklin,
and Horace Fry. Two more, George Holder and Maurice Woods, who
are not on the memorial, have also been found. All of them left
parents, and most left widows for only Edward and William were
not married. Despite several ships and little vessels, alerted
by wireless, rushing to help the men from the three cruisers
over 1,400 lost their lives that morning. We now know that
twelve were Dovorians. But could there be any more victims from
our town? Were there any Dovorians on the Hogue? And were there
any Dovorians who survived? These are just three of the many
questions the Dover War Memorial Project is trying to answer.
There is one other question can be answered
here. The twelve men all died on the same day, they all died in
the same action, and they all were Dovorians. But what else do
they have in common? The answer is that as seamen registered at
Chatham, they are all commemorated on the large Naval Memorial
there. For, lost at sea, they have no grave.
And yet ... perhaps they have. Twenty five
miles off the Dutch coast, in a hundred feet of water, lie the
wrecks of the Cressy, the Aboukir, and the Hogue. Technology has
advanced, and just over eighty years since they foundered divers
began to visit them. They are sunk into a soft sandy mud, so
close together that it is uncertain which cruiser is which. The
remains of bridges and gun stations can still be seen, along
with a gaping area of damage on one of the vessels – probably
the result of the torpedo attack. But their condition is poor,
and one of the divers believes that within another eighty years
the remains will be virtually gone.
That is why memorials are so important. As
the years go on reminders and memories become fewer and fade. At
the start of World War I there were senior officers at the
Admiralty who tried to save the crews of the Cressy, Aboukir,
and Hogue. Even they may not have completely appreciated the
threat of the submarine, for they argued that the cruisers were
vulnerable to modern surface ships. But one of those officers
doubtless could have done, for he was Inspecting Captain then
Commodore of Submarines from 1910 to 1914 and had used British
submarines at the battle of Heligoland Bight, less than a month
before Cruiser Force C was torpedoed. He too is one of our local
heroes. He is buried in St James’s cemetery, and this month
(April 2006) Dover Town Council will be commemorating the action
for which he gained fame, and which formed part of his title
when he became a peer. Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, Baron Keyes of
Zeebrugge and Dover, opposed the sending of the “Live-Bait
Squadron” to the Broad Fourteens off Holland. Perhaps it is
appropriate then that the war memorial he unveiled at Dover in
1924 preserved some of the names of the men he sought to save.
It is this work that the Dover War Memorial Project will
continue, honouring those we lost by remembering them and by
enabling those who come after to discover and learn about them.
Post Script.
This article has posed a lot of questions.
But there is one about the War Memorial Project it cannot
answer. That question is - How can you help?
Answers please to:
Simon or Maggie
This article first appeared in the Dover
Society Newsletter, April 2006
Post Script:
On 15th October 1915, less than a month after sinking the three
cruisers, U-9 under Otto Weddigen sank HMS Hawke. Over 500
further lives were lost. In early 1915 Weddigen took command of
U29, and sank a further four vessels. But on 18th March 1915, he
too was lost, with all his crew, when HMS Dreadnought rammed U29
and destroyed it.
U9
survived the war and was surrendered to the Royal Navy. On its
way from Harwich to Morecambe for breaking, it began taking in
water. On 13th March 1919 it came into Dover Harbour and sank.
Three weeks later, on a high tide, two lighters succeeded in
raising it. As the tide fell, U9 was left high and dry on the
sands by Waterloo Crescent. To Dover, the town whence U9 had
sent so many men on their last journeys, the submarine, on its
own last journey, now returned. Perhaps it was a fitting
tribute.
Pumping out the remaining water, dockyard
employees effected repairs to render U9 once more seaworthy. A
fortnight later, the submarine was refloated, and eventually
docked at the Camber, by the Eastern Arm of the harbour. But,
tribute or no, U9 remained defiant until the end. For, as the
vessel was moved to the Camber, an observer wryly noted that,
"the U9 continued to vent its spite on things English by running
into the North Pier and damaging it!"
Illustration above: "U9 on
Dover beach", a postcard by J G Whorwell, 7 Bench Street, Dover,
from the collection of Ed Connell
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