My first action... [HMS Perth]

[Randi]

HMS Perth, 1 Oct 1918

After having patrolled largely uneventfully up and down the Gulf of Aden for the best part of a year, HMS Perth is in convoy en route back to Milford Haven. The convoy had been zig-zagging up the Atlantic past Portugal into the Bay of Biscay, and I was just going to do one more page before retiring, as they had been rather unremarkable (and thus quick) so far.

That afternoon, the convoy engaged/was engaged by a submarine. HMS Bylands was sunk and S/S Manin(?) was hit and abandoned by her crew. Perth picked up Bylands' crew. During the afternoon's action two men were killed on Perth, and buried at sea a little later on, shrouded in remnants of the port fore bridge deck awning which was destroyed in the action.

I didn't think that I would have been so affected by this, but I was.

Partly because I wasn't expecting it, partly because the log makes these two men's death personal, and partly by the brutally random and arbitrary nature of the outcome.
I have of course noted the burials at sea in the relevant thread, but just wanted to mark the deeply moving experience of feeling somehow personally involved (albeit vicariously) in this intrinsically inconsequential microscopic little fragment of history - as well as feeling acutely the juxtaposition of the incredible courage of those at the sharp end on the one hand, and the fact of man's inhumanity to man and the general futility of war (this one, at the time, of course being expected to end all wars) on the other.

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Sorry, not trying to make a political point, just noting a simply human response. :-\

A very normal, and usual emotion here...

And it's also a very disconcerting thing to be transcribing a log knowing that the ship is going to come to a violent end. You get close to the end and dread the day knowing that everything is going to be over.

Death is hard, no matter where and when.

Zen hugs to you!

Many of us react that way, and more than the first time we have a death. Somehow these old ships and their crews become very much part of our present. Although I don't feel any mourning for these dead, but rather a need to honor and remember them in the here and now.

You might want to visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site, they not only list the names of the dead but show pictures of the various cemeteries and war memorials where they are.

Sub-Lieutenant FREDERICK FOTHERINGHAM A. STEVENSON
H.M.S. "Perth.", Royal Naval Reserve
who died on 01 October 1918

Paymaster CHARLES GRENVILLE MAILE
H.M.S. "Perth.", Royal Naval Reserve
who died age 34 on 01 October 1918
Son of George Charles Maile, of 76, Corringham Rd., Golders Green, London; and the late Harriet Mary Maile.

Remembered with honour
CHATHAM NAVAL MEMORIAL

Out of out time frame but still having relevance today because of the cargo.
On TV last evening, there was a:
"Dramatised documentary telling the true story of how the HMS Venturer hunted down and sank the U-Boat U864 in February 1945, the only time two submarines duelled to the death underwater. Eyewitness accounts, secret and long-forgotten archive material and a dive into the Baltic's frozen depths bring to life the full amazing story of U864's last hours."
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-864
Submariners from HMS Venturer spoke of their brief elation at the leadership of their commander and of having succeeded in their mission before the sobering realisation that they been responsible for the destruction of fellow submariners.
The operation was mounted because of information collected at Bletchley Park from the Enigma machines.