HMS Hear My Story
Chief Stoker Walter Grainger (1861-1937)
High res images available: Selected letters, Walter Grainger, Edith Townsend, HMS Daphne
Early Navy 20th Century letters of love revealed
Chief Stoker Walter Grainger was at home in the tough and testing environment onboard ship, shovelling coal and maintaining mighty engines, but he also had a sensitive side. At the turn of the twentieth century he sent home hundreds of beautifully illustrated love letters to his sweetheart Edith whilst serving for three and a half years on the China Station.
Grainger joined the Royal Navy in 1883 and served until 1916. During his engagement to Edith his letters from the Far East reveal his pain of separation and highlight the differences of being away from home today.
As he journeyed home, Walter Grainger wrote, “each letter I write now is drawing nearer to the last, drawing so close that I can nearly count how many more I shall have to write before I shall have the happiness to see you myself with my own eyes, touch you with my own hand. If they keep us at Plymouth cleaning & restoring the ship after we arrive I do not know how I shall content myself, for it will take quite 3 weeks to do it & even then we shall be sent round to Chatham before we can get our leave, & to get away for a few hours will be out of the question till all
this sort of thing is finished with. I consider that will be the harder part of my separation from you to bear”
Despite his long service, he was clearly sometimes unhappy and the
letters detail his occasional dislike for the Royal Navy - from the poor food to his captain and his fellow ship mates.
Walter wrote, “It will be a Blessed day when we are delivered out of this
House of iniquity as I call this ship for I do not believe there was ever one
equal to her as regards the character of the people comprising her crew of course dear it is not the ship it is those on board & they are without any doubt the most inhuman tyrants I have ever met… “
The letters will be displayed in the Navy’s People section of the new major exhibition HMS – Hear
My Story – opening 3 April 2014
Admiral Sir Victor Alexander Charles Crutchley (1893-1986)
WW1 Navy Victoria Cross medal to go on public display for the first time.
High res images available: Crutchley, HMS Vindictive
Victor Crutchley, Godson of Queen Victoria, was awarded the Victoria Cross in
1918 for his ‘great bravery’, ‘indomitable energy’ and ‘inspiring example’ during a daring operation on the Belgian coast. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he was bred to go to sea and went to Dartmouth Royal Naval College in 1906 aged just 13, then served throughout WWI. In 1918 he volunteered for two of the Navy's most dangerous night-time raids - trying to block the ports used by German U-boats from attacking British ships and threatening our economic survival.
In the raid of 23rd April on Zeebrugge he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. He then volunteered to go back for the second raid on Ostend on 9th May; over these two weeks he was sunk three times, twice on purpose and once by the enemy.
Medal Citation reads: “On the night of 9th/10th May, after his commanding officer had been killed and the second in command severely wounded, Lieut. Crutchley took command of Vindictive and did his utmost by manoeuvring the engines to place that ship in an effective position. He displayed great bravery both in the Vindictive and in M.L. 254, which rescued the crew after the charges had been blown and the former vessel sunk between the piers of Ostend harbour, and did not himself leave the Vindictive until he had made a thorough search with an electric torch for survivors under a very heavy fire.
Lieut, Crutchley took command of M.L. 254 when the commanding officer sank exhausted from his wounds, the second in command having been killed. The vessel was full of wounded and very seriously damaged by shell fire, the fore part being flooded. With indomitable energy and by dint of baling with buckets and shifting weight aft, Lieut. Crutchley and the unwounded kept her afloat, but the leaks could not be kept under, and she was in a sinking condition, with her forecastle nearly awash when picked up by H.M.S. Warwick. The bearing of this very gallant officer and fine seaman throughout these operations off the Belgian coast was altogether admirable and an inspiring example to all thrown in contact with him.
The London Gazette 28 August 1918
Crutchley was a career officer and later served with distinction in WWII – including a period of service with the Royal Australian Navy. His Victoria Cross, other artefacts and papers have been loaned by his family and will be publicly displayed for the first time on the “Artefact Wall” within the new major exhibition HMS – Hear My Story, opening 3 April 2014.
Collection artefacts:
· Medals: Victoria Cross, Distinguished Service Cross
· Keys from HMS Vindictive (before sinking the ship he went round locking compartments to ensure no-one re-entered)
Background: 1917-1918. German U-boats were using the Bruges Canal to gain access to the English Channel and sinking merchant shipping. This led to daring attempts by the Royal Navy to block them up. 3VCs were awarded for this action. There have been 117 Naval Victoria Crosses since 1856, 68 of these have been awarded to ship-based personnel.
Lieutenant Albert Edward Pryke (‘Ted’) Briggs (1923-2010)
The tale of the sailor survivor from HMS Hood to the D-Day Landings and beyond
High res images available: Briggs on survivors leave with his mother and sister in May 1941
Signalman “Ted” Briggs was one sailor who survived more than most, from being one of only 3 survivors from the sinking of HMS Hood at just 18 years old, to Juno Beach in 1944 as part of the D- Day landings, then onto Korea and finally the Suez Crisis in 1956.
When HMS Hood was fatally hit in action with the mighty German battleship the Bismarck, Briggs recalled a huge sheet of flame and the ship listing rapidly. When the list had reached 30 degrees he realised that "she was not coming back". No order was given to abandon ship and he found himself in the water about 50 yards (46 m) from Hood as her B-Turret went under after he made it only halfway down the ladder leading to the bridge.
Briggs himself attempted to swim away from the vessel but was pulled under by her as she started toward the ocean bottom. Briggs remembers struggling, giving up hope, and then miraculously being propelled to the surface. This was probably the result of air escaping from the ship, possibly the bridge windows collapsing and releasing trapped air. After spending three hours in the water, near dead from hypothermia, he was rescued by HMS Electra. Briggs was one of only three men aboard
to survive the tragedy (1,415 were confirmed lost), which was the Royal Navy’s largest single loss of life from a ship in WW2.
Originally from Redcar, Cleveland, he had trained at HMS Ganges in 1938. After the sinking of HMS Hood, he continued his career in the Navy aboard HMS Hilary, taking part in the Sicily and Salerno landings in 1943 and at Juno beach in the D-day landings 1944. 1945 - 1948 he served in Palestine aboard HMS Brissenden (1942) , preventing illegal migration into that country . From 1950 - 1952
he was involved in the Korean war aboard HMS Ceylon and later in the Suez crisis of 1956. He retired from the navy in 1973 with the rank of Lieutenant having served for 35 years. In all he was awarded ten medals including the MBE, eight campaign medals and one mention in despatches.
His story will be told and his medals and personal items will be displayed on the Artefact Wall alongside other material relating to Hood in the new major exhibition HMS – Hear My Story, opening 3 April 2014.
Collection Assets: Medals, Oral testimony and Service records
Leading Seaman Mohammed Rahim, DSM
Appeal for lost stories from Royal Navy colonial forces
High res images available: Mohammed Rahim’s DSM medal, Sailors from the Royal Indian Navy
An appeal for untold stories of the Royal Navy’s dominion forces has been launched by the National Museum of the Royal Navy. One of the rare stories that has been discovered is that of Leading Seaman Mohammed Rahim who was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) for Bravery during WW2 for risking his life to save a wounded seaman in a nighttime secret operations raid.
Leading Seaman Mohammed Rahim received his DSM ‘for gallantry going to the rescue of a wounded seaman, regardless of heavy fire’. He received serious wounds in February 1944, when at night, he was steering a small
motor launch from Chittagong (in modern day Bangladesh) down the coast of Burma to pick up a Secret Operations Executive (SOE) agent. In a close quarters encounter with Japanese forces who were ferrying arms along the coast, a firefight broke out; he was wounded and strongly recommended for an award, three other Indian crewmen were injured and one died, but received no official recognition.
The Royal Indian Navy existed from 1934 – 1950. At its height 28,000 men served, usually in unglamorous small ships the size of minesweepers and below which operated along the coastline. In all they suffered over 1000 casualties with many others wounded. However very little has been recorded about the lives and contributions of these and other colonial forces of the Royal Navy.
Mohammed Rahim was awarded one of only 23 DSMs awarded to Royal Indian Navy personnel during World War Two, all for operations off Burma 1942-45.
This story and Mohammed Rahim’s DSM will feature in the ‘War & Peace’ section of the new major exhibition HMS – Hear My Story. The National Museum of the Royal Navy is launching an appeal for more stories about naval volunteer forces from the Caribbean to the Straits of Singapore.
Sergeant Noel Connolly, 42 Commando Royal Marines, b.c.1970
Royal Marine rugby tackles a teenage Suicide Bomber in Afghanistan
Royal Marine, Sergeant Noel Connolly in 2008 was awarded the
Military Cross after rugby tackling a suicide bomber from his motorbike before he could trigger the device in Kandahar, Afghanistan. 150lbs of explosives were packed into the saddle of the bike. He saved 30 comrades.
Noel Connolly was stationed in an abandoned school in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan when his unit were warned a suicide bomber was being sent to kill them. When he saw a man on a motorbike heading towards him, he ordered 'stop' in Pashtu. When Connolly was ten meters away from the man, he heard a loud crack and spotted a toggle switch attached to the handlebars to detonate explosives. He knew he was face to face with the bomber.
Noel Connolly said, “ As soon as he went for the toggle again I rushed him,"
The motorbike will be on display on the Artefact Wall within the new major exhibition HMS – Hear My Story- opening 3 April 2014. Interview available from Sergeant Noel Connolly