At sea - two boys

[Bruin Fisher]

At sea – two boys

Torquil and Ronnie were best friends. Each came from wealthy families in Scotland, and each was sent at the age of 12 to boarding school – The Royal Naval College at Osborne on the Isle of Wight. The year was 1912.

As Royal Naval Cadets they did two years of officer training there and then were transferred to the college's senior campus at Dartmouth. Discipline was strict, with constant military drills and 'cold plunge' washes at 6am each day. But they also had intensive lessons in Engineering and other skills that would be useful for life aboard a Royal Navy ship. They also devoted a lot of time to sport, and were encouraged to become strong swimmers.

On 1^st August 1914, to their complete surprise, 434 cadets from Dartmouth between the ages of 14 and 16 were mobilised and joined the Royal Navy's reserve fleet. There was much excitement among the boys.

Torquil was just 14 and Ronnie was 15 when they were assigned to HMS Goliath, a pre-dreadnought battleship brought out of retirement at the start of the Great War. Since these cadets were not fully trained they were not assigned to one of the new more capable vessels. Despite her age, HMS Goliath carried four 12-inch guns and could do considerable damage with them.

The boys were given the rank of Midshipman, the lowest officer rank, known on board as 'snotties'.

In March 1915 HMS Goliath was ordered to head to the Aegean Sea to take part in the Dardanelles campaign. Her role was to bombard the Ottoman positions on land, covering the allied troops landing on the beaches.

The boys doubtless saw the grim reality of war, helping terribly wounded men off the beach onto hospital ships.

The Ottoman high command dispatched a torpedo boat to attack the Royal Navy battleships, and on the night of 12-13 May 1915 it sank HMS Goliath with three torpedoes. She sank just three and a half minutes after the torpedoes struck.

Ronnie's last letter home read “I am as well and happy as a fiddle – there is absolutely nothing to be anxious about – just you think of afterwards.”

Five hundred and seventy of the crew including both Ronnie and Torquil, died. Sub-lieutenant Philip van der Byl wrote to Ronnie's parents:

"I am sure it will be some comfort to you to hear how much we all loved your son in the Goliath, and how much we miss him. He was the life and soul of the gunroom, and always most cheerful and optimistic. His best friend was (Torquil) Macleod, who also was drowned.

"They always used to go ashore together and buy curios for you. He really was a charming boy, loved by all who knew him. On the night we were sunk he was sleeping outside my cabin, and I saw him when I turned out. He had got his safety waistcoat on, and was going quietly up the ladder on to quarter-deck. He seemed as cheerful as usual, and perfectly cool.

"When I got on to deck a few seconds later he was just going-over the port side with two other 'snotties.' That was the last I saw of him, and I shall never forget his cheery little face absolutely as full of confidence and calm assurance as it could be. He was picked up unconscious by one of the Euryaliis boats, and died on board, and was buried at sea early the same morning. Poor boy! I hoped and prayed he might have been saved, and we were all miserable when we heard he had gone... It is always the good who die young."

The parents would still have been paying fees for their boys' education...

If you were under 18 and wished to join up as a soldier you had to lie to the recruiting officer about your age. These boys, though, were sent to war by the British Government as young as 15 years of age. A young Winston Churchill, who was first Lord of the Admiralty, defended the policy in parliament:

"It was felt that young officers of their age would be of great use on board His Majesty's ships, and that they would learn incomparably more of their profession in war than any educational establishment on shore could teach them."

I read about this on the BBC News website (it's coming up to the 100th anniversary of the event) and it affected me deeply. If the men who start wars were the ones who had to fight on the front line, there would be no wars.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31712158 - the article there has photos of the two boys, and also of the survivors of the sinking.

[Cole Parker]

Very moving, Bruin. The senselessness of war is astounding. You're right: only children who don't know their left from their right are recruited for these things as their elders have more common sense.

C

[JamesSavik]

When Royal Oak was sunk Oct. 1939, she had many midshipmen aboard.

Over 100 Boy Seamen were killed- not yet 18 years old, the largest ever such loss in a single Royal Navy action.

[Mihangel]

Tragic indeed; and these two were of course far from the only ones. My Dad was on the staff at both Osborne and Dartmouth at that time, and he would have taught Torquil and Ronnie. If I hunted through his photos I would very likely find pictures of them in a football team or drama production or whatever. Dad was always bitter about such youngsters being sent to war. He wanted to fight himself and joined the marines, but being in a reserved occupation he wasn't allowed to do any more. Waste, waste.

[Jeff Ellis]

Things were only slightly better in WW2.

Another famous WW2 disaster was the sinking of HMS Hood. She blew up when a shell reached a magazine, and sank in a matter of minutes. There were only three survivors... one in fact was indeed a midshipman.

There is a website that lists the lost by rank, and its sobering to click on the ranks with "Boy" prefixes. Of the "Boy Buglers" one was 17 and the other only 16

http://www.hmshood.org.uk/crew/database/roh.php

It is a long and honorable tradition for boys to join ships when incredibly young. I shall get the next bit wrong in detail and someone will correct me, I'm sure, but we all know the poem of "the boy stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled". Well the boy was a French midshipman between 10 and 12, the ship was on fire and about to blow up when the fire reached the powder magazine. He refused to leave the side of his mortally wounded commanding officer on the French flagship at Aboukhir.

The commanding officer was his father. Just imagine it... I can't.

[Camy]

Things were only slightly better in WW2.

Another famous WW2 disaster was the sinking of HMS Hood. She blew up when a shell reached a magazine, and sank in a matter of minutes. There were only three survivors... one in fact was indeed a midshipman.

There is a website that lists the lost by rank, and its sobering to click on the ranks with "Boy" prefixes. Of the "Boy Buglers" one was 17 and the other only 16

http://www.hmshood.org.uk/crew/database/roh.php

If you search the site by age there were fifteen 16 year olds and forty seven 17 year olds who died when HMS Hood sank.

[ChrisR]

Ages 16 and 17 were comparatively old in comparison to ships' boys of the sailing era. Most men of war had a fairly large complement of boys aged 8-12 who, among other tasks, served as "powder monkeys". They would run below to the powder magazine and grab bags of powder and bring them to the deck to service the guns. Their small size and speed made them invaluable, but also made them prime targets for enemy Marine sharpshooters: take out a boy, you take out an entire gun. And of course officers in training, midshipmen, often started their service aboard ship by age 12.

btw - If you ever visit USS Constitution in Boston, don't call the boys 'powder monkeys' in front of the folks in the [civilian] museum. They've declared the term "insensitive" i.e. politically incorrect, and use the official title 'Pass Powder' instead. They claim the term was never used aboard any ship and was invented by writers a century later. This despite an existing letter from Lady Emma Hamilton to her boyfriend - Adm. Horatio Nelson - after the Battle of the Nile in which she said she'd rather have been a powder monkey on one of Nelson's ships than the richest woman in England. (In those days, if the term was in the British navy, it was in the American navy.)

[Joe]

They did go to sea young. David Glasgow Farragut, the first admiral of the United States Navy, was eleven when he was first in combat. He was on the Essex when she was pounded to flinders by the Phoebe and the Cherub.

Of course they used the term "powder monkeys". I remember reading the memoirs of an African boy on one of Nelson's ships at Trafalgar who served as a powder monkey, used the term, and went on to write his memoirs and become a successful man.

More than one man served both in the Royal and US navies of the time and the term was as interchangeable as "bo'sun".

I will make a point of using the term when I visit the Constitution.

Don't forget the boy soldiers. Estimates vary but it is believed that in excess of 250,000 boys served in the British Army in WW I, many as young as fourteen. One of them having been wounded once and returned to duty, subsequently left the battle, he may have been delirious from the malaria he suffered from, he may have been a victim of what was then called "shell shock", and he may merely have been terrified. In any event, he was tried for desertion, and taken out and shot at sixteen years of age. To the everlasting discredit of King and Country.

[Joe]

John Cornwall whose rank was Boy First Class, won the Victoria Cross at Jutland. And that was his rank, "Boy First Class". The gun he died beside is on display in the Imperial War Museum. His sacrifice brings a tear to my eye.

[ChrisR]

Thanks for your followup, Joe. What startles me is that Boy First Class Cornwall is only the third youngest recipient of the Victoria Cross. Two other soldiers aged 15yr3mo were also awarded it but one of their birthdays isn't clear so there's no "first" or "second".

Oddly, the youngest American to receive the Medal of Honor was 11-year-old Willie Johnston during the Civil War. His was also the second such medal ever awarded. Willie was a drummer boy and when his division was overrun and ordered to retreat he actually held on to his drum while most soldiers tossed everything and ran. He ended up the only drummer in the entire division to keep his drum. Reportedly, President Lincoln heard the story and authorized the medal. I wonder how much the tale had to do with Disney's film "Johnny Shiloh" a century later.

Like you I get a lump in my throat when I recall the youth, the bravery, and the wasted lost lives of this child soldiers and sailors.

[Nick Deverill]

John Cornwall whose rank was Boy First Class, won the Victoria Cross at Jutland. And that was his rank, "Boy First Class". The gun he died beside is on display in the Imperial War Museum. His sacrifice brings a tear to my eye.491px-John_Travers_Cornwell,_Boy_1st_class_(1900-1916),_by_Ambrose_McEvoy.jpg

Quite a famous boy, even now if you have links to the scout association

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornwell_Scout_Badge

I don't particularly like Wikipedia although at the time of reading, it's pretty correct. Mortally wounded at the Battle of Jutland. His mother was on her way to the hospital and he died while she was en route. I don't know for sure, but there is a good chance that with modern antibiotics, the wound would not have been fatal. He lived for two days after the battle...

[Joe]

I suspect that Johnny Shiloh was almost assuredly John Clem. He forced his way into a regiment when he was way to young. Served in several battles, And was the youngest sergeant in the Union Army. After the war he petitioned President Grant and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the infantry; he transferred to the quartermaster corps where he served for many years. He petitioned congress and a law was passed permitting him to postpone his retirement until he was the last veteran of the Civil War still on active duty. If memory serves he was a colonel when he retired.

I've always wished they'd make a movie based on Drums of the Fore and Aft which would certainly humanize and recognize the tragedy of boys in the front lines.

I think these thoughts now, but I was seventeen when I signed my enlistment papers.