Charlie's War

Last Remembrance Sunday, I posted a piece about my Great Grandfather, 'In Search of Private Butt', who was killed in 1916 at The Battle of the Somme. The story featured in this month's edition of 'The Brummagem' magazine edited by Birmingham historian Carl Chinn.

 This year I thought I'd write another family story linked with the First World War, about my Great Uncle, who served in the Royal Navy at the rather tender age of about fourteen.

 Hope you enjoy reading it.

 Charlie Blackmore was only a boy when the Great War began in August 1914.

 All across Britain, thousands of eager volunteers answered the national cry to take the fight to the Kaiser, with no more enthusiasm than the lads of the West Midlands.

Born in Birmingham in about 1900, Charlie was too young to join the army, but the following year he enlisted in the Royal Navy, where after completing his training, he was assigned to the battleship HMS Thunderer.

 

 

  Before setting sail, Charlie took leave to visit his family (maybe for the last time), especially his younger brothers Harry and Daniel, who had skipped off school to see their sailor brother.

 In May 1916, in the bleak North Sea, Thunderer, as part of Admiral Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet, met the German High Seas Fleet, where steel dreadnoughts clashed at the Battle of Jutland. The teenage Charlie was taking part in the biggest naval battle since Trafalgar - 111 years earlier (where another Thunderer had served).

 Charlie’s ship certainly thundered, firing her big guns in anger, however, she was lucky and survived the battle unscathed. Others weren’t so fortunate, and over 6000 commonwealth sailors were lost, including Admiral Hood and the tragic Jack Cornwell, a boy seaman of Charlie’s age, who was posthumously awarded the VC.

 The German fleet limped back to port in Wilhemshaven, 2500 sailors had been killed, and the Royal Navy (although battered) still controlled the North Sea – it was a high price for a stalemate.

 The Great War finished in November 1918, and the German ships surrendered at Scapa Flow. Charlie remained at sea, serving as a gunner, on the ill-fated HMS Hood; before he left the navy in the 1930s, to begin a new job as a postman back in Birmingham.

 

                            At sea between the wars, Charlie is the sailor second from left.

  This career change was to be short lived, and following the outbreak of World War II, he returned to sea once more, where as an experienced sailor, he saw service on armed merchant ships before finally demobbing in 1945.

 Many of the young servicemen and women serving in Afghanistan today are only a few years older than Charlie was when he fought in the Great War. Let’s hope they get back home to their families safe and sound.

 Family photo (c.1930) with the children appropriately dressed in sailor suits!