Farmer, Charles



Survivor and prisoner of war. In 1963 Charles recorded his experiences for the BBC Great War programme, which can be heard on the IWM Web Site, clip number 9 https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/voices-from-the-battle-of-jutland Transcript: I suppose we had been in action about an hour-and-a-half or so when a shell or something hit the magazines. There was a terrific explosion, the guns went up in the air just like match-sticks, 12 –inch guns they were and she began to settle down and in about half a minute she was gone. I was 180 feet up, and I was thrown well clear of the ship, otherwise I would have been sucked under. When I came up, there was another fellow there named Green, Jimmy Green, I think it was, and we swum over, we got a piece of wood, I was on one end he was on the other end, and a couple of minutes afterwards some shells come over and Jim was minus his head. He went, so I was left on me lonesome and I was there till about, well I couldn’t say the exact time, it must have been between two and three in the morning, pitch dark, and I had given up all hope, practically, I let go once, yes, I let go once, but I struggled back again quick, when all of a sudden I could hear something coming towards me a noise and I had to gaze up. It was a German destroyer. Two sailors got down, picked me up and dragged me aboard the boat. He was picked up by SMS S16, along with AB Elliott. One source says that for a while, in the water, they supported Captain Sowerby, who was badly wounded, and who had died before S16 came up to them.


 * 1) HMS Indefatigable Crew List (Photographs)
 * 2) HMS Indefatigable Crew List (updated in Real-time)