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| Navy News Issue | Month / Year | Page | Index |
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| 560 | March 2001 | 6 | Navy News |
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| Coal dust, not cordite caused explosions WITH reference to the interesting letter on unexplained naval disasters (January issue), the explosion of HMS Vanguard was mentioned as having occurred at Chatham in 1917. It actually happened at Scapa Flow, early in the middle watch on July 9, 1917 when the Grand Fleet was anchored there. Readers may he interested to know that it was later attributed to an explosion of cordite in the magazine of a 12in turret, believed to be No X, that traditionally manned by the Royal Marines. The storage of cordite was an ever-present hazard in those days. It is said rumours of sabotage were allowed to spread because the Admiralty thought it better for the men's morale! Some idea of the force of the explosion may be realised from the fact that 150lbs bags of flour were found three quarters of a mile inland - that is, one and a half miles from where the Vanguard was anchored. My father, Cecil Blunt, was at the time a 19-year-old 2nd Lieutenant of Royal Marine Artillery on board and had had charge of X turret at the Battle of Jutland because his superior was ill with sciatica at the time. His luck held this time, too, as he was one of ten officers from Vanguard who were on their way back from a concert party in HMS Royal Oak when the explosion occurred. Only they and the picket boat's crew of four were saved apart from two other ratings who were lifted from the water alive. Over 700 men perished - A.C. Blunt, Sharpthorne, West Sussex |
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Vanguard Blunt, Cecil Henry William Lieutenant RMA |
| Navy News Issue | Month / Year | Page | Index |
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| 560 | March 2001 | 7 | Navy News |
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| Duchess made 'every stitch' of Ensign I AM trying to discover whether the Duchess of Albany did indeed make the White Ensign that the battleship HMS Neptune bore into battle at Jutland in 1916. Her daughter, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, claimed in a 1966 book that the Duchess, a daughter-in-law of Queen Victoria, had made "every stitch" of it. But I've been unable to find another reference to the royal gift. At the outbreak of World War 1 the battleship HMSNeptune was presented with a White Ensign by one of the senior houses at Roedean School. The Ensign is on display by the entrance to the school chapel today. Could it have been the Roedean Ensign that snapped in the breeze at Jutland and not the Duchess of Albany's? - S. Webbe, Esher, Surrey. Possibly both did. Roedean |
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| Navy News Issue | Month / Year | Page | Index |
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| 560 | March 2001 | 30 | Navy News |
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| br>DAVID Harvey spent a staggering 36 years writing his magis- terial two volume guide to VC headstones and memorials Monuments to Courage.
Available from sole distributor P. da Costa at 124 Oatlands Drive, Weybridge, Surrey KT13 9HL. the set costs a fairly monumental £75 plus £6.50pp - but all proceeds go to the Royal Star & Garter Home for Disabled Ex-Servicemen at Richmond. Himself badly disabled and confined to a wheelchair after a hit-and-run accident in 1992. the author has pinpointed the final resting places of all but a few of the 1,322 recipients of the highest award for gallantry - including hundreds laying in unmarked graves around the world. The catalogue is embellished with over 5,000 photographs and a wealth of fascinating detail. A typical entry - for the Boy VC Jack Cornwell - is shown here. |
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