Page 32 - History of War - Issue 29-16

HEROES OF THE VICTORIA CROSS

“In the long glorious

history of the Royal
Marines there is no

name or deed which,
in its character or

consequences ranks
above this”

Winston Churchill

Lützow bombarded HMS Lion with nine shells,
one of which hit the right top corner of the left A battleship of the Imperial
German Navy delivers a
hand gun port at the junction of the faceplate devastating volley
and the roof. This pierced a section of the
9-inch faceplate and penetrated Lion’s ‘Q’ instructions within minutes of the hit. HMS Lion, the King’s Regiment. Harvey’s name adorns
turret, detonating and causing a lethal re that and its roughly 1,000-strong crew, were saved. the Chatham Naval Memorial to those with no
could not be extinguished. Unfortunately, many of the other ships were known grave, governed by the Commonwealth
All those who were stationed in the gun not so lucky. HMS Indefatigable suffered a War Graves Commission.
house were either killed or wounded by the succession of magazine explosions, tearing the 25 ships were sunk and dozens damaged
rst explosion. Harvey, who was suffering from ship apart and losing 1,013 men. HMS Queen at the Battle of Jutland. Both navies learned
severe burns and injuries, noticed that the Mary detonated in a great plume of smoke important lessons and redesigned their ships.
shell hoist that led to the ship’s main forward taking with her 1,275 lives. Of those sailors who died, 6,094 were British
magazine had been jammed open. With the At 6.30pm, a shell penetrated the midships and 2,551 German. Most went down with their
explosive shells left exposed like this, the ash turret of Rear Admiral Horace Hood’s agship ships or were buried at sea; only a few have
re would race down towards the magazine, HMS Invincible, the original battle cruiser, marked graves. The British were mostly buried
resulting in a cataclysmic explosion that would almost out-of-date by 1916. Again the ash in the naval cemetery at Lyness in Orkney, or
destroy the ship, killing everyone on board. raced down into the magazines and the in scattered graves around the Scandinavian
Harvey, mortally wounded and suffering from midships section vanished in a huge explosion, coast. The German dead mostly lie in the naval
shock, dragged himself through the carnage killing Hood and over a thousand men. cemetery at Wilhelmshaven.
and debris of Q turret over to the voice pipe and Over a thousand sailors on both sides
gave the order for the magazine doors to be “To him we owed our lives” returned home with injuries, often life-changing.
closed and the compartments to be ooded. In the latter part of the battle, the scorched Many more would have been psychologically
This action would stop the cordite in the body of Major Francis Harvey was removed damaged, in an era when conditions like
magazines from detonating. from the ruins of Q turret. He and 98 of his post-traumatic stress disorder were poorly
Harvey turned to the one man still standing, fellow crewmembers were buried at sea with understood. A total of 177 British sailors
his sergeant, and commanded him to go to the full honours. The bravery and courage that became prisoners of war in a naval camp at
bridge and deliver a full report to the captain of Harvey showed in the face of certain death was Brandenburg-an-der-Havel, near Berlin. Images: Alamy, Mary Evans, National Museum of the Royal Navy
the ship, Ernle Chat eld, a standard practice in not ignored. The Imperial (later Commonwealth) War
damage exercises. Shortly afterwards Francis In Admiral Jellicoe’s post-battle dispatch Graves Commission recorded the names of
Harvey collapsed and died of his wounds – he Harvey was mentioned by name. More sailors with no known grave on Memorials
was just 43. importantly, Harvey became the rst Marine to to the Missing, in the ports of Chatham,
The sergeant immediately followed his be posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, Portsmouth and Plymouth.
instructions and went to the bridge to inform the Britain’s highest award for courage ‘in the face The German navy saw Jutland as the start of
captain of Harvey’s actions. The captain quickly of the enemy’, which was presented by King a tradition, naming a number of warships after
ordered the closure of Q magazine doors and the George V to his widow Ethel at Buckingham Jutland heroes. After the war, the anniversary
ooding of the compartments. Palace on 15 September 1916. was commemorated in both countries.
This order passed through the Transmitting The medal group was loaned to the Royal
Station underneath the armoured deck where Marines Museum, Eastney in 1973 by his son
Stoker 1st Class William Yeo carried out the Lieutenant-Colonel John Malcolm Harvey of

JUTLAND 1916,

36 HOURS: THE BATTLE THAT WON THE WAR

To commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Objects include Harvey’s Victoria Cross and
Jutland, The National Museum of the Royal Navy in Ceremonial Sword, a piece of Armour plate from a
partnership with Imperial War Museums are staging bulkhead in ‘Q’ Turret which is inscribed in memory of
‘36 Hours: Jutland 1916, The Battle That Won the Francis Harvey and the other men who lost their lives,
War’, the largest and most comprehensive exhibition a German shell splinter recovered from
ever on the subject, highlighting the essential role Lion and the medals awarded to Captain
of the Royal Navy in winning World War I. Sitting Francis Jones, RMLI who discovered the charred body
alongside over 200 Jutland related artefacts are of Francis Harvey.
objects belonging to and associated with Francis The exhibition opens 19 May 2016. For more
Harvey and HMS Lion. information, visit: www.nmrn.org.uk/36-hours

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