Leading Stoker Samson SHERWOOD HMS Queen Mary Battle of Jutland

[Keith Sherwood]

Thinking today of Samson SHERWOOD, my great uncle, who died aboard the HMS Queen Mary with 1265 other men at the Battle of Jutland exactly 100 years ago today.  He was the eighth consecutive son of my great-grandparents George William and Annie Sherwood.  My grandfather John Charles was the third son in this generation and outlived his younger brother by over 50 years.  I saw Samson's name on the memorial for the first time last year on Southsea Common, and felt strangely moved...
Keith

[hurworth]

Lest we forget.

And from the other side of the world, in the same battle, aboard the same ship.

http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/leslie-follett-killed-battle-jutland

[Keith Sherwood]

Hi, Hurworth,
So much detail about your young man, and a haunting photograph of him with apparently the whole of his life in front of him still.  I wish I had more details of Samson, but there are no photos of him within the family, no other details at all.  Just that he was born in 1894 too, and that the very last of his generation, a younger brother born in 1907, I think, was christened Nelson SHERWOOD.  But I don't think he ever became a sailor too...
Keith

[LizzieW]

At present I'm transcribing records of sailors who were in WWI and, of course, many thousands were killed in the Battle of Jutland and other battles.  It's so sad when I come across them during transcriptions, especially as it seemed quite random as to which vessels the sailors were serving on after their training etc.

[Keith Sherwood]

Hi again, Lizzie,
Yes, with something as big and as brutal as the Battle of Jutland, if your ship's number was up, then just about everyone aboard died, almost in an instant.  Cannot begin to imagine what the fear and panic must have been like in those last few minutes and seconds when all these young men suddenly realised that they were about to be consigned violently to a watery grave…
Keith

[LizzieW]

Hi Keith

There are some sites - which you've probably found - which give details of all the vessels lost in the Battle of Jutland and all the crew members, some of them even have photos of the lost sailors.  Every now and again I check to see if one of the ones whose record I've just transcribed has a photo on line.  That really brings it home to me.  As you say, so sad all those young men with their whole lives ahead of them, not forgetting the older ones who lost their lives too.

Lizzie

[Keith Sherwood]

Lizzie,
No, I haven't discovered any of those sites - do you have any links for them?  The problem is that my SHERWOOD family didn't seem to keep anything very much in the way of personal family records, and my father never really showed much interest in his family's past, even when I began researching them about 15-20 years ago.  So that's why I have so very few details of even his father's generation, and therefore a complete blank on Samson apart from that fatal day just over 100 years ago now…
Keith

[LizzieW]

There are quite a few check out

www.rootschat.com/links/01hsh
www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?99790

At the moment, I can't find the one with the photographs of some of the sailors lost but next time I come across one of these men whilst I'm transcribing I'll check him out to see if his photo is shown, then I'll be able to let you have the link.

[Keith Sherwood]

Lizzie,
Many thanks for those two links, the first one from Rootschat was a particularly fascinating if sobering read.  So many men with the same surname listed among the dead, presumably some of them must have been related to one another, so a huge blow to that particular family.  Seeing them all together on what amounts to a memorial is even more shocking than seeing perhaps two or three of the same family names on War Memorials around our towns and villages (who almost certainly then, coming from the same small parish, would have been close relatives):
5 members of each of the BELL, MOORE, ROBERTS, and WELLS families.  6 members of each of the BAKER, CARTER, PARKER, THOMPSON, and WILSON families.  7 members of the WHITE and WOOD families.  9 members of the BROWN and WILLIAMS families.  11 Jones family members, and 15 SMITH family members.  Shocking stuff.
And as a tiny footnote, I notice that amongst the so few survivors from the sinking of The Queen Mary there is an Alfred Thomas SHERWOOD, with POW against his name.  First of all, he isn't of my immediate family, but in the accounts of the aftermath of the Battle I have read that opposing sides were rather ruthless with survivors.  But would this entry indicate that Alfred Thomas was actually rescued from the sea by the German Navy and then kept prisoner by them?  Would anyone else know the answer to the more general question about who saved whom from the terrible waters afterwards…
Keith