“A Time for Remembrance”
A look at Bugler and Musician Losses in Home Waters during the First World War.

by Marcher

During the months of October and November the Royal Marines Band Service traditionally remember the nation’s war dead and, in particular, the Buglers and the men of the Royal Marine Bands who lost their lives in the two World Wars.

2006 is the ninetieth anniversary of the Battle of Jutland where Buglers and Musicians suffered a particularly heavy loss of life. Jutland was a battle on the grand scale. The mightiest fleet that the world had ever seen left Scapa, Cromarty and the Forth Bridge area and by midnight on May 30th was sailing across the North Sea. The British Fleet consisted of twenty-eight Dreadnoughts, nine battle cruisers, eight armoured cruisers, twenty-six light cruisers, and seventy-five destroyers. The Fleet carried forty-seven Royal Marine Bands – a total of almost seven hundred Musicians – almost half of the Royal Naval School of Music strength and about twice the total strength of the current Royal Marines Band Service. The German Fleet had encouraged the British to leave their anchorages by putting to sea and giving them the sought after opportunity of proving British superiority. Sailing south, the Germans attempted to draw the British into their U-boat patrol areas. The two fleets made contact in the afternoon and the battle cruisers HMS Lion (Admiral Beatty’s Flagship) and HMS Princess Royal immediately engaged the German battleship SMS Lutzow. Within an hour Lion had received two direct hits from Lutzow and, a little later, she received another, much more serious blow, when ‘Q’ turret, manned by the Royal Marine Detachment, received a direct hit. Many of the gun’s crew were killed immediately and Major Harvey RMA, Officer Commanding Royal Marines, was badly wounded. Despite his serious wounds he was aware that cordite in the turret was burning and ordered the crew of the cordite magazine to close doors and flood magazines thereby preventing the subsequent explosion from travelling down to the main magazines. For his action he was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross*. Musician J H Hoad was the only member of the Royal Marines Band of HMS Lion to be killed.

HMS Lion returns to Scapa Flow after the Battle of Jutland. The Royal Marines ‘Q’ turret can be seen between the two funnels. The guns are askew and part of the turret top has been blown off by the explosion.

HMS Lion’s ‘Q’ turret showing the damage done to the turret top during the Battle of Jutland

Meanwhile SMS Von der Tann was engaged in a running battle with HMS Indefatigable and scored three devastating hits in one salvo causing one of Indefatigable’s magazines to explode. Seconds later she was hit by another salvo from the German battleship that struck her foredeck and caused her to blow up and sink. All but two of her crew, including Bandmaster 1st Class Barham, a Band Corporal, thirteen Musicians and two Buglers, perished with the Indefatigable.

HMS Queen Mary had been firing at SMS Seydlitz and inflicting a good deal of damage when she came under fire from not just Seydlitz but Derfflinger as well. Like Indefatigable the Queen Mary was unable to withstand the heavy and accurate bombardment. Five hits prefaced a massive explosion that split the ship in two. Further explosions completely tore her apart and she sank, taking 1,266 of her crew to their deaths. Included amongst the dead were all of the Royal Marine Band – Bandmaster 1st Class James Taylor, two Band Corporals and twelve Musicians, as well as the ship’s two Buglers. The battle continued during the afternoon. HM Ships Invincible, Inflexible and Indomitable were hitting the German battle cruisers but, once the range closed sufficiently, the Germans replied and Derfflinger and Lutzow concentrated their fire on Admiral Hood’s Flagship, the Invincible. She was hit by a full salvo from four heavy guns. A few minutes later the Royal Marine ‘Q’ turret received a direct hit that caused the turret magazines to explode. Unlike the Lion, nobody was able to take action to prevent the flash from reaching the main magazines and with a shattering explosion she split into three and sank immediately. Only two officers and three ratings survived the sinking that took the lives of Bandmaster Deacon, two Band Corporals, fourteen Musicians and the two Buglers.

The armoured cruiser HMS Defence, whilst pressing home an attack on the German ship Wiesbaden, came under fire from four German battleships and blew up taking all 907 crew, including the two Buglers, to their deaths. After the loss of the Defence the rest of the 1st Cruiser Squadron took evasive action and HMS Black Prince subsequently lost contact with ships of both fleets. Just after midnight she blundered into the German High Seas Fleet and, being repeatedly hit, blew up. Like the Defence all her crew, including the two Buglers, perished. HMS Warrior, another armoured cruiser of the 1st Cruiser Squadron, was also hit during the attack on the Wiesbaden. Badly damaged, she made her way westwards under tow but she had to be abandoned. One of her Buglers was amongst the seventy-one men killed. Two Light Cruisers, Castor and Chester, were damaged during the battle and one of each ship’s Buglers was killed.

Musn G Moody was on board Admiral Jellico’s Flagship, HMS Iron Duke, during the Battle of Jutland. He later described his recollections of the battle as follows:

“The Iron Duke, having a band of 24, most of us were stationed in the 13.5” transmitting station in the bowels of the ship, four were also in the decoding office. I was stationed in the Voice Pipe Control, also in the stomach of the ship, with a seventeen year old Midshipman and a sailor boy of the same age. I was close on 20.
Abaft the messdecks and close to the Bandmaster’s cabin, was a watertight door with six cleats. Opening from this door was a shaft, about 4feet square, which went two decks down. On the bulkhead was an iron-runged ladder which you descended to an iron grid in two sections, each section hinged. When closed the grid could be lifted from above. When open, one descended another iron runged ladder to the Voice Pipe Control. The Control was just a huge steel box approximately 20ft x 20ft x 20ft amongst the coal bunkers. The only furniture in it was six voice-pipes and a five foot form for our comfort. The Voice Pipe control would come into use should the electrical system fail in which case all orders would be sent to all turrets from the TS. [Transmitting Station]

On the 30th May the ship’s company were in their action stations all through the day. At last we received the order to ‘Secure’; so back to our mess decks to attend to our respective duties. The Band had 7 o’clock supper and then rigged up for a wardroom programme.

Morning of 31st May 1916. Sunny morning and a calm sea. Same routine as yesterday. “Close all watertight doors”. “Batten Down”. The grid of the ‘Black Hole’ dropped and watertight doors secured. Having my ear to the TS voice-pipe I could hear all the ‘goings-on’. Testing tubes, firing circuits, rangefinder checks being checked. We tested the TS and each turret was reported correct. We were at ‘Action Stations’ all through the day and night.

1st June, we received through the TS voice-pipe, “For information, Zeppelin brought down on the horizon.” Shortly afterwards, “Belay last message. Queen Mary sunk”. The bad news told us that the Fleet was in action with the German High Seas Fleet. Some time later we were informed “Invincible and Indefatigable lost” We could hear muffled heavy firing through the voice pipes then suddenly our 13.5’s opened up with salvo after salvo, and we were in the thick of the battle. Ten guns firing simultaneously, the projectiles each weighing a ton. Ten tons of armour piercing metal being hurled 15 or more miles to the enemy ships. The Iron Duke fired 98 salvos.

In the ‘Black Hole’ we had no communication whatever due to the fact that all was well with the electrical power being stable. To the three of us the hours seemed interminable and none of us had a watch. No food, no sleep and covered in coal-dust which oozed in through the seams of the bulkheads”

Jutland is the Naval battle most strongly associated with the First World War, but there were a great many other actions that took place in the North Sea and in ‘British waters’. Cross-Channel troop transports needed protection from the German U-boats and this was usually accomplished by using a force of armoured cruisers with destroyer escorts. Due to particularly bad weather in September 1914 three cruisers sailed without their destroyer escort. HMS Aboukir was the first into serious trouble. It was thought that she had hit a mine but she had been torpedoed by submarine U-9. When she sank she took many of her crew, including two Buglers, with her. When Aboukir was hit HMS Hogue closed to assist and lowered all her boats for the Aboukir’s survivors. As she moved away from the danger area Hogue was hit by two torpedoes from U-9 and sank very quickly taking three Buglers to their deaths. The third ship, HMS Cressy, made the same mistake as the Hogue, closing Aboukir to assist. U-9 hit her with two torpedoes and achieved the same result. Four Buglers were lost on this ship and, in total, almost fourteen hundred men died in less than an hour. Three weeks later U-9 torpedoed and sank the cruiser HMS Hawke with the loss of a further five hundred men including a Bugler. The battle of Coronel, 1st November 1914, resulted in a heavy defeat for the Royal Navy. The armoured cruiser, HMS Monmouth, was sunk with the loss of her entire crew. During the battle she had taken a mauling from the German battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst and had withdrawn from the enemy. Less than two hours later the German cruiser Nurnberg found her badly damaged but still afloat. She opened fire at point blank range, but paused as there was no sign of resistance. After a period of time, and as the British flag was still flying, the German ship opened fire until the Monmouth rolled over and sank. Bandmaster Barber, together with his two Band Corporals, twenty Musicians and a Band Boy perished with the ship, as did the two Buglers. Just prior to this the other armoured cruiser, HMS Good Hope, had also blown up. She did not carry a band and had only one Bugler aboard and he, like the rest of the crew, was killed.

Members of the band of HMS Britannia playing during ‘coaling ship’ operations in 1916. This ship was the last British capital ship to be lost during World War I. She was sunk less than 48hours before the German surrender.

A few weeks later a massive explosion blew apart the British battleship HMS Bulwark as she lay at anchor off Sheerness. The Bandmaster, WO Schofield, together with a Band Corporal and thirteen Musicians were lost. Two Buglers were also lost and only twelve men survived from the ship’s complement of 750. The cause of the explosion was felt to be the spontaneous combustion of cordite charges that were being re-stowed. This could have caused the ready-use ammunition to explode and this in turn would have exploded the magazine – which was open at this time. Similar explosions occurred on HMS Natal and HMS Vanguard where, in both cases, the Bandmaster, a Band Corporal and thirteen Musicians were killed. In addition two Buglers on Vanguard and one on Natal were killed. These explosions, coupled with the loss of the battle-cruisers early in the Battle of Jutland, pointed towards an inherent instability in the cordite charges used by the British.

1915 had started badly with the sinking of HMS Formidable on New Year's Day. The 5th Battle Squadron had been conducting firing practice between the Nore and Portland. A German U-boat was shadowing the ships but it was unable to get within firing distance of them until the Squadron reversed course. U-24 fired a single torpedo that hit and stopped the Formidable. She then fired a second which also hit the Formidable, causing her to sink. Two Buglers were lost. Less than two weeks later the armed merchant cruiser Viknor was making for Liverpool after a patrol in the North Sea. She reported her position off Malin Head on the north coast of Ireland on the morning of the 13th January and was never heard from again. Bodies and wreckage were washed up along the coast and so she was presumed lost with all hands as a result of either hitting a stray mine or as a result of a storm. Her Bugler was amongst the Naval Officers and crew who were lost. Another armed merchant cruiser was lost in similar circumstances just over two weeks later. The Clan Macnaughton disappeared in similar circumstances after reporting a man overboard in heavy weather to the North West of the Outer Hebrides. Wreckage was found but no survivors. One Bugler had been on board. A third armed merchant cruiser, the Bayano, was torpedoed in early March 1915. Following a series of explosions she sank with the loss of the bulk of her crew including the Bugler. The liner Princess Irene had been converted to a minelayer and, in late May 1915, was alongside in Sheerness dockyard. A number of inexperienced seamen were priming mines when there was the first of a number of explosions caused, it is believed, by a faulty trigger being fitted into a mine. Fifty-one members of the crew, including a Bugler, and almost eighty dockyard workers were killed.

During the following year, 1916, only two Buglers were killed. They were both on the cruiser HMS Hampshire that was taking Lord Kitchener and his staff from Scapa Flow to Russia. The weather was severe and the escorting destroyers were ordered to return to Scapa. Shortly afterwards the Hampshire hit a mine, recently laid by a German submarine, and sank with the loss of all but twelve of her crew. Her two Buglers were amongst those lost. The German and British Fleets, or elements of them, were anxious to bring each other to battle in the North Sea and, in November 1917, a Light Cruiser action took place off Heligoland. This involved thirty-four British cruisers and destroyers against a similar number of German ships. The action was a cat and mouse affair since it took place in and around British and German minefields. HMS Cardiff was hit on the forecastle, then in the superstructure above the after control position and then in the torpedo tube area. Bugler Timmins was killed during this episode. He was probably in the after control room area at the time.

The Fife and Drum Band of HMS Hampshire, Christmas 1914 with Captain Henry Grant RN, and OC RMLI Captain H E Gillespie. This ship was lost with all hands eighteen months later.

Musicians and Buglers were involved in many other battles, both on land and at sea, and, as a result suffered many more casualties. In total, fifty-three Buglers and one hundred and forty three Bandmasters and musicians lost their lives in World War I.

*From ‘The Royal Marines & The Victoria Cross’ by Matthew Little (Royal Marines Museum)’