SS107737 Stoker 1st Class William Beattie

Identification

There were 21 results for William Beattie on the CWGC database and 15 for W Beattie. I looked at the 'other information' on the CWGC to rule out men from other places then cross-referenced with the UK soldiers died in the great war and UK Royal Navy and Royal Marine War Graves Roll to identify men who were from Liverpool. This gave me 2 possibilities, one in the navy and one in the army.

Of these two men, one lived in the area of St James' church. I know this isn't a perfect identification but unless I find otherwise, here are his details:

Family Information

William Beattie was born 3rd July 1889 in Liverpool.

On 25th September 1908 he signed up for the navy as a Special Service [i.e. Short Service] rating signed up for five years with the RN [Official No. SS107737] & seven years with the Royal Fleet Reserve [B/5376].

In the 1911 census, William was enumerated on the battleship "Mars" in Weymouth Bay.

Wartime service:

William’s service record is available from the National Archives and gives the following information:

On 25th September 1908 William signed up for the navy as a Special Service Rating [i.e. Short Service] he signed up for five years with the RN [Official No. SS107737] & seven years with the Royal Fleet Reserve [B/5376]. William was born on 3 July 1889 in Liverpool, his occupation was Scaler and this was his first engagement. He was 5ft 3 1/2 inches tall with a 35 inch chest. His hair was dark brown, eyes dark blue and complexion fresh. He had a scar on his right cheek.

William's service record shows that he served his time with the navy and was transferred to the Royal Fleet Reserve on 21st September 1913.

When war was declared, William in the reserve. At the outbreak of war the Royal Naval Reserve had a surplus of around 25,000 men with no ships for them to serve on. They were formed into two Naval Brigades and a Brigade of Marines, both for operations on land. The 8 Battalions of the RND were named after naval commanders and William was placed in Howe Battalion.

On April 15th The 63rd Royal Naval Division took part in the infamous landings at Gallipoli and joined the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. The Gallipoli campaign was a disaster, through 8 months of fighting the Allied forced didn't manage to break out of the beach head and both sides saw high casualty rates. Men of the Naval Division were killed in action charging towards machine guns, died of wounds due to the inadequate medical facilities, died of diseases such as dysentery due to spending months in hugely inadequate trenches and when winter came they also froze to death.

(Image: Royal Naval Division attack at Gallipoli from The War Illustrated 31 July 1915)

William's record shows that a report was filed on 19th June 1915 stating he was missing, he was unofficially reported dead on 6th August 1915. His next of kin (his aunt Edith Throwell) was informed on 11th August 1915 and on 14th September 1915 he was reported killed in action on 4th June.

There are no surviving war diaries for the RND in Gallipoli. The history of the RND can be seen online at

http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-52178355/view#page/n14/mode/1up/search/june and here is an extract for the day William was killed:

Extract from "The Royal Naval Division" by Douglas Jerrold ; with an introduction by Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill

London : Hutchinson, 1923

At 2:30am on the 4thJune the battle may be said to have opened with the departure of the 2ndBrigade from the rest camps. Stumbling across the broken ground into the valley of the Achibaba nullah, the leading Battalion walked up the dusty road, past Backhouse Post, where Colonel Quilter and Major Maxwell were buried, into the communication trench alongside the stream. Behind them could have been seen an endless number of small groups of heavily-laden tired men, ten or a dozen in each group or sometimes less, walking almost as though in their sleep, so well did they know the road, or so little did they care to awake the memories which it held for them. These groups were the platoons of three battalions. Very different must have been the appearance of the Collingwood Battalion, at full strength, confidently going forward to the unknown event. The Turks were very quiet that night, and, save for the frogs croaking, there was scarcely a sound.

After the attacking groups had gone forward, the 1st Brigade Battalions came down from the trenches, the Drake to those round Backhouse Post, and the Nelson and Hawke battalions to the rest camp.

The attack was timed for noon, and the hours of waiting from dawn to midday, added a new chapter to the horrors of war. To move with a light heart to the assault in the grey half-light of dawn is difficult enough, but at least there is a shadow over the sun to veil the shadow in men’s hearts. Here, hour by hour, the sun beats down more pitilessly…

In the rest camps, and near the headquarters of generals, the noise is terrific, and the impression one of a vastly efficient destruction. In the trenches the noise is immeasurably less, and the passage of the occasional shells tells the true tale. A desultory bombardment had begun at 8am and at 10:30am the rate of fire was increased, but the results were negligible. We now know that the proportion of guns to rifles was only a third of that allowed in France and the number of rounds per gun immeasurably less. No statistics were needed to reveal, at 11:20am on June 4th, the full measure of the weakness of our artillery, for at that moment the first intensive bombardment ceased, and a feint of attack was made along the whole line. In an instant the whole enemy line burst into rapid fire, machine guns swept the parapets of our trenches from end to end, and the Turkish artillery searched for our reserve trenches and our communications. The bombardment, which should have disorganized the Turkish defences, driven their riflemen to cover, and destroyed their machine-gun emplacements had done – just nothing.

At 11:30a, the bombardment was resumed and at 12 noon the Howe, Hood and Anson Battalions advanced to the assault. Once again, the Turkish rifle and machine-gun fire swept our parapets. This time they found a target. In the first seconds of the attack more than half the officers of the 2nd Naval Brigade were hit. Once the whole of the men came over the parapet and in the open, the law of averages came into play, and of the few officers who still found themselves standing, about half, with about half their men, reached the Turkish front line. It was unoccupied save the dead, the dying and the wounded.

Without a moment’s delay the Anson went on led by Lieut. Stuart Jones R.N.V.R., the senior surviving officer, and stormed the redoubt in the Turkish second line; the Hood and Howe came up on the flank. Seen through field glasses it was an orderly and dashing advance, particularly on the right, where the Anson were described by Sir Ian Hamilton as fighting in the best style of the Regular Army. But in the captured trenches the impression was different. There was an ominous inactivity on the right of the line, where the Turks could be seen in force in their original trenches: there was a still more ominous volume of fire pouring in on the trenches which had been captured. To hold the eight hundred yards of line which had been their objective, and which they had reached, there were left of the attacking force only some twenty offiers and three hundred men. Every minute took its toll of the slender garrison. Would the Collingwood [battalion] come up in time?

Punctually the Collingwood began their advance. But the success of their comrades helped them in no way. From the Turkish left, on the Keveres Dere Ridge, there broke out the same tornado of fire on a target impossible to miss as the first. The Collingwood, afterwards supposed to have suffered their losses almost wholly in their retreat, actually suffered more than half of them in their advance… Not more than three hundred of the Collingwood reached the advanced trenches, where by now the scene was one of indescribable confusion. On the right the enemy could be seen in full command of their second and third line trenches while parties were coming back even into the front line where the French had once been. The Naval Battalions were still in the enemy’s second line trenches on the Anson and Hood front but on the Howe Battalion front, where there was no dead ground between our lines and those of our enemy, only a few of the Howe*, and none of the Collingwood, had reached the enemy’s line; and here also the Turks were beginning to come back. With great gallantry, the Anson and Hood and Collingwood Battalions actually attempted a further advance at 12:30pm but the situation was impossible. With the exception of Lieutenant Stuart Jones, of the Anson, and Sub Lieutenant Cockey of the Hood, all the surviving officers were hit before the enemy’s third line was reached.

With the Turks converging on the captured positions, a retirement became imperative. This was hardly less costly than the advance, partly because of a brave but useless attempt to hold on to a position half way between the Turkish and our own original line.

More than sixty officers and 1,300 men of the Naval Division became casualties and, of these, nearly half were killed.

Death and Commemoration

William was reported missing in action on 4th June, the day of a large-scale attack on Turkish trenches, and later reported killed on that day. There are no surviving war diaries from the Howe Battalion in Gallipoli but there is a detailed history of the Royal Naval Division.

William Beattie has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Helles Memorial

Link to William's entry in the CWGC database (opens in new window) this has him listed, incorrectly, as Hawke Battalion.

Liverpool Echo Family Notices 3rd June 1916

Roll of Honour

BEATTIE - In loving memory of William, killed in action in the Dardanelles, June 4 1915. (never forgotten by his Aunt E Throwell. Rest in peace)

Liverpool Town Hall, Hall of Remembrance

There are two entries for W Beattie on the Roll of Honour in the Hall of Remembrance, one of them has the regiment "Royal Naval Brigade" and the other "Howe Battery, HMS Reliance" These entries were submitted by family members who were often unsure of exact regiments etc and as far as I know "Howe Battery" did not exist and is probably a mistake for Howe Battalion, HMS Reliance was a repair ship which was in the Dardanelles in 1915. It is possible that either, or both of these entries are for William Beattie.

Pension records show that William's aunt Edith received a pension for the loss of her nephew, suggesting she was dependent upon him.