Meet the Royal Navy Heroes of World War One Who Were Just Young Boys
Historic naval records reveals that nearly a third of the sailors who helped Britain achieve naval supremacy in the Great War were volunteers under the legal combat age.
The Royal Navy Registers of Seaman's Services, 1900 to 1928 now available on family history website Ancestry, from original records held at The National Archives in Kew, west London detail each sailor's name, date of birth, birthplace, vessels served on, service number and other service details.
Here we profile three of the more noteworthy boys who served in WWI.
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| Jack Cornwell (Alamy) |
Jack Cornwell
Originally from Leyton, Cornwell lied about his age and enlisted in the Royal Navy aged 15. A year later, while fighting on the HMS Chester at Jutland, he died from a gunshot to the chest.In 1915, without telling his father Eli, the mature-looking newspaper delivery boy from east London fashioned himself as a fresh-faced 17-year-old and stood up to serve.
The teenager had lied about his age to join the Royal Navy at 15 so he could serve along with his father and elder brother in the war effort.
After completing his basic training he was assigned to HMS Chester as a gun sight setter and on May 31, 1916 the ship was on scouting duties at Jutland when it came under attack by four German cruisers.
His true age only became known when his body was repatriated, and he became a naval legend to the extent that King George personally presented his mother with a posthumous Victoria Cross on his behalf.
Claude Choules
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| Claude Choules |
Born and raised in Worcestershire, Choules enlisted on the battleship Revenge at the age of 16 and afterwards emigrated to Australia, where he transferred to the Royal Australian Navy and fought in WWII.
In October 1917 he joined the 40,000-ton battleship Revenge as a boy seaman, first class. The ship had fired more than a hundred 15in shells at Jutland, and Choules's next ship was another veteran of the battle, the fast battleship Valiant.
In his eighties Choules took lessons in writing from the bestselling authoress Elizabeth Jolley and wrote his autobiography, The Last Of The Last (2009) for the benefit of his 36 direct descendants. He was also interviewed for the BBC's programme The Last Tommies.
Until he was 100 Choules cared for his ailing wife before they moved into a Baptist hostel, where she died aged 98.
He lived until the age of 110 and passed away in Perth Australia in May 2011. He was the last surviving combat veteran of WWI.
Henry Allingham
He was the last surviving participant in the Battle of Jutland (aged 19) and recounted tales of shells bouncing off the water near him. n 2009 Guinness World Records had announced that Mr Allingham, who celebrated his 113th birthday on June 6, became the world's oldest man after the previous incumbent, Tomoji Tanabe, died in his sleep at his home in Japan, also at the age of 113.
He jokingly attributed his longevity to "cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women".
His Royal Navy Register describes him as being of a ‘fair complexion’, while having ‘hammer toes’ (i.e. deformed toes) on both feet and a scar on his right arm.
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