AnnMcD Posted 19 February , 2014 Share Posted 19 February , 2014 Does anyone have access to the log for HMS Suffolk covering the period she was stationed near Vladivostock in 1918? As part of my search for New Zealanders serving in forces other than the NZEF I've found William Lewis Ford from Dunedin NZ who, serving as chaplain on HMS Suffolk, was accidentally killed on 9 May 1918. He is buried in Pokrovskaya Cemetery, Vladivostock. I can find nothing in the archives in New Zealand, in the local, British or Australian newspapers regarding his death and can't find his file at TNA, Kew. Would mention of the accident have been made in the ship's log? Ann McDonald Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnboy Posted 19 February , 2014 Share Posted 19 February , 2014 Armoured Cruiser, Monmouth-class 9,800t, 1904©, 14-6in, 23kts, 678 crew. Sold 1920 (British Warships 1914-1919} Launched 15/1/03, sold for BU 1/7/20. Recommissioned February 1913 at Devonport as flagship of 4th CS (Rear-Admiral Cradock; transferred flag to Good Hope in August 1914). Chased German light cruiser Karlsruhe in August 1914, but without success; captured a German merchantman on 8 August 1914. Served on North America and West Indies Station from 1915 to 1916, then to China Station as flagship from August 1917 to November 1918. Went to Vladivostok in 1918-19 to cover operations against Bolshevik Russia. On her return home in 1919 she became Cadets' TS until placed on sale list in April 1920. (Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906-21) I think the ships logs only go up to 1916 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horatio2 Posted 19 February , 2014 Share Posted 19 February , 2014 The deck log only has three entries concerning Rev Ford. http://www.naval-history.net/OWShips-WW1-05Suffolk2.htm 12 May 1918 - Landed party to search for Chaplain. 15 May 1918 - Performed funeral service. Landed party to attend funeral of the late Rev WL Ford RN. 6 June 1918 - Landed effects of late Rev Ford. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnnMcD Posted 19 February , 2014 Author Share Posted 19 February , 2014 Thank you for this. If it is now known he was killed on 9 May and the log entry for 12 May reports a search for him it leaves more questions than it answers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seaJane Posted 22 February , 2019 Share Posted 22 February , 2019 I too have now been asked for information about William Lewis Ford, chaplain to SUFFOLK. Did anyone have any more luck with this? TNA is a complete blank on him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dever Mayfly Posted 22 February , 2019 Share Posted 22 February , 2019 I have found a tremendous amount on HMS Suffolk and HMS Kent, while they were stationed in Vladivostok, in the files of the British Military Mission to Siberia. There are some short excerpts in my book Churchill's Abandoned Prisoners with references in the bibliography. The most important New Zealander in Siberia in 1919 was the redoubtable Brigadier General Archibald Jack who led the most extraordinary life after leaving Otago Boy's High School. He was commissioned into the 9th Battalion NZ Regiment at the outbreak of the 2nd Boer War and then ran railways in South Africa, China and Argentina until WWI when he sailed to the UK, but was torpedoed with his wife and son en route. He was commissioned into the Royal Engineers and ran the British Railway Mission in Roumania and then in Russia. He was mentioned in despatches 3 times and appointed CBE and CMG in 1919 and CB in the Siberian Honours of January 1920. There is a brilliiant story of him in Ekaterinburg and also in Omsk. After the war, he was shot through the head and survived the Sevenoaks railway disaster in 1927. I am back in Hampshire next week and can provide some more on him then, if you are interested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seaJane Posted 22 February , 2019 Share Posted 22 February , 2019 Anything you can find on SUFFOLK in Vladivostock would be a great help, thanks! - especially if it pertains to William Lewis Ford. It'd be very good to hear what you have when you get back to Hampshire (I too am Hampshire-based). sJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seaJane Posted 23 February , 2019 Share Posted 23 February , 2019 On 19/02/2014 at 01:08, johnboy said: I think the ships logs only go up to 1916 They may have done in 2014 but all were present and correct to 1920 this afternoon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrightdw Posted 26 February , 2019 Share Posted 26 February , 2019 This is what I have on Kiwi Archibald JACK, his specialisation was as a railway engineer. He also received an unusual Japanese Order of the Rising Sun, 3rd Class from the Japanese occupation army in Siberia for his services there. JACK, T./Lieut.-Col (T./Brig.-Gen.) Archibald, C.B., C.M.G., C.B.E., R.E. (SIBERIA) (London Gazette, 14th January 1920) “…for valuable services rendered in connection with Military Operations in Siberia.” (CMG, Lon. Gaz. 22nd March 1919; CBE, Lon. Gaz. 3rd June 1919; MID, Lon. Gaz. 16th January 1919 (S. Russia and Roumania); 30th April 1919 & 14th January 1920, see MID section; Japan, Order of the Rising Sun, Lon. Gaz. 19th August 1921, see Foreign Awards Roll.) (B. 1874, Hokitika, New Zealand; Educated Dunedin HS; Employed NZ Public Works Dept. 1893-1900; Served 9th N.Z.M.R., S. Africa 1901 afterwards working as a railway engineer with Central S. African Railways 1902-08; Tientsin-Pakow Railway, China, 1909-10, awarded “Order of Excellent Service”; Argentine Railways 1911-16; Commissioned Temp. Lieut.-Col. RE 1917; Col. 1918 whilst serving in Roumania; Brig.-Gen. 1919, Cmdg. British Railway Mission, Trans-Siberian Railway; GM United Railways of Havana, Cuba 1920-25 during which time he was shot below the eye, the bullet exiting at the base of the scull leaving barely a scar, during a labour dispute; Died 29JAN1939.) (Group consists of CB (Military); CMG; CBE (Military); QSA clasps CC, OFS, TV, SA02 [Lieut. A. Jack, N. Zealand M. Rif.]; BWM & VM with MID oakleaf [Brig.-Gen. A. Jack]; Japan, Order of the Rising Sun, 3rd Class.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dever Mayfly Posted 30 March , 2019 Share Posted 30 March , 2019 On 22/02/2019 at 18:36, seaJane said: Anything you can find on SUFFOLK in Vladivostock would be a great help, thanks! - especially if it pertains to William Lewis Ford. Florence Farmborough was a Red Cross nurse serving with the Imperial Russian Army and published a book titled, Nurse on the Russian Front in 1974. The book is based on her diaries and includes her journey across Siberia to Vladivostok to escape the Red Terror. She arrived in Vladivostok on 2nd April 1918 and was looked after by the crew of HMS Suffolk about whom she wrote: "The crew of HMS Suffolk explained that the Bolsheviki must mind their p's and q's for in five minutes we can be out of the bay and in another five minutes Vladivostok can be blown into the air." Four weeks later, she boarded SS Sheridan, so I believe she departed just before Ford was killed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dever Mayfly Posted 30 March , 2019 Share Posted 30 March , 2019 On 22/02/2019 at 18:36, seaJane said: Anything you can find on SUFFOLK in Vladivostock would be a great help, thanks! - especially if it pertains to William Lewis Ford. Ray Brough's book lists the following crew from HMS Suffolk who died whilst the ship was on station in Vladivostok: Howarth 29 April 1918 Ford Reverend WL Chaplain 9 May 1918 Britton 14 July 1918 Brewer 5 November 1918 I believe the first soldier to die in Vladivostok/Siberia was Captain Charles Kenelm Digby-Jones RE on 25 September 1918 According to MG Tom Jameson (who commanded the river boats Kent and Suffolk on the River Kama in 1919) in his Expedition to Siberia HMS Kent arrived on station on 3rd January 1919, but I am uncertain when HMS Suffolk departed. A good source in the National Archives are the Admiralty's Weekly Intelligence Summaries. These should have been destroyed on replacement, but in fact can be accessed through the Cabinet Papers portal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horatio2 Posted 30 March , 2019 Share Posted 30 March , 2019 1 hour ago, Dever Mayfly said: I am uncertain when HMS Suffolk departed. SUFFOLK's log indicates that she sailed from Vladivostok for Yokohama on the afternoon of 7 January 1919, HMS KENT having previously arrived in the forenoon of 4 January. http://www.naval-history.net/OWShips-WW1-05-HMS_Suffolk.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seaJane Posted 30 March , 2019 Share Posted 30 March , 2019 @Dever Mayfly thanks for both those responses! sJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dever Mayfly Posted 30 March , 2019 Share Posted 30 March , 2019 On 22/02/2019 at 18:36, seaJane said: Anything you can find on SUFFOLK in Vladivostock would be a great help, thanks! - especially if it pertains to William Lewis Ford. There are a few other references to HMS Suffolk in my book, Churchill's Abandoned Prisoners: Page 24 - Ward quickly realised that he needed artillery support if he was to go further and sought help from the captain of HMS Suffolk. In response, Captain Payne fitted 12 pounder guns to an armoured train and sent this, with a detachment of Royal Marines, forward to the Middlesex’s area. However, this train did not leave Vladivostok for the front line until 30th October (date recorded in chronology of the Report on the Work of the British Military mission to Siberia retreived from the National Archives). Page 28 - Kolchak’s officers were not amused when they read in the English papers how the Czech, Italian and French forces inflicted defeat on the Bolsheviks when in fact, they did not fire a shot. The only foreign contingent which contributed was the Royal Marines’ with HMS Suffolk’s guns mounted on armoured trains. However, the Royal Navy was denied credit for this and for their subsequent heroic work on the river boats, which went deeper into Russia than any of the British Army’s infantry battalions. Endnote 3-14 The commander of the armoured train guns was James Wolfe Murray. Although no publicity was encouraged by Winston Churchill, Wolfe-Murray was in fact was awarded the Distinguished Service Order on 18th April 1919 for bringing HMS Suffolk's 12-pounder guns rapidly into action and displaying an excellent example of coolness and bravery under fire during the battles in the Ussuri District, but the recoil cylinders froze in winter, so they played little part in the Perm offensive. One of the prisoners, Captain Francis McCullough records in his memoir seeing the shells of HMS Suffolk in a train at Novo-Nikolaevsk as he was trying to escape from the Red Army in winter 1919. Presumably, these were captured by Trotsky soon afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dever Mayfly Posted 30 March , 2019 Share Posted 30 March , 2019 10 hours ago, horatio2 said: HMS KENT having previously arrived in the forenoon of 4 January The discrepancy between Jameson's record and the log is probably caused by the fact that in January 1919 Vladivostok harbour was iced over and HMS Kent's entry had to be preceded by an ice-breaker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horatio2 Posted 30 March , 2019 Share Posted 30 March , 2019 50 minutes ago, Dever Mayfly said: in January 1919 Vladivostok harbour was iced over and HMS Kent's entry had to be preceded by an ice-breaker. That may be the case but KENT's log records that on the morning of 3 January she was still on passage from Nagasaki and nearly 300 nautical miles south of Vladivostok. She could not have entered harbour on 3 January, icebreaker or no icebreaker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LEnglish Posted 16 February Share Posted 16 February William Lewis Ford I have my Grandfather's diary from his service on HMS Suffolk from May 1917 - May 1919. He was a Royal Marines Bandsman. I can't add any new information, but can tell you what he wrote in his diary regarding the death of William Lewis Ford - "Sun 12th. The Chaplain was found shot in some woods outside Vladivostok. The verdict was accidently shot. Wed 14th May. The funeral took place" I believe he meant to write Wed 15th May. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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