Wing Commander Brock

[domwalsh]

There's been plenty written about Brock, both here and elsewhere, about his role in the Zeebrugge Raid in 1918, but not sure if the following has been seen before. It's from the personal narrative of Captain Arthur Chater RM, which resides at the Liddell Hart Centre, Kings College London. Describing how the force set sail, Chater says: "Towards dusk Wing Commander Brock was transferred by whaler from one of the destroyers to Vindictive. He was the pyrotechnics expert, and brought with him a box labelled 'Explosives - Handle with great care'. This was hoisted on board and handled very gingerly. It was taken down to the wardroom, and found to contain several bottles of excellent vintage port, which were consumed with relish. Brock landed on the mole, and was never seen again."

[horatio2]

This incident is recorded in Paul Kendall's book.

[domwalsh]

Ah, should have guessed! It's quite a while since I read Paul's excellent book.

[SiegeGunner]

Interesting.  Lt Cmdr Edward Hilton Young recorded that he partook of sandwiches and soup from a flask on the bridge of Vindictive, but didn't mention port ... so the bottles evidently remained in the wardroom.

[tbirduk]

Does anyone have (free) access to any of Frank Arthur Brock's Service Records? If so what Date of birth (and Place) does it show?

Would there have been a reason for him claiming to be under 30 when he took on the Royal Artillery Lieutenant Commission in October 1914 or when he transferred to the RN?  

I have just altered the Wikipedia entry for him to reflect the date and Place of birth shown on his Birth Certificate - 29 Jun 1884 South Norwood, rather than the unsourced date of 29 June 1888 in Cheam. (I am assuming this came from a Service Record?)

My date is a far better match for his age shown in the Population Census Entries for him in 1891 / 1901 / 1911

 

Yours Pedantically

 

[horatio2]

His ADM 273/4/35 RNAS record shows d.o.b. 29 June 1884 and this is carried forward to his AIR 76/56/75 RAF (Naval) record. Place of birth is not recorded. There is no space for entering p.o.b. on the RNAS and RAF records.

Edited 1 December , 2018 by horatio2

[Terry_Reeves]

Brock was briefly involved in chemical warfare. In July 1915 the French started to fill shells with hydrogen cyanide but the material  very light  and needed to be weighed down by  using various chlorides, however that meant doubling the amount of shells for a given concentration. The gas was code named "Vincennite" and was first deployed in July 1915. 

 

Churchill got quite excited by this idea and Brock discovered that Thomas Tyler, founder of the Thomas Tyler Company in Stratford, London,  had prepared it in an aqueous solution for medical use.  He added chloroform to thicken the solution and give it weight added cellulose acetate to make it into a syrup which he called Jellite.  He got a RNAS pilot to drop a number of carboys over marshes of the Thames estuary and encouraged by the results,   a production plant was constructed  at Stratford and shells were filled. The whole idea was dropped by the British when it was found that very large concentrations of the gas were need for it to be effective.

 

TR

 

[seaJane]

I thought it might be a case of there being two Frank A Brocks on FreeBMD, but there is only the one, 1884 in the Croydon area (right for S Norwood).

[tbirduk]

17 hours ago, horatio2 said:

His ADM 273/4/35 RNAS record shows d.o.b. 29 June 1884 and this is carried forward to his AIR 76/56/75 RAF (Naval) record. Place of birth is not recorded. There is no space for entering p.o.b. on the RNAS and RAF records.

Many thanks for that, at least one part of Wikipedia is now correct! 
Apart from a fairly Ambiguous Family Surname  Connection (one of his daughters was married to a Smee) I still have recollections of reading of his exploits at Zeebrugge in 1960/70's Comics (probably The Victor)

Edited 2 December , 2018 by tbirduk