Stoker 1st Class George Hedley Charles Revell

[Lawryleslie]

A friend has asked me to help trace the military history of her father, Stoker 1st Class George Hedley Charles Revell K19171 born in Noss Mayo in 1895. I have found most of his service records, including medals, on Ancestry.com. However she was told by her late mother that her father was torpedoed and spent 19 hours in the water before being rescued from which he subsequently suffered tuberculosis and died in 1938. Looking through his Record of Seaman’s Service, none of the ships he served on during WW1 appear to have been torpedoed and all survived the war. She is insistent that the story of her father is true and not an embellished family anecdote.

Can any forum pals help to solve this mystery?

[sotonmate]

Might be an idea to post an image here for the experts to pore over. Might be that he was en route to a ship already on overseas station,on such as a troop carrier which then got torpedoed, any gaps in the dates of service on his vessels might indicate this.

[horatio2]

The 'caught TB from being in the water after a sinking' narrative seems a bit implausible, so perhaps the whole story is, indeed, 'family anecdote'. His post WW1 service running to (probably) the late 1920s (he has a follow-up record in ADM 363 - http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_fn=GEORGE+HEDLEY&_ln=REVELL&_no=&_pl=&_sd=&_ed=&discoveryCustomSearch=true&_ser=ADM+139&_ser=ADM+188&_ser=ADM+363&_ser=ADM+362&_col=200&_hb=tna ) would seem to indicate that he had no problems immediately after WW1. Perhaps the 'incident' was much later?

[Lawryleslie]

On 07/02/2018 at 16:48, sotonmate said:

Might be an idea to post an image here for the experts to pore over. Might be that he was en route to a ship already on overseas station,on such as a troop carrier which then got torpedoed, any gaps in the dates of service on his vessels might indicate this.

This is his Service Record. The only ship on the list of those he served on to suffer a torpedo attack was HMS Dartmouth during the Battle of Otranto Straits in May 1917.The ship was abandoned but a salvage crew remained onboard and she was towed back to safety and was repaired dry dock. Revell didn’t serve on Dartmouth until 1920. Hope I’m not breaking copyright rules posting the image?

Thanks H2 for the NA link.

 

 

 

[horatio2]

Like you, I cannot link any ship of his WW1 service to his being torpedoed.

[sotonmate]

Laurie

 

All I can add to the expert's posting is that he had time with VIVID II shorebase in Plymouth and may have served on a smaller patrol craft etc during those periods.