Jutland New Perspectives CD - £9.99

[Lorac]

Does anyone know if its worth buying the above CD in order to find out more on my Gt.Uncle who died at the Battle of Jutland? I was hoping it would mention what medals he was awarded but it seems from the sample d/load that medals are'nt mentioned. Link: http://www.fhindexes.co.uk/jutland.htm

Frederick C. Tacon died 31/5/1916 on HMS Invincible.

I already have his service record which states D.O.B., address, occupation, ships served on etc, but I just wondered if I could glean anything more from the CD. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Also, can anyone hazzard a guess as to what medals he would have been entitled to? Getting to Kew at present is out of the question.

Regards

Lorac

[joseph]

Lorac,

The information is already on his service record, he will automatically get the Victory & British War Medal, Depending on what ship he was on in 1915 determines if he got the 1914/15 Star. If you can post the Service Certificates we may be able to help.

Regards Charles

[Lorac]

Thankyou Charles,

How silly of me not to include it in the 1st post

Lorac

[per ardua per mare per terram]

Medal entitlement was easy for the navy, as soon as they joined an active ship they qualified, so he would have received a 1914/15 Star trio, even though he was first in action on 28 August 1914! If he was commended, mentioned in dispatches or given a gallantry award it should be on the service register.

As a stoker 1 he had mechanical as well as shovelling coal ability, so he was not necessarily feeding the boilers all the time. I'm a bit surprised he wasn't serving in the seaman/ communications branch, either on the telegraphist side or as a torpedo man (they were responsible for electronics too), as an electrical engineer he would have been more suited to those branches.

He had been at the battles of Heligoland Bight (28 August 1914) and the Falklands (8 December 1914), both have been well written up on the net and in books. Geoffrey Bennett wrote 'Coronel and the Falklands,' 'Naval Battles of the First World War' and 'The Battle of Jutland;' all have been printed several times and can be snapped up cheaply new or secondhand. As the first battlecruiser Invincible ahs also been well documented.

Speedwell was a torpedo gunboat that had been converted into a minesweeper in 1909, a bit of a contrast to Renown (that one was the battleship, not the battlecruiser that served in WW1 & 2) and Invincible!

Just to run the classic what ifs: what if more attention had been paid to the appaling gunnery at the Falklands? What if Sturdee was in command of the Battle Cruiser Fleet at Jutland?

[Lorac]

May I call you Terram for short?

Thankyou so much for that wealth of information, I shall certainly look out for those books.

Any idea what Victory II was up to during the months 1/1/1914 to 2/8/1914.

Also, any useful links for me on any of the above mentioned ships?

Thanks again

Lorac

[Lorac]

Sorry, just thought of another question:- He qualified as a Petty Officer on 4/2/1913. What does that mean exactly? He was in charge of other stokers?

Lorac

[MikB]

Just to run the classic what ifs: what if more attention had been paid to the appaling gunnery at the Falklands? What if Sturdee was in command of the Battle Cruiser Fleet at Jutland?

1) It was. Questions were asked in the House. Invincible was shooting well at the time of her loss 18 months later. But not enough was done about duff projectiles, and Beatty was insufficiently interested to make the gunnery of the battlecruisers under his command as good as it could've been.

2) Would never have happened if Sturdee'd been in command. Scheer would've known all the plans in advance - assuming somebody bothered to tell him - so he'd've left Tirpitz to savage Beatty and scarpered .

Regards,

MikB