The team show the restored plaque shortly before it was returned to Charles Smith ’ s descendants
Watson , picked up the story and contacted local historian and naval history expert , Chris Sandwell . Chris got straight to work searching on Ancestry . co . uk for Charles Smith . Once he found details of Charles ’ family , he could see who had expressed an interest in them on the website , he took a guess and struck lucky . Within a few days Chris had not only managed to trace a living relative , he had also made contact with them … in Canada !
Combining the information Chris researched from naval and genealogy records , Mark liaised with Charles Smith ’ s great-great niece Amanda Boucher , and the story of a remarkable life emerged .
The brass plaque as it was found , and after restoration to sea , commanded by Kapitän Andreas Michelsen , commodore of the High Seas Fleet ’ s flotillas . The Germans opened fire on the drifters just after 10pm . They sank six out of 28 drifters , a trawler and HMS Flirt . The other drifters were able to escape into the darkness , though three were badly damaged . The Germans sunk six drifters , a trawler , an empty transport ship and a torpedo boat and damaged two destroyers and several auxiliaries , suffering only minor damage to SMS 91 in return . The dead included all the crew of Flirt , except for a boat party that had been lowered just before she was sunk to pick up survivors from the drifters . The German success was reportedly helped by their previous inactivity , which made the British complacent .
HMS Flirt
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