UKDIVING
The story of Charles Smith
Charles Robert Drake Smith was one of five children ; his parents were very poor and their relationship broke up while the children were young . One of the siblings died in childhood and the two youngest , Rosalie and Victor , were sent to Barnardo ’ s . They were ultimately transported to Canada under the British Home Children scheme on the Allan Line vessel ‘ SS Sicilian ’, when their father became unable to care for them .
From the records , it looked likely the eldest brother was adopted and remained in England , but Chris was unable to trace him or his family . Charles had been due to join Rosalie and Victor , but instead joined the Navy aged 17 on 4 March 1913 as a boy sailor , second class . He signed up for 12 years and at that point had no idea what was to come the following year with the outbreak of the First World War .
Charles trained with several ships before joining HMS Flirt on 6 December 1915 as an Able-Bodied Seaman . He was serving on board on the fateful night of 26 October 1916 when HMS Flirt was off Dover , providing protection for the drifters of the Dover Patrol . The Germans launched an attack and the drifter , Waveney II was torpedoed . Survivors were spotted in the
water and HMS Flirt went to assist . Charles Smith was one of the sailors tasked with rowing a boat across to rescue them . While this rescue was underway , the Flirt came under attack , suffering a direct hit from a torpedo . The ship sank with all hands lost . The only survivors were Charles and his fellow crew members , who were manning the rescue boat .
Charles went on to join the minesweeper HMS Seagull ( 1889 ), which was sunk in a collision with a merchant ship , SS Corrib , on 30 September 1918 in The Firth of Clyde . Sadly , this time Charles lost his life and his body was never recovered . He is remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial , which commemorates 10,000 First World War and 15,000 Second World War sailors with no known grave . Portsmouth is one of the 23,000 locations maintained by The Commonwealth War Graves Commission ( https :// www . cwgc . org / who-we-are /).
The plaque has been cleaned and polished , and the find has been reported to the Receiver of Wreck . It can now be returned to Charles Smith ’ s family as a keepsake from this brave young man who , tragically , never saw the end of the war . �
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