HMS Eaglet’s WW1 dead honoured in their native Liverpool

Accidentally omitted from the list of the city’s war dead when compiled, the missing 13 – plus four soldiers – were ceremonially added to the Liverpool roll of honour as the board was rededicated in the town hall.

Among the names now included, reservist Able Seaman Alexander Campbell who drowned aged 19 after the ship he was serving on, a Danish steamer, SS Bogatyr, was torpedoed, and then ran aground in bad weather off the Lincolnshire coast in February 1916.

The teenager was buried in Bootle Cemetery and his name added to HMS Eaglet’s roll of honour – but not the civic roll until now. His great niece Fiona Richards received a memorial scroll by Liverpool’s Lord Mayor Barbara Murray.

And Chief Petty office Steve Calderbank, Chairman of HMS Eaglet Old and Bold Affiliation, received a scroll on behalf of Wireman (electrical engineer) Alexander Mould, killed with 842 shipmates when battleship HMS Vanguard blew up at Scapa Flow in the summer of 1917.

Liverpool’s list was compiled during and in the immediate aftermath of the Great War and was formally unveiled in the town hall in 1921 by the future Edward VIII.

Originally, the roll stretched to 13,245 men from the city who lost their lives between 1914 and 1918. In the century since, the number of dead has surpassed 13,500 as names were added by historians and relatives. 

It was only when historians began researching the honours board at HMS Eaglet, Liverpool’s naval reserve unit (originally known as Eagle, but renamed when the aircraft carrier was built) that they realised 13 names were missing from the civic list.

A ceremony including prayers, an act of remembrance, the Last Post, minute’s silence and the Union Flag lowered to half-mast at the town hall saw the extended list dedicated in the presence of Naval Regional Commander Commodore Thomas Knowles, Eaglet’s Commanding Officer Commander Richard Fletcher, Lieutenant Colonel David Hartley, commanding Merseyside RMR, members of the Royal Naval Reserve Officers' Club, Liverpool (‘Sea Urchins’) and HMS Eaglet Old and Bold Affiliation.

Most importantly relatives of the dead were invited to see their loved one’s name belatedly added.

“It is incredibly important that names continue to be found and recorded alongside their fellow servicemen,” Councillor Murray said.