Posts Tagged ‘Plymouth Naval Memorial’


I had a few much-needed days rest with the family at a cottage in Devon last week. We were blessed with beautiful weather and a good time was had by all. Most importantly I came back rested and restored after a busy time over the past few months.

I had wanted to visit Plymouth, my old university city, for some time, not only to see how it looked nowadays but to go to The Hoe and visit the Plymouth Naval War Memorial. I can well remember the memorial from my student days but gave it little thought back then. Twenty years older and perhaps a little wiser I wanted to pay my respects at the name of one man whose story I had looked into – Able Seaman Daniel Collins. Daniel was the younger brother of Thomas Collins, the man Sapper William Hackett refused to leave 40 feet below the fields of Givenchy – an act for which Hackett was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. He was the only tunneller ever to receive the award and he and Thomas Collins lie there still.

Plymouth Naval Memorial

Text on Plymouth Naval Memorial

Able Seaman Daniel Collins, RNVR was killed on 26 February 1918 on “SS Greavesash”, a merchant steamer which was torpedoed without warning by German submarine UB-74 and sunk off the Normandy coast. Daniel was one of eight crew who were killed that day. Whilst visiting Thomas and Daniel’s nephew, John Abraham back in March 2010 I had been struck by the loss of the two eldest Collins boys in the war and could only imagine the effect that this had on the family.

1918 RNVR panel on Plymouth Naval Memorial

The memorial is very imposing and is situated centrally on The Hoe overlooking Plymouth Sound. It commemorates 7,251 sailors of the First World War and 15,933 of the Second World War. The panels bearing the rank and names of sailors who were lost at sea are organized by date so I had to walk around the entire memorial from 1914 through to 1918 until I came to Panel 29 which contained the names of officers and men of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. The names, as per the various Memorials to the Missing on the Western Front are organised by rank and it was to the bottom right of the panel that I spotted the men who had the rank of Able Seaman; the third name down was “COLLINS D.”

Able Seaman Daniel Collins, RNVR – like your brother Thomas, gone but not forgotten.

Close up of Able Seaman Daniel Collins' name on Plymouth Naval Memorial

By