Romsey sailor's Battle of Jutland story unearthed by historian

One hundred years ago the Battle of Jutland raged across the North Sea and one man from Romsey was lucky to survive the horror of what happened.

As the British and Germans navies exchanged fire more than 8,500 men died as hundreds of ships wrestled to take control of the seas.

Harry Knight was one two dozen men from Romsey whose families feared they would never see their loved ones again.

Victoria Burbidge of the Romsey War Memorial Archive tells his story.

In the weeks that followed the Battle of Jutland Harry's family would have been on tenterhooks waiting for information.

The father of three had been born 46 years earlier and unable to swim but had signed up to the Royal Navy in 1900.

For 13 years he had been travelling across the world serving on a number of ships as a stoker, and eventually learning to swim.

One year before the outbreak of the First World War Harry had been pensioned off from the Navy due to ill health and returned home to Romsey. 

He was working at the Berthon Boatyard in Lortemore Place when he was recalled to service on August 2, 1914, two days before Britain declared war on Germany.

He shouldn't have been recalled but he was and he decided to go.

Initially posted to the training ship Victory II at Portsmouth, Harry joined the light cruiser HMS Caroline on the day she was commissioned December 17, 1914. 

It was on the Caroline that Harry would experience the biggest naval battle of the war.

By 1916, the British had put up an effective blockade of Germany’s northern coastline which was very small and easy to enforce, but now Germany wanted to fight back. 

At the end of May 1916, 52 ships of the British Grand Fleet, including the Caroline, found themselves in the North Sea facing a fleet of 40 German ships. 

Both sides threw everything at each other.

On May 31, the opposing sides opened fire on one another from a distance of about ten miles. 

At just after 4pm, the British battle cruiser Indefatigable was destroyed leading to the deaths of 1,000 men when a magazine exploded. 

Nearly 30 minutes later, the Queen Mary was sunk in just 90 seconds taking Romsey lads Frank Wiltshire and George Marriner with her. 

As the two fleets converged, the British suffered a third major loss when the Invincible was sunk shortly after 6.30pm with William Carden, a member of the Royal Marine Light Infantry on board. 

Over the course of the two-day Battle of Jutland, the British lost 14 ships and over 6,000 lives, but the Caroline survived.

News would have broken in newspapers at the time about those ships that were lost days later and before families would have known.

The men serving on board these ships they would have come under unimaginable pressure. 

For men like Harry, he would have been working in the bowels of the Caroline and at any second a shell could have hit them and they would have gone down with the ships. They wouldn't have got out.

They were death traps,it was horrendous. The temperatures would have been intense. 

They would have been shovelling coal as if their lives depended upon, which it did.

Both sides claimed a victory in the battle but ultimately the blockade wasn't lifted and 8,648 men perished in that action.

For the next two weeks Harry's wife Fanny, and their children Albert Jack, Edward, and Frederick William would have had an agonising wait before they heard anything about him.

For six other Romsey families the news was the worst is could possibly have been.

They included the three already mentioned as well as William Banfield on HMS Tipperary, George Northcott on HMS Defence, and William Passmore Humphrey on HMS Malaya.

They and the thousands of others that died were remembered at a ceremony at the British naval base in Orkney on Tuesday.

The Princess Royal and Prime Minister David Cameron joined descendants of those who fought at the battle at the naval base in Orkney to remember the thousands of seamen who died.

Mr Cameron said: "It is very moving that we are joined today by the descendants of some of those who served at sea during the war.

"We stand together with them to pay our profound respects to their ancestors and to ensure that the events of 100 years ago will be remembered and understood in 100 years' time."

It wouldn't have been until Harry had written a letter to home that his family would have known that he was safe.

Sent back home to England, Harry once again found himself posted to the training ship the Victory II, based in London, but the battle had taken its physical and psychological toll on him.

On March 3, 1918 he found himself once again being discharged from the Navy.

Returning home to Romsey, with his health failing and initially an inmate at the Nursing Home on Greatbridge Road, Harry had precious little time left to spend with his family. 

On May 31, 1918, exactly two years to the day that he'd taken part in the Battle of Jutland, he suffered a heart attack and died at home in Albany Terrace.