BORN 1881. SON OF GEORGE & ANNIE ELIZABETH GRANT, OF WILLERBY. FORMER POST OFFICE WORKER. WIFE ELEANOR, LIVED IN KIRKELLA AND WILLERBY, HULL, WITH THEIR TWO DAUGHTERS, MARGERY AND LILY. HIS NAME IS INSCRIBED ON THE KIRKELLA WAR MEMORIAL AT ST ANDREWS’ CHURCH AND ALSO ON THE COTTINGHAM ROLL OF HONOUR..
Able Bodied Seaman Thomas Grant served on board the HMS Hogue. Thomas was born in Willerby on the 19th April 1881 and lost his life on the 22nd September 1914 when the ship he served on was sunk by the U9 German Submarine. When Thomas signed up for active service he lived at 9 Wainfleet Avenue, Cottingham with his wife Eleanor. His official Port
Division Number was 196834 (RFR ch B 6993).On the morning of 22 September, Hogue and her sisters, Aboukir and Cressy, were on patrol without any escorting destroyers as they had been forced to seek shelter from bad weather. The three sisters were in line abreast, about 2,000 yards (1,800 m) apart, at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). They were not expecting submarine attack, but they had lookouts posted and had one gun manned on each side to attack any submarines sighted. The weather had moderated earlier that morning and Tyrwhitt was en route to reinforce the cruisers with eight destroyers. U-9, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen, had been ordered to attack British transports at Ostend, but had been forced to dive and take shelter from the storm. On surfacing, she spotted the British ships and moved to attack. She fired one torpedo at 06:20 at Aboukir that struck her on the starboard side; the ship’s captain thought he had struck a mine and ordered the other two ships to close to transfer his wounded men. Aboukir
quickly began listing and capsized around 06:55. As Hogue approached her sinking sister, Captain Wilmot Nicholson realized that it had been a submarine attack and signalled Cressy to look for a periscope although his ship continued to close on Aboukir as her crew threw overboard anything that would float to aid the survivors in the water. Having stopped and lowered all her boats, Hogue was struck by two torpedoes around 06:55. The sudden weight loss of the two torpedoes caused U-9 to broach the surface and Hogue‘s gunners opened fire without effect before the submarine could submerge again. The cruiser capsized about ten minutes after being torpedoed as all of her watertight doors had been open and sank at 07:15. Cressy attempted to ram the submarine, but did not hit anything and resumed her rescue efforts until she too was torpedoed at 07:20. She too took
on a heavy list and then capsized before sinking at 07:55. Several Dutch ships began rescuing survivors at 08:30 and were joined by British fishing trawlers before Tyrwhitt and his ships arrived at 10:45. The combined total from all three ships was 837 men rescued and 62 officers and 1,397 enlisted men lost. Of these, Hogue lost a total of 48 men.
The HMS Hogue was a Cressy-class armoured cruiser built for the Royal Navy around 1900. Upon completion she was assigned to the Channel Fleet and the China Statio
