BORN HULL 20/07/1896. SON OF THOMAS HEWITT (1864-1899) & ANNIE ELIZA FROST (1866-1934), OF 6 COTTINGHAM AVENUE, OSBOURNE STREET, HULL & 65 WYNBURG STREET, NEWBRIDGE ROAD, HULL. A FORMER GROCER BOY. ENLISTED IN THE ROYAL NAVY. AN ORDINARY SIGNALMAN. DESCRIBED AS 5 FOOT, 6 INCHES TALL, 36 INCH CHEST, BROWN EYES, DARK BROWN HAIR. LOST AT SEA, ON HMS “HAMPSHIRE”, 05/06/1916, AGED 19. HE IS COMMEMORATED ON THE PORTSMOUTH NAVAL MEMORIAL.
The HMS Hampshire was a armoured battle cruiser of the Devonshire class built for the Royal Navy. She was constructed at the Chatham Dockyard in Kent and commissioned in 1905 at a cost of around £900.000. Weight/displacement: 10.850 ton. Length: 473,5 ft (144 m). Width: 68.5 ft (20,9 m). Draft: 24 ft (7,3 m). Speed: 22 knots (41 km/h); Armament: four 7,5 in (191 mm) guns; six 6 in (152 mm) guns; two 12-pounders (5 kg); eighteen 3-pounders (1,4 kg); two 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes. Hampshire, carrying Lord Kitchener on a diplomatic voyage to Russia, struck a mine and sank with the loss of 643 officers and men including Lord Kitchener. Only 12 survivors. Mine believed to have been laid by U-75.
Jan Lettens 30/11/2010 Fritz Joubert Duquesne, a Boer and German spy, claimed to have sabotaged and sunk HMS Hampshire, killing Kitchener and most of the crew. According to German records, Duquesne assumed the identity of Russian Duke Boris Zakrevsky and joined Kitchener in Scotland. On route to Russia, Duquesne signaled a German U-boat to alert them that Kitchener’s ship was approaching. He then escaped on a raft just before HMS Hampshire was destroyed. Duquesne was awarded the Iron Cross for this act. In the 1930s and 40s, he ran the famous Duquesne Spy Ring and was captured by the FBI along with 32 other Nazi agents in the largest espionage conviction in U.S. history. Read more at wrecksite: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?10355
