BORN HULL 06/12/1895. SON OF JAMES ROBERT AND ANNIE LIVERSEDGE OF THIS CWGC, NAVAL RECORDS ADDRESS. LOST AT JUTLAND, 31/05/1916, AGED 20. HIS ADDRESS AND DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL, ON 19/06/1916. * HE HAD TWO BROTHERS AT THE FRONT, PRIVATE, ARTHUR LIVERSEDGE, FPRMERLY A SCHOLAR OF TRINITY HOUSE SCHOOL AND PRIVATE WALTER LIVERSEDGE SERVING IN THE ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS.
The battlecruiser HMS INDEFATIGABLE (Captain Charles Sowerby) was locked in a gunnery duel with the German battlecruiser VON DER TANN when a German salvo was observed to strike HMS INDEFATIGABLE midships. HMS INDEFATIGABLE lurched out of line to starboard only to be stuck squarely by a second salvo. It appears that HMS INDEFATIGABLE received a shell in her X turret which ignited cordite charges, the resultant flash shooting down to the aft magazines. It is equally plausible that a shell may have penetrated the magazine directly. The ship was wreathed in smoke but when it cleared, HMS INDEFATIGABLE was sinking by the stern and listing over to port. She sank in seconds taking 1,017 of her crew with her. What follows is an eye witness account:
” There was a terrific explosion. The magazines went up. I saw the guns go up in thre air like matchsticks. 12″ guns they were, bodies and everything. She was beginning to settle down. Within half a minute the ship turned right over and she was gone. I was 180´ up in the tops otherwise I would have gone with her. I hit the water unconscious, turning over. At last I came to the surface and I saw this other lad, Jimmy Green. We got a piece of wood between us, he was at one end and I was at the other. A couple of minutes later some shells came over and took off Jimmy´s head and I was alone in the water”
L/Sig Falmer, HMS INDEFATIGABLE
Three survivors AB Elliott, L/Sig Falmer, Sig Bowyer were picked up by the German torpedoboat S-16 . Commander Willoughby survived the explosion only to die of wounds and exposure in the water.
The wreck – a war grave -was untouched until 1958 when it was commercially salvaged by German and Danish divers using industrial explosives. As a result the ship is now an unintelligible scrap heap spread over a large area.
