BORN HULL 04/03/1898. SON OF JOHN BYCROFT MOODY (1856-1931) & ADA ELLERINGTON (1865-1902) OF DE LA POLE VILLAS’, WILLERBY, HULL. HE ENLISTED IN THE ROYAL NAVY ON 17/05/1913. SERVED AS BOY FIRST CLASS. TORPEDOED IN THE NORTH SEA. DROWNED AGED 16. HIS NAME IS INSCRIBED ON THE KIRKELLA WAR MEMORIAL AT ST ANDREWS’ CHURCH, WITH HIS BROTHER, PRIVATE, JOHN DOUGLAS MOODY, EAST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT, WHO DIED ON 02/09/1918, AGED 22. HIS NAME IS ALSO RECORDED ON THE HULL TECHNICAL COLLEGE & MARFLEET LANE MEMORIALS.
Robert Ronald Moody died on the 15th October 1914 aged 16 when the ship he served on (as a 1st boy) was sunk by the U9 German Submarine. His official number was J/24634. His parents John and Ada Moody lived at De La Pole Villas, Willerby, Hull.
HMS Hawke, launched in 1891, was the sixth British warship to be named Hawke. She was an Edgar-class protected cruiser. On commissioning, Hawke joined the Mediterranean Fleet, remaining on that station for most of the rest of the decade.
In February 1913, Hawke joined the training squadron based at Queenstown, Ireland (now known as Cobh), where she served along with most of the rest of the Edgar class. In August 1914, on the outbreak of the First World War, Hawke, together with the other Edgars from Queenstown, formed the 10th Cruiser Squadron, operating on blockade duties between the Shetland Islands and Norway. In October 1914, the 10th Cruiser Squadron was deployed further south in the North Sea as part of efforts to stop German warships from attacking a troop convoy from Canada. On 15 October, the squadron was on patrol off Aberdeen, deployed in line abreast at intervals of about 10 miles. Hawke stopped at 9:30 am to pick up mail from sister ship Endymion. After recovering her boat with the mail, Hawke proceeded at 13 knots (24 km/h; 15mph) without zig-zagging to regain her station, and was out of sight of the rest of the Squadron when at 10:30 a single torpedo from the German submarine U-9 (which had sunk three British cruisers on 22 September), struck Hawke, which quickly capsized. The remainder of the squadron only realised anything was amiss, when, after a further, unsuccessful attack on Theseus, the squadron was ordered to retreat at high speed to the northwest, and no response to the order was received from Hawke. The destroyer Swift was dispatched from Scapa Flow to search for Hawke and found a raft carrying one officer and twenty-one men, while a boat with a further forty-nine survivors was rescued by a Norwegian steamer. 524 officers and men died, including the ship’s captain, Hugh P. E. T. Williams, with only 70 survivors (one man died of his wounds on 16 October).
SUBMARINE U-9 was a German Type U 9 U-boat. She was one of 329 submarines serving in the Imperial German Navy, and engaged in the commerce war (Handelskrieg) during World War I. Her construction was ordered on 15 July 1908 and her keel was laid down by Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig. She was launched on 22 February 1910 and commissioned on 18 April 1910. On 16 July 1914 the crew of U-9 reloaded her torpedo tubes while submerged, the frst time any submarine had succeeded in doing so. On 1 August 1914, Kapitnleutnant Otto Weddigen took command.
