When I was on the Great War battlefields recently......

[Gil Boyd]

Interesting, when you start digging around on these WW1 guys.
I have just completed the history and military record on 8 guys from our village who we intend to do a big thing on for two weeks over Remembrance Day 3-18th November in our local church.
One of the lads was 20 and onboard HMS Hawke when it was struck by the Titanic's sister ship in the solent in 1912, RMS Olympic. It was the Skipper of the Olympics fault as it was on sea trials, but what has transpired from this is the conspiracy, that the damage caused by this collision mirrors the damage the Titanic alledgely recieved after stirking an iceberg. The ship had to go back to Harland & Wolfe drydocks in Belfast.

Low and behold it was the only time the White Star Line had both ships side by side in dry dock. There is some detail about Lloyds of London very reluctant to pay out the insurance on the ship and the Board of The White Star line were in panic and dissaray, as the line struggled to survive.

There is also some real conspiracy stuff going round at the moment and from stuff recently recovered on the Titanic graveyard in the Atlantic, that the ships were switched over a weekend, and it was in effect the Olympus that sank not the Titanic.
Anyway, I'll leave that to the American millionaire who states that, to prove his theory.

Suffice it to say HMS Hawke was brought back on line just in time for WW1 and on the 15th October 1914 whilst at sea, took a direct UBoat torpedoe hit to its magazine, with a loss of 525 Officers and men with 86 of the crew young boys under the age of 18.

RIP amazing this one story.
Another one of the eight lads failed a medical after the MO identified he had a heart problem. At that time he was a TA soldier for 89 days.
He returned to the village totally dejected, got on a train to Liverpool, and joined the Kings Liverpool Regiment.
Ironically he was killed on the 21st September 1917 in Belgium. RIP