St. Just in Roseland Church & Churchyard

3 Responses to St. Just in Roseland Church & Churchyard

1. Nicholas Kilner says:

   May 29, 2020 at 12:17 pm

   It certainly is a pretty spot, and this has me longing to return. I holidayed not far from here a couple of years ago, but unfortunately didn’t get to visit the church.
   As always when I have the time I love nothing more than looking into the history of one or two of the names you very kindly bring to our attention with these posts, and this one is no exception. On this occasion I thought I would step away from the western front and look more closely at the death of a Naval man, Nicholas Odgers. As we can see from the headstone, Nicholas (son of Nicholas) lost his life aboard H.M.S Cressy on 22nd Sept 1914, on which he was serving as a Leading Seaman. The attack took place in the North Sea and was significant not only for the lost of the Cressy, but because it was one of three British ships (the Hogue, the Aboukir, and the Cressy) sunk in the space of an hour by the submarine U9, in what was probably the first major submarine offensive of WW1.
   In that one hour Otto Weddigen in his primitive submarine had inflicted more causalities on the Royal Navy than Nelson’s fleet suffered at Trafalgar. In sinking these three cruisers Weddigen brought home the awful reality of submarine warfare. Naval warfare would never be the same again.*
   Nicholas’s Father died just seven months later, and I can’t help wondering if losing his son had a significant role in that.
   (*info courtesy of ‘submerged.co.uk’)

   Reply
   • Magicfingers says:

     May 29, 2020 at 7:46 pm

     Excellent stuff. Even more excellent because we visited the memorial to one of the men lost when the Hogue went down and who is buried in Witley (Milford) Cemetery, where I actually included a German view of the British ships sinking.

     Reply
     • Nick Kilner says:

       May 30, 2020 at 5:27 pm

       Splendid! I do love it when things tie up neatly 🙂
       I hadn’t read that particular post yet, but I have now.

       Reply

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