Family has WW1 Death Plaque of fallen relative

Councillor Billy Hamilton said it was “important” that the U-boat attack on three Navy ships, HMS Aboukir, HMS Cressy and HMS Hogue, in which 1,459 seamen were lost, was not forgotten.

Mr Hamilton’s grand uncle Henry McMurran was on the Cressy when it became the third of the old Navy ships to be torpedoed on September 22 1914 whilst trying to rescue colleagues from the other stricken vessels.

The attack changed the thinking of the Navy and the Germans too about the threat of the U-boat

Mr Hamilton said: “They did not know the submarines were going to be as deadly as they were. It seems barbaric but after that they were not allowed to stop to pick up survivors - they still did - but they were not supposed to.”

He added the family have the WWI Death Plaque (Dead Man’s Penny) issued to the next of kin of servicemen who had fallen in the Great War.

Mr Hamilton’s uncle, Raymond, a nephew of Henry McMurray, recalled his mother Martha speaking of her deceased brother: “He was dead 20 years before I was born. I knew about him being killed on the Cressy. He was a stoker and was down below. He would have had no chance. He was a big lump of a boy. There was a big photograph of him in his Navy uniform.”

U-9 Commander Weddigen and his crew who all received the Iron Cross, would go on to sink HMS Hawke three weeks later with the loss of 524 men, including another local man.

Councillor Hamilton said: “Andy McAllister from the Milebush, he was killed by the same U-boat on 15 October 1914. Both he and Henry were in the Sullatober Flute Band.”