Boy 1st Class John Derry

Boy 1st Class John Oswald Harold Derry, Royal Navy. He was lost on 14th October 1939 when his ship H.M.S. “Royal Oak” was torpedoed and sunk by U-47 whilst at anchor in Scapa Flow. He was aged 17 and is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial. His parents were Thomas and Agnes Derry of Tweedmouth. The ship was a “Revenge” Class Battleship launched in November 1914 and had a complement of 1,234 men and boys of whom 833 were lost in the sinking. The wreck is now a protected War Grave and lies upside down in 100 feet of water. After the sinking the Admiralty realised the anchorage was not impregnable to submarine attack and the Churchill Barriers were built to protect the Flow. (The U-47 under the command of Gunther Prien was lost in the Atlantic with all hands on 7th March 1941 ).