A WW1 Death Plaque to Charles Clemo, Royal Navy - shipwright 2nd class who died on HMS PRIZE, the first German ship to be captured in WW1 and then commissioned into the Royal Navy.
He previously served on HMS SUTLEJ, HMS VIVID II and HMS IDAHO
Supplied with its original card packets and official envelope.
Shipwright 2nd Class Charles Reginald Clemo (M/16543)
Born 1895 to Charles and Elizabeth Clemo, in St Erth, Cornwall later moving to Devonport in 1911. He enlisted on the 9th November 1915 as a Shipwright 2nd Class (Listed as Artisans, Sick Bay Staff, Ships Police & Miscellaneous) with service number M/16543. He was posted to HMS Vivid II (Shorebase at Devonport), before moving to HMS Sutlej (Cressy Class Armoured Cruiser) in February 1916, where it sailed to the Azores on escort duty before rejoining the 9th Cruiser Squadron in September 1916. He stayed aboard HMS Sutlej until it was paid off at Devonport on 4th May 1917, becoming an accomadation ship.
From May to June 1917 Charles was stationed back in HMS Vivid II (Devonport Shorebase), before being posted to HMS Idaho on the 18th June (Auxiliary Patrol Base and Tug Yacht requisitioned during WW1). He can’t have spent long there though, transferring to HMS Prize before her final patrol in August 1917.
HMS Prize was originally a German three-masted Schooner named Else, but she became the first German ship to be captured by the Royal Navy in WW1, being renamed HMS Prize. In April 1917 she was converted into a Q Ship, these were heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks in order to sink them.
In August, with Charles aboard, she set sail into the Atlantic under a Swedish flag, accompanied by HMS D6 (Submarine). On the 13th August, North West of Ireland, she spotted a U- Boat, UB-48 and attempted to shell it. However UB-48 was undamaged and submerged to evade the attack. Late that evening, with D6 and Prize on the lookout, UB-48 fired two torpedoes at Prize, striking and sinking the ship, along with Charles who was killed in action in the early hours of the 14 Aug 1917, age 22.
Sadly, Charles’s body was never recovered and no trace of HMS Prize or her crew was ever found. He is remembered on the Plymouth Naval Memorial, Planel 22 as well as Haileybury College Cloister Wall Memorial, Hertford Heath.
The whereabouts of his Medals is unknown.
