Remembrance service to honour HMHS Glenart Castle victims

The Royal British Legion Hartland has always held a remembrance service at this time of year on the nearby cliffs overlooking the Bristol Channel.

They gather to mark the attack in World War One on a hospital ship, HMHS Glenart Castle.

On February 25, 1918, she had left Newport in Wales, bound for Brest in France to pick up wounded Portuguese soldiers.
Clearly marked as a hospital ship, illuminated and displaying the red cross, she was torpedoed at 3.50am on February 26, with a massive loss of life.

ABOVE: The memorial last year 

This was a war crime, a war crime that went unprosecuted but, importantly, is not forgotten.

Witnesses at the time, which included local fishermen, gave statements that it was clearly marked with the red cross… lit and showing navigation lights.

But she joined a list of vessels that were destroyed despite their humanitarian cause.

This year, representatives from the military medical services will be joined by 30 members of The Royal Centre for Defence Medicine who, on February 25, will provide a working party to tidy the cliff-top plaque as well as giving the town war memorial a spring clean.

There will then be a clifftop gathering on the 26th for a service, assembling at 10.45am.

One of the people attending is Scott Baillie, who moved to the Hartland area eight years ago and, by coincidence, is a medal collector - especially those that were awarded to personnel who served on hospital ships.

He owns several medals from the Glenart Castle incident.

“It is just a strange coincidence that I have a couple in my collection,” said Scott from his Hartland home.

“Including George Thomas Hutson, Royal Army Medical Corps.

His medals will be on display, medals that he never saw as they were awarded posthumously.

His backstory is really rather sad.

He was called up in 1917 and his very first posting overseas was on the Glenart Castle.

Just some ten hours into active service, he was dead.”

Scott will be there on the day with a stall and is willing to talk about his collection and the story of the tragic event.

“Figures are debatable when it comes to survivors, but it is thought that 29 out of 182 people made it to shore.

“The lifeboats on the starboard side had been ruined by the torpedo explosion, they hung like ribbons,” was one description at the inquest.

Those were unusable, so only a limited number on the port side were dropped into the water as she sank stern-first.
The specific numbers are lost to history, as some people died in the boats, bodies were taken to Wales and along the coast of England, and in the confusion of the evacuation, nobody is sure of the numbers.

“The conditions that night were also against water survival. I am attached to the Clovelly lifeboat and know the dangers of hypothermia. Even those who made it off the ship had little chance.”

Everyone is welcome to the short service of remembrance on the cliff top on February 26 at 11am.

The memorial can be found beside the coastal path near Hartland Point.