H.M.S. Lion World War 1 Diary transcribed with daily updates.
This site is dedicated to my great-uncle Frank Read. Uncle Frank kept a diary during his four years serving in the Royal Navy during World War 1. Each day, from August 2, 2012 until, hopefully, January 11th, 2017, I will transcribe his words here.
Uncle Frank served on the H.M.S. Lion. During his time on board, he wrote about both the excitement and the boredom of his time there. He was lucky to survive as you will see in his description of the Battle of Jutland.
Comments, questions and corrections in the transcription are welcome.
Frank Read
This looks like it will be very interesting! I have a box of 200 letters my great uncle wrote home from France 1916 – 1918. I’m actually writing a book about Uncle Fred, so I’m interested to read your great uncle’s diary. Thanks for posting. I’ll try to keep up!
Now that I’ve started this, I hear that there is another diary from my wife’s great-grandfather about his days in the infantry in WW1 plus some letters from a doctor to his young future wife in Western Canada from around the turn of the last century. I might add them to this site somehow. Thanks for commenting.
What a great treasure to have these letters/diaries of our brave men who gave so much. Thank you for sharing them! Look forward to seeing more 🙂
It’s difficult to know if your comments are sincere or if you are simply promoting your Facebook page. Wouldn’t it make sense to just ask for a link swap instead of commenting and hoping we would post the link to your Facebook page? We’re going to reply and post the link but next time, do the right thing and ask. Otherwise it’s not much different than spam.
Hello Frank
My great uncle was a Frank Read who served on HMS Lion during WW1. I have a letter from him to his parents describing the surrender of the German Fleet in Scapa Flow. He talked about the Armistice and although there is no date on the letter it can be worked out that it’s November 1918. I wonder whether your Uncle Frank is the same man as my uncle. Looking at the hand writing its looks very similar. I have just transcribed the letter for my family. I am the granddaughter of his brother William James Read who was married to Elsie L Rayner. My father was Peter Read. My grandfather and at least 3 of his siblings fought in the Great War and amazingly all survived.
Looking forward to hearing from you
Gillie Lewis Nee Read
Hello! Thanks for commenting. I believe that your Frank Read is also my Frank Read! There were 9 in Frank’s family, including a William. I have a record of a Peter also, a doctor, who had two girls and married a woman named Audrey. The family residence was named Elkstone and I think it was in or near Sidcup, Kent. Frank’s brother, Charles, lived in Canada for the last half of his life and one of his sister’s, Maude, was my grandmother on my mother’s side. If any of this seems familiar, then I’d say we are related. If this is the case, I would love to publish the letter that you have here on this site. I’ll send you my personal email if this is the same Frank Read.
It’s wonderful to hear from you! I should say that ‘Frank’ is the publishing name here but I am Brian Mahoney. I figured that since it’s Frank’s diary, the posts should be in his name.
Brian Mahoney
Hello Brian, I am very impressed by your website, and the effort you have put into compiling this. I plan to make time to read through it fully in coming weeks. This is a great resource that you are sharing. My interest is particularly due to the fact that my great-grandmother’s brother, Patrick Joseph Doherty (PJD), died at Jutland. He joined the RN on 26 January 1915, and he was a ‘Stoker 1st Class’ on the HMS Lion. He was from Coleraine, in Northern Ireland. I live in Belfast. I have a copy of a letter that he wrote to his sister, in New Jersey, while he was based on the Lion. It is not dated, but I suspect that it was written shortly before the battle that killed him. The fact that HMS Caroline is berthed in Belfast, and is also being restored in time for the centenary, has further heightened my interested. I see no articles yet on your website for 1916, or to detail Frank’s diaries on the lead up to and participation in the Battle of Jutland. Will you be publishing these soon? I am giving a talk to the Belfast Military History Society this Wednesday, 6th April, on PJD, Jutland & HMS Caroline. I am very interested in any details about the HMS Lion that Frank wrote during the Jutland engagement, and any details of particular relevance to the engine room, where PJD would have been based. Ideally, I would like to track down the incident that killed my relative, but realise this may be impossible. Note that there will be a 2 page article on PJD & Caroline in the Jutland Centenary issue of ‘Legion’, the Royal British Legion magazine, published in April. I look forward to hearing from you.
Hi Mark,
Nice to hear from you. The diary is complete, including 1916 and The Battle of Jutland. I’ve been trying to rearrange things a bit since it’s confusing for me, too. On the right side of any page you’ll see ‘Posts’ and a drop-down list of dates. I was two years behind when I started this so my 2012 equates to Frank’s 1914. May, 1916, when Jutland occurred, is May, 2014. As the posts are shown newest first, you have to go click on ‘Older posts’ at the bottom to get to the beginning of May, 1916. Here is a direct link to May, 1916: May 31st, 1916
Frank’s experiences are all there and continue into June’s entries. If your relative was in Q Turret, then Frank must have interacted with him at some point, unfortunately. I’ll send this off now so you can get it as soon as possible and study the entries. If you need more info, let me know. Thanks for commenting
Hello again Brian,
Can you help me find Frank’s entries for the 30 May and 01 & 02 June? I am still at a loss on how to find them on your website. I am also afraid that as it is hard to find specific dates, it will limit the amount of usage that the site will get, as is the case with me. I am slowly piecing together details of PJDs life, and also how it ended. I now know that he served on HMS Lion from 16 April 1915, and I would like to know more about the movements of the ship from that date until after Jutland. Any further assistance from you would be appreciated. Have you considered publishing the diaries as a book? I would certainly buy a copy! Can you send me a means of contact to my email, if you do not mind me contacting you more directly.
Regards
Mark Doherty
Reply from my email is off to you this moment, Mark. Check your junk folder just in case.