Clement Browne was born on 28 March 1900 in Hornsey, London to Emma Flora Helen Browne (née Appleford) and Clement Browne, the first of their two children, a sister Flora Bonella Browne following on the 30 July 1902. Tragedy struck the family with the early demise of their Father in October 1902 which caused the family to be split up. The Mother returned to the Appleford family home in 16, Marney Road, Battersea, to live with two of her brothers Charles J S and John M Appleford. The two children were placed in orphanages, Clement to the Reedham Orphanage in Croydon, Surrey, the baby Flora to the Bayswater Orphanage Asylum in Kensington.  The Reedham Orphanage was for children aged 1 to 14 years old which meant Clement had to find work and accommodation from the end of March 1914 until he entered the Royal Navy on the 9 September 1915. His service documents record this as junior clerk but not where he was employed.

Clement enrolled into the RN when he joined HMS POWERFUL, a boy training ship, on the 9 September 1915 until the 11 December 1915. Further basic training took place on board HMS IMPREGNABLE  which he joined on the 12 Dec 1915 and left on the 12 May 1916 when he was drafted to HMS GANGES for 4 months and he gained high enough grades to qualify for the Communications Branch as a Boy Telegraphist. On 21 September 1916 he left GANGES and joined HMS VERNON for further training to complete and qualify in RN  telegraphy which he completed on the 16 November 1916. H was then drafted across the water to HMS DOLPHIN for HMS E36 which had just commissioned the day before on the 16 November in the John Brown shipyard in Clydebank, Glasgow. He was made Acting Telegraphist before joining E36 alongside HMS MAIDSTONE in Harwich on 18 December 1916.

In the early hours of 19 January 1917, two submarines detached from MAIDSTONE and turned East toward the North Sea. E36 and E43 had been tasked to patrol just North of the Terschelling Island in the North Sea off the coast of North Western Germany. Bad weather with Force 6 winds from the North East were waiting for the two small vessels when thay cleared the estuary and headed North Easterly into the North Sea to the designated patrol area, which meant the vessels had to reduce speed or zig zag so as not head directly into the high waves and swell produced from the the Force 6 wind. This would have made station keeping difficult and E43, as senior signalled to E36, to proceed independently as they left the shelter of the Estuary. The crews must have found the motions of the boat very uncomfortable and anybody on watch up on the open bridge would have been endangered on watch changes or just trying to do the work they were there for.

At 1330 the E36 was on the Port beam of E43 but due to the weather conditions was out of sight by 1500. At 1850, E43, having lost her canvas bridge screen eased to 5 knots and reversed course to fit a new cover. Darkness falls early  in January at these latitudes and at 1950 the lookouts of E34 were taken by surprise when, after she had come back round onto her Northerly heading, a submarine appeared out of the darkness on her port side. This vessel was heading East and only about 50 yards away. E43 instantly put her helm to starboard and engines into full astern but struck E36 approx 10 feet from her stern and rode right over her.  E36 then vanished on the starboard quarter into the darkness. E43 went astern but nothing could be seen in the darkness and heavy seas.

Nothing more was seen or heard from E36 until 2012 when Dutch divers alledgedly finally identified her but her resting place is known only to a few and rests in peace on the sea floor.

On his first day at sea, Acting Telegraphist Clement Browne died at the young age of 16 years 10 months and became the youngest RN submariner known to have died with the words “Lost On Duty” written on his Service Documents. He is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial on Panel 23.