Engineer Lieutenant 

William 

WATERS

Royal Navy

Died On:
Aged:
1 January 1915

29

William Waters was born on 23 March 1885 at Caerphilly, Glamorgan, the son of William and Annie Waters.

After four years of training at the Royal Naval Engineering College at Keyham, William was promoted to Engineer Sub Lieutenant on 4 August 1905, and proceeded to RNC Greenwich for further study.  He was appointed to the armoured cruiser HMS DUKE OF EDINBURGH, initially for training and then in a complement role. He was promoted Engineer Lieutenant in November 1907 and his application for service in submarines was noted the following month.  In November 1909 he was appointed to HMS FORTH (Devonport Submarine Flotilla) ‘and for duty with S/M’, and in August 1911 he was re-appointed to HMS CORMORANT ‘for duty with Gibraltar S/Ms’.  In June 1913 he passed ‘very creditably’ for the Engineer Lieutenant Senior List, and in September that year he is reported as ‘very conscientious and hardworking. Carried out duties of 2nd in command of S/M (i.e. taking charge of the deck) for 6 months in an efficient and tactful manner’.

In November 1913 he was appointed to the pre-dreadnought battleship HMS FORMIDABLE to replace a sick officer, but the appointment was subsequently made permanent. At the start of the First World War, FORMIDABLE was serving with the 5th Battle Squadron and covered the safe transportation to France of the British Expeditionary Force.  On 31 December 1915 the Squadron was engaged in gunnery exercises off Portland and, despite reports of submarine activity in the area, remained at sea overnight. In the early hours of 1 January 1915, FORMIDABLE was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-24,  the first battleship to be sunk by submarine torpedo during WW1. Engineer Lieutenant Waters was one of 35 officers and 512 men who were killed.

He left a widow, Jessie Rhena (née Whitemore) whom he had married at Plymouth in July 1908 and two sons, both of whom served in the Fleet Air Arm during WW2.  The elder, Lieut Cdr William Erskine Waters DFC, was accidentally drowned whilst serving in HMS ILLUSTRIOUS in January 1943. The younger, David Watkin Waters, went on to become a distinguished naval and nautical historian, also serving as Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum.

William Waters is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial.

 

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