Cyril Mewse

PLYMOUTH NAVAL MEMORIAL Panel 39, Column 3.

HMS Glorious

HMS Glorious was the second of the three Courageous-class battle cruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Glorious was completed in late 1916 and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. She participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and was present when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later. Glorious was paid off after the war, but was rebuilt as an aircraft carrier during the late 1920s. After re-commissioning in 1930, she spent most of her career operating in the Mediterranean Sea. After the start of the Second World War, Glorious spent the rest of the year unsuccessfully hunting for the commerce-raiding German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee in the Indian Ocean before returning to the Mediterranean. She was recalled home in April 1940 to support operations in Norway.

Late in the afternoon of June 8th, the Royal Navy suffered one of its most devastating defeats of the Second World War. HMS Glorious was sunk by German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau along with her escorting destroyers HMS Ardent and HMS Acasta. The three British warships were taking part in Operation Alphabet, the evacuation of Allied forces and aircraft from Norway that had been taking place simultaneously with the better known and remembered evacuation at Dunkirk.

The death toll of 1,519 exceeded any other British naval disasters of the war. Among the dead were Glorious' Captain, Guy D'Oyly-Hughes, a highly decorated First World War submariner, and five Nottinghamshire men – Ordinary Seaman Fred Corps from Bulwell, Air Mechanic 2 Jack Grimmer from Mansfield, Telegraphist Cyril Mewse from Nottingham, Chief Petty Officer John Roberts and Stoker 1 George Robinson from Nottingham. One of the Royal Navy's precious few large aircraft carriers had been sunk, along with two destroyers and, with the Battle of Britain in the offing, two RAF fighter squadrons. (Wikipedia & History Today 8/6/1915)

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