Lives of the First World War

On 15th October 1914 Midshipman John Kempson went down with his ship HMS Hawke in the North Sea. He was seventeen years of age. John Reginald Kempson was born in Knighton, Leicestershire on 17th June 1897. At the tender age of thirteen John decided on a career in the Royal Navy and by May 1910 had been accepted as a cadet at Osborne. His training was completed at Dartmouth where he did so well that on his first posting, to HMS Cumberland, he was promoted after only a month and reallocated as Midshipman to the cruiser HMS Hawke in August 1914 as the ship’s crew was brought up to strength in preparation for war. On Thursday 15th October HMS Hawke was approximately 60 miles off Aberdeen when she was stopped in order to receive mails and signals from another cruiser, Endymion, via a cutter between the two ships. The manoeuvre was observed by the commander of a nearby German submarine, Otto Weddingen, and following the delivery of mail, Endymion got away but Hawke was struck by a torpedo