Lives of the First World War

PLY/15899 Private Jerome Cann Royal Marine Light Infantry, H.M.S. "Amphion."

PLY/15899 Private Jerome Cann Royal Marine Light Infantry, H.M.S. "Amphion." 6th August 1914, aged 17. When Jerome Cann was born on 5 January 1897 in Treknow, Cornwall, his father, Stephen, was 23 and his mother Mary was 24. He had 14 siblings. Jerome lied about his age and joined the Royal Navy on 1 November 1912 aged 15. He died at the age of 17 on 6 August 1914 while serving on HMS Amphion which was an Active-class scout cruiser built in 1913 for the Royal Navy before the First World War. The ship was initially assigned to the First Fleet and became a destroyer flotilla leader in mid-1914. When the war began, her flotilla was assigned to the Harwich Force. While patrolling on the first full day of the war, Amphion and her destroyers encountered and sank a German minelayer, SMS Königin Luise, but not before she had laid many of her mines. While returning from patrolling the following morning, Amphion struck a mine on 6 August 1914 off the Thames Estuary and sank with the