U-Boat UC-75 had been damaged by the depth charges which HMS Ouse had dropped in her vicinity in the early hours of 29th May. She had already torpedoed and sunk HMAPV Dirk, which had been at the head of East Coast convoy TU26, but was now leaking fuel oil. However, in the early hours of 31st May she was intent on engaging with another East Coast convoy she had spotted, also in an area off Flamborough Head, on the Yorkshire coast. This second convoy comprised about 30 merchant

Of the 37 ships of convoy TU26 which had left Leith the day before, 35 called in at Immingham on the Humber on the morning of the 29th. HMAPV Dirk had been torpedoed by U-Boat UC-75 and all her crew of 20 had been lost. The SS Caroline had also been lost after colliding with the SS Merida in the confusion of the U-Boat's attack. Her cargo of empty Camp Coffee and port bottles went down with the ship but her crew of 19 were all rescued. Canadian Archer Peddle was waiting at Im

On this day 100 years ago, the 37 vessels of convoy TU26 set sail from Leith for Immingham on the Humber. Converted passenger ferry HMAPV Dirk was at the head of the convoy. It had 2 ships alongside: HMS Bat to her port side, and HMS Petrel to her starboard side. 2 escorting trawlers sailed behind HMS Petrel, while behind HMS Bat were 3 trawlers and then HMS Ouse. The Dirk will not make it to Immingham, as she will be torpedoed and sunk by the U-Boat UC-75 near Flamborough He

On this day 100 years ago my great-uncle Fred Cowling and his Battalion, the 1/5th Durham Light Infantry, along with the other soldiers of the 151st Brigade, fought on the River Aisne. The battle led to terrible casualties for the DLI - 24 officers and about 650 men. The Battalion could not recover from this. At the roll call for the 151st Brigade’s 3 battalions at Vert la Gravelle on the 31st, only 103 were present. It was said that every survivor had lost a dozen friends.

I have just had one of those moments where you realise ignorance has caused you to miss something really obvious... In my previous post I described how I slowly came to realise my Austrian grandfather had served with a battalion, not in upper Austria, but in Galicia, or what is now western Ukraine. This was triggered by the photograph I have inherited of him in his pre-WW1 uniform and help I received in identifying his battalion. When I looked again today at the photograph of

A contact on Twitter has kindly promised more information on the Battalion my Austrian grandfather served with in World War 1. In the meantime I decided to see what I could find on the internet, and the answer is not a lot! But there is something, and it has turned up small pieces of information which are tantalising. My grandfather served with the 30th k. und k. Field Battalion which was based at Steyr, which is a city in upper Austria, and the commander was Lieutenant Colon