Berwickshire News 21/03/1916
Berwickshire News Tuesday 04/01/1916
Medal Card
Uppingham School entry page 464
Berwickshire News 13/03/1916
John Alexander Tower Robertson was born on the 4th March 1886, at 10 Ravensdowne Barracks, at Berwick-upon-Tweed, the only son of Major Alexander Tower Robertson, J.P., V.D., D.L., 317th Company Royal Defence Corps, and his wife Ada (Tweedmouth House, Berwick), daughter of Edward Richardson.
John was educated at Sir Anthony Brown's Grammar School in Brentwood from 1895 where he was affectionately known as "Granny," [from his habit of peering over the top of his spectacles], he took part in the Theatricals, playing "Fag" in "The Rivals" in 1898. He had an Alto voice and was remembered for his musical feeling, and then up into Uppingham College from September 1900, where he joined as a cadet. Whilst there, he was a member of the Cadet Corps and shot in the Eight two years for the Ashburton Shield. Leaving Uppingham in 1904.
When he left Uppingham, he worked at his father's foundry, Tweedmouth Foundry for a while.
John was also a subaltern in the Old Berwick Volunteer Artillery, of which his father was a Commanding Officer in the Corps.
He also attended the Berwick Boy Scouts at Woolmer Camp before leaving for India.
John went to India in 1907 and settled at Calcutta as a solicitor, with his uncle, [who intended to retire from the practice], working for Messrs Orr, Dignam and Co., whilst in India he became revolver champion at Cossipore [is a neighbourhood in north Kolkata, earlier known as Calcutta, in the Indian state of West Bengal], also Scoutmaster, District Commissioner and Assistant Chief Commissioner of the Scouts in India.
John was also a Captain in the Cossipore Volunteer Artillery, and won the officers revolver Cup six years in succession, creating a record score each year, and twice gained the Challenge Cup outright. Whilst in India, his work for the extension of the Scouts movement was recognised by the presentation of a special decoration from the Chief Scout, General Baden Powell of the Silver Wolf and representing the India Scouts at the Birmingham Rally in 1913.
He obtained a commission in the Indian Army Reserve Officers, became attached to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles in March 1915 at Almora. Then from April 1915 to July 1915 he served in France and Flanders as part of the Indian Division. Whilst in the trenches he had 'hair-breath' escapes.
In July, he was invalided and was then attached to the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in November.
John was returning home to India, expecting to take part in operations in Mesopotamia, from home leave, when his ship, the passenger steamer, P & O S.S. Persia, ship number 109258, 7,951 tons, was torpedoed, 71 miles SExS of Cape Martello by an U-Boat U-38, commanded by Kapitänleutnant, Max Valentiner, off the coast of Crete on the 30th December 1915.
Its route was London and Marseille - Bombay, there were 334 casualties, and the vessel was carrying passengers & general cargo.
[Valentiner was on the list of war criminals for sinking Persia without warning, also progressed post-war as Naval Case No.10, but Persia was probably a legitimate target as she was carrying some 24 military officers and a few other ranks to India].
At the time of sinking, Persia was carrying a large quantity of gold and jewels belonging to the Maharaja Jagatjit Singh, though he himself had disembarked at Marseilles. Among the passengers to survive were Walter E. Smith, a British Member of Parliament, Colonel Charles Clive Bigham, son of Lord Mersey, and John Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu. His secretary (and mistress) Eleanor Thornton, who many believe was the model for the Rolls-Royce "Spirit of Ecstasy" mascot by Charles Sykes, died. Also among the dead were Robert Ney McNeely, American Consul at Aden and a former North Carolina state senator from Union County, Robert Vane Russell, American missionary Rev. Homer Russell Salisbury and Frank Morris Coleman, the co-owner of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.
The survivors on the four lifeboats were picked up during the second night after the sinking by the minesweeper HMS Mallow. Only 15 of the women on board survived, among them British actress Ann Codrington (The Rossiter Case), who was pregnant with her daughter, Patricia Hilliard. Ann lost her mother, Mrs. Helen Codrington.
Sixty-seven crewmen from the then Portuguese colony of Goa perished. Most of them were stewards.
His Commanding Officer later wrote:-During the time he served with us in France, he proved himself time after time to be an invaluable officer - cool brave and cheery and self reliant, thoroughly reliable in every way, In fact, we could have not picked a better anywhere. We had all been looking forward so to getting him back, and to lose him this way is a bitter grief. I feel certain that he died cool and cheery, with all of his wits about him, and doing his best to save others.
Another officer said: He was very popular with all ranks. An enthusiastic volunteer - by his death the Commandant has lost a personal friend, and the corps the services of one of the best of officers and a good comrade.
A friend also wrote: Of him, as of so many very gallant gentlemen, he may be fitly be said 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
He was unmarried.
John's will dated 1916 left effects of £775 4s 11d to his father, Major Alexander Tower Robertson H M Army.
On the 8th January, 1916 there was an inspection by General E. S. May, C.M.G., Chief commissioner for Boy Scouts in India, this officer made feeling allusion to the loss of Lieutenant J.A. Tower Robertson, and said he had little doubt that in the supreme moment of trial their friend had borne himself as a true Scout.
Another officer said:- He was very popular with all ranks. An enthusiastic volunteer - by his death the Commandant has lost a personal friend, and the corps the services of one of the best of officers and a good comrade.
Acknowledgments: Tony Harding
De Ruvigny Roll of Honour
Source : The Brentwoodian, April 1916, page 5.
Official account of the sinking of S.S. Persia from the History of the Great War, Volume 2, Summer 1915 to early 1917 (Part 1 of 2). By Sir Archibald Hurd
Based on Official Documents by direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Chapter VIII THE SINKING OF THE "PERSIA"
"The ordeal in the Mediterranean which British seamen were confronting with characteristic courage had attracted little attention until the P. & O. liner Persia was sunk on December 30th, 1915. In the case of the Lusitania, the enemy claimed that she had been built as an auxiliary cruiser of the British Fleet, that she was armed, and that she was carrying ammunition from the United States to a British port. These excuses for an act of inhumanity which shocked the civilised world have already been discussed. (Vol. I., pp. 410-28.)
The Persia was admittedly nothing more than an ordinary passenger ship, and the Germans had promised that passenger ships should not be molested; she was on her way from England to Indian ports and was under no suspicion of carrying munitions; she mounted a small gun aft, but it was available only for defence and, in the sudden emergency on December 30th, proved useless. Yet, in face of the pledges which had been given to the American Government, she was torpedoed without warning, and such was the effect of the explosion that within five minutes she had disappeared in the waters of the Mediterranean. Her destruction resulted in the loss of 334 lives.
The Persia (7,974 tons) had been built at Greenock in 1900, and was a sister ship of the Egypt, Arabia, China, and India, belonging to a class of vessel which was, at the time of building, the largest in the P. & O. Company's service. She held a passenger certificate issued by the Government of Bombay, allowing 530 passengers and 300 crew. The lifeboat accommodation, consisting of eighteen lifeboats capable of accommodating 830 persons, was far more than sufficient for all persons on board at the time of the casualty, and the large loss of life was accounted for by the fact that the vessel took a sudden list after being torpedoed and sank within five minutes. Owing to the list it was not possible to lower the starboard boats, and owing to the short time she remained afloat only five or six of the port boats could be lowered.
The Persia left Tilbury on December 18th with 201 passengers, including many women and children, and had a crew of 317. She was bound for Port Said, Aden, and Bombay, and in addition to mails carried a general cargo. The early stage of the voyage was uneventful; the Persia called en route at Gibraltar and Marseilles, and then at Malta, where five of the passengers and two of the crew were landed.
On Thursday, December 30th, at about ten minutes past one in the afternoon, when the Persia (master, Mr W.H.S. Hall) had reached a position about lat. 34 degrees 1' N., long. 26 degrees 0' E., she was torpedoed, without warning, by a German submarine. The passengers were at lunch at the time, the second officer, Mr. Harold Geoffrey Stephen Wood, was in charge on the bridge, Captain Hall and the chief officer, Mr. Gerald Clark, both being in their cabins. As usual precautions against the submarine menace had been adopted. On the previous day everyone on board had been assigned to a boat and drill had taken place. Instructions had been issued that all passengers in case of emergency were to assemble on the promenade deck, the boats, it was added, would be let down from the boat deck above until they reached the level of the promenade deck, when the passengers would get into them. There was no thought that only a matter of five minutes would be available for saving everyone on board.
At the moment of the explosion a native seaman was on the lookout forward; another native seaman was in the crow's-nest, while a British able seaman and a native were on the lookout on the lower bridge. A British able seaman was at the wheel. There was a moderate breeze blowing west by north, and a certain amount of swell, and the ship was proceeding at her full speed of about 16 knots, when the first warning of anything untoward came. The second officer caught sight of the wake of a torpedo rapidly approaching the Persia about four points on the port bow. It was so close that before Mr. Wood could turn to put the helm hard a-starboard the vessel had been struck — just abaft the forward funnel on the port side, a violent explosion shaking the ship from stem to stern. This explosion was immediately followed by a second one, due to the blowing up of the boilers.
The second officer immediately went to the whistle, intending to sound the prearranged emergency signal, but found that all steam had gone. He then ran down to Captain Hall, who had left his cabin and come to the lower bridge, and Captain Hall ordered him to get the boats out. Mr. Wood hurried at once to his station on the poop, noticing on his way that there was a great hole in the hurricane deck on the port side, presumably due to the explosion of a boiler. The ship was then listing heavily to port, and continued to heel over until she lay on her port side, before disappearing within only about five minutes of the explosion of the torpedo. Within this brief time, however, Mr. Wood was able to see to the lowering of two port boats on the poop deck, which were loaded with men and women passengers and a few of the crew. He then loosened the gripes of two inboard boats and attempted to lower a starboard boat, which was found to be impossible owing to the list which the Persia had taken. One of the port poop boats floated clear, but the other was pressed down by the davits as the ship turned over. The Persia was still making way, although with lessening speed, which rendered the lowering of the boats a difficult operation.
Meanwhile the chief officer (Mr. Gerald Clark), who had been momentarily dazed through having been struck by some of the furniture shaken from the walls of his cabin, had seized a lifebelt and axe and ran up to the boat deck. There he saw that the boats from the poop deck were already being lowered, and he at once, therefore, went to the assistance of those who were attempting to lower the boats from the boat deck, using his axe, where necessary, in order to clear the boats as quickly as possible. He remained on the boat deck freeing the boats as fast as this could be done, in the hope that, although there was no time to load them, they might be of service in picking up survivors from the water. He was occupied in this way until the listing of the vessel became so steep that he found it impossible to keep his feet any longer, whereupon he slid into the water, to be eventually picked up by No. 2 boat.
The second officer had also slipped into the water, and had succeeded in swimming to an empty boat, into which he climbed himself, afterwards saving several lives. This boat was one of the inboard boats which he himself had helped to loosen, and both of them had fortunately floated clear. Ultimately Mr. Wood succeeded in getting forty-three people into his boat, the chief officer afterwards sending across five more from No. 2 boat. Unfortunately, owing to the fact that the Persia was still under way, most of the boats that had been loosened were swamped, torn away, or capsized. Only five got finally free of the rapidly sinking ship. Four of these boats were afterwards joined together and an attempt was made to row back to the scene of the Persians disappearance, but in view of the overladen condition of the boats and the contrary wind and swell, this was found to be impossible.
The boats had all been swung out from the davits at the time of the explosion, and the understanding with the engine-room staff had been that in the event of the ship being struck by a mine or torpedo, the engines were to be instantly stopped. Unfortunately it seems probable that the engineers were in the stokehold at the time, superintending the cleaning of the fires, and were either killed by the explosion of the torpedo or as the result of the boiler explosion that followed.
Altogether, out of the total number of 501 persons on board the Persia, only 167 were saved, 65 being passengers, including 2 children, and 102 crew; 121 passengers and 213 of the crew were lost. Throughout the afternoon and the following night the four boats remained together, and were finally picked up about 7 o'clock in the evening of December 31st by the mine-sweeper Mallow, which took the survivors to Alexandria. None of the ship's papers could be saved, and nothing was seen of Captain Hall, who presumably went down with his ship.
In view of the fact that most of the passengers were below at lunch when the explosion occurred, that the engine-room instructions could not be carried out, and that within five minutes of the impact the vessel had disappeared, it is a striking tribute to the courage, quick-wittedness, discipline, and seamanship of the surviving officers and crew that so many lives were ultimately saved. An impression of the scene on board the vessel and of the subsequent experiences of those on board is conveyed in a graphic statement of Mr. Grant, an American business man, who, with two of his fellow-countrymen, was on board the Persia. The American Consul at Aden was among those drowned.
" I was sitting," said Mr. Grant, " in the dining saloon at five minutes past one, and had just finished my soup. The steward was asking me what I would take as a second course, when there was a terrific explosion, and the saloon was filled with broken glass, and with smoke and steam from the boiler, which seemed to have burst. There was no panic. We went on deck as if we were at boat drill, and I reported myself at my lifeboat on the starboard side. The vessel was listing to port and I clung on to the rail.... The vessel gradually listed more and more, and it was impossible to launch any of the starboard boats. Finally I climbed over the starboard rail and slid down into the water. I was sucked down and got caught in a rope, which pulled off my shoe, but, breaking loose, I got to the surface again and clambered on to some wreckage, to which I clung. The last I saw of the Persia was her bow pointing high in the air, and that was only five minutes after the explosion. While thus supporting myself, I managed to collect other wreckage for others to cling to.
" It was past 4 o'clock before I was picked up by a boat. I then saw that there were five boats pulling around in search of any other persons who might still be struggling in the water. Some of the boats were overloaded, and subsequently there was a redistribution of their occupants. Four of the boats were then tied together by their painters. The fifth was some distance away. At half-past three the following morning my boat separated from the others to search for help in a more frequented channel. We rowed for three hours, and at last saw a cruiser. We called out ' We are English,' and explained that we were survivors from the Persia, which had been sunk. We also gave particulars as to the whereabouts of the other boats. These were found about 7 o'clock, and the occupants were taken off by the English sailors. The end was a horrible scene. The water was as black as ink. Some of the people were screaming; others were saying goodbye to each other; while those in one of the boats were singing hymns."
The torpedoing of the Persia was viewed from another angle by Mr. Walter Ernest Smith, assistant engineer of the condenser plant, Port Said. He was travelling second class, sharing his cabin with a friend, Mr. Knight. He was in his cabin washing his hands for lunch when there was an explosion.
"I immediately got hold of a lifebelt and started to make my way up on deck. On my way I came across a lady I had met on the boat who was standing dazed, doing nothing. I asked why she did not get her belt on, and seeing that she was stupefied, I gave her mine and went back to my cabin to get my own life-saving jacket; she was not amongst those who were saved. When I left my cabin the second time, I noticed that women and children were lying about, some evidently in a dead faint and others moaning and crying out. One woman I remember particularly, a Frenchwoman, who was leaning up against the rail in the corridor outside the cabins, was quite dazed. Seeing she was not in a fit state to help herself, I pushed her along, and that seemed to rouse her. I practically got her on to the deck, where someone else took the lifebelt from her, fastened it on her, and pushed her overboard. She was saved, "When I got up to the boat deck I found Knight and another man in one end of our boat, and the carpenter and another sailor in the other end. They were trying to get her away. The three pins had been displaced and the fourth had stuck, as we had foreseen. Knight said 'An axe, Smith; this is jammed.' There were no axes in the boat. I was then in the boat and looked around and picked up a broken oar and handed it to him, and he gave the pin a whack with it. The pin luckily gave way and the last lashing was free. By this time the Persia was at a big angle, leaning over to the port side, that is, on the side the torpedo had struck her, and so when we freed the last lashing our boat swung out from the side of the vessel and then bumped back again into her side. We all lost our feet in the boat, and one man was pitched over the side into the sea. Knight was pitched out of the boat, and I could only see his finger-tips above the side of the boat as he clung on. He managed to scramble on board our boat again.
"By this time the stern of the Persia was settling down. While I was helping in our boat I saw a boat next to us, full of people, being lowered down. All of a sudden one of the davit ropes broke, and that end of the boat fell down and everyone and everything fell straight into the sea. The other davit rope then gave way, and the boat landed in the water right way up and quite dry, but no one was in her. People then, who, I supposed, had jumped off the Persia farther forward, began to climb into this empty boat until, I suppose, there were about twenty to thirty people in her. She had remained fast to the Persia by her painter or one of her davit ropes. I then saw another boat empty of people fall right on the top of the boat in the water, and it appeared to me that most of the people in her must have been crushed. I saw some of them pinned between the two boats. We had failed to get the davit ropes of our boat loose in time, and the stern of the Persia was now low in the water. We waited until our boat touched the water, and then, as the Persia still sank, we unhooked the hooks of our davit ropes from the davits and thought we were free. Knight, however, cried out, ' A knife. Smith; the painter is fastened.' He said the davit had caught our painter. I gave him my pocket-knife and he cut the painter with it and we were free. We then were sucked right across the stern of the sinking Persia. We were then in the boat six — three passengers and three crew, the latter all white.
" We were fascinated by the sinking Persia, and also we were kept over the sinking boat by the suction. After she had sunk, we got out the oars and pulled out of the way of the wreckage. We immediately started to pull people in. There were a good many people in the water. All people we picked up had lifebelts. After some time we got in, I suppose, nearly fifty people. Among them were five women. There was not room in the boats for all the people in the water. Five boats altogether, I believe, got away, but I only saw four — that is to say our own, No. 14, and No. 14a, which was next to ours on the Persia and must have floated off when the Persia sank. There was also No. 16 and the accident-boat, which was under the command of the chief officer. He took charge of all the boats, but we never had anyone who actually took charge in our boat. There were several seamen, besides the carpenter, but as there was no officer in the boat, the seamen were reluctant to obey in particular one of themselves, and if any one of the passengers offered a suggestion he was told to shut up. Some time after we had got clear I saw a small boat away on my side of the boat and Knight saw one also on his side. I saw a boat, too, which I took to be a tramp, and as I watched her — this was about 4.30 p.m. — I saw an explosion take place forward of her foremast. She did not sink at once, as we watched her for an hour or more, but the next morning she was no longer there. Before nightfall the chief officer ordered us to make an anchor, which we let down, and the other boats were moored to us in a line.
" After dark we saw the lights of a vessel, and we burnt our flares, but she took no notice of us. The next morning we saw a large Cunarder. Directly we saw her the chief officer instructed the second officer to set sail and head her off. This he did and got close to her, but directly she saw him she sheered off. This he told us afterwards. In the afternoon the chief officer, who had kept the best men in his boat — I think they were mostly passengers — said he was going to row in the direction of Port Said. This was about 3 p.m. After dark we saw the head light of a vessel. We watched it anxiously and burnt our flares. Finally we also saw the starboard light, and then the port light, and we knew she was heading towards us. When she got fairly close to us all the people in our boat got up, and as no one controlled our boat, she was soon broadside on to the sea. I do not know why we did not capsize. Knight was shouting to everyone to sit down. Finally we got alongside. There was a bit of a sea running, and they were only able to let down a rope ladder. We had some difficulty in getting the women up; one of them stuck halfway up, and I thought she would get crushed the next time we rose on a wave, but Knight and I managed to push her up. Knight and I then scrambled on board. The ship was the Mallow, one of H.M. ships."
A noteworthy tribute to the discipline and promptitude of the crew was paid by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, one of the passengers, who was for some time presumed to have been drowned. Lord Montagu was at luncheon with the rest of the passengers when the explosion occurred, and at once went to the station which had been allotted to him in No. 6 boat on the port side in case of emergency. He saw that the boats were already being lowered. He realised, however, in view of the rapid heeling over of the vessel, that it would probably be impossible to get into them, and therefore, with great difficulty, he started to climb up the starboard side, trying to pull up with him his lady secretary, who happened to be standing by. He was then swept off his feet by the rush of water along the promenade deck, and the next moment he was overboard. The ship then sank, and he was sucked down a long way, striking his head and body against several pieces of wreckage. He ultimately came to the surface again, thanks in part to the buoyancy of the life-saving waistcoat which he was wearing at the time. " So far as I am a judge," said Lord Montagu, " I am convinced that the commander, the officers, and the crew did all that was possible to be done under the terrible circumstances." When he had sufficiently recovered his senses to look around.
Lord Montagu saw that the sea was covered with struggling human beings, but comparatively little wreckage. He swam towards a signal locker that he observed near-by, but found the ship's doctor clinging to this, apparently in a stunned condition and with an injury to his head. The locker being only sufficient to support one person. Lord Montagu then swam towards a boat floating upside-down some fifty yards away. A number of native seamen were clinging to this boat, a larger number than it was properly able to support. Eventually, however. Lord Montagu managed to climb up and get astride of the keel band on the extreme end aft, and from this position saw a boat only half filled a short distance away. He shouted, but without succeeding in drawing the attention of the occupants, to whom frantic cries for help were rising up from all sides.
"About an hour after the disaster," Lord Montagu said, " there were left on the upturned boat six Europeans and about a score of the native crew. The others had dropped off as they became too weak to hold on. At this time the boat was suddenly righted by a big wave, and with great difficulty we scrambled into her. I then discovered that not only had she a large hole in the bottom, but that her bows were split open as well. She was in a state of extreme instability, for some of the air tanks, which showed me that she was one of the lifeboats, were smashed, and others were perforated. The smallest weight on the starboard side tended to capsize her again. This, indeed, happened many times before we were picked up, and added very greatly to our sufferings.
By sunset most of us were sitting up to our knees in water. When the sun went down on the first day there remained of the original party in the boat, thirteen native seamen and firemen, two native stewards, an English steward named Martin, an Italian second-class passenger, Mr. Alexander Clark (a Scottish second-class passenger), and myself. If it had not been for Mr. Clark and Martin, the steward, who more than once helped us to climb back into the boat when she capsized, I should have had little chance of surviving. " Though there was not much wind, there was a considerable swell, and nearly all the time the sea was breaking over us. Before the night was half gone several more natives died from exhaustion, and as the bodies were washed about in the boat we made efforts to throw them overboard. The night seemed interminable. About 8 p.m. a steamer, with her saloon lights all showing, passed about one mile to the southward. I think she must have been a neutral boat. We tried to attract her attention by shouting, and the other ship's boat to the eastward burned two red flares; but no notice was taken, a submarine ruse probably being suspected. At dawn next morning there were only eleven all told left in the boat. About three hours after sunrise we saw a two-funnelled and two-masted steamer away to the southward, and our hopes were again raised. We hoisted a piece of torn flag on the one oar left in the boat, and the other ship's boat, which seemed to be floating high and well, also signalled.
The ship, however, passed westward bound, about three miles away. For the rest of the day we saw nothing. One of the native crew about noon managed to get a tin of biscuits from the locker in the boat under the thwarts, and we ate a little of this, though it was spoilt by the salt water. " We had then been nearly thirty hours without food or water. I myself had had nothing but a cup of tea and a biscuit since dinner on the 29th. I felt the heat of the sun a good deal, as I had only a small khaki scarf for protection. At sunset on Friday we had practically given up all hope of being saved.... I found it a great struggle to keep awake. The tendency to drowsiness was almost irresistible, but to fall asleep would have meant the end. We capsized once more about 7 o'clock through the Italian turning light-headed. He had yielded to the temptation to drink salt water.
In this accident we lost the tin of biscuits and the red flares we had hoped to use during the night. Then about 8 o'clock we saw the masthead lights of a steamer away to the eastward. At first I thought it was only a rising star, for there was very clear visibility that evening. Presently I could discern her side lights, which suggested that she was coming pretty nearly straight for us. When she came closer we started shouting in unison.... When the ship was half a mile away, she ported her helm, stopped her engines, and appeared to be listening. We knew then that, like other ships, she expected a ruse and dare not approach until she had made further investigations. " After some time she came nearer and we heard a shout from her bridge. Then her steam whistle was blown. I dared to hope, though hope had almost died within us. We tried to explain that we were helpless and had no means of getting alongside. Eventually the captain of this ship — Captain Allen — which proved to be the Alfred Holt steamer Ning Chow, bound from China to London, very cleverly manoeuvred her alongside our wreckage. We were by this time like a cracked eggshell. Bow lines were passed round us by a plucky Russian and an English quartermaster, and we were eventually hoisted on board.
The captain and his officers did all they could for us. I should like to mention that it was Mr. Allan Maclean — a Maclean of Duart, Island of Mull — the third officer of the ship, who was the officer of the watch at the time, and he first appears to have heard our cries. His alertness and keen sense of hearing were our salvation. I consider it was a very courageous thing for the captain to stop for us, as he and his officers knew they were in the danger zone, and ran the risk of being torpedoed themselves while they were helping us. Once on board we began slowly to recover from the exposure and our injuries. We arrived at Malta at dawn on January 3rd. (1916) "
In a lesser degree, the harrowing experience of Lord Montagu and his companions were those of all other survivors, exposed as they were, in a drenched condition, for over thirty hours in open boats, while the fate of the others shocked the whole civilised world. As in the case of the Lusitania and of the many similar, if less conspicuous, outrages that were to follow, the traditions of the British Mercantile Marine were nobly exemplified, both in respect of decision in emergency and instant readiness for self-sacrifice.
It should be added that, although the Persia was armed with one gun for purposes of defence, this was not used, the Persia neither threatening to attack nor trying to escape from the submarine responsible for her loss, which was never seen by anybody on board, and from which no warning was received.
In replying to a number of questions in the House of Commons on March 8th, 1916, with reference to the sinking of the Persia, the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Walter Runciman) said: "I would like to add a word of appreciation, in which I am sure the House would like to join me, of the coolness and courage of the passengers and crew and the discipline of the ship maintained in face of this sudden and appalling disaster. I am told that the captain, officers, and engineers of the Persia had spent their lives in the company's service, and all had unblemished records. The country is deeply indebted to those who are facing the perils to which our merchant ships are being subjected."
With thanks to Royal Navy Net
John Alexander Tower Robertson is remembered at Berwick-on-Tweed on B25.06, B25.08 and B25.015 also at Tweedmouth on T31.01 and T31.02. He is also on the Scouts Association WW1 Roll of Honour.
Photo of the SS Persia
Historic England History of Berwick
The CWGC entry for Lieutenant Robertson