Lot Essay
Lieutenant Charles Edward Francis Egan was killed in action at the Battle of Jutland on 31.5.1916, while serving aboard H.M.S. Ardent. A Torpedo Boat Destroyer of the 4th Flotilla, she had the misfortune to run into the full might of the enemy:
'At 12.19 a.m., when steaming alone, the Ardent saw smoke caused by the blowing up of the Black Prince and, thinking it betokened the presence of the rest of the Flotilla, made towards it. Actually she ran into the German Battle Cruiser Squadron which had sunk the Black Prince and within a few seconds she was the centre of a blaze of searchlights and a target for every gun which the enemy could bring to bear. Nevertheless she got off two torpedoes before she went down with all of her crew, save Lieutenant-Commander Marsden and one man, both of whom were wounded' (Hocking's Dictionary of Disasters at Sea refers).
A superb account of Ardent's role in the Battle survives in the form of a published manuscript by Lieutenant-Commander Marsden (See Fawcett's and Hooper's The Fighting at Jutland). In closing his narrative, Marsden praises the extraordinary gallantry of his crew, who had already survived a mauling at the hands of a Squadron of German Dreadnoughts, and, more particularly, his First Lieutenant, Charles Egan, who 'on that last great night was calmness personified'.
'At 12.19 a.m., when steaming alone, the Ardent saw smoke caused by the blowing up of the Black Prince and, thinking it betokened the presence of the rest of the Flotilla, made towards it. Actually she ran into the German Battle Cruiser Squadron which had sunk the Black Prince and within a few seconds she was the centre of a blaze of searchlights and a target for every gun which the enemy could bring to bear. Nevertheless she got off two torpedoes before she went down with all of her crew, save Lieutenant-Commander Marsden and one man, both of whom were wounded' (Hocking's Dictionary of Disasters at Sea refers).
A superb account of Ardent's role in the Battle survives in the form of a published manuscript by Lieutenant-Commander Marsden (See Fawcett's and Hooper's The Fighting at Jutland). In closing his narrative, Marsden praises the extraordinary gallantry of his crew, who had already survived a mauling at the hands of a Squadron of German Dreadnoughts, and, more particularly, his First Lieutenant, Charles Egan, who 'on that last great night was calmness personified'.