Four: Stoker Petty Officer B. D. Mortimore, Royal Navy, who fought at Dogger Bank and at Jutland in H.M.S. Tiger

1914-15 Star (306666 S.P.O., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (306666 S.P.O., R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 1st issue (306666 S.P.O., H.M.S. Tiger) contact marks, generally very fine (4) £140-180

Bertie Dellar Mortimore was born at Torquay, Devon in April 1886 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in June 1904. The advent of hostilities found him serving at Vivid II as a Stoker Petty Officer but in early October 1914 he joined the battle cruiser H.M.S. Tiger, in which ship he served until September 1920.

Mortimore was consequently present at the Battle of Dogger Bank on 24 January 1915, when the Tiger’s eight 13.5-inch guns did great execution, not least in a protracted duel with the Moltke and the Seydlitz, but the crowning moment of the battle was the destruction of the heavy cruiser Blucher, whose loss was captured on camera and prompted many a wartime artist’s impression of her dying moments. But the Tiger, in common with Beatty’s flagship the Lion, did not escape unscathed, as evidenced by her Captain’s description of the time when she received her third hit from a large calibre shell:

‘Tiger steered in the direction of the fleeing enemy and then, at this very critical moment, when quick decision had to be made, when the great speed of the Germans meant that every second brought them nearer to safety, there occurred a very large explosion which rattled us all in the conning-tower very considerably. It appeared that a shell had entered the Intelligence Office, which was immediately below the conning-tower, and having exploded there, blew up through the gun control tower, rendering everybody in it hors de combat and killing Engineer Captain Taylor and six men, and wounding three Officers and six men.’

Mortimore was next present in the Tiger at the Battle of Jutland, when she fired 304 13.5-inch and 140 6-inch shells. She was, however, hit no less than 13 times by heavy shells (12 and 11-inch) and five times by 5.9-inch shells from the German 1st Scouting Group, severe punishment that cost her 24 killed and another 46 wounded, statistics that would have been all too apparent to the likes of Stoker Petty Officer Mortimore - an account by an Officer of the Tiger’s engine-room staff speaks of scenes of carnage below decks that beggared description, and of how dense clouds of smoke poured in to their confined working space when the Tiger sailed through the area where the Queen Mary had recently blown up; see The Fighting at Jutland for a full account of the Tiger’s part in the battle (pp. 50-58).

Awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in July 1919, Mortimore was pensioned ashore in June 1922.