Great War Battle of Jutland Loss of the Black Prince Casualty trio and plaque awarded to Able Seaman A.R. Savage, Royal Navy, who came from Dorchester, Dorset, and was aboard the armoured cruiser Black Prince from before the outbreak of the war. Black Prince was serving in the 1st Cruiser Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet when war broke out and initially participated in the pursuit of Goeben and Breslau. Following the escape of the two German ships to neutral Turkey, Black Prince and Duke of Edinburgh were sent into the Red Sea to search for German merchant ships, with Black Prince capturing the German ocean liners Südmark and Istria. Black Prince joined the Grand Fleet in December 1914. At the Battle of Jutland on the night of 31 May to 1 June 1916, Savage and the entirety of her crew were lost after she blew up. Some 857 officers and men lost their lives. The cruiser Black Prince which, at the first meeting of the two main fleets had followed her flagship, Defence, into action and been roughly handled at the time that Defence had been blown up and Warrior disabled, had been left behind by the Grand Fleet's turn to the southward after deployment. For some reason which will never be known, she was still at this time far astern of and out of touch with the British fleet; but when a line of battleships was dimly seen ahead, it was no doubt thought that they were the British squadrons. Course was altered to close them. At a bare half-mile range, the German recognition signal flashed out. The horrified Captain Bonham, swung his ship away in a desperate effort to escape, but it was too late. ‘In the battleship Thuringen, the same deadly efficient night action procedure that had been displayed at the head of the line went into play. Brilliantly lit by half-a-dozen searchlights, the Black Prince was raked from stern to stem by a tornado of shells and lay a helpless wreck before she could even fire a shot in reply. As she drifted down the German line, ship after ship opened up on her, Thuringen, Ostfriesland, Nassau and, finally, as the fleet flagship Friedrich der Grosse, added her quota, the Black Prince met the same end as the Defence, blowing up with a tremendous explosion, vanishing with all hands...'
Trio and Plaque: 1914-1915 Star; (J.23935, A.R. SAVAGE, A.B., R.N.); British War Medal and Victory Medal; (J.23935 A.R. SAVAGE. A.B. R.N.); Memorial Plaque; (ARTHUR ROBERT SAVAGE)
Condition: Nearly Extremely Fine.
Arthur Robert Savage was born on 29 August 1896 in Dorchester, Dorset, and having worked as a garden boy, then joined the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class (Portsmouth No.J.23935) with Impregnable from 31 March 1913, and was advanced to Boy 1st Class on 7 October 1913, before seeing service aboard the cruiser Theseus with the Queenstown Training Squadron from October 1913 to March 1914.
Savage was posted aboard the armoured cruiser Black Prince from 21 April 1914, being rated as an Ordinary Seaman on 23 May 1914, and being aboard her on the outbreak of the war, when Black Prince was one of the four armoured cruisers serving in the 1st Cruiser Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet, commanded by Rear-Admiral Ernest Charles Thomas Troubridge. She participated in the pursuit of Goeben and Breslau. Following the escape of the two German ships to neutral Turkey, Black Prince and Duke of Edinburgh were sent into the Red Sea to search for German merchant ships, with Black Prince capturing the German ocean liners Südmark and Istria. On 6 November, she was ordered to Gibraltar to join a squadron of French and British ships to search for German warships still at sea off the African coast. This was cancelled on 19 November after the location of the German East Asia Squadron was revealed by survivors of the Battle of Coronel Black Prince joined the Grand Fleet in December 1914 and was assigned to the 1st Cruiser Squadron under Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Keith Arbuthnot. Savage was rated as an Able Seaman aboard her on 24 February 1915.
Black Prince was modified in March 1916 as a result of lessons learned at the Battle of Coronel, with the 6-inch guns removed from their casemates and replaced by six 6-inch guns mounted individually behind shields between the beam 9.2-inch turrets.
The ship participated in the Battle of Jutland, where she was sunk with the loss of her entire crew. The circumstances under which she sank were mysterious for some years after. As the British had lost contact and did not see the ship destroyed, they were unsure as to whether a submarine or surface ship was responsible for sinking Black Prince. During the battle, the 1st Cruiser Squadron was deployed as part of a screening force several miles ahead of the main force of the Grand Fleet, but Black Prince lost contact with the rest of the Squadron as it came into contact with German forces, at about 17:42. Soon after, two other members of the 1st Cruiser Squadron, Defence and Warrior, were heavily engaged by German battleships and battlecruisers, with Defence blowing up and Warrior receiving heavy damage, which later caused her to sink.
There were no positive sightings of Black Prince by the British fleet after that, although a wireless signal from her was received at 20:45, reporting a submarine sighting. During the night of 31 May–1 June, the British destroyer Spitfire, badly damaged after colliding with the German battleship Nassau, sighted what appeared to be a German battlecruiser, with two widely spaced funnels, described as being "...a mass of fire from foremast to mainmast, on deck and between decks. Flames were issuing out of her from every corner." The mystery ship exploded at about midnight. It was later thought that the burning ship may have been Black Prince, with the two midships funnels having collapsed or been shot away.
Recent historians, however, hold to the German account of the ship's sinking. Black Prince briefly engaged the German battleship Rheinland at about 23:35 GMT, scoring two hits with 6-inch shells. Separated from the rest of the British fleet, Black Prince approached the German lines shortly after midnight. She turned away from the German battleships, but it was too late. The German battleship Thüringen fixed Black Prince in her searchlights and opened fire. Up to five other German ships, including the battleships Nassau, Ostfriesland, and Friedrich der Grosse, joined in the bombardment, with return fire from Black Prince being ineffective. Most of the German ships were between 750 and 1,500 yards (700 and 1,350 m) of Black Prince — effectively point-blank range for contemporary naval gunnery. The ship was hit by at least twelve heavy shells and several smaller ones, sinking within 15 minutes. There were no survivors from her crew of 857. The wrecksite is designated as a protected place under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.
Savage was one of those 857 members of the crew of Black Prince to lose their lives on the night of 31 May to 1 June 1916, and having no known grave is commemorated by name on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.
