Midshipman HMS Vanguard, Royal Navy
Died 9th July 1917, aged 18
Remembered at Chatham Naval Memorial
& on both Blakeney War Memorials
Christopher was born 16th June 1899 at Cambridge, son of Dr. Arthur Cooke (1869-1933) and his wife Lucy Vivien Collyer (1871-1956). The family had a holiday home at Blakeney where his younger brother Nicholas was born in 1913. Christopher enjoyed sailing and swimming from an early age. By the age of 12 he was determined to go up to Osborne Naval College on the Isle of Wight as a cadet which is where he began his training before moving to the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth.
At the outbreak of war, and with his training incomplete, Christopher became one of the ‘boy sailors’ ordered by the Admiralty to join various ships of the Navy ready to engage the enemy. He was assigned to HMS Aboukir, that together with HMS Hogue and HMS Cressy, were placed on North Sea patrols. These vessels were old, slow and vulnerable to attacks from the nearby German naval base at Willhelmshaven. Not surprisingly they were rather derisively referred to in naval circles as the “Live Bait Squadron”. As a storm blew up in the North Sea, September 1914, the supporting destroyers were withdrawn and, as feared, HMS Aboukir was the first to be torpedoed. When she began to sink, Christopher jumped overboard in his pyjamas and swam towards HMS Hogue only to see her blown up in front of him. He was eventually returned home in borrowed clothing.
Christopher was then assigned to HMS Vanguard and saw action at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 of which he has left a rather youthful and exuberant account. A year later, and for the second time in his short life, he was in bed when his ship exploded at her base in Scapa Flow. However, on this occasion, there was no time for a lucky escape as HMS Vanguard sank immediately.
HMS Vanguard was one of five warships destroyed by internal explosion, the others being HMS Bulwark 1914, HMS Princess Irene 1915, HMS Natal 1915 and HMS Glatton 1918. Each explosion was caused by the overheating of cordite and in the case of HMS Vanguard, a newly built St Vincent-class dreadnought,it was stored against an adjacent bulkhead in one of the two magazines which served the gun turrets amidships. This was the culmination of both bad design and bad practice that resulted in the death of some 2,291 sailors from the five warships. Of the 804 men who lost their lives by misadventure at Scapa Flow were 16 year old Alick Grey of Morston, Vincent Bullen and Christopher Cooke, both of Blakeney.
Christopher is also remembered at Rochester and Ely Cathedrals, Great St Mary’s, Cambridge and in the Chapel at St Peter’s Court, Broadstairs.
Many years later, at the outbreak of WWII, his younger brother, Flight-Lt Nicholas G. Cooke D.S.O., took a short-service commission in the RAF. He was posted to the RAF station Digby, Lincolnshire on May 12th 1940 and on May 31st went missing over the North Sea. Dedicated in 1947, Blakeney Church clock with its two seven foot dials was the gift of the Cooke family in remembrance of Arthur and his two sons, Christopher and Nicholas.