On the 25th April 1894 Alfred commenced his career in the Royal Navy. He was sent to the training depot HMS Impregnable and then on to the training ship HMS Lion. Impregnable was a shore based training depot and after just four days there Alfred went onto HMS Lion. Lion was nearly 50 years old and was a twin deck, 80 gun second rate ship of the line launched in 1847. She had long been converted to a training ship and was anchored off Torpoint opposite Devonport Dockyard.
Alfred spent the next 18 months aboard Lion learning the skills he would need to become sailor and was rated as Boy 1st Class when on the 24th September 1895 he boarded his first proper ship HMS Galatea an Orlando Class Cruiser. His time on Galatea was short, just two months, but by the end of that time Alfred had been rated as an Ordinary Seaman with his character having been "Very Good" since he joined the navy. The next three years saw Alfred serve on board two battleships HMS Empress of India and HMS Monarch.
Alfred's next ship was HMS Magicienne a Marathon Class Protected Cruiser with a crew of 218 she was a smaller ship than the previous two Alfred had served on. Magicienne was built for tropical service and would include patrolling the coast of Africa, Persian Gulf and the Bay of Bengal.
HMS Magicienne
Magicienne was at Port Elizabeth under the command of Captain W B Fisher when the Boer War began in October 1899. She was ordered to Durban and from there she should proceed to Beira, a port in Portugese waters and then proceed to Delagoa Bay where the port of Laurenco Marques was to be blockaded to prevent the potential landing of war material that may aid and assist the Boer forces. On the 27th December HMS Magicienne became embroiled in international controversy when Captain Fisher stopped the German mail steamer Bundesrath under the suspicion of carrying goods to aid the Boer war effort. There were several German nationals on board who made it quite clear that they were on their way to join the Boers and fight the British. The Bundesrath was escorted to Durban to be thoroughly searched but was ultimately allowed to proceed on her way but not before the German government issued several indignant ultimatums and the international press leapt on the story as proof of British arrogance. HMS Magicienne went onto take part in a brief campaign to suppress an uprising in Jubaland by the Ogaden Somalis. However Alfred did not stay with Magicienne for that short campaign he was transferred to HMS Barrosa on 16th November 1900 presumably to replace many of Barrosa's crew who were serving on land with one of the Naval Brigades that was formed during the war. Whilst serving on board Magicienne Alfred had been rated Able Seaman and again his character was described as "Very Good".
Following his service during the Boer War Alfred spent time on shore at the training establishments Pembroke I and II he was rated Leading Seaman in May 1901 and it was in this rate that he saw service on board the London Class Battleship HMS Venerable commencing in November 1902.
HMS Venerable
HMS Venerable served with the Mediterranean Fleet and had the misfortune to run aground outside Algiers harbour in 1906. Alfred spent three years on board and enjoyed a period of promotions during this time He rose from Leading Seaman, the rate he joined the ship with to Petty Officer 2nd Class from 1st January 1902 to Petty Officer 1st Class from 1st February 1905. He left Venerable at the end of July 1905 and spent the next three ashore serving at the training establishments Pembroke I, Vernon and Ganges.
An 18 month stint on board HMS Irresistible followed until May 1910 when Irresistible saw her crew reduced to a nucleus just prior to her being paid off and returned to Chatham Dockyard for a refit was followed by a short period ashore and then a brief four month spell aboard HMS Magnificent an old Pre-dreadnought battleship. It was whilst serving on Magnificent that Alfred was awarded his Long Service and Good Conduct medal on 22nd November 1910.
The years between 1910 and the outbreak of the First World War saw Alfred spend 18 months at sea on board HMS Forte an obsolete cruiser which had seen service with two of Alfred's previous ships Magiceinne and Barrosa during the Boer War with the remainder of his time spent ashore. The First World War started in August 1914 Alfred was assigned to the Cressy Class Cruiser HMS Hogue on 2nd August 1914.
HMS Hogue - Armoured Cruiser sunk 22nd September 1914
At 06:20, the submarine fired one torpedo at the nearest ship from a range of 550 yards, which struck Aboukir on the starboard side, flooding the engine room and causing the ship to stop immediately. No one had sighted a submarines, so Drummond assumed that the ship had hit a mine and ordered the other two cruisers to close in to help. After 25 minutes, Aboukir capsized, sinking five minutes later. Only one boat could be launched, because of damage from the explosion and the failure of steam-powered winches needed to launch them. U-9 rose to periscope depth again after diving once she had fired the initial torpedo to observe two British cruisers engaged in the rescue of men from the sinking ship. Weddigen fired two more torpedoes at his next target, HMS Hogue, from a range of 300 yards. As the torpedoes left the submarine, her bows rose out of the water and she was spotted by the crew of Hogue, which opened fire before the submarine dived again. The two torpedoes struck Hogue; within five minutes, Captain Nicholson gave the order to abandon ship, and after only 10 minutes she capsized before sinking at 07:15. At 07:20, U-9 fired two torpedoes from her stern torpedo tubes at a range of 1,000 yards. One missed, so the submarine turned to direct her one remaining bow torpedo toward HMS Cressy, and fired at a range of 550 yards. Cressy had already seen the submarine, and opened fire and then attempted to ram her, but failed. The ship had then returned to picking up survivors. Both torpedoes struck her and the ship capsized to starboard and floated upside down until 07:55 when she too sank.
Approximately 1,450 sailors were killed, and there was a public outcry at the losses. Alfred was lucky and survived the sinking of the Hogue.
Survivors of Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue
Alfred remained ashore for the next 10 months and was married to Annie Hayler in Kent in the early part of 1915. He was then sent to a brand new ship which, unlike so many of Alfred's recent ships that had been out of date or obsolete, had only been completed in June 1915. Alfred joined HMS Conquest on 15th June and it is very likely he was one of her original crew. Conquest was assigned to the 5th Light Cruiser Squadron in the Harwich Force which operated in the North Sea to guard the eastern approaches to the Dover Straits and the English Channel. In August 1915 she was among the ships which took part in the pursuit of the Imperial German Navy Auxiliary Cruiser Meteor in the North Sea which resulted in Meteor scuttling herself on 9th August. She covered the force that carried out the Royal Naval Air Service seaplane raid on the German Navy airship hangars at Todern, then in Northern Germany on 24th March 1916.
During the Lowestoft Raid - the German Naval bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft on 25th April 1916 German battlecruisers opened fire on Conquest and she suffered a 12 inch shell hit which destroyed her aerials and killed 25 and wounded 13 of her crew. Conquest still managed to maintain her speed at 20 knots despite this damage and return home safely.
HMS Conquest
Back in service after repairs Conquest sortied along with the rest of the Harwich Force and the Grand Fleet in August 1916 in an unsuccessful attempt to bring the German High Seas Fleet to action in the North Sea while out at sea she opened fire on the German Navy Zeppelin L 13 but was unable to bring the airship down. In January 1917 she took part in an unsuccessful attempt to attack German destroyers off the coast of Belgium. On the 5th June 1917, Conquest and the light cruisers HMS Canterbury and HMS Centaur sank the German torpedo boat S 20 in the North Sea near Shouwen Bank off Zeebrugge during a Royal Navy raid on Ostend, Belgium. She was damaged by a mine in July 1918 and was decommissioned on 13th July 1918 for repairs which were to last for the remainder of the war and on until April 1919.
Alfred received further promotion whilst serving on HMS Conquest and 1st November 1916 he became Acting Chief Petty Officer and then a year later on 1st November 1917 he was made Chief Petty Officer.
There is a note on Alfred's service record which says:
NL 3228 OF 5.10.15
To be informed of the findings of the Court of Inquiry into the death of Stateley 555618
This has been transcribed incorrectly and actually refers to SS5618 Ordinary Seaman Frank Edward Elias Stutely a 19 year old sailor from Sandhurst in Kent who was serving on Conquest and fell overboard and drowned on 9th September 1915. Alfred was at that time a Petty Officer 1st Class on Conquest and Stutely must have been under his command. It would appear that Alfred was cleared of any blame for the incident.
Once Alfred left Conquest he spent the remainder of the war on shore.
Alfred Larrett was discharged from the Royal Navy on 13th May 1919 he joined the Royal Fleet Reserve on the 8th November 1919. He served in the navy from April 1894 until May 1919 and was awarded the following medals:
Queen's South Africa Medal
1914/15 Star
British War Medal
Allied Victory Medal
Naval Long Service and Good Conduct Medal
Alfred Larrett died in 1962
Alfred Larrett's Queen's South Africa Medal
