Trafford

HMT Royal Edward was built in 1908, 11,117 grt.     She loaded troops and
stores at Avonmouth on 28 July and was on voyage to Mudros, via Alexandria
to Mudros.    At 0915 on 13th August, she was sunk by a torpedo from German
U-boat UB 14 in position 36.13N, 25.51E, 6 miles W from Kandeliusa in the
Aegean Sea and sank in under 5 minutes.    Over 800 troops and 132 members
of her crew died when she was sunk.  The ship was owned by Canadian
Northern Steamships Ltd of Toronto. 

I am most grateful to John Hartley, the owner of the Stockport 1914 - 1918
website - http://www.stockport1914-1918.co.uk/ - allowing me to reproduce
his research work.

Charles Marshall had been born on 13 October 1888 in Nottinghamshire. His
parents, William and Sarah, lived at Greenwood Lee, The Park, Cheadle
Hulme. William Marshall was employed as the Public Analyst for the Borough
of Hyde and had his laboratory on Ladybrook Road. Charles had studied
medicine at Manchester University and, after qualifying, worked as house
surgeon at Bradford Royal Infirmary. For four years, he had been engaged to
a Miss Hook, who was also training to be a doctor at Guys Hospital, London.


Charles’ unit should not be confused with the modern usage of the word
“ambulance”. A Field Ambulance in the Great War was usually based only
a few hundred yards behind the front line. It dressed wounds and carried
out some emergency operations, before passing wounded soldiers further to
the rear. Charles’ Ambulance had been formed in Manchester and was
attached to 42 Division (which included the Manchester Regiment Territorial
battalions) at Gallipoli.

At the time of his death, he was aboard the troopship HMS “Royal
Edward”. The ship had arrived off Alexandria in Egypt on 10 August,
setting sail for Mudros on the 13th, taking replacement troops to
Gallipoli. The German submarine, UB14, spotted her at about 9 a.m. on 13th
when she was about 400 miles north of Alexandria and around 7 miles west of
Kandeliusa Island. She fired off one torpedo which struck the Royal Edward
in the stern. Within 3 minutes she began to settle by the stern and in
another 3 her bows were in the air. Charles Marshall’s body was never
recovered and identified and it is presumed he drowned.

Later a Lieutenant Wilson wrote to his father “They struck a mine coming
from Alexandria and spent 3 or 4 hours in the water, before being picked up
by a hospital ship and a destroyer. Am much afraid that Marshall who was
with them went down with the ship. After seeing all his men off the ship
and encouraging them, he was last seen leaning on the rail of Captain’s
bridge, looking down quite calmly at them. He was so very tough and so much
at home in the water, that we have not lost hope that he was picked up by
some other vessel. It was very characteristic of him to get all the men off
in the way he did and then to stem any panic among them by calmly standing
about the bridge. It helped them a lot because several men have told me
that after seeing him so calm they were led to look on the whole thing as
more or less of a joke. He would fight for his life like a fiend when he
got in the water.”

Lieutenant F B Smith of the Ambulance wrote in a letter home. “Of the 50
men of our Ambulance, only 3 are lost. I have not told you what a corporal
of our section has told me, that he saw Capt. Marshall, long after he
himself was in the water, still on the highest deck with the captain of the
ship, revolver in hand, encouraging and controlling the men. He had no need
to use his weapon because discipline was splendid. The men knew his worth
and not one but has spoken to me sadly of our loss. Such a cool courageous
“sticking to duty” was characteristic of the man he was.”

Also aboard was another local man, Harry Turner, also on his way to
Gallipoli with a Field Ambulance unit.