George Craik Guthrie

Military Information

  • Date of enlistment:
  • Place of enlistment:
  • Service no: 7523 DA
  • Rank: Deck Hand
  • Service Occupation:
  • Awards:
  • Regiment/Service: H.M. Drifter, Plantin
  • Unit/Ship: Royal Naval Reserve
  • Place of Death: Lost at Sea
  • Age at Death: 29
  • Date of Death: 26.04.1917
  • Burial Country:
  • Cemetery: Chatham Naval Memorial
  • Grave/Mem Ref no: Panel 26

Personal Information

  • Date of Birth:
  • Place of Birth:
  • Address: 2 Lawrence Street, Dundee
  • Occupation:
  • Mother:
  • Father:
  • Siblings:
  • Spouse:

    Ethel Ada Guthrie, 150 Church St, South Shields

  • Children:

More about George Craik Guthrie

George has no known grave but is remembered on the Chatham Naval Memorial. He was serving aboard H.M. Steam Drifter Plantin, which was hired by the Admiralty in 1915 as an armed net drifter. She was built by McIntosh Boat Builders, Buckie in 1912 and was 84 tons.

On April 26, 1917, she was engaged in minesweeping just off Old Harry Rocks, dealing with a minefield laid by the German U-boat UC-72 (Oberleutnant zur see Ernst Voight). She fouled a mine which detonated beneath her, destroying the 84-ton wooden vessel, sinking immediately with the loss of nine men including the 47-year-old skipper John Wood and his two sons John, 20, and William, 18.

Only one of the nine man crew survived and no bodies were recovered.

 

 

Information supplied by Gary Thomson

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