Eye on Millig: The Helensburgh-born chaplain who drowned when hospital ship was torpedoed

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A CHAPLAIN who was born in Helensburgh is thought to have drowned when the hospital ship Glenart Castle was torpedoed in the Bristol Channel on February 26 1918.

Captain the Rev John B.McIlvaine, who was 39, was the Roman Catholic chaplain on the ship, and his Church of England colleague also died.

Father McIlvaine, son of William and Eleanor McIlvaine, was educated locally, and after training as a priest acted for several years as senior assistant at Glasgow’s St Andrew’s Cathedral until 1916.

Well known to parishioners of St Joseph’s in Helensburgh, he was among the first of the Glasgow Catholic priests to join the Army, serving as a chaplain 4th Class. He was attached to the 2nd/7th Battalion The Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment).

He served for some time with the forces in France, and not long before his death had returned to Glasgow to recover from the effects of a German gas attack.

His Majesty’s Hospital Ship Glenart Castle was a steamship built in Belfast as Galician in 1900 for the Union-Castle Line. She was renamed in 1914, and was requisitioned for use as a British hospital ship during the war.

The ship left Newport, South Wales, heading towards Brest, France, on the day she was sunk.

Fishermen in the Bristol Channel saw her clearly lit up as a hospital ship. But at 4am she was hit by a torpedo in the no.3 hold, fired by the German U-Boat UC-56.

The blast destroyed most of the lifeboats, while the pitch of the vessel hindered attempts to launch the remaining boats. In the eight minutes the ship took to sink, only seven lifeboats were launched.

Rough seas and inexperienced rowers swamped most of the boats.

Only 32 survivors were reported, while 162 people were killed, including the Captain, Bernard Burt, eight nurses of the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, seven Royal Army Medical Corps medical officers, and 47 medical orderlies.

Of the hospital patients being treated on board, 99 died, as did the matron, Miss Kate Beaufoy.

Evidence was found suggesting that the submarine may have shot at initial survivors in an effort to cover up the sinking.

The body of a junior officer was recovered from the water close to the position of the sinking. It was marked with two gunshot wounds, one in the neck and the other in the thigh.

The body also had a life vest, indicating he was shot while in the water.

After the war, the Admiralty sought the captains of U-boats who sank hospital ships, in order to charge them with war crimes.

Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Kiesewetter, the submarine commander, was arrested after the war on his voyage back to Germany and interned in the Tower of London.

He was released on the grounds that Britain had no right to hold a detainee during the Armistice.

After Father McIlvaine’s death was confirmed, a Requiem Mass for him was observed in St Andrew’s Cathedral. His name is on the Helensburgh war memorial in Hermitage Park, and the Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton.

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A COLOURFUL young man who died from wounds received on the Western Front at Ypres is named on the Garelochhead war memorial.

Second Lieutenant Ronald George Brooman-White was born in the exclusive Roxburghe Hotel in Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square on August 10 1892.

Ron, as he was known to his friends, was the second son of Richard Charles Brooman-White JP and Lily Geraldine Angela Schuster, who lived at Arddarroch, Shore Road, Garelochhead. They had a second home at 11 Cambridge Square, Hyde Park, London.

He was educated at Hazelwood School at Oxted in Surrey, where he was a chorister, and then until April 1906 at the prestigious Eton College. Then he had three years at Repton School in Derbyshire and served in the Officers Training Corps.

After he left school in 1909 he started to train as a chartered accountant.

Ron, a member of the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall, London, was a very fine shot and a good golfer, finishing runner up in the Amateur Golf Championship at Ottawa, Canada, in 1914.

When war broke out, he applied for a commission in the 4th Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and joined the Battalion as a Second Lieutenant on August 15, 1914.

Confirmed in his rank on April 28, 1915, he was attached to the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers for war service.

At 2.45am on May 14, the 2nd Battalion relieved units of the 6th Cavalry Brigade in trenches in a line from Bellewaarde Farm to the railway line in the Belgian Ypres sector.

The battalion was deployed with A, B and C Companies in the front line, and D Company in support. There was some firing from the enemy during the day and there were a number of casualties, mostly slightly wounded and mainly from A Company.

The following day the enemy were again ‘quiet’, but Ron, who was only 22, was wounded and died a few hours later at 5 Cavalry Field Ambulance.

His father received a telegram on May 18 to say that he had been wounded, and another on May 23 saying that he had died from his wounds.

It added: “Lord Kitchener expresses his sympathy.”

He was buried at Vlamertinge Military Cemetery at Ypres the day after his death, and in addition to being named on the Garelochhead memorial, he is commemorated on the war memorial at Repton School and on a plaque outside St Baldred’s Church in North Berwick.

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THE parents of a Helensburgh soldier had to wait months for official confirmation of his death — although they had every reason to believe he had been killed.

Private Alva Alexander Graham of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, who was considered to be one of the best bomb throwers in his company, went missing on September 25 1915 while taking part in the battle of Loos.

Soon after that letters were received by his parents, Mr and Mrs Richard Graham, of 118 Luss Road, from fellow soldiers who took part in the battle, suggesting that he lost his life that day at the Hohenzollern Redoubt.

It took until the spring of 1916 for official word of his death to be received by his family.

Private Graham, a railway worker when war broke out, joined the Royal Scots Fusiliers on August 22, 1914. After undergoing basic training in England, he was deployed to France in May 1915.

His death came when he was just a little over 20 years of age.

The Helensburgh and Gareloch Times reported: “Some strange meetings at the front have been recorded, and one of these occurred in connection with this young soldier.

“A cousin of his father was in the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, but he and Private Graham had never met each other in this country.

“But, strange to say, they met for a few minutes on two occasions at the front. This friend was also killed at Loos.”

email: milligeye@btinternet.com