Hms Elise

Steam Trawler-(1918)

What is recorded here

Elise was a 239-ton steel trawler built in 1907, renamed from Camperdown and hired by the Royal Navy in 1915 for patrol and minesweeping. UB-34 torpedoed her without warning near St Mary's Lighthouse, Blyth, on 22 September 1918; all fourteen crew died. This saved point lies close to the documented loss area but later…

Read the whole record

The vessel and voyage

John Duthie and Sons built the steel steam trawler in Aberdeen in 1907 as Camperdown. She later became Elise, Fleetwood registration FD164, and the Royal Navy hired her in 1915 as an armed patrol boat or minesweeper. On 22 September 1918 she was on Admiralty patrol or convoy work near Blyth. The small trawler was carrying out the close coastal protection on which larger merchant movements depended late in the war.

How it was lost

UB-34, commanded by Hans Illing, torpedoed Elise without warning near St Mary's Lighthouse on 22 September 1918. She suffered a large explosion and sank almost at once, commonly placed about two miles north-east of the light. Some older records called the cause a mine, but the matched German attack record supports a torpedo. The saved point near 55 degrees 6 minutes north and 1 degree 26 minutes west lies within the same small loss area.

Deaths and survival

All fourteen crew died. They included skipper Henry James and 22-year-old seaman Cecil Robert Sharman, who had been mentioned in official reports for his 1917 Auxiliary Patrol service. Sharman's father had already died in a 1914 drifter loss and his brother in army service, showing how one family could be hit repeatedly. With no survivor and almost immediate sinking, the crew left no first-hand account of the torpedo strike.

What remains

The national point is a precise plotted record, but a 1971 sonar search did not locate Elise at the older approximate position. The English heritage account warns that two other targets once suggested as Elise are now understood as Prunelle and Hanne. No hull, boiler or identifying fitting is confirmed at this pin. The point therefore marks the documented loss area rather than a proven wreck, and future claims need to distinguish it from nearby named trawlers.

Why it mattered

Elise links Aberdeen shipbuilding, Fleetwood fishing and Northumberland convoy protection. Her sinking also shows that coastal patrols remained dangerous only seven weeks before the Armistice: a small submarine could destroy an armed trawler before warning or resistance. The map's Scottish county sorting comes only from the nearest border and should not hide that this is a Blyth and St Mary's local story. The fourteen dead belonged to communities far beyond either map folder.