The Royal British Legion
Staple Branch
Charity Number 219279
Thomas William Beerling
Died on 22nd September 1914 Aged 21
RN HMS Cressy
Thomas was born on 29th August 1893 in Summerfield. The house is still there. Now called Summerfield Cottage, it's a pretty little house on the left near the top of Barnsole Road. His parents and Grandparents worked on the land in Saple but Thomas joined the Navy when he was about 16 and signed on for 12 years on his 18th birthday. His record tells us that he had light brown hair and blue eyes. He was 5ft 6 inches and his chest measured a mighty 35 inches when expanded! To celebrate, on some occasion, he also had a tattoo on his right forearm showing a dancing sailor and the name ‘Daisy’. By 1911, Thomas was in the Far East but was sent home to torpedo school and, when he qualified January 1914, he was posted to HMS Cressy, an Armoured cruiser.
At the outbreak of war in August 1914 Cressy and her sister ships Hogue and Aboukir were assigned to support a force of destroyers patrolling the Eastern end of the English Channel to protect the supply route between England and France. By September 17th rough seas had forced the destroyers back to port but the tough old cruisers remained when, suddenly at sunrise on the 22nd, Aboukir was torpedoed by a U-Boat and sank. Thinking she had been struck by a mine, Hogue and Cressy approached to pick up survivors. They too were torpedoed and sunk. Three ships with over 700 min in each of them, lost in just an hour and a half. And the war barely a month old. Staple had lost her first son.
HMS Cressy launched in 1899